Watch the no banned list modern gauntlet of greatness series by card kingdom/mox boarding house. Dredge did really well as did twin, elves, caw-blade, and DnT from what I remember. I would play dredge (already have the modern version built) or hypergenesis and would definitely play a whole league of no banned list modern.
I've actually played this format quite a bit, so I should dispel some notions here. This is mostly stuff I've found from actually playing a good amount of un-banned modern, not from just sitting in front of a keyboard.
There are a lot of options (obviously). Personally, I would probably opt for a deck that can beat up on the unfair decks, but has the ability to combo out on it's own as well. BTL Scapeshift (with Dig Through Time), Junk Depths, or maybe Jeskai Ascendancy Combo would be my choice.
2) What general deck do you think will win the tournament?
Quite often, you have pikes try to bring the most unfair deck possible to tournaments like these. As a result, you often have unassuming "fair" decks like Death and Taxes clean up off the back of simple maindeck cards like Thalia, along with sideboard stony silences. Just be prepared to have a sideboard that can deal with graveyards, artifacts, and can stop decks from playing lots of spells in one turn (either maindeck or sideboard).
Yes, it's a surprisingly diverse format (at least with how it is currently set up in an unsettled meta) that allows even fair decks to thrive. Some decks can be insanely quick, but those decks often lose to slower decks that have the requisite answers. Even a deck like Burn can be a strong contender to win a tournament.
Overall Thoughts on the Format From Actually Playing It
1. Skullclamp isn't as overpowered as people think. That's not to say it's bad, but it's far from ridiculously over-powered. The two decks it is super powerful in are Elves and Affinity, both of which you would need to have a lot of hate for anyway. In non-combo decks like UR delver, it's strong, but not really any stronger of a card advantage source than something like Treasure Cruise. Also, considering you have to sacrifice your own creatures, it's important to realize it is also a tempo disadvantage unlike Cruise.
2. Affinity and other linear decks are insane, but also extremely vulnerable to artifact disruption and general hate. People who say Affinity will reign supreme must be forgetting the fact that everyone will be packing Stony Silences and other uber-strong hate cards in their sideboard.
3. Hypergenesis is bad. Seriously, it's a linear combo deck that at it's best, is no faster than the other linear combo decks (Storm, Elves, Dredge, Shoal), but is way easier to disrupt, and loses to its own bad-draws way more often.
4. Twin is a great format policeman. In essence, it still plays the role of "combo deck that beats other linear decks" quite handily.
5. UR delver-style decks will obviously be a staple, but have their own weaknesses as well.
6. Dark-Depths decks are significantly underrated. One of the best decks I played with was a Junk-Depths list that was a standard midrange deck with a lot of disruption that could occasionally win out of nowhere with Depths. With Thespian's Stage int he format, there is a ton of inevitability, and there is nothing a control deck can do to counter the playing of lands.
7. Cloudpost decks are strong - they can wreck most of the fair decks in the format, and with enough disruption, can possibly have game against the unfair decks as well. I prefer UR cloudpost, although UW cloudpost could work well since Path to Exile may be more important in the format with Twin and Marit Lage.
8. All-In Red is really powerful, and gets better the more people want to play unfair decks, which tends to be the majority of people in tournaments like these.
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Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
My store is hosting no ban list modern and I'm curious to get some opinions.
1) What general deck would you play?
2) What general deck do you think will win the tournament?
3) Would you enjoy no ban list modern for 1 day?
1) Splinter Twin with Ponder, Preordain, DTT, and Mental Misstep ~OR~ Treasure Cruise Delver/Burn.
2) Affinity or Infect
3) Probably. Would be nice if proxies were allowed for those not already invested in banned cards. Not really worth it for Modern players to buy cards that can't see play in Modern.
1)nothing fair as all broken stuff are legal and there's no FoW to stop them here, all we need is to figure what is the most broken thing of the pool
2)again nothing fair, i'd bet towards MM Infect or clamp affinity though
3)not really, it's just a format that combines the worse elements of Modern and Legacy, both Legacy and Modern are superior formats imo (standard too but way too different to compare)
Hypergenesis is not that good: It never was that good. Not sure where this "consensus" is coming from. I'm guessing none of these people have ever tried playing this format, nor did they ever play old extended back before modern existed. Hypergenesis is a turn 3 combo deck that has a very tough time fighting through disruption, and will often lose to it's own terrible hands. You would be far better off playing Storm, Eggs, Affinity, Elf-Ball, or Infect if you want to play a deck that wins super fast, yet can actually win through some disruption.
