It think many people are misunderstanding his article. He seems to be saying that Modern is super good for those who enjoy diversity. But he says it's bad for players trying to be competitive in it - aka the return of Modern to the Pro Tour. I don't particularly think he's incorrect. I agree with most of what he said.
He said that he tried Modern without playing much and did super well. Later on, he tested like a mad man and did poorly. That is Modern right now for a lot of players, myself included. I think the title is misleading and is more clickbait, or a way to get someone to read his article.
*On another note, I don't understand why so many people are quick to jump all over him for something they misunderstand - most players not even wanting to play Modern competitively. (Now, if you want to jump on him because he thinks JTMS shouldn't be banned, that's another thing altogether. )
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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)
It think many people are misunderstanding his article. He seems to be saying that Modern is super good for those who enjoy diversity. But he says it's bad for players trying to be competitive in it - aka the return of Modern to the Pro Tour. I don't particularly think he's incorrect. I agree with most of what he said.
He said that he tried Modern without playing much and did super well. Later on, he tested like a mad man and did poorly. That is Modern right now for a lot of players, myself included. I think the title is misleading and is more clickbait, or a way to get someone to read his article.
*On another note, I don't understand why so many people are quick to jump all over him for something they misunderstand - most players not even wanting to play Modern competitively. (Now, if you want to jump on him because he thinks JTMS shouldn't be banned, that's another thing altogether. )
(try not assuming other people's reading comprehensions skills). He's wrong about the diversity factor because if modern was truly a match-up and sideboard lottery then we should see an almost random smattering of players at the top tables. We don't. Stevens, Hoogland, Shehar, ect... have all had consistent success in modern.
And players *choose* to opt into the match-up lottery. Jund, DS, Junk, Coco, UWx, are all decks that have very few 60-40 matchups. His friend in the article could have chosen UWx if he didn't want to get smashed by hate.
I'm jumping on him because modern is a great format for competitive. We've seen it be such. But many pros seem to drop all that pro stuff and complain when a format doesn't converge on 3-5 decks. Adapt, I know they can, it's part of being a pro or should be anyways.
I guess that 10 people are going to take his article 10 different ways.
Sure, you can choose super interactive decks in today's current Modern. I think that by doing so, you're doing yourself a HUGE disservice. It's much better to be proactive in this format and goldfish your opponents out of the game. In some tournaments, you dodge hate and do well. In some tournaments, they all have Stony Silence. Or you could slog through a Modern tournament with something like UW Control and pray that after all that work, everything has pretty much lined up perfectly for you. You have drawn Rest in Peace every time you needed it. You have mulliganed 0 times. You have drawn Stony Silence or Snapcaster Mage with a million removal spells. Your draws have lined up perfectly with all 15 of your opponents in every round, give or take a round or 2. Meanwhile, someone like Mani Davoudi has spent much less time, running through the competition at Grand Prix Las Vegas, capped off by winning on a mull to 4.
Grixis Shadow is pretty much the last "glue" that is keeping the format from being extremely noninteractive. Jund and Junk aren't really contenders. Jeskai is in a good place right now, but can easily get pushed out, defaulting something else in that shaky spot. CoCo is okay. I play many of these decks. But simply put, competitively, I would be doing myself a (slight) disservice by using one of those, compared with something like E Tron, Storm, GDS, or Titanshift. Don't get me wrong. They're terribly fun to play and I believe that they are nearly as good as the very top 4 decks, but competitively, being close to good enough is not good enough unless you're finding an empty spot in the metagame to slide through.
Todd Stevens plays E Tron or a deck that tries to Ghost Quarter you out of the game. Jeff Hoogland plays GB Tron. Bringing up Hoogland actually goes against your statement. He used to top 8 twelve tournaments in a row with a Tier 2-3 deck in Kiki Chord during a meta of Twin and Bloom Titan. Since those have been banned, the guy is nearly nonexistent. Remember, this is a player who was at the top of the Leaderboard for SCG by a big margin. I don't think he even has 30 points currently. I do also realize that family obligations come into play too, but the HUGE difference says something. Shahar hasn't even played Modern too much recently, has he? I'm guessing he's on Jeskai Queller if he does, which I admit is in a good place...right now.
