I never thought I'd see the day when someone would classify a non-combo midrange beatdown deck, whose primary win condition is manlands and a creature that dies to virtually every removal spell available, as unfair.
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Currently playing:
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
In general the problem with "changing gears" is that you can draw the wrong half of your deck for the given situation. you can draw aggro when you need control and draw control when you need aggro.
Rock is the fairest deck in modern it is the "fun" police, it helps balance the format. Sometimes they are going to thoughsieze, crack fetch, 3/4 tarmogoyf and it seems unfair when you are holding a lightning bolt.
I think we might see a resurgence of the Rock hate decks like Living end.
Thats why GBx decks are so consistent. /sarcasm
The fairest of the fair decks is Zoo. It has a straight forward game plan and can not veer from it except for maybe a burn spell or 2. Yes GBx decks are more fair then full powered Storm or Scapeshift, but as we saw today, the GBx shell has too much going for it for most decks to beat it. Even a control deck pulling out every trick the deck has couldnt win the match. Fast Affinity or Infect were no match for GBx decks. I am not saying GBx decks are the most broken unfair deck in the format, they are not, they are too consistent, can switch gears on the fly mid game, and are very resilient to most decks in the format, I would say all but GBx has to have a bad match up out there.
None of which makes it "unfair", given what "unfair" means in magic parlance. It is a homonym with the normal meaning of "unfair", but not a synonym.
Its a subjective idea, not everyone has the same definition as you do to unfair/fair decks.
Gotta agree with the guy on the last page who says that argument is dumb and we could all focus our time on things that actually matter in some way, but if I only spent my life caring about things that make me depressed I'd have killed myself by now.
Come to a Magic site and complain about the Magic talk, sounds like a good idea.
Quote from Galerion »
Did you see that game from BG/x vs. UWR Control piloted by Jackie Lee? She got insane value from her Wall of Omens and Restoration Angels and a Sphinx's Revelation of the top for 6 basically ended the game. That is what control is supposed to do and yet is doesn't happen regularly enough.
I have talked about that often enough but that would be easily changeable. A quick look over the ban list is all that is needed to see that.
The irrational fear for blue is laughable anyway considering the status that the BG/x decks have in Modern because the only thing that it has accomplished is that you have BG/x decks fun policing the format instead of a blue control deck. BG/x decks will rip your hand apart and destroy your stuff just like every other control deck would do too.
If you have read anything I have ever written about Modern, one thing I am so happy about is its not a blue based format like other older formats. You can play any color you wish and have a shot at making top 8-16. Its not a fear of blue, its liking diversity. There is nothing on the ban list that could help blue without shifting the format toward blue. SO I am fine with how the format is right now. If you notice, I have not asked for something be done about GBx decks.
Because the BG/x decks promote diversity, right?
They keep every other random garbage out that can't compete with their power. It's that simple.
I mean Im not complaining. Im a BG/x player myself but saying that you want diversity is a bit funny when you look at the whole picture. The devil is the same after all. He is just wearing a BG face instead of a blue one
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
And you seriously think that an unbanning of Ancestral Vision would change that?
And yes you are right that all colors are there but let's not kid ourselves here. There is no base white or red deck to be seen anywhere.
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
And you seriously think that an unbanning of Ancestral Vision would change that?
And yes you are right that all colors are there but let's not kid ourselves here. There is no base white or red deck to be seen anywhere.
Not sure. All I can say is in the past when AV was in a format, that format was tilted toward blue in most cases. I am not sure it is worth it to possibly disrupt what we have to see what happens.
As for red based decks, there is burn and a couple of them made day 2. White is a real good complimentary color in Modern, but just not strong enough to be a main color with what else we have. (Now that I say that someone will run white weenie in the near future and prove me wrong).
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
And you seriously think that an unbanning of Ancestral Vision would change that?
And yes you are right that all colors are there but let's not kid ourselves here. There is no base white or red deck to be seen anywhere.
Not sure. All I can say is in the past when AV was in a format, that format was tilted toward blue in most cases. I am not sure it is worth it to possibly disrupt what we have to see what happens.
