MTG Salvation

People are way overestimating how good Great Creator is in Tron. There is a very real cost in including him and his accompanying wishboard in terms of the cuts you have to make, and it ultimately doesn't improve the deck's matchups against the field - in fact I think it actually makes them slightly worse. There's a reason the deck hasn't changed in over 2 years - because it already has everything it needs against the field. The Great Creator package isn't providing anything more powerful on balance - it's just a different angle of attack. Most people are running it now because it's the new hotness but I think as the hype dies down a lot of people will end up back on the traditional build. I'm firmly there already. So no, Great Creator is not pushing Tron over the top.

Yeah I'm not really seeing the appeal of Bond.

This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things - Awoken Horror, Primeval Titan and Death's Shadow in particular. And I've also even been able to stop smaller creatures as well. Emptying our hand is not as difficult as you might think, especially when you consider London allows us better 6 and 5 card hands. Mull to a 5 of t3 Tron and Great Creator, fetch Bridge. Not bad at all.

This list seems pretty reasonable against the field, though further testing and tweaking of numbers/slots is certainly required.

Played another couple leagues with it today and it didn't do a ton. I like the card and still want to test it but on the other hand it's hard to find room for it. I'm still pretty sold on 5 Forest as control continues to be very popular online, and at least so far, I don't see Zone being better than Sanctum.

It feels strong. I killed some spirits, boggles, a Death's Shadow, and even a JTMS with it. The fact that you can "ratchet" up to your preferred CMC all in one turn, assuming you have the mana, is really strong. And obviously the fact that the 1 counter it comes in with kills such a wide variety of things already. I'll definitely continue to test it.

Alright, I wasn't planning on testing Great Creator after my initial assessment of the card but community interest has been so strong that I thought I should give it a spin to be sure.

I played this list for 2 leagues - 8 card wishboard which is all I could justify without cutting into essential sideboard cards too much. It felt fine. Some matchups felt better, but more felt worse. I'm gonna go through the top 10 decks in the format and look at how the matchups change with this configuration.

Dredge first of all gets significantly worse because you're shaving grave-hate cards overall and mostly relying on Great Creator to tutor one up, on turn 3 at the earliest. This is not going to be good enough most of the time.

Grixis Shadow - the Great Creators looked pretty silly here, especially when I had to cut my 2nd and 3rd Dismembers, 3rd Relic and 3rd and 4th Thragtusks to make room for the package.

Phoenix - losing grave-hate and Dismembers, gaining...?

Amulet - worse because you shave TKS and cut Surgicals.

UWx and BGx - I think you improve a bit against UW but not much against BGx because they can pressure him so easily, compared to the 3rd and 4th Thragtusks which impact the board immediately and in a big way.

Burn - probably a minor improvement because fetching up something like Witchbane Orb game 1 is great, but you also might just die first/anyway, plus again, cutting Thragtusks hurts.

Humans - maybe a minor improvement because you effectively have 6 O-Stones, but this matchup is already great.

There are only 2 matchups where I would say Great Creator offers a significant improvement - the Tron mirror and Hardened Scales. Not coincidentally, these are the only 2 matchups where GC's static ability matters on its own. In the mirror, it becomes our second best turn-3 Tron play after Karn Liberated with the ability to fetch a Spyglass to shut off their potential Karn Liberated, and obviously why the static ability is good requires no explanation.

For Scales, again, 1-sided Stony Silence is strong, especially when you consider it shuts down their Darksteel Citadels as well, but it can be slow and they can still just attack and kill Karn.

I will mention decks like Titan Shift, Boggles, and Infect - yeah, getting Witchbane or Spellskite game 1 against these decks is great, but they're also each less than 2% of the metagame.

Now of course, this anaylsis is just based on the list I posted, and certainly you could play different cards and improve a particular matchup - having access to Torpor Orb against Amulet for example. But then you have to cut something and lose that edge in a different matchup.

People may suggest playing fewer copies of Great Creator. I'm skeptical about this as well because as you decrease his numbers, obviously you're less likely to draw him and so that makes it even harder to justify having all those narrow 1-ofs in your sideboard.

A note on Mycosynth Lattice - our deck does not need this card. It's a fun alternate win-con (that I actually found pretty hard to protect), but we already have plenty of things to end the game with that don't require putting 2 pieces together.

So in summary, I think Karn, the Great Creator is a very interesting card, a very versatile card and a very fun card. But does it improve Mono Green Tron against the field? I'm standing by my initial assessment with an emphatic no.