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)
I guess that 10 people are going to take his article 10 different ways.
Sure, you can choose super interactive decks in today's current Modern. I think that by doing so, you're doing yourself a HUGE disservice. It's much better to be proactive in this format and goldfish your opponents out of the game. In some tournaments, you dodge hate and do well. In some tournaments, they all have Stony Silence. Or you could slog through a Modern tournament with something like UW Control and pray that after all that work, everything has pretty much lined up perfectly for you. You have drawn Rest in Peace every time you needed it. You have mulliganed 0 times. You have drawn Stony Silence or Snapcaster Mage with a million removal spells. Your draws have lined up perfectly with all 15 of your opponents in every round, give or take a round or 2. Meanwhile, someone like Mani Davoudi has spent much less time, running through the competition at Grand Prix Las Vegas, capped off by winning on a mull to 4.
Grixis Shadow is pretty much the last "glue" that is keeping the format from being extremely noninteractive. Jund and Junk aren't really contenders. Jeskai is in a good place right now, but can easily get pushed out, defaulting something else in that shaky spot. CoCo is okay. I play many of these decks. But simply put, competitively, I would be doing myself a (slight) disservice by using one of those, compared with something like E Tron, Storm, GDS, or Titanshift. Don't get me wrong. They're terribly fun to play and I believe that they are nearly as good as the very top 4 decks, but competitively, being close to good enough is not good enough unless you're finding an empty spot in the metagame to slide through.
Todd Stevens plays E Tron or a deck that tries to Ghost Quarter you out of the game. Jeff Hoogland plays GB Tron. Bringing up Hoogland actually goes against your statement. He used to top 8 twelve tournaments in a row with a Tier 2-3 deck in Kiki Chord during a meta of Twin and Bloom Titan. Since those have been banned, the guy is nearly nonexistent. Remember, this is a player who was at the top of the Leaderboard for SCG by a big margin. I don't think he even has 30 points currently. I do also realize that family obligations come into play too, but the HUGE difference says something. Shahar hasn't even played Modern too much recently, has he? I'm guessing he's on Jeskai Queller if he does, which I admit is in a good place...right now.
Splinter Twin was banned at the time Hoogland made many (not all) of those finishes with Kiki-Chord. Look at the dates...
He made the meta-game transition. He dedicated the time to knowing the ins and outs of the match-ups and it showed. Why has he not been showing up recently? He's openly stated that he's focusing less on magic to focus on family.
And what about Tom Ross tearing up modern on multiple occasions with his 8-rack? DeCandio talks about modern meta-game issues but it seems people that are not him have done the hard work of poking holes in the meta game.
In fact the recent rise in Storm are reactions to the downturn in DS decks. It used to be they were everywhere, and nothing chomps down on storm as hard as DS, but then people adjusted to DS by running more affinity, valkut, ect... (decks favored against DS). So naturally Storm crept back up while those decks were keeping DS down. This is the churning of a meta-game.
I just don't buy the argument that Modern isn't a good competitive format because you can't sideboard perfectly against every strategy. I believe Modern just requires more generic sideboard strategies. For example, Wrath of God would cover more decks than just affinity but wouldn't shut it down as effectively as stony silence does.
I like modern because I can play several diffrent decks some years apart and go back to them, standard I can't. Standard sometimes makes me play a set/sets I don't like whereas modern isn't affected by the seasonal flavor and always finds a few cards in every set worth playing without me having to go all in on the new sets.
Standard is hard for younger people with limited money to get into, they don't have the money to buy all the cards FAST enough, for most it's get one or two of the most powerful cards and that's all they'll ever get before it rotates. Modern they see long term investment and I think that is a bigger draw to them, and they are the future.