And yes, fair decks are perfectly viable in NBL modern: Stoneblade, Countertop, Miracles, Death and Taxes, UR Delver, Burn, GW Maverick, Tezzerator, Deadguy Ale, Faeries, Jund, Junk are all both viable as well as competitive in this format. I wouldn't doubt that a competitive hatebear-oriented Pod or Coco list could be playable as well. I also wouldn't be surprised if Lantern Control could be a strong player in this format, although it would get a lot of splash hate with how powerful the artifact decks are.
This also isn't including the combo-hybrid decks like Twin, Amulet-Bloom, Cloudpost or Scapeshift that are still unfair, but play more of a combo-control game than the other decks seen in here.
Another tip: Chalice of the Void shuts down the majority of the super unfair decks that people in here say would win with ease. Stony Silence wrecks many of the top decks, and rest in peace is another similarly dominant SB card.
Final point: Infect is just a worse version of dark depths combo - requires 3 combo pieces (shoal, creature, 9 mana red spell), has less redundancy, and is easier to disrupt (far easier to kill an inkmoth nexus or blighted agent than it is to kill Marit Lage).
I'd actually guess that this years Pro Tour Eldrazi List should be pretty good too. I mean the one with Chalice and SSG maindeck. Does Chrome Mox work with Eldrazis by the way?
Also maybe you could adjust the manabase to support white sb cards like RiP, Stony Silence and Thalia. As Badd Business pointed out, with them you can hate on pretty much any unfair deck in the format.
Some fair deck could compete with the right configuration of their lists but it's clear that unfair, linear (combo) decks profit the most with No Ban Modern List. Most cards on the ban list are there because they provide too powerful combos with other cards.
Yet in most NBL modern events, linear combo decks do not win. How do you explain this?
Another important point everyone is missing here is that Mental Misstep is actually a pretty decent check against the combo decks in the format. It's not quite force of will, but NBL modern combo decks are still not nearly at the level of Legacy combo decks.
As for the combos, keep in mind, yes, they were banned because they're too powerful, but also, those combos were often banned simply due to speed or due to warping the format (including the decks that they played vs.). The interesting thing, is that a lot of the hate you would play for this format is more universal, and isn't so narrow. Thalia, or Gaddock Teeg for instance do a ton of work against just about every deck in the format. Chalice of the void for decks that can support it wrecks a huge portion of the metagame.
Now, the current modern format is not a format that is set up to beat combo decks, so if you were to introduce a fast and consistent combo deck to the format, it would possibly dominate. But in a format that has a big presence of fast combo decks, you would see the rise of midrange and tempo decks that prey on those fast combo decks. Old extended was a format very much akin to this. There was a lot of combo, but there were also decks like Zoo (with Meddling Mages), Next Level Blue, Tezzerator, Faeries, and quite a few others that preyed on the linear decks like Hypergenesis or Elves.
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My store started doing the same thing. I have Jund and Twin built for it. The fair decks are really powerful, you need answers to Affinity, Delver, Storm, Elves, Infect, and "fair" decks. Also Eldrazi is insane in this format. Im contemplating building it next for this format as i have most of the pieces besides the Chalices.
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Active Modern Decks
U Tron GW Bogles RG Loam UR Blue Breach RBU Grixis Goryo BRU Grixis Delver GBR Jund GBW Junk
From my experience playing and testing NBLM, the notion that the linear combo decks are good is flat-out wrong. Most of these NBL modern tournaments have been won by fair decks, or had heavily stacked top 8's with fair decks. Bloodbraid jund is exceptional--you just play all 8 relevant discard spells with some duress in the board, and go turn 1 deathrite, turn 2 triple discard, turn three bloodbraid elf--easy peasy.
