6.19% Grixis Control
5.84% Grixis Delver
4.81% UW Stoneblade
4.81% Jeskai Miracles
3.09% Death's Shadow
2.41% UR Wizards
Unfair decks using cantrips
3.78% Ad Naus
3.44% Sneak and Show
2.75% Reanimator
This shouldn't even be contested. Fair decks have always had more efficiency in Legacy with cantrips compared to combo and linear decks.
His point was not that "Unfair decks are doing better in the overall metagame". His point was that "Unfair decks benefit more from having good cantrips". Your argument seems to conflate the two, which is just dumb to be honest. That's like saying "Fair decks have always had more efficiency in Legacy with Islands compared to combo and linear decks." It's a meaningless statement.
"Unfair" decks attempt to dig to find combo engines in order to win the game immediately while "Fair" decks are digging to find answers to various threats. The increase in win probability from drawing a removal spell vs. a land is completely different from the increase in win probability from drawing a gifts ungiven vs. a land.
I think saying that Sleight of Hand -> Preordain is much better in Storm than UW is fairly uncontroversial. Given that UW doesn't even run sleight of hand or serum visions because digging slightly deeper is not worth losing instant speed in Opt.
Also why use necrogen spellbomb over something like Nihil spellbomb? I feel like discarding 1 is almsot never relevant? is there a good scrap trawler chain I'm missing?
Honestly when I compare dredge to bridgevine (at least sodeq's list), I'm finding the opposite. Dredge is significantly stronger against some grave hate (nihil spellbomb, surgical, relic of progenitus) while also maintaining nature's claim for more punishing hate cards (leyline of the void, rest in peace). The main reason being that your persistent threat of Conflagrate/Creeping chill provides reach which Bridgevine lacks. A single sweeper can stop bridgevine quite significantly, as it doesn't have a continuous value engine, it relies on the opening burst of cards in the yard.
Bridgevine is much faster, though perhaps I'm just bad at dredge (or cockatrice hates me)? Even with chill, it seems that dredge is turn 5ish with no disruption from the couple 10s of goldfishes i did. Bridgevine is something like 3.5 given my tournament experience.
Also, why is it everyone seems to run 4 life from the loam as a pose to 3 life/ 1 more thug or something? Is it just very valuable to have in your hand?
I've tried Shaper's Sanctuary and the primary problem is how dead it is later in the game. Like, if you don't draw it early in the matchups you want it, it might as well be an emrakul for all the good it does. Overall, it'd have to like cantrip oro something before being playable.
It's great to see representation! Yeah, I've dropped the vials from the deck, though they allowed some very funny turn 3 kills. (Gogo stirrings).
We real baby, 9th at GP. Also, interestingly, they don't seem like fans of Metallic Mimic, going more "all in" on the sacrifice value plan, with more outlets and sparring construct.
I wonder what the Gut Shots were for in that list though.
Yeah I'm going to have to agree here. It's like people think twin was this unique thing that couldn't be answered. It lost to Jund. It lost to other control decks. And now it's got "new" players like Burn, Grixis DS, Mardu, etc. to deal with while also losing some great matchups like Infect to a large degree.
The question with twin is more "is it strong enough to warp the format around it" and not "you have to consider it when deckbuilding". I consider most good decks when deckbuilding.
Regarding Damping Sphere, I'd be interested in how well it does in things like Affinity, which looks poised to take back the meta of it shifts away from Jeskai Jund and more towards Humans/Tron.
Also, I feell ike the point of Damping Sphere was that it hits Storm AND Tron. If anything, we should be paying more attention to decks that have trouble with those matchups becoming more popular, rather than tron disappearing right? Also, that tournament was, as said, like 1 day after it was legal.
@idSurge, I dunno, I feel like there are a lot of matchups that are closer to 60/40 than 50/50. Tron vs. most control, Affinity vs. Humans, Affinity vs Merfolk, Mardu vs. Affinity, etc. Like I'd say that all the 3 color decks vs. each other are probably in that zone, but more linear stuff tends to be more wonky.
Yeah I'm really not sold on the sparring construct, but I really like the list. It just opts to go a bit grindier, which seems like a good idea in the current meta. What to replace them with? Metallic Mimic? Animation Module?