I watched this kid in three years build his eldrazi deck from nothing to a tier deck starting with his first thoughtknot, he didn't have money to get into standard but he had enough to buy a pack here and there and trade into what he could, ultimately he wouldn't have ever made a good standard deck at his price point in a timely fashion to play it before it rotated out. But a modern eldrazi tron deck, he was able to buy a piece here and there with minimal fear and now he's turned into such a good player that I think he could place well at a pro tournament.
If he was stuck with standard and the cost combined with the timeframe to get the cards, he probably wouldn't even still be playing magic.
Idk, I think standard is ok for those that have deeper pockets, modern I feel you get more time out of your investment.
I think modern is more challenging because of its diversity and I prefer it as my format of choice because of that, keeps me on my toes and is never boring.
Standard I can memorize all the decks because all the top ones can be counted on one hand, gets boring fast.
Well, a bit from Temporary Meta and Banlist discussion concerning an SCG event:
Quote from Jonny_Tempel »
So Top8 looks like: 2 Death and Taxes (1 normal, 1 Eldrazi Taxes)
1 Infect
1 Storm
1 Affinity
1 Merfolk
1 Humans
1 Counters Company
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
I see two Midrange decks actually: Merfolk (Tribal Midrange, as its critical mass revolves around enough Lords and a Spreading Seas and then protecting those if possible), and Counters Company (and no, this isn't fast combo; it is effectively bad midrange featuring a few 'I Win!' buttons should the stars align).
Midrange is in a decent spot at least; it just needs to adapt and possibly embrace other archetypes as well. The only archetype that may need a pick-me-up is Control, and that's if we consider Tron and Titanshift variants 'too fast' to be control (I'm of the opinion that classic draw-attack-go control should not be viable as it represents too strong of a reactive suite).
Well, a bit from Temporary Meta and Banlist discussion concerning an SCG event:
Quote from Jonny_Tempel »
So Top8 looks like: 2 Death and Taxes (1 normal, 1 Eldrazi Taxes)
1 Infect
1 Storm
1 Affinity
1 Merfolk
1 Humans
1 Counters Company
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
I see two Midrange decks actually: Merfolk (Tribal Midrange, as its critical mass revolves around enough Lords and a Spreading Seas and then protecting those if possible), and Counters Company (and no, this isn't fast combo; it is effectively bad midrange featuring a few 'I Win!' buttons should the stars align).
Midrange is in a decent spot at least; it just needs to adapt and possibly embrace other archetypes as well. The only archetype that may need a pick-me-up is Control, and that's if we consider Tron and Titanshift variants 'too fast' to be control (I'm of the opinion that classic draw-attack-go control should not be viable as it represents too strong of a reactive suite).
Like I said, it's all in how one sees things.
The new UG Merfolk is very much an Aggro deck. It is nearly a turn quicker than the Mono Blue version. Heck, in game 1 of the top 4, he won on turn 4. I'll give you the one on Counters Company, since it is the Abzan version and I have seen the deck list. But I feel that people often underestimate how often this deck Combos off and (gaining infinite life) essentially kills their opponent. This is not like the old Birthing Pod style decks where the Combo is really a backup plan. This deck simply doesn't have the defense that Pod had in tutoring up creatures at will.
Midrange is okayish. I could care less. I personally think that Midrange is a snooze fest. Control is terrible and I don't think you could get 10 people in the world to call Tron or Titanshift a Control deck. That really is a stretch, even more so than calling Infect a "Combo" deck (which I don't agree with).
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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)
Well, a bit from Temporary Meta and Banlist discussion concerning an SCG event:
Quote from Jonny_Tempel »
So Top8 looks like: 2 Death and Taxes (1 normal, 1 Eldrazi Taxes)
1 Infect
1 Storm
1 Affinity
1 Merfolk
1 Humans
1 Counters Company
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
I see two Midrange decks actually: Merfolk (Tribal Midrange, as its critical mass revolves around enough Lords and a Spreading Seas and then protecting those if possible), and Counters Company (and no, this isn't fast combo; it is effectively bad midrange featuring a few 'I Win!' buttons should the stars align).