So on the Tarmogoyf front:

Having tested the card on and off for about 6 months now, I've come to the point where I'm confident it doesn't deserve any slots in the deck. This is what I've believed all along, and I only continued trying it just because I felt a sense of entitlement insofar as winning the midrange matchup, as this has been the case for so long. In any event, Thragtusk is a much better card against the field, and I think if you're playing 4 with a Crucible of Worlds for example, the BG matchup is basically 50/50. And beyond that matchup, there are no Tier 1 or maybe even Tier 2 decks (depending on how you measure it) that you really want Tarmogoyf against, and particularly not over Thought-Knot Seer, which is usually cut to make room for it. It's simply a narrow card against the field that only gives you a leg up in a matchup that is already quite close, so it's just not a logical choice in an open meta. It's smarter to just accept that the BG matchup isn't easy now and take your points against the field elsewhere.

March metagame report:

This is from 203 matches I played in March on MTGO, about half in Friendly and half in Competitive. I transitioned back to Comp full-time after I felt I gathered enough data from Friendly, and got a bit bored of the lower level of competition/playing against weird decks.

Arclight Phoenix decks: 7.39% (15 MP) (UR 6.4%/13 MP, Mono R 0.49%/1 MP, Hollow Phoenix 0.49%/1 MP)
UWx Control: 6.9% (14 MP) (UW 5.91%/12 MP, Jeskai 0.99%/2 MP)
BGx: 6.9% (14 MP) (BG 4.93%/10 MP, Jund 1.48%/3 MP, Abzan 0.49%/1 MP)
Humans: 6.4% (13 MP)
Grixis Shadow: 6.4% (13 MP)
Gx Tron: 5.91% (12 MP)
Dredge: 4.93% (10 MP)
Burn: 4.93% (10 MP)
Titan Shift: 2.96% (6 MP)
Hardened Scales: 2.46% (5 MP)
Eldrazi Taxes: 2.46% (5 MP)
Mardu Pyro: 1.97% (4 MP)
Merfolk: 1.97% (4 MP)
Wilderness Rec: 1.97% (4 MP)
UB Mill: 1.97% (4 MP)
Whir Prison: 1.48% (3 MP)
Spirits: 1.48% (3 MP)
Hollow One: 1.48% (3 MP)
Amulet: 1.48% (3 MP)
Affinity: 1.48% (3 MP)
Storm: 1.48% (3 MP)
Lantern: 1.48% (3 MP)
BW Midrange: 1.48% (3 MP)

Blue Moon, Jund Shadow, Jeskai Tempo, Hatebears, RG Aggro, Death's Shadow Zoo, Eldrazi Tron, Colorless Eldrazi, Mono Red Prison, Electrodominance all had 2MP.

Ponza, Boggles, Ad Nauseam, Living End, Grixis Delver, Restore Balance, 8Rack, Grixis Control, Mono Red Frenzy, Soul Sisters, Sun and Moon, Esper Control, Vannifar Pod and 8 "Others" had 1MP.

My biggest takeaway from this month is the death of Humans has been greatly exaggerated, as it was actually right near the top in terms of encounters. I guess they have enough tools to fight back against all those TiTis, one of which is Damping Sphere which is often a 2-of in their sideboard now, as opposed to 0-1 before. So I would advise packing Nature's Claims post-board.

Phoenix variants technically at the top but not an overwhelming presence by any means. I'm confident in the matchup despite being Thought Scour-Surgicaled 3 times in the month.

Tons of fair decks in the queues, both UWx and BGx, with BG Rock in particular taking almost all the meta share from Jund. That deck is our nemesis right now - very close matchup and I like having additional sideboard cards for it. Grixis Shadow right up near the top of the pack as well. Add those 3 together plus everything else (4 Mardu Pyro, 3 BW Midrange, 3 Eldrazi Taxes, 2 Blue Moon, 2 Jund Shadow, 2 Jeskai Tempo, 2 Death's Shadow Zoo, 1 Grixis Delver, 1 Grixis Control, 1 Esper Control) - that's almost 32% of the meta as highly interactive/midrangey/controlly decks. I dont remember the last time I saw the format look this interactive. This is a reaction to Phoenix being the deck to beat, for sure.

I ran into UB Mill 4 times, which I think is a record in one month. Full disclosure there is an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in my sideboard right now

Whir Prison only 3 encounters, which was somewhat surprising. The deck is super powerful but on the other hand really easy to hate out, so I suspect its presence will ebb and flow.