I've just started dipping my toes into standard again, and I'm not really feeling this "metagame diversity" that others in this thread seem to be seeing.
Suggests that there are a total of 3 viable decks, 2 of which are almost copies of each other :/. Did the other decks just get unlucky? Where did BG constrictor go?
Has anyone tried Eldritch Evolution? I'm toying around with having it as a one-of. It just seems at any point having a ravager is very important, and we have more sac-eable creatures than most.
Intro:
For those of you unfamiliar, this deck aims to take advantage of the synergy between cards like Hardened Scales and artifact cards with counters like Arcbound Ravager or Walking Ballista for fun and profit.
Here's a some sample gameplay from way back when by the deck's original creator, MTGAids (the guy who came up with humans):
While the deck has certainly changed since then, with Matt Nass (of KCI fame) in particular helping set the standard list, it still plays along similar lines.
- This deck feels very fun for those who like triggering a lot of abilities. At least at the lower tournament level, many opportunities exist to blow out players with clever counters movement. It is not uncommon for opponents to accidentally allow lethal because of the inherent complexity of the basic gameplan.
- Fast clock and linearity. Oddly, our tricks give the deck a fair bit of linearity; decisions usually follow a set path with relatively few real branches. That is to say, the way our creatures work means we don't have to play around removal, or sometimes even sweepers. This makes it less tiring to play over a long period of time, as long as you get good at counting damage. [may not be a pro for some people]
- Very strong anti-creature matchups. Decks like Affinity, Humans, Spirits, GB, Value Company, Merfolk have atrocious matchups against us due to their inability to remove or efficiently deal with value engines like Walking Ballista, Steel Overseer and Hangarback Walker. Lifegain decks are also particularly open to Inkmoth Nexus swings
- Decent Tron and Burn matchups. Tron can't wipe our board with Ugin, and, oddly, we actually go bigger than them with a modicum of time. We also don't mind things like Oblivion Stone as much, given cards like Hangarback Walker and Inkmoth Nexus avoid it. Burn is actually around our speed, but doesn't have a good way to deal with our creatures. Post board, Nature's Claim swings the matchup as well.
- OK matchups against Land based combo, and Spell based combo. These depend heavily on sideboard cards. Damping spheres give us a nice catch all against Land/Spell combo, and Dragon Claws give us a decent way to fight Burn.
- Weaker matchup with Jeskai, Jund, UW, and Grixis than normal affinity. We don't have 4 Etched Champion to bail us out in these matchups, and we aren't consistently presenting as fast a clock when disrupted.
- Volatility of hand quality. Your clock and flexibility swings wildly depending on what you draw, and our mulls are very bad. This means that sometimes the deck just won't seem very strong.
- Still get dumped on by Stony Silence and Kataki, War's Wage
- New Weakness to Rest in Peace
Decklists:
This is a very standard modern list at the moment. The only interesting choice is 1 Metallic Mimic over 1 Throne of Geth
This is a new idea, in which we cut overseers to guarantee we can't be one-for-oned. The land base is also quite non-traditional in that it has 21 lands, 4 of which are Llanowar Reborn
Blinkmoth Nexus - Affinity afficianados may be confused by us running only 0-2, but the reason is that in many cases, the deck ends the game in one or two big swings. Because of this, Inkmoth Nexus is actually way more valuable than in normal affinity, where you plan to use multiple turns to increment out damage. Additionally, scales needs all of its mana and can't dump hands quickly, unlike normal affinity. With only 20 lands and 4 opals, Getting green/more artifacts is just more important than eventually being able to use Blinkmoth.
Sideboard Consideration:
Problem 1: Graveyard:
Without sideboard, we're very bad against graveyard decks, but we can devote a lot of the sideboard in order to patch that up (typically 6-8 slots)
Damping Sphere - this is why our storm matchup is ok. The deck typically plays 4 as part of its "graveyard" hate suite, though the banning of KCI has made 3 common as well. Grafdigger's Cage - a more graveyard focused hate card which performs better against Dredge but worse against tron as compared to damping sphere Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt - Yet more gravehate which is played to supplement the above two. Relic's are better vs. Control and GDS than the others, because they can keep cards out of the graveyard. Tormod's is typically prefered though because it requires no investment, which is slightly stronger in this deck because you can still sac it to ravager.