Personally, I would be playing some kind of UWR stoneblade--with a VERY light number of non-fetch nonbasics, because I'd be looking to pull off blood moon, stony silence, and rest in peace out of the board. few spell snares, missteps, spell pierces, some mana leaks, and you're good to go.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
in such an event, I would probably borrow 4 Eye of Ugin from a friend, then bring my Eldrazi deck and hope for the best. ^__^
The decks that I don't like to encounter are Affinity and Summer Bloom. Specially Summer Bloom - that deck is super fast and I don't have much sideboard for it.
Firstly, congratulations. I have been trying to get one going at my lgs for months now, to no success.
I think affinity is really strong in these tournaments. Some decks that are strong as well are pyro clamp, bug midrange, and even countertop. I personally would love to play storm, eggs, and even bloom Titan.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
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1) What general deck would you play?
2) What general deck do you think will win the tournament?
3) Would you enjoy no ban list modern for 1 day?
WBB/W TokensWB
WUBAd NauseamWUB
- Commander
WG Captain Sisay's LegendsWG
Affinity
Probably not
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13333&writer=Melissa DeTora&articledate=6-13-2016
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Dredge with Dread Return could be another potent contender. I don't know if Treasure Cruise would factor into this deck, probably not.
But I would probably play UR Storm with Ponder, Preordain, Rite of Flame and Seething Song.
There are a lot of options (obviously). Personally, I would probably opt for a deck that can beat up on the unfair decks, but has the ability to combo out on it's own as well. BTL Scapeshift (with Dig Through Time), Junk Depths, or maybe Jeskai Ascendancy Combo would be my choice.
Quite often, you have pikes try to bring the most unfair deck possible to tournaments like these. As a result, you often have unassuming "fair" decks like Death and Taxes clean up off the back of simple maindeck cards like Thalia, along with sideboard stony silences. Just be prepared to have a sideboard that can deal with graveyards, artifacts, and can stop decks from playing lots of spells in one turn (either maindeck or sideboard).
Yes, it's a surprisingly diverse format (at least with how it is currently set up in an unsettled meta) that allows even fair decks to thrive. Some decks can be insanely quick, but those decks often lose to slower decks that have the requisite answers. Even a deck like Burn can be a strong contender to win a tournament.
Overall Thoughts on the Format From Actually Playing It
1. Skullclamp isn't as overpowered as people think. That's not to say it's bad, but it's far from ridiculously over-powered. The two decks it is super powerful in are Elves and Affinity, both of which you would need to have a lot of hate for anyway. In non-combo decks like UR delver, it's strong, but not really any stronger of a card advantage source than something like Treasure Cruise. Also, considering you have to sacrifice your own creatures, it's important to realize it is also a tempo disadvantage unlike Cruise.
2. Affinity and other linear decks are insane, but also extremely vulnerable to artifact disruption and general hate. People who say Affinity will reign supreme must be forgetting the fact that everyone will be packing Stony Silences and other uber-strong hate cards in their sideboard.
3. Hypergenesis is bad. Seriously, it's a linear combo deck that at it's best, is no faster than the other linear combo decks (Storm, Elves, Dredge, Shoal), but is way easier to disrupt, and loses to its own bad-draws way more often.
4. Twin is a great format policeman. In essence, it still plays the role of "combo deck that beats other linear decks" quite handily.
5. UR delver-style decks will obviously be a staple, but have their own weaknesses as well.
6. Dark-Depths decks are significantly underrated. One of the best decks I played with was a Junk-Depths list that was a standard midrange deck with a lot of disruption that could occasionally win out of nowhere with Depths. With Thespian's Stage int he format, there is a ton of inevitability, and there is nothing a control deck can do to counter the playing of lands.
7. Cloudpost decks are strong - they can wreck most of the fair decks in the format, and with enough disruption, can possibly have game against the unfair decks as well. I prefer UR cloudpost, although UW cloudpost could work well since Path to Exile may be more important in the format with Twin and Marit Lage.
8. All-In Red is really powerful, and gets better the more people want to play unfair decks, which tends to be the majority of people in tournaments like these.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Horrible, it's too slow and lacks too much interaction.
EDIT: OH! It also ran Ornithopter and Ensoul Artifact. It was a lot of fun.
My 720 Peasant Cube
I would lose to hypergenesis
hypergenesis will win
yes I would enjoy beating the bloodbraid decks
I would lose to hypergenesis
hypergenesis will win
yes I would enjoy beating the bloodbraid decks
1) Splinter Twin with Ponder, Preordain, DTT, and Mental Misstep ~OR~ Treasure Cruise Delver/Burn.
