MTG Salvation

With humans on the upswing, diversifying our removal and wraths starts to look more attractive. I've got 1 terminus, 1 settle, 1 wrath, and 1 verdict in my build currently. Having the split also makes it harder for our opponents to play around them since they don't know how many of each we are playing. I'm also running a condemn and a D-sphere in the main to really have a spread of singletons. Counting on 4 path and 4 terminus is a recipe for disaster against meddling mages.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from gkourou »

Matt Nass and LSV talk about Modern unbannings: https://youtu.be/BieLpUJOHPI

They talk about:
Splinter Twin: They say it's the safest unbanning of them all and it would improve the format. LSV is quite confident it can come back, because it's a 10 cards package(+2 mites), and because it's highly interactable and disruptable(they mention dismember and other spot removals), thus it would mean there is another blue deck and make the field more diverse. Matt Nass is also confident about Twin, but says there could be some risks.

This line of reasoning sounds strikingly familiar! Wholeheartedly agree.

This is actually interesting to consider, because in the past I recall a few people insisting that the twin package just slots into all blue decks with minimal deck-building costs. LSV argues that the deck-building cost is high enough through a 10 card commitment (6 tappers + 4 twin) and the need for double red mana in twin's cost requires real considerations for the mana base that come with a cost. I think there is a valid case to be made that the twin package has reasonable deck building constraints and would not kill the diversity that exists among blue decks right now. (which was the stated reason for banning right?)

I also think a strong point that was missed in the video is the presence of death's shadow decks in the modern meta. This deck had not been discovered when twin was last legal, and my opinion is that shadow would have an extremely high win percentage against twin. It has all the right kinds of disruption with discard and removal and it can clock twin quickly with threats that are immune to bolt and most red removal.

Based on the current state of the modern meta-game now could finally be the right time to bring back twin. Going back to the diversity consideration, izzet phoenix is a tier one U/R deck with a serious meta share. If twin is able to steal some of the meta-game percentage from izzet phoenix we could even say that unbanning twin would improve diversity among blue decks right?!

Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but CFB has a very good modern win % analysis posted at:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/bilbao-braggings-the-full-story-of-who-beats-whom-in-modern/

There is a really big sample size used for the analysis and I think it clearly demonstrates what the best and worst decks are in modern right now.

The amount of time and effort you put into this post to help a new guy out is awesome, nice work!

Quote from cfusionpm »

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why people think Baleful Strix is too strong... It's a 1/1 for 2 that draws a card and profitably blocks a creature. How is a completely fair 2-for-1 creature "too powerful" in a world where the nonsense capable that is considerably more powerful than that is accepted as common place?

Reading the responses to this are making me scratch my head. It seems like people are saying this card would hurt fair strategies, but wouldn't this card only be played in fair strategies? Making the case that a card that would only be used in fair decks would hurt also simultaneously hurt fair decks seems like some strange logic from my perspective...

As was already pointed out, this sounds very much like what people were saying about JTMS and AV before they were un-banned.

Sounds like Emma Handy has had enough of KCI:

http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37526_Its-Time-To-Kill-Ironworks.html

She makes some good points for a ban from the deck including similarities to the already banned eggs deck and several other considerations.

Thoughts?

Quote from gkourou »

https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/1009199164289241088:

@mtg_ianduke @mtgaaron mtgsalvation - Modern (Link: https://bit.ly/2K4GvFy ). People massively vote for Stoneforge Mystic, Splinter Twin or Preordain regarding unbans and Ancient Stirrings (or none) regarding bans. Just wanted to share this! Thanks!

Aaron Forsythe
@mtgaaron
Thanks. The DCI will be convening this week to discuss such matters.

Edit: I think it's obvious he and Ian Duke at least saw the poll.
I will be tweeting our content out to him before every B&R, since he actually responds to us.
They should know that SFM has reached insane numbers at the unbanning poll by now, and it's either no bans or ban Ancient Stirrings regarding unbans(with some various other results as well)!

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to those who manage the modern ban list, this was an excellent way to connect our conversations here with separate conversations that may be taking place among groups of people that can actually change the format.

I've been playing 2x faithless looting for a while. I've found that I am only on the grind plan about 25% or less of the time, so looting maindeck has been fantastic. Grixis DS plays like a tempo deck from my experience and usually needs to disrupt, play a threat, and then hang on just long enough to sneak out a win. Looting has been great for helping me to not worry about flood or drawing dead cards like fatal push against tron or stubborn denial against humans. I prefer to run 18 lands anyway in this deck and that decision plays very well for me when I know I have the ability to dump my 4th or 5th land in the games that go a little longer. It has nice synergy with a lot of the cards in your deck already including thought scour, gurmag angler, and snapcaster mage. Overall, my advice is to test it out and see if it feels good. Some metas may not be a great fit, especially if you play against a lot of jund and jeskai type decks, but in a more open meta with a wide range of decks, looting seems really good and has been for me for a while.

Quote from h0lydiva »

Quote from purklefluff »

Quote from gkourou »

I am so glad i was right that if you remove infect from modern, big mana decks will become the no.1 strategy one must be following if you want to win.
DS keeps the balances though now but Modern is certainly slowly and steadily becoming format with a bigger representation of big mana, but its not a big mana format yet.
Infect should not be wiped off the face of Earth, especially with fatal push on its way.

