The new tech for Hogaak is Hedron Crab. It's pretty good. Like, still disturbingly good, according to the guy who 5-0'd FNM with it last night, and put 20 power into play by turn 2 against me.
Seems pretty swingy, TBH. It's great if you mill a couple of Bloodghasts on turn 2, or if you can get two crabs on turn 2, but it's very vulnerable to removal- plus it makes the deck even more vulnerable to Chalice.
Yes, sorry I had meant convoke not delve. You need black or green creatures to convoke for Hogaak so any tokens (or creatures) that aren’t those colors have significantly reduced value.
But, I agree that it’s a good thing that there’s not a clear replacement for Bridge.
I mean, if you endstep a haunted dead it still can convoke for one black on your next main phase. Narcomoeba is still a free creature which can be tapped for the colorless part of Hogaak's cost. But the Mill plan is probably not going to be consistent anymore- unless some mad lad goes for the Altar + Abnormal Endurance combo.
If 3 mana isn't too much for an initial investment, then Diregraf Colossus can pump out a fair number of Zombie tokens with Gravecrawler, now that I think of it- but they come into play tapped.
I don’t expect Bridgevine to stay competitive without one of its namesake cards so I suppose the meta will go back to the pre Horizons meta of decks like Humans, Azorius Control, Izzet Phoenix, Dredge, Tron, and Amulet Titan. So basically big mana will come back and Dredge will take back its place as the go to graveyard deck. And then decks that have been rising in the Horizon meta like Eldrazi Tron, Mono Red Phoenix, and Jund will get knocked back down a little because of the return of big mana.
I dunno man. My guess is that the Hogaak deck will stay pretty much the same, and still be very competitive. I'm not 100% sure what the next best replacement for Bridge is, but Narcomoeba has worked well enough for me. Haunted Dead is also pretty interesting.
Neither of those make creatures that you can delve though. On the other hand Xathrid Necromancer does create free zombies. But, I can't think of any humans with the proper recursion to enable that as a pseudo bridge aside from maybe Loyal Cathar.
I guess Dessert Boy too, but it isn't a deck that wants to invest heavily in blue. That said, I do think that not having a clear replacement for Bridge is probably a good thing. I'm not really sure what you mean by "making creatures to delve," though. You couldn't delve creature tokens since they get exiled as a state based effect when they hit the graveyard and I'd never seen a winning play that required you to delve your Bridges away. Technically, you can delve Narcomoeba and Haunted Dead too. Do you mean creature tokens to convoke?
Neither Narcomoeba nor Haunted Dead do anything close to bridge.
Of course not. They're basically just cheap or "free" creatures to help get Hogaak out of the yard. Remember, Haunted Dead's ability is instant speed, meaning that if you can pull it off during someone's endstep it will be available during your turn to tap for Convoke.
Carrion Feeder and Altar of Dementia are very meh without bridge and those cards certainly don't help. Also, a big problem without bridge is that a deck can now just eventually match you card for card.
That's a bit of a hot take. It's a good thing a deck can now actually compete with Hogaakvine card for card, and calling Feeder and Altar "meh" without Bridge is hyperbolic to be generous.
Deck will certainly look very different or just not exist really.
I don't really think so. No-one can deny it lost a lot of strength with Bridge, but I suspect that Hogaakvine will just be a lot more aggro-focused and not as a resilient to hate.
I don’t expect Bridgevine to stay competitive without one of its namesake cards so I suppose the meta will go back to the pre Horizons meta of decks like Humans, Azorius Control, Izzet Phoenix, Dredge, Tron, and Amulet Titan. So basically big mana will come back and Dredge will take back its place as the go to graveyard deck. And then decks that have been rising in the Horizon meta like Eldrazi Tron, Mono Red Phoenix, and Jund will get knocked back down a little because of the return of big mana.
I dunno man. My guess is that the Hogaak deck will stay pretty much the same, and still be very competitive. I'm not 100% sure what the next best replacement for Bridge is, but Narcomoeba has worked well enough for me. Haunted Dead is also pretty interesting.