Problem 2: Gotcha Sideboard Cards
We're actually a graveyard deck in the sense we need to sacrifice things for them to proc effects. We need to deal with Rest in Peace and Stony Silencce
Nature's Claim - Almost always a 4-of, because it doubles as life gain when targetting our own Hangarbacks.
Metallic Mimic - the two main reasons this finds itself as a one of in some lists are that it can name construct (cast Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista for 0. And because it can name servo (Animation Module gives you a 1/1 for evey mana you have open. However, by itself it's quite weak and easy to remove, and you don't really want more than one. Aether Vial - Not really played anymore, due to our X/X's not working well with it. Voltaic Servant - Not worth playing without Aether Vial
Taplands (Llanowar Reborn, Ruins of Oran Rief - there are various lands which may be useful, depending on the meta. Llanowar Reborn in particular has appeared in recent GP lists, and is useful chiefly because this deck is very mana inefficient (we have too many 2 drops, and often leave land untapped anyway).
Various Tricks:
Hardened Scales + Arbound Ravager + either Inkmoth Nexus or Walking Ballista - Typically, if you swing with these 3 cards resolved, you will be able to present lethal pretty easily. Inkmoth has infect, and ballista can swing and then fire all the counters arcbound puts on it.
Metallic Mimic + Animation Module - If you name "Servo" with Metallic Mimic, you can make as many servos as you have mana whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on something
Arcbound Ravager + Arcbound Worker + Hangarback Walker -> This is just a sample interaction, but remember that modular triggers are seperate from Ravager's counter ability. So you can move the counters from a modular creature to a Hangarback, Ballista, or Inkmoth. Also remember than if you have Hardened Scales, it triggers on both.
His point was not that "Unfair decks are doing better in the overall metagame". His point was that "Unfair decks benefit more from having good cantrips". Your argument seems to conflate the two, which is just dumb to be honest. That's like saying "Fair decks have always had more efficiency in Legacy with Islands compared to combo and linear decks." It's a meaningless statement.
"Unfair" decks attempt to dig to find combo engines in order to win the game immediately while "Fair" decks are digging to find answers to various threats. The increase in win probability from drawing a removal spell vs. a land is completely different from the increase in win probability from drawing a gifts ungiven vs. a land.
I think saying that Sleight of Hand -> Preordain is much better in Storm than UW is fairly uncontroversial. Given that UW doesn't even run sleight of hand or serum visions because digging slightly deeper is not worth losing instant speed in Opt.
There are a lot of surgicals in my shop.
Bridgevine is much faster, though perhaps I'm just bad at dredge (or cockatrice hates me)? Even with chill, it seems that dredge is turn 5ish with no disruption from the couple 10s of goldfishes i did. Bridgevine is something like 3.5 given my tournament experience.
Also, why is it everyone seems to run 4 life from the loam as a pose to 3 life/ 1 more thug or something? Is it just very valuable to have in your hand?
We real baby, 9th at GP. Also, interestingly, they don't seem like fans of Metallic Mimic, going more "all in" on the sacrifice value plan, with more outlets and sparring construct.
I wonder what the Gut Shots were for in that list though.
1 Evolutionary Leap
4 Hardened Scales
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Hangarback Walker
2 Sparring Construct
4 Steel Overseer
3 Throne of Geth
4 Walking Ballista
2 Welding Jar
4 Mox Opal
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
7 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Pendelhaven
3 Damping Sphere
2 Dismember
1 Evolutionary Leap
2 Gut Shot
4 Nature's Claim
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
2 Relic of Progenitus
The question with twin is more "is it strong enough to warp the format around it" and not "you have to consider it when deckbuilding". I consider most good decks when deckbuilding.
Also, to the 2 or so people claiming Damping Sphere "failed". It's currently the 11th most played card in Modern. Because it hits tron, storm, and KCI. Turns out flex hate in sides is OK. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all
Also, I feell ike the point of Damping Sphere was that it hits Storm AND Tron. If anything, we should be paying more attention to decks that have trouble with those matchups becoming more popular, rather than tron disappearing right? Also, that tournament was, as said, like 1 day after it was legal.