Hey guys, I've been playing the deck a fair bit this month and so I decided to revise the guide. Here it is, now including 40 decks. Modern is crazy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PRSXde_JZohv3mfYBgCKlzXJA1cWe_auuOaGMJ_fJ00/edit?usp=sharing

Also will have a metagame report for March coming tomorrow.

Added the 2 Phoenix matchups (at the top) and Sultai Wilderness Reclamation (at the bottom) to the guide.

So I abandoned the above list pretty quickly. I knew Dredge would be tough with that configuration but it's more than tough. You really need Relics to have a shot cause like I said earlier Surgical is pretty impotent against them nowadays. Even Grafdigger's Cage isn't amazing because they can still Chill through it. With Grudges plus Trophy and Nature's Claim it's really easy for them to destroy our lifegain artifacts as well. I think if you wanna have a good shot of winning the matchup you want to be playing Leyline of the Void or Ravenous Trap, in addition to Relics. I'll be trying something like this soon.

Tron still feels really tough too. Somehow I actually had a positive record in the matchup during my 2017 run, but right now it just feels hopeless. The games I win are super-close nailbiters, and the ones I lose are just complete blowouts. It's never easy.

Despite this I'm still doing pretty well overall though - about 64% winrate in Friendly over 115 matches since the end of Jan. So the deck is still good enough for me to justify continuing to tinker with it.

Quote from sicsmoo »

This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things

that was exactly my thought as well, last week. glad to have brought you round =)

I'm not very optimistic on new Karn's chances in either this deck or any other Tron variant. The problems of wishboards in general come at the very real expense of valuable SB space. A lot of times I feel like I'm struggling to find space for a 4th Claim or 4th Tusk I really want, so it feels annoying to have to shave down my SB from 15 to ~10 cards because I have to put a bunch of cards in my SB that I'm never intending to actually SB in.

I think that finding a way to put 4th O-Stone and 4th Wurm in the SB isn't that difficult. Some builds were already 3 Stone/3 Wurm/1 Dust, so that part I don't see as much a problem. The biggest problem I see is that it's really difficult to convert Karn into meaningful advantage the turn that he lands. The closest a 3-drop artifact comes to immediate impact is something like Ensnaring Bridge, but Ensnaring Bridge has a really big problem in that it's hard for us to empty our hand and Karn gives us more cards. That means T3 Bridge is backed by a 6-7 card hand and will only really stop Thing if you're lucky.

The "consistency" argument is kind of weird to me, because most builds don't currently play 4th Wurmcoil or 3rd-4th Ballista or copies of All Is Dust. Karn's extremely anemic in his immediate-impact if you treat him as a 7-drop. If you treat him as a 10-drop you do get instant Lattice combo, but the Lattice combo only works if your opponent can't immediately hit back for 3 damage with creatures or instants.

A lot of the same arguments remind me of when Planar Bridge was spoiled, and everyone was harping about "consistency." The problem is that Karn isn't himself tutorable, and he's not very playable w/o Tron active either (and doesn't help you get Tron). Like Bridge, he firmly is a "payoff" card. That means he's fighting with cards like extra copies of Wurmcoil or Ballista. A lot of his ability to toolbox is really stymied by the fact that he comes down pretty late in the context of Modern, so most of the time his -2 should just be grabbing payoffs instead of actual toolbox cards. Which kind of brings up the question, why not run more payoffs in his place? If I have 7 mana I could Karn+3-drop, but I could also just slam Wurmcoil or All Is Dust/Ballista, which are on average far more impactful threats.

I think there are 3 reasons to play this Karn in the end.
1. He's a 4-drop, so he's very playable in grindy games vs Trophy/Blood Moon.
2. He's a 10-mana win condition with Mycosynth in certain matchups.
3. Certain decks die to his static ability, even w/o Mycosynth.

I'm honestly not sure if that's worth the SB space of a ~5-card wishboard (which I think is a cost that's hard to overexaggerate). I think I could foresee running a couple copies in the SB with a Mycosynth, and then SBing out a limited number of artifacts that turn into a quasi-wishboard in addition to the Mycosynth for G2 and G3 in certain matchups. It's just annoying that the cards you'd SB out for a wishboard are cards you'd generally want to SB in to draw them (Crucible/Wurmcoil/O-Stone vs land disruption/grindy MUs). On the other hand, it's a very good hate piece vs decks like Whir and Affinity even w/o a wishboard, so it might be playable when you consider that factor.

Now, I'm not suggesting you shouldn't test it out, but I'm just trying to temper expectations, when we've seen this kind of hype before for several different cards.