Midrange is in a decent spot at least; it just needs to adapt and possibly embrace other archetypes as well. The only archetype that may need a pick-me-up is Control, and that's if we consider Tron and Titanshift variants 'too fast' to be control (I'm of the opinion that classic draw-attack-go control should not be viable as it represents too strong of a reactive suite).
Like I said, it's all in how one sees things.
The new UG Merfolk is very much an Aggro deck. It is nearly a turn quicker than the Mono Blue version. Heck, in game 1 of the top 4, he won on turn 4. I'll give you the one on Counters Company, since it is the Abzan version and I have seen the deck list. But I feel that people often underestimate how often this deck Combos off and (gaining infinite life) essentially kills their opponent. This is not like the old Birthing Pod style decks where the Combo is really a backup plan. This deck simply doesn't have the defense that Pod had in tutoring up creatures at will.
Midrange is okayish. I could care less. I personally think that Midrange is a snooze fest. Control is terrible and I don't think you could get 10 people in the world to call Tron or Titanshift a Control deck. That really is a stretch, even more so than calling Infect a "Combo" deck (which I don't agree with).
That's fair: I was under the impression that it was simply mono-U Merfolk due to a lack of context (note to self: do my own research ). However, I'd still call classic Tron control, what with Ugin and Karn acting as win-cons and control elements themselves. Maybe not dedicated control, but it does have control elements (including a susceptibility to decks that are much faster than it).
The point about control is that there is really nothing closely resembling the UW Second Sun or UB control decks we are seeing now in standard. Or the Miracles deck in legacy before the ban.
There is UW control but it never puts up impressive results.
The Jeskai "control" decks often have a faster clock due to Geist and Snap+burn plan
Eh, he's makes the tired, old argument that deck diversity doesn't mean a good competitive environment... because sideboards. Ugh. Pretty sure PV wrote basically the same article two years ago. Every so often, a competitive grinder who used to only play Standard gets something stuck in their craw, and then something like this pops out. It's the Pros being butthurt that specialized matchup knowledge and experience in a dense format trumps their more broad skill base. Modern, in its current incarnation, tests your mastery of a single deck more than general skills. That favors people who aren't pros, but invest a lot of time into a signle archetype. Consider the difference between going up against someone who's just starting out with mono U tron and shoktroopa. This is why the Pro's think Modern isn't good for competition has always made me roll my eyes. They're basically complaining that they aren't able to compete in the Modern Format, against people who specialize in Modern. It just stings worse for them, because they don't know the reputation of the people they lose to.
Also, lol on the control argument. UW control has had it's ups and downs, but it's a tier 1.5 deck in my experience. Recent results aren't bad, either. It came in 9th in the last SGC open, though the Day 2 numbers escape me. Queller decks are usually considered a tempo deck, rather than a traditional control deck.
I can understand his position, but I also kinda disagree with him. Either way, Modern is probably THE format where not the deck counts but how you build it and how good you can pilot it. If you know the ins and outs of the deck of your choice, you can move the win/loss percentages 5-10% around.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Well, a bit from Temporary Meta and Banlist discussion concerning an SCG event:
Quote from Jonny_Tempel »
So Top8 looks like: 2 Death and Taxes (1 normal, 1 Eldrazi Taxes)
1 Infect
1 Storm
1 Affinity
1 Merfolk
1 Humans
1 Counters Company
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
Midrange would have been able to deal with all those decks pretty handily too, but I'm guessing all its pilots got annihilated by Tron and Scapeshift on the way to the top 8. So aggro is the way to go right now, it seems.
Well, a bit from Temporary Meta and Banlist discussion concerning an SCG event:
Quote from Jonny_Tempel »
So Top8 looks like: 2 Death and Taxes (1 normal, 1 Eldrazi Taxes)
1 Infect
1 Storm
1 Affinity
1 Merfolk
1 Humans
1 Counters Company
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
Midrange would have been able to deal with all those decks pretty handily too, but I'm guessing all its pilots got annihilated by Tron and Scapeshift on the way to the top 8. So aggro is the way to go right now, it seems.