As much as I hate to vote for the fella, I sided mostly with Cedric Phillips. Regarding Rampaging Ferocidon, if nobody cares, then why not unban it? I personally know some locals who actually do care.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
One of things that quickly becomes apparent playing the Hogaakvine deck after the bannings is that while it took a serious hit in power, it's still a very strong deck. It's just not overwhelmingly so. It's slowed down by about a turn or so, which is quite in line with the format, and seems to be a lot more fragile to hate. Based on that, my opinion is that they banned Bridge to avoid a situation where they ban a deck out of existence- like with Twin or Pod. Luckily, that even seems to be the result they got! Most of the truly degenerate draws of the deck required multiple Bridges in the graveyard. By and large, I don't think the secondary market was the deciding factor in banning Bridge. I think it was the fact that the Hogaak deck could put out some truly ridiculous P/T on the board with it. I think someone worked out that with an optimal sequence, it could output just under 5000 power of zombies on turn 3, though admittedly I'm not 100% sure where I heard that.
like look at punishing fire. who the hell would play that card? at first blush id think it wouldnt show up anywhere, but i cant be sure cause there are way too many unknowns.
Hogaak Bridgevine, Jund, and Dredge probably would, for a start. Punishing Fire is less banned for being repeatable removal, and more banned for breaking symmetrical discard effects and being too easy to "draw" in graveyard decks.
I don't disagree with you on that one. But is having to run grave-hate inherently wrong, or just a natural progression of the format? Why or why not?
I've just seen some people use the prevalence of grave-hate in decks as a sign that the format is unhealthy. But I often wonder if that's only because the format went for a long time with the graveyard as primarily as food for Tarmogoyf or potential targets for Snapcaster, as you mentioned a few pages back. Should we cling to the past, or just move forward and accept that interacting with the graveyard is just something you need to pack (akin to the Force of Will/Brainstorm package in Legacy fair decks)?
If that's the case, then there needs to be a massive reassessment of the banned and restricted list, because a LOT of things there are laughably underpowered if the current state of affairs is considered acceptable for Modern. Twin, SFM, even Pod would all likely be totally fine since it's OK to be dying on early turns to decks that require Leylines in your opening hand, and are nearly impossible to meaningfully interact with using normal Magic cards.
But of course they won't do that.
Well, there does need to be a bit of clean up of the banned list even if they ban Bridge (which they should; it's almost as horrendous a design mistake as Skullclamp). Stoneforge literally has no business being on there.
As someone who plays this deck, I don't think banning Bridge from Below is enough. I think there has to be multiple bans, like Hogaak AND Altar of Dementia or Hogaak and Bridge from Below. I personally don't think a turn 2/3 8/8 Tramply fellow is all right for Modern. But maybe I'm wrong? Stitcher's Supplier is another card many forget about and is one of this deck's best draws. That and Faithless Looting...
Well, I'm probably a little blase about big critters on turn 2-3, but I don't think Hogaak is that big of a problem without the free fuel of Bridge, TBH. Without all of the free tokens from Bridge, you're much more limited in how many times you can cast a Hogaak. Altar is only really broken with Bridge- it's "merely" very good without it. I've been trying out Bridgeless lists with Hogaak and Altar, and they feel pretty fair to play and sit across from. Combo kills become much, much rarer without Bridge. The aggro kills seem to be about 1-2 turns slower, give or take.
July 5th is when it starts for paper I believe. So depending on the paper modern event calendar after that... well we'll just see how it goes.
1st SCG Modern Open post LM is 27/28 July.
1st Modern Magic Fest seems to be Barcelona 26 July.
So uhhh yeah, won't expect anything until end of August for paper magic to impact any decisions. Only online data for pretty much the whole of July.
Bleh. Off by a week! That means we will have to probably endure people saying the Mull will somehow fix it...now I REALLY hope those 2 events are utterly dominated by Hogaak.