As for red based decks, there is burn and a couple of them made day 2. White is a real good complimentary color in Modern, but just not strong enough to be a main color with what else we have. (Now that I say that someone will run white weenie in the near future and prove me wrong).
Those past formats didn't have the BG decks in their current form in them though.
As for White Weenie Im sure that Craig Wescoe has already tried it and failed miserably.
And liliana does it again. It's Modern's brainstorm. You can put whatever you want in your deck without fear of it being useless against some decks: you just discard it if it is.
Against scapeshift use all your seizes while you discard your removals. Against aggro use all your removals while you discard your seizes.
Easy.
Not saying it's too strong. I don't know since I haven't tested in a while thanks to the new crap mtgo client.
Btw wizards, still waiting for its reprint in a duel deck.
And liliana does it again. It's Modern's brainstorm. You can put whatever you want in your deck without fear of it being useless against some decks: you just discard it if it is.
Against scapeshift use all your seizes while you discard your removals. Against aggro use all your removals while you discard your seizes.
Easy.
Not saying it's too strong. I don't know since I haven't tested in a while thanks to the new crap mtgo client.
Btw wizards, still waiting for its reprint in a duel deck.
You can thank Standard for not being reprinted yet. She was planned to be in M15.
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
Annndd a mono-white deck won the whole thing. And the most significant Legacy event of the year was won by a 4-color Loam deck that ran every color except blue. And that Top 8 featured more white mana sources than blue ones. But I digress...
This isn't the place for a discussion of color diversity versus archetypal/strategic diversity. It's really not even the place for Banned List discussion. That said, there are only 2 cards on that list that would heavily sway the meta towards a more blue-centric focus, and Wizards has shown a heavy-handed commitment to keeping those cards banned. So fret not. You're safe.
Hint: Neither of them is Ancestral Visions.
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Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
Is wotc not bothering to post the top 16 decks anymore or something?
(they could alwas just post wafo-tapa's deck, since it probably the biggest reason for anyone caring about seeing the top 16 decks)
I dont agree, but thats fine we are allowed to disagree without the conversation getting out of hand.
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
Annndd a mono-white deck won the whole thing. And the most significant Legacy event of the year was won by a 4-color Loam deck that ran every color except blue. And that Top 8 featured more white mana sources than blue ones. But I digress...
This isn't the place for a discussion of color diversity versus archetypal/strategic diversity. It's really not even the place for Banned List discussion. That said, there are only 2 cards on that list that would heavily sway the meta towards a more blue-centric focus, and Wizards has shown a heavy-handed commitment to keeping those cards banned. So fret not. You're safe.
Hint: Neither of them is Ancestral Visions.
Its not about the winner, its about diversity. I dont care if there was only 1 mono colored deck in the top 8-16 and it won. Its still only 1 out of 8-16 decks. Its called diversity.
Its all about personal desires of what each of us want out of the format. From past posts we both know the other does not want the same thing the other wants out of the format. I personally think Wotc is doing a very good job with Modern. Much better then they did with Legacy when it began. But they have the mistakes of the birth of Legacy to learn from while shaping Modern.
I never thought I'd see the day when someone would classify a non-combo midrange beatdown deck, whose primary win condition is manlands and a creature that dies to virtually every removal spell available, as unfair.
Ehhhhh, I think Wafo doing well with that deck speaks more about how good of a player he is, than the viability of it.
Tough to say. You don't necessarily see decks that aren't "viable" at top 16 in a 2500 player event. His skill, no doubt, has something to do with it, but I'm pretty sure only viable decks have good enough odds to win enough games to put up a result like that.
I'm still somewhat under the impression that many of modern's control decks have to yet to really be hashed out due to the lack of players capable of both building and piloting such a deck. With the lack of good card selection spells its hard to build a reactive deck that works consistently.
Does this esper deck remind anyone else of the old Mystical Teachings decks (obviously without the Teachings)??
I am quite surprised with some of the deck choices, both positively and negatively. but i am no Wafo, so i prolly dont have the right to doubt. I'll have to sleeve it up and see how it runs. Maybe someone should start a thread in the creation forums to discuss further testing and changes to the deck.