I don't mean to be contrary, but I really don't think your position on this is tenable. There hasn't been any consistent evidence to suggest that "big mana decks" have become the "no.1 strategy" required to win in modern as a format. Far from it, we've been seeing an abundance of interactive or alternative types of decks doing very well recently. Coco, burn, shadow, abzan, affinity etc are all at the top, with only Eldrazi really giving any weight at all to your suggestion. Scapeshift is better at the moment that it's been for a long while, which I'd hasten to add is probably a good thing, for quite a few reasons (not least is keeping decks like Tron in check, which the community for some reason despise)

I pride myself on never agreeing with gkorou about anything at all, but I think he might be right here. I'm very close to believing Titanshift and E-Tron are the overall best things you can be doing in Modern.

To apply some context here I would want to know the meta % of all valakut and tron decks currently and where they were immediately before probe was banned. Have they significantly gained ground compared to where they were last year?

I personally think that infect was a bad match-up for valakut and tron decks so I expect their shares would be higher now that one of their predators has been removed.

On the topic of U/W control seeing much more play online then in paper, I think a big factor here is the length of games. I have played U/W control in paper for a while and it can be very frustrating when the opponent plays slowly. You can call a judge to watch for slow play, but if the opponent takes a full minute to ponder every decision (which they are entitled to do) you will invariably go to time in the round. The chess clock concept on MTGO causes your opponent to lose in this scenario, but in paper events you likely just got a draw for the round. To play paper events, control decks need a faster way to close out games, and this is why I think we see more results from Jeskai control with burn spells to end games. This is unfortunate in my mind as the deck has enough challenges without having to worry about the pace of play of your opponent.

Quote from icehippo »

Another ban on a tier 1 combo deck. Why does wizards refuse to allow combo to be anymore than tier 2 at best? Pod, Twin, Bloom, KCI, now Bridge. Sends a strong message that combo has no place in the modern format.

The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.

Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.

Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.

KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.

Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.

This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.

Extremely disappointed not to see any unbans. If there was ever a time to do it, it's alongside a large and predictable ban.

Also lots of words about Faithless Looting (and other things) here: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38840_Was-Banning-Bridge-From-Below-In-Modern-The-Right-Call.html

Quote from shivxxx »

Wow. Banning Paradox Engine, that requires alot of setup to actually go nuts, but keeping various A+B Combos in the Format. I seriously don't get Sheldon. I think both bans are utter nonsense.

That's what I was thinking - Paradox Engine requires so much outside the box thinking to work. You'd need to be playing it in a deck that ramps, for example. Given that high cost of inclusion, the ban caught me off guard as well. Now that Paradox Engine is banned, there's really no point in playing cards like Sol Ring or Birds of Paradise anymore, which'll please the folks who don't like fast mana.

Force of Negation stops the combo for 0 mana. You can’t force the opponent’s force. I don’t get the reasoning here. Twin doesn’t want to play too many reactive cards, and there’s a reason if it was used to pack Dispel maindeck to stop the opponent’s interaction with the combo.

If you play Jeskai, there’s already Saheeli that works very similarly. And Jeskai Saheeli is Tier 3 (albeit a good deck, if you ask me). By the way, imho Jeskai Twin was the best variant of it (not the one with Walls and KiKi, just Path, a pair of Angels and Colonnades).

It's really amazing how users can complain about having to read posts they don't like yet refuse to simply use the ignore function.

the image of the new colossus hammer. Reminds me of the size of the banhammer that will hopefully come down July 8.

Quote from ed06288 »

"You can't spend mana to cast this spell"
As if that's a big drawback.

Also, just ban the hogaak, altar is cool and bridge was never a problem before

I believe this is the correct ban. Bridge Vine gets a strict upgrade in Carrion Feeder over Viscera Seer, but still is a manageable deck. Altar is not a given in the deck anymore because the mill plan is not deterministic without Hogaak. (You need a lotta Vengevines, Bridges, and Bloodghasts right away.)

Quote from tronix »

Quote from Aazadan »

Any decks that attack from several angles though are hard to deal with.

this is pretty much a prerequisite for any competitive deck in modern atm.

i mean that is really what has been changing the landscape of modern. its not the rise of 'hyper linear' decks or whatever you want to call it, but rather the rise of lean aggressive strategies that have resiliency and adaptability/flexibility baked in.

so play patterns gravitate towards extremes. games feel more like jousting and less like fencing with critical, usually game deciding, decision points instead of accruing small advantages in resources or board position.

really i think that is why people dislike these GY centric decks. the forms of interaction (ie hate) intrinsically 'swingy' compared to removal, discard, or counter magic.

Yep. You force your opponent to have TWO different ways to stop your angles AND a win-con of their own.

Yep, I would argue that's why BridgeVine before this never took off. It only had a creature plan.

Dredge has Conflag.
Phoenix has a number of B Sides.

This new deck is just an even faster Dredge with an engine that has a bonus of milling your opponent on your own Turn 3 and the only meaningful answers are all Turn 0 and/or free.

It really is an abomination that has no place existing in Modern.

Funny thing is that they can nuke it, and Dredge wouldn't be hit at all.

Altar and Bridge.

Quote from idSurge »

Probe hit 2 decks, and forced 1 to be even better.

It also hit Grixis Control and many Delver strategies, which have been irrelevant ever since. Who knows if they would have survived anyway? But it was a killing blow to Delver with the addition of Fatal Push.

Looting, is too important a piece of the format imo. Its our Brainstorm.

I no longer care. Looting is an atrocity. And if they're going to look us in the face and tell us Looting is OK, then why in the living hell is Preordain banned?

Bridge + Altar will kill the deck, and if thats the goal, so be it.

Nuke it from orbit.