It's not going to fix it. Pretty sure the Hogaak deck breaks Bridge from Below beyond what's acceptable in an eternal format. I'd expect Bridge to be gone from the format now.
Eggs or Cheeri0s decks with an inexperienced pilot. Just... if you're going to play a loop based combo, learn your deck inside and out to not make us suffer through 70 minute turns. *headdesk*
Matt Nass and LSV did a take on unban opinions for SFM, Twin, GSZ, Chrome Mox, and the artifact lands. Regardless of any other take, it still amazes me that people think
SFM would warp the format, even to homogenize the fair decks.
Matt Nass had some hot takes. Chrome Mox and Artifact lands are okay, but Stoneforge Mystic is too efficient? Jesus. I mean, if you just care about efficiency, isn't Young Pyromancer more efficient?
Ashiok, Dream Render seems pretty sweet for UBx control decks that want to rely on Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter, or similar cards. Plus, he doubles as graveyard hate, which is pretty sweet. Plus, he turns Maralen of Mornsong into a pretty sweet win con. I think he's pretty solid sideboard choice for Grixis control, since he shuts off fetches and exiles graveyards.
The Elderspell is pretty legit Planeswalker hate. Especially paired with Jace, Teferi, or Liliana of the Veil.
Ugin the Ineffable: Why do you do this to us, Wizards? Autoinclude in Tron, protects itself, destroys permanents, and makes all your good spells cost 2 less. I needed more 1 mana O-stones in my life. I needed 4 mana Wurmcoils in a deck that can already power out 7 mana on turn 3. Suffice to say this is a really, really strong card in Tron.
Explosion Zone seems like a really solid choice for Tron Decks, who normally have some issues running Engineered Explosives. Stirrings hits it, it's tutorable with Sylvan Scrying, and it can hit It also seems strong with Life from the Loam, as now there's good, repeatable boardwipes attached to it. Since there isn't an actual draw engine attached to Loam yet, I don't think this will actually build a new archetype, but it'll have a spot once the archetype finally hits critical mass. The one big flaw is that without removing the counter, it can't hit 0 cmc cards, like tokens, Chalice, Opal, etc. etc. Doesn't hit Blood Moon either.
Merged with the WAR Spoiler thread from the Horizons spoiler thread. - Torpf
I'd say that it's effect is less degeneracy and more that it makes decks partially homogenized. Basically, unless there's a very good reason not to, you should be starting every deck with 4 Chrome Mox, if it's legal. If anything though, it makes traditionally "fair" decks (aggro, control, ramp, and midrange) better against "unfair" (combo) decks. Admittedly, I think labeling decks "fair" or "unfair" is a bit loaded, but it's how the developers seem to think of things.
No, not all decks would run a chrome mox. However, ramping in that manner only really suits combo decks and ramp decks towards early powerful spells. The loss of a card in hand would mean that aggro wouldn't want it since it's trying to just race on curve, and control would only use it in a prison tezzerator build at best. Being able to be possibly two turns up on mana can lead to virtual locks. Either way, what is being accomplished with having this unbanned eludes me.
Basically all major archetypes in NBLM can or do run Chrome Mox, if they can support it. UWx Miracles, Tezzerator, WW, Storm (Non-Swath builds at least; PiF Storm builds love Chrome Mox, since they can absorb the CA hit), UR Turbo Twin, Pyroclamp, Elves, Dredge, GBx Hexdepths, 12 post, Bant Pod, Shoal Infect, Fairies... Really, the only decks that don't run it are Affinity, Eggs, Living End, Hypergenesis, and Eldrazi Aggro. Affinity and Eggs get Mox Opal as a replacement. Living End and Hypergenesis can't run it but usually have SSG in the list as a pseudo-Mox, though even the terrible lists that run off of the Expertise cycle from Kaladesh and As Foretold use Chrome Mox. Eldrazi get their Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temples, but the lack of a viable Mox replacement is a major issue with the deck. It's why they tend to get wrecked by Bridge decks and by Miracles.
