Going into a semi-unknown meta, what would you think would be the smartest deck to play for a PTQ this season? I imagine there will be a little bit of everything - Jund, Affinity, Zoo, Twin, Melira, Boros, (insert control deck here), etc.
I think I'm leaning towards playing either Melira or Boros, depending on how the gauntlet runs go in hte next few weeks. Just curious of other's opinions.
There are several thread on the forum that have discussed this question extensively. I suggest you take a look at them and benefit from the many replies that have already been made.
should have good matches against random jank, and it also is pretty soul crushing for combo and control. You will need to sideboard against aggro decks though...
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I normally don't like to quote and break up the original post of a thread like this, but there seem to be two separate questions--not simply the aforementioned title itself.
Going into a semi-unknown meta, what would you think would be the smartest deck to play for a PTQ this season? I imagine there will be a little bit of everything - Jund, Affinity, Zoo, Twin, Melira, Boros, (insert control deck here), etc.
A lot of very skilled players tend to go for a very aggressive deck or a very broken deck in the beginning of a format's season, or after some kind of major set rotation. Brad Nelson, for example, prefers to be as aggressive as possible in order to attack weak manabases and looser initial strategies of a format--although I remember distinctly that he was explaining this about grinding on MTGO (not necessarily about PTQ grinding, a different entity).
I understand the idea that you want to be aggressive when people are still working out ideas; you can win a lot by kicking them in the shins, so to speak. However, I also believe that a well-built control deck has the same kind of chance to wreck players--just in a different fashion. People are playing decks with weak mana, right? That means the aggressive decks and the combo decks are going to stumble early, so you can dodge a lot of nut draws because of opposing inconsistencies. People are playing looser strategies, right? That means they're not yet tuned to beat explosives+ruins or some other lock from a control deck. They're not yet necessarily prepared to handle 15 counterspells and a bunch of storage lands/instant draw. They're not yet built to handle attrition wars properly.
I think it's important for a player to use a deck with which he's comfortable, but I want to point out the fact that control is often just as metagame-savvy a choice in the early stages of a PTQ season as some of the aggro decks or combo decks. This format especially is full of some ridiculous control tools (in all aspects of the archetype's needs), and Wizards has put forth a lot of effort into building Modern as a place where you are supposed to have a fair chance to interact with your opponent without some of the crazy opening plays have been banned (notably things like Rite of Flame and Ancestral Vision, but also Bitterblossom...because they are very difficult to tangibly defend). If the format is designed to be interactive, I personally want to try my hand at interacting with some kind of control--not to simply rely on my deck's first 10 cards beating my opponent's first 10 cards in a game.
I think I'm leaning towards playing either Melira or Boros, depending on how the gauntlet runs go in hte next few weeks. Just curious of other's opinions.
If you must choose between one of those two specific decks, I urge you to lean away from Melira. A deck which completely relies on Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, and the Persist mechanic is a very poor choice after the release of Grafdigger's Cage, which will have a profound effect on this format (and in every other format; let's face it). People will be playing it; it's only a matter of time before it shows up and forces half the metagame's strategies to evolve. In addition, the 'Melira' combo itself isn't very strong or resilient. You need a sac outlet, Melira herself, and either Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap, and you need all of these to be in play. That's 3 combo pieces that have to resolve and not be removed, as vulnerable small creatures. Then, you're looking at a combo that is still weak to graveyard hate. I understand that they also happen to share the benefit of being decent Rock-type creatures with beatdown potential as a B-plan, but the strategy is so half-baked.
At least with Boros, you're looking at a much more stable strategy with some very powerful, across-the-board versatile cards like Bolt and Path. A big reason why countermagic is so strong and why I like it so much is that it can answer almost anything. In the same manner that a Permission deck is built upon a critical mass of all-purpose answers, Boros is full of cards which can nearly always be useful. If you want your deck to be strong against an open field, play a deck that isn't full of narrow answers, and one which doesn't lose to the generic answers in the field. You want to win the PTQ, not just go X-2 or one-and-done in the top 8. Right?
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I think I'm leaning towards playing either Melira or Boros, depending on how the gauntlet runs go in hte next few weeks. Just curious of other's opinions.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
should have good matches against random jank, and it also is pretty soul crushing for combo and control. You will need to sideboard against aggro decks though...
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A lot of very skilled players tend to go for a very aggressive deck or a very broken deck in the beginning of a format's season, or after some kind of major set rotation. Brad Nelson, for example, prefers to be as aggressive as possible in order to attack weak manabases and looser initial strategies of a format--although I remember distinctly that he was explaining this about grinding on MTGO (not necessarily about PTQ grinding, a different entity).
I understand the idea that you want to be aggressive when people are still working out ideas; you can win a lot by kicking them in the shins, so to speak. However, I also believe that a well-built control deck has the same kind of chance to wreck players--just in a different fashion. People are playing decks with weak mana, right? That means the aggressive decks and the combo decks are going to stumble early, so you can dodge a lot of nut draws because of opposing inconsistencies. People are playing looser strategies, right? That means they're not yet tuned to beat explosives+ruins or some other lock from a control deck. They're not yet necessarily prepared to handle 15 counterspells and a bunch of storage lands/instant draw. They're not yet built to handle attrition wars properly.
I think it's important for a player to use a deck with which he's comfortable, but I want to point out the fact that control is often just as metagame-savvy a choice in the early stages of a PTQ season as some of the aggro decks or combo decks. This format especially is full of some ridiculous control tools (in all aspects of the archetype's needs), and Wizards has put forth a lot of effort into building Modern as a place where you are supposed to have a fair chance to interact with your opponent without some of the crazy opening plays have been banned (notably things like Rite of Flame and Ancestral Vision, but also Bitterblossom...because they are very difficult to tangibly defend). If the format is designed to be interactive, I personally want to try my hand at interacting with some kind of control--not to simply rely on my deck's first 10 cards beating my opponent's first 10 cards in a game.
If you must choose between one of those two specific decks, I urge you to lean away from Melira. A deck which completely relies on Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, and the Persist mechanic is a very poor choice after the release of Grafdigger's Cage, which will have a profound effect on this format (and in every other format; let's face it). People will be playing it; it's only a matter of time before it shows up and forces half the metagame's strategies to evolve. In addition, the 'Melira' combo itself isn't very strong or resilient. You need a sac outlet, Melira herself, and either Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap, and you need all of these to be in play. That's 3 combo pieces that have to resolve and not be removed, as vulnerable small creatures. Then, you're looking at a combo that is still weak to graveyard hate. I understand that they also happen to share the benefit of being decent Rock-type creatures with beatdown potential as a B-plan, but the strategy is so half-baked.
At least with Boros, you're looking at a much more stable strategy with some very powerful, across-the-board versatile cards like Bolt and Path. A big reason why countermagic is so strong and why I like it so much is that it can answer almost anything. In the same manner that a Permission deck is built upon a critical mass of all-purpose answers, Boros is full of cards which can nearly always be useful. If you want your deck to be strong against an open field, play a deck that isn't full of narrow answers, and one which doesn't lose to the generic answers in the field. You want to win the PTQ, not just go X-2 or one-and-done in the top 8. Right?