2) Affinity or Infect
3) Probably. Would be nice if proxies were allowed for those not already invested in banned cards. Not really worth it for Modern players to buy cards that can't see play in Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Please read this article first people - http://www.moxboardinghouse.com/media/modern-no-banned-list/
This isn't bad either - http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13333&writer=Melissa DeTora&articledate=6-13-2016.
Hypergenesis is not that good: It never was that good. Not sure where this "consensus" is coming from. I'm guessing none of these people have ever tried playing this format, nor did they ever play old extended back before modern existed. Hypergenesis is a turn 3 combo deck that has a very tough time fighting through disruption, and will often lose to it's own terrible hands. You would be far better off playing Storm, Eggs, Affinity, Elf-Ball, or Infect if you want to play a deck that wins super fast, yet can actually win through some disruption.
And yes, fair decks are perfectly viable in NBL modern: Stoneblade, Countertop, Miracles, Death and Taxes, UR Delver, Burn, GW Maverick, Tezzerator, Deadguy Ale, Faeries, Jund, Junk are all both viable as well as competitive in this format. I wouldn't doubt that a competitive hatebear-oriented Pod or Coco list could be playable as well. I also wouldn't be surprised if Lantern Control could be a strong player in this format, although it would get a lot of splash hate with how powerful the artifact decks are.
This also isn't including the combo-hybrid decks like Twin, Amulet-Bloom, Cloudpost or Scapeshift that are still unfair, but play more of a combo-control game than the other decks seen in here.
Another tip: Chalice of the Void shuts down the majority of the super unfair decks that people in here say would win with ease. Stony Silence wrecks many of the top decks, and rest in peace is another similarly dominant SB card.
Final point: Infect is just a worse version of dark depths combo - requires 3 combo pieces (shoal, creature, 9 mana red spell), has less redundancy, and is easier to disrupt (far easier to kill an inkmoth nexus or blighted agent than it is to kill Marit Lage).
Also maybe you could adjust the manabase to support white sb cards like RiP, Stony Silence and Thalia. As Badd Business pointed out, with them you can hate on pretty much any unfair deck in the format.
Yet in most NBL modern events, linear combo decks do not win. How do you explain this?
Another important point everyone is missing here is that Mental Misstep is actually a pretty decent check against the combo decks in the format. It's not quite force of will, but NBL modern combo decks are still not nearly at the level of Legacy combo decks.
As for the combos, keep in mind, yes, they were banned because they're too powerful, but also, those combos were often banned simply due to speed or due to warping the format (including the decks that they played vs.). The interesting thing, is that a lot of the hate you would play for this format is more universal, and isn't so narrow. Thalia, or Gaddock Teeg for instance do a ton of work against just about every deck in the format. Chalice of the void for decks that can support it wrecks a huge portion of the metagame.
Now, the current modern format is not a format that is set up to beat combo decks, so if you were to introduce a fast and consistent combo deck to the format, it would possibly dominate. But in a format that has a big presence of fast combo decks, you would see the rise of midrange and tempo decks that prey on those fast combo decks. Old extended was a format very much akin to this. There was a lot of combo, but there were also decks like Zoo (with Meddling Mages), Next Level Blue, Tezzerator, Faeries, and quite a few others that preyed on the linear decks like Hypergenesis or Elves.
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
Decks
Modern
BGR Jund RGB
BW Eldrazi and Taxes WB
BWGAbzan Company GWB
Mtgo Modern
G Company Elves G
Personally, I would be playing some kind of UWR stoneblade--with a VERY light number of non-fetch nonbasics, because I'd be looking to pull off blood moon, stony silence, and rest in peace out of the board. few spell snares, missteps, spell pierces, some mana leaks, and you're good to go.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
The decks that I don't like to encounter are Affinity and Summer Bloom. Specially Summer Bloom - that deck is super fast and I don't have much sideboard for it.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I think affinity is really strong in these tournaments. Some decks that are strong as well are pyro clamp, bug midrange, and even countertop. I personally would love to play storm, eggs, and even bloom Titan.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)