Honestly, I think that Chrome Mox is probably the format defining card of NBLM. No other card has warped the meta on the same scale; not even Dark Depths or Skullclamp, which is insane.
After watching a lotbof games with this deck, how important is black? Most games seem to end with winning with Blue Sun's Senith. Just burry the opponent i card advantage.
Would it be possible to use merchant scroll and snapcasters? White seems like a good colour:
At that point, you're probably better off just running a normal UW control deck. The main strength of the deck is being able to ramp up to Nexus of Fate, or a massive Blue Sun's Zenith to deck your opponent, by stacking Wilderness Reclamations. I just don't really see what adding G to UW Control actually accomplishes, other than diluting the manabase.
After reading the past few posts on chrome mox, I can say that if it were legal nothing good would come of it. If the goal is to slow down the format, chrome mox being unbanned is a step in the other direction.
One card for an additional mana source? Yep definitely not broken lol.
EDIT: Just so we're clear yes I understand with the chrome mox it's two cards out of your hand, still leads to degeneracy though.
I'd say that it's effect is less degeneracy and more that it makes decks partially homogenized. Basically, unless there's a very good reason not to, you should be starting every deck with 4 Chrome Mox, if it's legal. If anything though, it makes traditionally "fair" decks (aggro, control, ramp, and midrange) better against "unfair" (combo) decks. Admittedly, I think labeling decks "fair" or "unfair" is a bit loaded, but it's how the developers seem to think of things.
I would order cards safe to come back in this order of the ones Mortal Coil listed...
1. Dread Return - even though I've read all the "proof" here of a turn 2 Iona, I just don't see it
2. Sensei's Divining Top - it is only an issue because of players taking too long (I guess that's enough, but it's sad)
As a former legacy player, have have been on the receiving end of a mad rush of multiple zombies from Dredge too many times. Shaped my thinking not to go to any legacy FNM without at least 4 pieces of grave hate. ------ Would Dread Return enable those mad rush of zombies here?
Sensei Top... would this bring to life the Counterbalance-Top kind of decks to modern? If I'm going to lose, I prefer the swift death from aggro .. than to be staring at someone fix their top deck with "top" for who knows how many number of times already.
Besides those two. I agree with the others things you said.
It is not nearly as bad as in Legacy, since many of the really good supporting tools (be it Cabal Therapy, Breakthrough, LED or Ichorid) are not legal. This means, while the peak performance is similar (winning on turn 2 based on a Hugs into Dread Return into Griselbrand into Dread Return into Zealot for lethal with a theoretically turn 1 win), the consistency for this is way lower. However, turn 2 wins are already rather feels bad man so I basically see no reason at all to unban it.
Greetings,
Kathal
This. My dude, the last thing you want is Dread Return available to Dredge.
Having played against amulet enough to more or less understand it, I can say with confidence that it has the greatest variance of any combo deck I have ever seen. Unlike an infect or storm combo where, if you can stop the key card you can cause them to lose a lot of resources titan doesn't really put itself far behind when it goes off and faces disruption. If you remove the titan, they just have extra mana to play another or any other wincon. But the deck is a bad midrange deck without amulets. I'm around .500 against it on burn and 3-0 against it since picking up grixis shadow.
Honestly, if dredge, tron and phoenix are going to be on top, amulet is definitely a good pick. Though I'd also consider infect if I had the budget.
I'm surprised Amulet didn't get banned over Summer Bloom when they had the chance. But then again, everyone thought the deck was dead without Bloom - joke's on them now
Honestly, I'm happy they didn't ban it into the ground. I don't buy the hype around the current incarnation of the deck. It's just another resilient combo package with a few low percentage early wins. The only thing exceptional about it is that it doesn't rely on the graveyard as much as other combo shells, so people often don't build sideboards with cards that work well against it. I don't really get why people get resentful about losing to a combo deck, but I see it a lot, since I'm on Dice Factory Combo in paper. It's not as resilient to hate as Amulet combo, but it's got a better early win chance.