While the list is okay, It seems like it runs too much card-draw as opposed to cards that actually do something. 4 Think Twice, 2 Sphinx's Revelation, 2 Shadow of Doubt (which will often be used just for the cantrip), and 4 Esper Charms (which are usually used to draw cards) just seems like way too much. And it comes at a great expense too. He only is running 2 Snapcaster Mages, no Mana Leaks, and only 4 spot-removal spells. At the very least I would put Dismember and an additional Snapcaster Mage in here.
Ehhhhh, I think Wafo doing well with that deck speaks more about how good of a player he is, than the viability of it.
Agreed. I'm not really seeing the benefit of playing this over something like U/W/R or even straight U/W. He's splashing black for Thoughtseize out of the sideboard and Esper Charm. That's it.
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Currently playing:
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
While the list is okay, It seems like it runs too much card-draw as opposed to cards that actually do something. 4 Think Twice, 2 Sphinx's Revelation, 2 Shadow of Doubt (which will often be used just for the cantrip), and 4 Esper Charms (which are usually used to draw cards) just seems like way too much. And it comes at a great expense too. He only is running 2 Snapcaster Mages, no Mana Leaks, and only 4 spot-removal spells. At the very least I would put Dismember and an additional Snapcaster Mage in here.
I don't disagree with the card draw, but path to exile is really bad with mana leak. I'd rather play path to exile in this format than mana leak.
Ehhhhh, I think Wafo doing well with that deck speaks more about how good of a player he is, than the viability of it.
Yup. I ran Esper control a while ago and it was a lot of fun (I was more of the Liliana, Thoughtseize, inquisition, type of player) but I just couldn't close out games like UWR (the bolts and such).
I did try Esper Gifts however, and it was awesome. Might rebuild that...I need some Onslaught fetches though...
While the list is okay, It seems like it runs too much card-draw as opposed to cards that actually do something. 4 Think Twice, 2 Sphinx's Revelation, 2 Shadow of Doubt (which will often be used just for the cantrip), and 4 Esper Charms (which are usually used to draw cards) just seems like way too much. And it comes at a great expense too. He only is running 2 Snapcaster Mages, no Mana Leaks, and only 4 spot-removal spells. At the very least I would put Dismember and an additional Snapcaster Mage in here.
I don't disagree with the card draw, but path to exile is really bad with mana leak. I'd rather play path to exile in this format than mana leak.
I'd at least cut the Remands for Mana Leaks. It is not like he is at a shortage of ways to cheaply draw cards and they are both made weaker by Path to Exile.
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
Because the BG/x decks promote diversity, right?
They keep every other random garbage out that can't compete with their power. It's that simple.
I mean Im not complaining. Im a BG/x player myself but saying that you want diversity is a bit funny when you look at the whole picture. The devil is the same after all. He is just wearing a BG face instead of a blue one
Green nor black were not in every deck in the top 8 or top 16. All colors were represented. Unlike the top list for Legacy from SCG which shows 5 of the top 8 being blue and 11 of the top 16 being blue. There is no one card or color you have to play to be competitive in Modern. That is refreshing to me.
And you seriously think that an unbanning of Ancestral Vision would change that?
And yes you are right that all colors are there but let's not kid ourselves here. There is no base white or red deck to be seen anywhere.
Not sure. All I can say is in the past when AV was in a format, that format was tilted toward blue in most cases. I am not sure it is worth it to possibly disrupt what we have to see what happens.
As for red based decks, there is burn and a couple of them made day 2. White is a real good complimentary color in Modern, but just not strong enough to be a main color with what else we have. (Now that I say that someone will run white weenie in the near future and prove me wrong).
Those past formats didn't have the BG decks in their current form in them though.
As for White Weenie Im sure that Craig Wescoe has already tried it and failed miserably.
Against scapeshift use all your seizes while you discard your removals. Against aggro use all your removals while you discard your seizes.
Easy.
Not saying it's too strong. I don't know since I haven't tested in a while thanks to the new crap mtgo client.
Btw wizards, still waiting for its reprint in a duel deck.
You can thank Standard for not being reprinted yet. She was planned to be in M15.