And when an increase in aggro and combo pushes out ramp, midrange will be there to take the slack. We should learn from the Grixis Shadow dominance in spring and early summer that modern players are able to adjust to rising threats instead of complaining the moment our deck no longer dominates the top three or four options.
I don't have Premium, can someone who does summarize this response videoarticle?
Oh! I wanna guess first! By "overlapping" sideboard I bet he means it is more important to have cards that help matchups a bit but can be used against several decks than to focus on absolute hosers that provide larger helps but only with one or two matchups.
I don't have Premium, can someone who does summarize this response videoarticle?
Oh! I wanna guess first! By "overlapping" sideboard I bet he means it is more important to have cards that help matchups a bit but can be used against several decks than to focus on absolute hosers that provide larger helps but only with one or two matchups.
Honestly, I thought this was common sense. When going into a meta that's broad, you either adjust your deck to hit more decks and/or you adjust your sideboard.
Edit:
To clarify by what I mean.
If you build a narrow, hyper focused deck with the top cards for your strategy, then you have no room to complain when a lower tier broad strategy deck you didn't plan for plows over your deck.
Build a "broad spectrum" deck and you risk getting plowed over by a narrow deck design that manages to punch through your deck.
In almost no other format do people complain about playing combo or super linear decks and then complain about getting stomped by sideboard cards, and then get taken seriously.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
In almost no other format do people complain about playing combo or super linear decks and then complain about getting stomped by sideboard cards, and then get taken seriously.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
If my thoughts were to be summed up into a post, it would be this one. The entire purpose of the sideboard is to better your matchups or protect you from other sideboards. People keep throwing variance around like life itself isn't already a lottery game and being able to sideboard cards that shut down or stop a deck from shutting down is ruining the format by making certain cards more powerful than others against certain matchups.
In almost no other format do people complain about playing combo or super linear decks and then complain about getting stomped by sideboard cards, and then get taken seriously.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
If my thoughts were to be summed up into a post, it would be this one. The entire purpose of the sideboard is to better your matchups or protect you from other sideboards. People keep throwing variance around like life itself isn't already a lottery game and being able to sideboard cards that shut down or stop a deck from shutting down is ruining the format by making certain cards more powerful than others against certain matchups.
I believe the source for these kinds of comments come exactly from the fact that 55/45, 45/55, 50/50 decks really no longer exist. Stuff like Jund and Twin, which had lots of fairly even matches across the board with very few hugely favorable and very few hugely bad matchups no longer exist. All the decks that are left (that are reliably competitive) have hugely swingy matchups with high variance based on the pairings board. Most otherwise also have sideboard cards that turn games into 90/10 or 10/90, which to me is the opposite of fun. I want my decisions and actions and choices to matter in a game. Not the random luck of who I am paired with and whether or not I draw my 2-of silver bullet card.
I've got my own thoughts as to why he's wrong, but what about ya'll?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
He said that he tried Modern without playing much and did super well. Later on, he tested like a mad man and did poorly. That is Modern right now for a lot of players, myself included. I think the title is misleading and is more clickbait, or a way to get someone to read his article.
*On another note, I don't understand why so many people are quick to jump all over him for something they misunderstand - most players not even wanting to play Modern competitively. (Now, if you want to jump on him because he thinks JTMS shouldn't be banned, that's another thing altogether. )
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)(try not assuming other people's reading comprehensions skills). He's wrong about the diversity factor because if modern was truly a match-up and sideboard lottery then we should see an almost random smattering of players at the top tables. We don't. Stevens, Hoogland, Shehar, ect... have all had consistent success in modern.
And players *choose* to opt into the match-up lottery. Jund, DS, Junk, Coco, UWx, are all decks that have very few 60-40 matchups. His friend in the article could have chosen UWx if he didn't want to get smashed by hate.
I'm jumping on him because modern is a great format for competitive. We've seen it be such. But many pros seem to drop all that pro stuff and complain when a format doesn't converge on 3-5 decks. Adapt, I know they can, it's part of being a pro or should be anyways.