Seems pretty swingy, TBH. It's great if you mill a couple of Bloodghasts on turn 2, or if you can get two crabs on turn 2, but it's very vulnerable to removal- plus it makes the deck even more vulnerable to Chalice.
I mean, if you endstep a haunted dead it still can convoke for one black on your next main phase. Narcomoeba is still a free creature which can be tapped for the colorless part of Hogaak's cost. But the Mill plan is probably not going to be consistent anymore- unless some mad lad goes for the Altar + Abnormal Endurance combo.
If 3 mana isn't too much for an initial investment, then Diregraf Colossus can pump out a fair number of Zombie tokens with Gravecrawler, now that I think of it- but they come into play tapped.
I guess Dessert Boy too, but it isn't a deck that wants to invest heavily in blue. That said, I do think that not having a clear replacement for Bridge is probably a good thing. I'm not really sure what you mean by "making creatures to delve," though. You couldn't delve creature tokens since they get exiled as a state based effect when they hit the graveyard and I'd never seen a winning play that required you to delve your Bridges away. Technically, you can delve Narcomoeba and Haunted Dead too. Do you mean creature tokens to convoke?
Of course not. They're basically just cheap or "free" creatures to help get Hogaak out of the yard. Remember, Haunted Dead's ability is instant speed, meaning that if you can pull it off during someone's endstep it will be available during your turn to tap for Convoke.
That's a bit of a hot take. It's a good thing a deck can now actually compete with Hogaakvine card for card, and calling Feeder and Altar "meh" without Bridge is hyperbolic to be generous.
I don't really think so. No-one can deny it lost a lot of strength with Bridge, but I suspect that Hogaakvine will just be a lot more aggro-focused and not as a resilient to hate.
I dunno man. My guess is that the Hogaak deck will stay pretty much the same, and still be very competitive. I'm not 100% sure what the next best replacement for Bridge is, but Narcomoeba has worked well enough for me. Haunted Dead is also pretty interesting.
One of things that quickly becomes apparent playing the Hogaakvine deck after the bannings is that while it took a serious hit in power, it's still a very strong deck. It's just not overwhelmingly so. It's slowed down by about a turn or so, which is quite in line with the format, and seems to be a lot more fragile to hate. Based on that, my opinion is that they banned Bridge to avoid a situation where they ban a deck out of existence- like with Twin or Pod. Luckily, that even seems to be the result they got! Most of the truly degenerate draws of the deck required multiple Bridges in the graveyard. By and large, I don't think the secondary market was the deciding factor in banning Bridge. I think it was the fact that the Hogaak deck could put out some truly ridiculous P/T on the board with it. I think someone worked out that with an optimal sequence, it could output just under 5000 power of zombies on turn 3, though admittedly I'm not 100% sure where I heard that.
Hogaak Bridgevine, Jund, and Dredge probably would, for a start. Punishing Fire is less banned for being repeatable removal, and more banned for breaking symmetrical discard effects and being too easy to "draw" in graveyard decks.
Well, there does need to be a bit of clean up of the banned list even if they ban Bridge (which they should; it's almost as horrendous a design mistake as Skullclamp). Stoneforge literally has no business being on there.
Well, I'm probably a little blase about big critters on turn 2-3, but I don't think Hogaak is that big of a problem without the free fuel of Bridge, TBH. Without all of the free tokens from Bridge, you're much more limited in how many times you can cast a Hogaak. Altar is only really broken with Bridge- it's "merely" very good without it. I've been trying out Bridgeless lists with Hogaak and Altar, and they feel pretty fair to play and sit across from. Combo kills become much, much rarer without Bridge. The aggro kills seem to be about 1-2 turns slower, give or take.
It's not going to fix it. Pretty sure the Hogaak deck breaks Bridge from Below beyond what's acceptable in an eternal format. I'd expect Bridge to be gone from the format now.
I think it's part of the cycle with Umezawa's Charm.