Annndd a mono-white deck won the whole thing. And the most significant Legacy event of the year was won by a 4-color Loam deck that ran every color except blue. And that Top 8 featured more white mana sources than blue ones. But I digress...
This isn't the place for a discussion of color diversity versus archetypal/strategic diversity. It's really not even the place for Banned List discussion. That said, there are only 2 cards on that list that would heavily sway the meta towards a more blue-centric focus, and Wizards has shown a heavy-handed commitment to keeping those cards banned. So fret not. You're safe.
Hint: Neither of them is Ancestral Visions.
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
(they could alwas just post wafo-tapa's deck, since it probably the biggest reason for anyone caring about seeing the top 16 decks)
Its not about the winner, its about diversity. I dont care if there was only 1 mono colored deck in the top 8-16 and it won. Its still only 1 out of 8-16 decks. Its called diversity.
Its all about personal desires of what each of us want out of the format. From past posts we both know the other does not want the same thing the other wants out of the format. I personally think Wotc is doing a very good job with Modern. Much better then they did with Legacy when it began. But they have the mistakes of the birth of Legacy to learn from while shaping Modern.
It's a weird word semantics kind of nonsense.
Because there's unfair, and then there's unfair.
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Marsh Flats
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Spell Snare
4 Path to Exile
2 Remand
2 Logic Knot
2 Shadow of Doubt
4 Think Twice
4 Esper Charm
4 Cryptic Command
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
2 Sphinx's Revelation
1 White Sun's Zenith
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Celestial purge
1 Disenchant
1 Detention Sphere
1 Wrath of God
2 Stony Silence
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 Thoughtseize
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
WURUWr Stoneblade
Modern
WRGNaya Zoo Company
Wow how sweet. You are a hero.
Building this immediately
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
Agreed, UWR is still better in every way. 1 good showing by a good player means nothing more than he is a good pilot.
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
Tough to say. You don't necessarily see decks that aren't "viable" at top 16 in a 2500 player event. His skill, no doubt, has something to do with it, but I'm pretty sure only viable decks have good enough odds to win enough games to put up a result like that.
I'm still somewhat under the impression that many of modern's control decks have to yet to really be hashed out due to the lack of players capable of both building and piloting such a deck. With the lack of good card selection spells its hard to build a reactive deck that works consistently.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
I am quite surprised with some of the deck choices, both positively and negatively. but i am no Wafo, so i prolly dont have the right to doubt. I'll have to sleeve it up and see how it runs. Maybe someone should start a thread in the creation forums to discuss further testing and changes to the deck.
While the list is okay, It seems like it runs too much card-draw as opposed to cards that actually do something. 4 Think Twice, 2 Sphinx's Revelation, 2 Shadow of Doubt (which will often be used just for the cantrip), and 4 Esper Charms (which are usually used to draw cards) just seems like way too much. And it comes at a great expense too. He only is running 2 Snapcaster Mages, no Mana Leaks, and only 4 spot-removal spells. At the very least I would put Dismember and an additional Snapcaster Mage in here.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Agreed. I'm not really seeing the benefit of playing this over something like U/W/R or even straight U/W. He's splashing black for Thoughtseize out of the sideboard and Esper Charm. That's it.
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
I don't disagree with the card draw, but path to exile is really bad with mana leak. I'd rather play path to exile in this format than mana leak.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
Yup. I ran Esper control a while ago and it was a lot of fun (I was more of the Liliana, Thoughtseize, inquisition, type of player) but I just couldn't close out games like UWR (the bolts and such).
I did try Esper Gifts however, and it was awesome. Might rebuild that...I need some Onslaught fetches though...
Modern PTQ #4775904
on 12/24/2012Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Mystic Gate
1 Plains
2 Reflecting Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Watery Grave
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (30)
1 Consume the Meek
4 Cryptic Command
1 Dismember
4 Electrolyze
4 Esper Charm
3 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mystical Teachings
4 Remand
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Terminate
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Celestial Purge
2 Counterflux
1 Extirpate
1 Smelt
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Thoughtseize
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Vendilion Clique
I'd at least cut the Remands for Mana Leaks. It is not like he is at a shortage of ways to cheaply draw cards and they are both made weaker by Path to Exile.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.