Sure, you can choose super interactive decks in today's current Modern. I think that by doing so, you're doing yourself a HUGE disservice. It's much better to be proactive in this format and goldfish your opponents out of the game. In some tournaments, you dodge hate and do well. In some tournaments, they all have Stony Silence. Or you could slog through a Modern tournament with something like UW Control and pray that after all that work, everything has pretty much lined up perfectly for you. You have drawn Rest in Peace every time you needed it. You have mulliganed 0 times. You have drawn Stony Silence or Snapcaster Mage with a million removal spells. Your draws have lined up perfectly with all 15 of your opponents in every round, give or take a round or 2. Meanwhile, someone like Mani Davoudi has spent much less time, running through the competition at Grand Prix Las Vegas, capped off by winning on a mull to 4.
Grixis Shadow is pretty much the last "glue" that is keeping the format from being extremely noninteractive. Jund and Junk aren't really contenders. Jeskai is in a good place right now, but can easily get pushed out, defaulting something else in that shaky spot. CoCo is okay. I play many of these decks. But simply put, competitively, I would be doing myself a (slight) disservice by using one of those, compared with something like E Tron, Storm, GDS, or Titanshift. Don't get me wrong. They're terribly fun to play and I believe that they are nearly as good as the very top 4 decks, but competitively, being close to good enough is not good enough unless you're finding an empty spot in the metagame to slide through.
Todd Stevens plays E Tron or a deck that tries to Ghost Quarter you out of the game. Jeff Hoogland plays GB Tron. Bringing up Hoogland actually goes against your statement. He used to top 8 twelve tournaments in a row with a Tier 2-3 deck in Kiki Chord during a meta of Twin and Bloom Titan. Since those have been banned, the guy is nearly nonexistent. Remember, this is a player who was at the top of the Leaderboard for SCG by a big margin. I don't think he even has 30 points currently. I do also realize that family obligations come into play too, but the HUGE difference says something. Shahar hasn't even played Modern too much recently, has he? I'm guessing he's on Jeskai Queller if he does, which I admit is in a good place...right now.
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)Splinter Twin was banned at the time Hoogland made many (not all) of those finishes with Kiki-Chord. Look at the dates...
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/Jeff Hoogland
He made the meta-game transition. He dedicated the time to knowing the ins and outs of the match-ups and it showed. Why has he not been showing up recently? He's openly stated that he's focusing less on magic to focus on family.
And what about Tom Ross tearing up modern on multiple occasions with his 8-rack? DeCandio talks about modern meta-game issues but it seems people that are not him have done the hard work of poking holes in the meta game.
In fact the recent rise in Storm are reactions to the downturn in DS decks. It used to be they were everywhere, and nothing chomps down on storm as hard as DS, but then people adjusted to DS by running more affinity, valkut, ect... (decks favored against DS). So naturally Storm crept back up while those decks were keeping DS down. This is the churning of a meta-game.
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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
Standard is hard for younger people with limited money to get into, they don't have the money to buy all the cards FAST enough, for most it's get one or two of the most powerful cards and that's all they'll ever get before it rotates. Modern they see long term investment and I think that is a bigger draw to them, and they are the future.
I watched this kid in three years build his eldrazi deck from nothing to a tier deck starting with his first thoughtknot, he didn't have money to get into standard but he had enough to buy a pack here and there and trade into what he could, ultimately he wouldn't have ever made a good standard deck at his price point in a timely fashion to play it before it rotated out. But a modern eldrazi tron deck, he was able to buy a piece here and there with minimal fear and now he's turned into such a good player that I think he could place well at a pro tournament.
If he was stuck with standard and the cost combined with the timeframe to get the cards, he probably wouldn't even still be playing magic.
Idk, I think standard is ok for those that have deeper pockets, modern I feel you get more time out of your investment.
I think modern is more challenging because of its diversity and I prefer it as my format of choice because of that, keeps me on my toes and is never boring.