Matt Nass had some hot takes. Chrome Mox and Artifact lands are okay, but Stoneforge Mystic is too efficient? Jesus. I mean, if you just care about efficiency, isn't Young Pyromancer more efficient?
Ashiok, Dream Render seems pretty sweet for UBx control decks that want to rely on Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter, or similar cards. Plus, he doubles as graveyard hate, which is pretty sweet. Plus, he turns Maralen of Mornsong into a pretty sweet win con. I think he's pretty solid sideboard choice for Grixis control, since he shuts off fetches and exiles graveyards.
The Elderspell is pretty legit Planeswalker hate. Especially paired with Jace, Teferi, or Liliana of the Veil.
Ugin the Ineffable: Why do you do this to us, Wizards? Autoinclude in Tron, protects itself, destroys permanents, and makes all your good spells cost 2 less. I needed more 1 mana O-stones in my life. I needed 4 mana Wurmcoils in a deck that can already power out 7 mana on turn 3. Suffice to say this is a really, really strong card in Tron.
Explosion Zone seems like a really solid choice for Tron Decks, who normally have some issues running Engineered Explosives. Stirrings hits it, it's tutorable with Sylvan Scrying, and it can hit It also seems strong with Life from the Loam, as now there's good, repeatable boardwipes attached to it. Since there isn't an actual draw engine attached to Loam yet, I don't think this will actually build a new archetype, but it'll have a spot once the archetype finally hits critical mass. The one big flaw is that without removing the counter, it can't hit 0 cmc cards, like tokens, Chalice, Opal, etc. etc. Doesn't hit Blood Moon either.
Merged with the WAR Spoiler thread from the Horizons spoiler thread. - Torpf
Basically all major archetypes in NBLM can or do run Chrome Mox, if they can support it. UWx Miracles, Tezzerator, WW, Storm (Non-Swath builds at least; PiF Storm builds love Chrome Mox, since they can absorb the CA hit), UR Turbo Twin, Pyroclamp, Elves, Dredge, GBx Hexdepths, 12 post, Bant Pod, Shoal Infect, Fairies... Really, the only decks that don't run it are Affinity, Eggs, Living End, Hypergenesis, and Eldrazi Aggro. Affinity and Eggs get Mox Opal as a replacement. Living End and Hypergenesis can't run it but usually have SSG in the list as a pseudo-Mox, though even the terrible lists that run off of the Expertise cycle from Kaladesh and As Foretold use Chrome Mox. Eldrazi get their Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temples, but the lack of a viable Mox replacement is a major issue with the deck. It's why they tend to get wrecked by Bridge decks and by Miracles.
Honestly, I think that Chrome Mox is probably the format defining card of NBLM. No other card has warped the meta on the same scale; not even Dark Depths or Skullclamp, which is insane.
At that point, you're probably better off just running a normal UW control deck. The main strength of the deck is being able to ramp up to Nexus of Fate, or a massive Blue Sun's Zenith to deck your opponent, by stacking Wilderness Reclamations. I just don't really see what adding G to UW Control actually accomplishes, other than diluting the manabase.
I'd say that it's effect is less degeneracy and more that it makes decks partially homogenized. Basically, unless there's a very good reason not to, you should be starting every deck with 4 Chrome Mox, if it's legal. If anything though, it makes traditionally "fair" decks (aggro, control, ramp, and midrange) better against "unfair" (combo) decks. Admittedly, I think labeling decks "fair" or "unfair" is a bit loaded, but it's how the developers seem to think of things.
This. My dude, the last thing you want is Dread Return available to Dredge.
Honestly, I'm happy they didn't ban it into the ground. I don't buy the hype around the current incarnation of the deck. It's just another resilient combo package with a few low percentage early wins. The only thing exceptional about it is that it doesn't rely on the graveyard as much as other combo shells, so people often don't build sideboards with cards that work well against it. I don't really get why people get resentful about losing to a combo deck, but I see it a lot, since I'm on Dice Factory Combo in paper. It's not as resilient to hate as Amulet combo, but it's got a better early win chance.