@idSurge, I dunno, I feel like there are a lot of matchups that are closer to 60/40 than 50/50. Tron vs. most control, Affinity vs. Humans, Affinity vs Merfolk, Mardu vs. Affinity, etc. Like I'd say that all the 3 color decks vs. each other are probably in that zone, but more linear stuff tends to be more wonky.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19426&f=ST
Suggests that there are a total of 3 viable decks, 2 of which are almost copies of each other :/. Did the other decks just get unlucky? Where did BG constrictor go?
Intro:
For those of you unfamiliar, this deck aims to take advantage of the synergy between cards like Hardened Scales and artifact cards with counters like Arcbound Ravager or Walking Ballista for fun and profit.
Here's a some sample gameplay from way back when by the deck's original creator, MTGAids (the guy who came up with humans):
While the deck has certainly changed since then, with Matt Nass (of KCI fame) in particular helping set the standard list, it still plays along similar lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvGFdl7_vKc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z1aNgPXwI4&feature=youtu.be
Why Play This Deck?
Pros
- This deck feels very fun for those who like triggering a lot of abilities. At least at the lower tournament level, many opportunities exist to blow out players with clever counters movement. It is not uncommon for opponents to accidentally allow lethal because of the inherent complexity of the basic gameplan.
- Fast clock and linearity. Oddly, our tricks give the deck a fair bit of linearity; decisions usually follow a set path with relatively few real branches. That is to say, the way our creatures work means we don't have to play around removal, or sometimes even sweepers. This makes it less tiring to play over a long period of time, as long as you get good at counting damage. [may not be a pro for some people]
- Very strong anti-creature matchups. Decks like Affinity, Humans, Spirits, GB, Value Company, Merfolk have atrocious matchups against us due to their inability to remove or efficiently deal with value engines like Walking Ballista, Steel Overseer and Hangarback Walker. Lifegain decks are also particularly open to Inkmoth Nexus swings
- Decent Tron and Burn matchups. Tron can't wipe our board with Ugin, and, oddly, we actually go bigger than them with a modicum of time. We also don't mind things like Oblivion Stone as much, given cards like Hangarback Walker and Inkmoth Nexus avoid it. Burn is actually around our speed, but doesn't have a good way to deal with our creatures. Post board, Nature's Claim swings the matchup as well.
- OK matchups against Land based combo, and Spell based combo. These depend heavily on sideboard cards. Damping spheres give us a nice catch all against Land/Spell combo, and Dragon Claws give us a decent way to fight Burn.
- Less vulnerability to sideboard: We aren't quite as vulnerable to cards like Deflecting Palm, Kozilek's Return, Izzet Staticaster, Reclamation Sage and Destructive Revelry as a traditional artifact deck due to our shenanigans. We have some resistance to Creeping Corrosion and Shatterstorm as well.
- Weaker matchup with Jeskai, Jund, UW, and Grixis than normal affinity. We don't have 4 Etched Champion to bail us out in these matchups, and we aren't consistently presenting as fast a clock when disrupted.
- Volatility of hand quality. Your clock and flexibility swings wildly depending on what you draw, and our mulls are very bad. This means that sometimes the deck just won't seem very strong.
- Still get dumped on by Stony Silence and Kataki, War's Wage
- New Weakness to Rest in Peace
Decklists:
This is a very standard modern list at the moment. The only interesting choice is 1 Metallic Mimic over 1 Throne of Geth
SCG Modern Classic Baltimore 14th
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Hangarback Walker
1 Metallic Mimic
4 Steel Overseer
4 Walking Ballista
4 Darksteel Citadel
7 Forest
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Pendelhaven
2 Animation Module
1 Throne of Geth
4 Welding Jar
4 Hardened Scales
4 Mox Opal
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Damping Sphere
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Spellskite
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Dismember
4 Nature's Claim
This is a new idea, in which we cut overseers to guarantee we can't be one-for-oned. The land base is also quite non-traditional in that it has 21 lands, 4 of which are Llanowar Reborn
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
5 Forest
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Llanowar Reborn
2 Pendelhaven
17 CREATURES
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Hangarback Walker
1 Metallic Mimic
4 Walking Ballista
4 Ancient Stirrings
18 OTHER SPELLS
4 Animation Module
4 Hardened Scales
4 Mox Opal
3 Throne of Geth
3 Welding Jar
3 Damping Sphere
2 Dismember
3 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Nature's Claim
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb
1 Welding Jar
This is a "standard" list that incorporates Sparring Construct for additional speed with Ravager.