Standard I can memorize all the decks because all the top ones can be counted on one hand, gets boring fast.
Either way aggro, fast combo, and creature based tempo. Not a sign of control or midrange. Was some midrange before the top 8...
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I see two Midrange decks actually: Merfolk (Tribal Midrange, as its critical mass revolves around enough Lords and a Spreading Seas and then protecting those if possible), and Counters Company (and no, this isn't fast combo; it is effectively bad midrange featuring a few 'I Win!' buttons should the stars align).
Midrange is in a decent spot at least; it just needs to adapt and possibly embrace other archetypes as well. The only archetype that may need a pick-me-up is Control, and that's if we consider Tron and Titanshift variants 'too fast' to be control (I'm of the opinion that classic draw-attack-go control should not be viable as it represents too strong of a reactive suite).
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Like I said, it's all in how one sees things.
The new UG Merfolk is very much an Aggro deck. It is nearly a turn quicker than the Mono Blue version. Heck, in game 1 of the top 4, he won on turn 4. I'll give you the one on Counters Company, since it is the Abzan version and I have seen the deck list. But I feel that people often underestimate how often this deck Combos off and (gaining infinite life) essentially kills their opponent. This is not like the old Birthing Pod style decks where the Combo is really a backup plan. This deck simply doesn't have the defense that Pod had in tutoring up creatures at will.
Midrange is okayish. I could care less. I personally think that Midrange is a snooze fest. Control is terrible and I don't think you could get 10 people in the world to call Tron or Titanshift a Control deck. That really is a stretch, even more so than calling Infect a "Combo" deck (which I don't agree with).
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Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)That's fair: I was under the impression that it was simply mono-U Merfolk due to a lack of context (note to self: do my own research ). However, I'd still call classic Tron control, what with Ugin and Karn acting as win-cons and control elements themselves. Maybe not dedicated control, but it does have control elements (including a susceptibility to decks that are much faster than it).
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There is UW control but it never puts up impressive results.
The Jeskai "control" decks often have a faster clock due to Geist and Snap+burn plan
Also, lol on the control argument. UW control has had it's ups and downs, but it's a tier 1.5 deck in my experience. Recent results aren't bad, either. It came in 9th in the last SGC open, though the Day 2 numbers escape me. Queller decks are usually considered a tempo deck, rather than a traditional control deck.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36054_Build-Overlapping-Sideboards-Already.html
McLaren, cited by Lax, explains why overall format rocks as a competitive scene:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36023_Modern-The-Best-Its-Ever-Been.html
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Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Midrange would have been able to deal with all those decks pretty handily too, but I'm guessing all its pilots got annihilated by Tron and Scapeshift on the way to the top 8. So aggro is the way to go right now, it seems.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
And when an increase in aggro and combo pushes out ramp, midrange will be there to take the slack. We should learn from the Grixis Shadow dominance in spring and early summer that modern players are able to adjust to rising threats instead of complaining the moment our deck no longer dominates the top three or four options.
I don't have Premium, can someone who does summarize this response
videoarticle?Oh! I wanna guess first! By "overlapping" sideboard I bet he means it is more important to have cards that help matchups a bit but can be used against several decks than to focus on absolute hosers that provide larger helps but only with one or two matchups.
Honestly, I thought this was common sense. When going into a meta that's broad, you either adjust your deck to hit more decks and/or you adjust your sideboard.
Edit:
To clarify by what I mean.
If you build a narrow, hyper focused deck with the top cards for your strategy, then you have no room to complain when a lower tier broad strategy deck you didn't plan for plows over your deck.
Build a "broad spectrum" deck and you risk getting plowed over by a narrow deck design that manages to punch through your deck.
This is the biggest appeal for Magic.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
If my thoughts were to be summed up into a post, it would be this one. The entire purpose of the sideboard is to better your matchups or protect you from other sideboards. People keep throwing variance around like life itself isn't already a lottery game and being able to sideboard cards that shut down or stop a deck from shutting down is ruining the format by making certain cards more powerful than others against certain matchups.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
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