Quote from sicsmoo »

Added the 2 Phoenix matchups (at the top) and Sultai Wilderness Reclamation (at the bottom) to the guide.

Thanks! Much appreciated

Whether you agree with them or not here is at least a reasonable grounded discussion (as always) by LSV and Matt Nass on the topic of Ancient Stirrings and Faithless Looting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvUYjthbF_I

I think it is important for people discussing the topic to watch this video, if anything, just for the calm approach they have to the discussion.

It was a good call. Burn was already on the come up when it got new toys in the new set. I personally played 3 Dragon's Claw for the first time that I can remember in Modern last Friday (I think I may have had some for a while in Skred or something...)

Nice to see people stomping on Burn, lol.

I realise that for four or five of you guys (including a moderator), this thread has gradually developed into a venting space to air your emotional grievances about modern, but, like, can you not?

With the greatest of respect, "the state of modern" doesn't mesh with "my emotive personal laundry list of reasons X card should be unbanned this instant otherwise modern is garbage"

For example; preordain. The entire above conversation ^^^ is unnecessary. It was banned and at the time the reasoning was sound. No, we haven't got it back yet, yes modern has changed. Chill out and wait. It's not some huge insult to get worked up about. Unbans are a gradual tool WotC can use to get people excited, so respect that process and enjoy the format until your pet card sees the light of day again. Don't poison the ongoing discussion of the format with whining about how you're impatient for a specific toy to be given to you. Enjoy the toys you have.

Constructive discussion is what we need. What's the meta like? How are sideboards changing? What's on the rise or beginning to wane? What's your regional scene like? You know, ACTUAL STATE OF THE FORMAT Conversation.

"Competitive Magic is the art of correctly generalizing from sample sizes too small to draw real conclusions."
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ajelenbogen/status/1083444796956524544

Probably the most brief and accurate take on Magic as a whole, and hyper relevant to Modern.

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

Alright Mad Statistician how would you bury KCI for good? What would you ban to make sure it stays dead?

To kill KCI, you ban KCI itself. I doubt Wizards will do that though as all they don't want to kill decks. They didn't even totally kill Eldrazi by banning both Eye and Temple! So a more likely ban is Trawler. KCI players will tell you this kills the deck, but history has showed that most strong decks survive bans like this: see Amulet, Death's Shadow, Infect, and Dredge for recent examples of decks surviving bans and evolving. All other ban targets are too cute and indirect (e.g. Ruins, Fair, etc.) or hit too many other decks that aren't offending (e.g. Opal, Stirrings).

Quote from Niallplaysmagic »

KCI is currently the most busted thing. Banning it only allows the new most busted thing to take it's place. It will 'rotate' like this forever, and that's why modern gets so exhausting because you constantly have to prune back the branches of decks like this and the most innocuous cards are capable of breaking a deck in half - Cathartic Reunion, Opt, Ichor Wellspring, etc.

KCI is unusually busted and deserves a ban. It's not an artificial rotation. It's a targeted ban on a problematic strategy. The real problem, as I said before, is that there is so much endless and unjustified ban mania in Modern that when a truly bannable deck emerges, we are all too exhausted to address it seriously. After 2-3 years of calls with varying degrees of seriousness for bans on Cavern, Vial, Hierarch, DS, Temple, Company, E Bridge, Bridge from Below, Looting, Tron, Stirrings, Moon, Prime Time, fetchlands, Baral, Opal, Teferi, Nahiri, and others I'm too worn out to list, it's hard to have an informed discussion about a legitimate issue like KCI.

Anyone advocating for multiple bans across differing archetypes to "improve the format" is delusional, and should be disregarded from any constructive discussion about format health. Seriously, this should be infraction worthy.

Back to the subject of KCI...it wins way over rate compared to everything else in the format, and all signs point to it becoming more played, not less. It manages this in the face of multiple early hate cards. Further committing to keeping the deck in check through deck and card selection is going to warp the format. It's going to take a ban soon, possibly in the next announcement. I do hope that they unban a card or two at the same time to reduce the sting, but the writing is on the wall for the deck at this point.

Quote from sicsmoo »

The bone I would pick with that analysis is naming Amulet Titan among decks "at the top of the format as degenerate powerhouses". It's oddly popular on the SCG circuit, but that's definitely not the case on MTGO, or at GPs, I don't think. Also Ironworks has never seen a lot of play online, outside of short hype spikes.

Thanks. This is good to know, as I don't play MTGO at all, so I really mostly have no idea of what goes on there. Online trends are good to know and good to compare with paper trends.