GP Barcelona, 9th place, 7/2018
1 Evolutionary Leap
4 Hardened Scales
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Hangarback Walker
2 Sparring Construct
4 Steel Overseer
3 Throne of Geth
4 Walking Ballista
2 Welding Jar
4 Mox Opal
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
7 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Pendelhaven
3 Damping Sphere
2 Dismember
1 Evolutionary Leap
2 Gut Shot
4 Nature's Claim
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
2 Relic of Progenitus
MTGAids Decklist:
4x Arcbound Worker
4x Hangarback Walker
3x Metallic Mimic
4x Steel Overseer
4x Voltaic Servant
4x Walking Ballista
4x Hardened Scales
1x Forest
4x Horizon Canopy
4x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Pendelhaven
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Aether Vial
4x Mox Opal
2x Throne of Geth
1x Welding Jar
2x Dromoka's Command
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Path to Exile
2x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Qasali Pridemage
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Spellskite
Card Considerations:
Mainboard Staples Explanation:
Blinkmoth Nexus - Affinity afficianados may be confused by us running only 0-2, but the reason is that in many cases, the deck ends the game in one or two big swings. Because of this, Inkmoth Nexus is actually way more valuable than in normal affinity, where you plan to use multiple turns to increment out damage. Additionally, scales needs all of its mana and can't dump hands quickly, unlike normal affinity. With only 20 lands and 4 opals, Getting green/more artifacts is just more important than eventually being able to use Blinkmoth.
Sideboard Consideration:
Problem 1: Graveyard:
Without sideboard, we're very bad against graveyard decks, but we can devote a lot of the sideboard in order to patch that up (typically 6-8 slots)
Damping Sphere - this is why our storm matchup is ok. The deck typically plays 4 as part of its "graveyard" hate suite, though the banning of KCI has made 3 common as well.
Grafdigger's Cage - a more graveyard focused hate card which performs better against Dredge but worse against tron as compared to damping sphere
Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt - Yet more gravehate which is played to supplement the above two. Relic's are better vs. Control and GDS than the others, because they can keep cards out of the graveyard. Tormod's is typically prefered though because it requires no investment, which is slightly stronger in this deck because you can still sac it to ravager.
Problem 2: Gotcha Sideboard Cards
We're actually a graveyard deck in the sense we need to sacrifice things for them to proc effects. We need to deal with Rest in Peace and Stony Silencce
Nature's Claim - Almost always a 4-of, because it doubles as life gain when targetting our own Hangarbacks.
Dismember - Hits Kataki, and also helps cover Hollow One, Gurmag Angler, and Thing in Ice
Technology:
Metallic Mimic - the two main reasons this finds itself as a one of in some lists are that it can name construct (cast Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista for 0. And because it can name servo (Animation Module gives you a 1/1 for evey mana you have open. However, by itself it's quite weak and easy to remove, and you don't really want more than one.
Aether Vial - Not really played anymore, due to our X/X's not working well with it.
Voltaic Servant - Not worth playing without Aether Vial
Taplands (Llanowar Reborn, Ruins of Oran Rief - there are various lands which may be useful, depending on the meta. Llanowar Reborn in particular has appeared in recent GP lists, and is useful chiefly because this deck is very mana inefficient (we have too many 2 drops, and often leave land untapped anyway).
Various Tricks:
Hardened Scales + Arbound Ravager + either Inkmoth Nexus or Walking Ballista - Typically, if you swing with these 3 cards resolved, you will be able to present lethal pretty easily. Inkmoth has infect, and ballista can swing and then fire all the counters arcbound puts on it.
Metallic Mimic + Hangarback Walker or Walking Ballista - You can play constructs for 0 and they still enter witha counter on them
Metallic Mimic + Animation Module - If you name "Servo" with Metallic Mimic, you can make as many servos as you have mana whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on something
Arcbound Ravager + Arcbound Worker + Hangarback Walker -> This is just a sample interaction, but remember that modular triggers are seperate from Ravager's counter ability. So you can move the counters from a modular creature to a Hangarback, Ballista, or Inkmoth. Also remember than if you have Hardened Scales, it triggers on both.
Arcbound Ravager + Hangarback Walker -> Remember that you can sack each of the thopters when calculating damage.