well if the deck playing 6-8 stone rains and 4 blood moons is popular - im not sure tron or valakut is where you wanna be
im down for whatever as long as the top 8 looks diverse. as much as people would like to see 4x jund + 4x jace decks in the top 8. that wouldnt really be a good representation of the format either.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
There has been a lot of Tron variants on camera, but they have seemed to be fairly so-so overall? I was pretty busy yesterday, but had the stream on in the background. Maybe I missed something. Hopefully we'll get some Day 2 metagame numbers.
On the cheating thing, it's been a problem for a while now with the game and the only way they are going to fix it is to probably go completely digital with the game. Take MTG Arena code and repurpose it for a localized kiosk type set up with both players registering the decks and then playing via the tables. Of course, if they did that the end results might be the worlds biggest RNG "Who is making it to the top today" thing that people will just remember which team made the finish and not the individual players.
Bit off topic, but this has been going on so long I've tuned out of watching the tournaments entirely and just kind of look at results now. Watching people who play fair get punished by players that don't is just wrong, even if it doesn't happen super frequently.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Mmmm, tasty Ponza goodness! Too many greedy decks with 4-5 colors, only 17 lands, just relying on Fetch-Shock all day to run a deck full of 1-drops. I don't particularly like E-Tron, but I respect any deck that punishes super-linear deck building, and I love how Ponza does it much the same.
My friend and teammate, the 8-0 Zoo player, beat Bertoncini in Round 7 with a top decked Archangel Avacyn in game 3. He said Alex's words were "what the heck?"
I think your friend is on camera! Also they may just had a deck spotlight on that Moon Zoon deck.
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Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. - René Descartes
Mmmm, tasty Ponza goodness! Too many greedy decks with 4-5 colors, only 17 lands, just relying on Fetch-Shock all day to run a deck full of 1-drops. I don't particularly like E-Tron, but I respect any deck that punishes super-linear deck building, and I love how Ponza does it much the same.
except ponza doesnt even particularly prey on these types of decks. the decks that operate on hyper mana efficiency can pretty easily play through 1 or 2 stone rains getting out a delve threat or death shadow. sure they get locked out by a super early blood moon, but so does pretty much the majority of the decks in the format.
ponza preys on decks that need to continuously develop their mana base to harness their more powerful plays. namely big mana, control, and midrange.
ive made my opinion on the deck known. im cool with it being a good deck in the format. doesnt mean im gonna stop rolling my eyes when i play against it or see it do well.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Wow, all that burn and I've not seen it on camera at all. Scrubbed out or just way too much random (KCI??) nonsense...
EDIT: And seriously, so much for freaking Jace, "the Doom of Modern" the Mind Sculptor eh?
Because they actively and purposefully select feature matches to showcase interesting and diverse decks. Has nothing to do with representation of the field until you get to the end of day 2 and Top 8.
Also, Jace and Jace decks are still very mediocre. It was true the day of the unban and will remain true until new cards are printed or additional cards are unbanned.
The petty keyboard warrior in me wants to go list all the pros, posters, and players who predicted the end of Modern after a JTMS unban. Regarding pros, these are authors who should generally not be trusted, or at least should be treated with significant skepticism. They severely misjudged Modern and/or JTMS himself, and this serves as a big blight on their track record. Similar to Tom Ross infamously predicting a Nahiri ban after 6 months. Alternately, these players are just in it for the clicks, which is another strike against their credibility. As for users, there's a long list of posters I can think of from Reddit and this site that have a lot of crow to eat. I will certainly be skeptical about their claims in the future.
Excited to see the T8! UW Control currently in first at 33 points with some sweet Settle the Wreckage technology.
Mmmm, tasty Ponza goodness! Too many greedy decks with 4-5 colors, only 17 lands, just relying on Fetch-Shock all day to run a deck full of 1-drops. I don't particularly like E-Tron, but I respect any deck that punishes super-linear deck building, and I love how Ponza does it much the same.
except ponza doesnt even particularly prey on these types of decks. the decks that operate on hyper mana efficiency can pretty easily play through 1 or 2 stone rains getting out a delve threat or death shadow. sure they get locked out by a super early blood moon, but so does pretty much the majority of the decks in the format.
ponza preys on decks that need to continuously develop their mana base to harness their more powerful plays. namely big mana, control, and midrange.
ive made my opinion on the deck known. im cool with it being a good deck in the format. doesnt mean im gonna stop rolling my eyes when i play against it or see it do well.
This is spot on. As someone who's played a little bit of Ponza and each of those other types of decks, Ponza does NOT prey on low mana decks that play many colors. Tron is the biggest loser here. (I'm sure y'all are crying, right?)
The petty keyboard warrior in me wants to go list all the pros, posters, and players who predicted the end of Modern after a JTMS unban. Regarding pros, these are authors who should generally not be trusted, or at least should be treated with significant skepticism. They severely misjudged Modern and/or JTMS himself, and this serves as a big blight on their track record. Similar to Tom Ross infamously predicting a Nahiri ban after 6 months. Alternately, these players are just in it for the clicks, which is another strike against their credibility. As for users, there's a long list of posters I can think of from Reddit and this site that have a lot of crow to eat. I will certainly be skeptical about their claims in the future.
Excited to see the T8! UW Control currently in first at 33 points with some sweet Settle the Wreckage technology.
I just let it ruminate. Do you know how many players told me that "Jace, the Mind Sculptor will never get unbanned in Modern?" Now I tell them that I'm stacking up Stoneforge Mystics now. Some STILL say that it won't happen, especially now that Jace is unbanned. What the actual **** does Jace, the Mind Sculptor have to do with an unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic? I mean, I get it. But I doubt that it is a legitimate reason not to...oh snap, UW Stoneblade is going to be too good, derp, derp. These people are literally my motivation to overbuy hundreds of copies of these cards, lol.
UW getting Tronned right now, both at 11-1, sad times...
I hate to be the computer dude cliché, but I HAAAATE that matchup. I hate watching it. I hate playing it, from either side, but mostly from the UW side. It honestly just comes down to UW having an answer for literally everything or missing 1 thing and then the floodgates open. At the end of an otherwise close game, the UW player will have a Plains in play and the Tron player will have Karn, Ulamog, Ugin, and an O Stone in play with 6 lands totaling approximately 550,000,000,000 mana. It's just ugly and honestly 1 of the main reasons I've shied away from UW.
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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)
Thats the story of Control vs Tron. You stay on top of them and get there on mad Snap's beats, or you just look like a child, picking a fight with an Adult.
Thats the story of Control vs Tron. You stay on top of them and get there on mad Snap's beats, or you just look like a child, picking a fight with an Adult.
Or you just sign the slip and go next door for a beer.
Mmmm, tasty Ponza goodness! Too many greedy decks with 4-5 colors, only 17 lands, just relying on Fetch-Shock all day to run a deck full of 1-drops. I don't particularly like E-Tron, but I respect any deck that punishes super-linear deck building, and I love how Ponza does it much the same.
except ponza doesnt even particularly prey on these types of decks. the decks that operate on hyper mana efficiency can pretty easily play through 1 or 2 stone rains getting out a delve threat or death shadow. sure they get locked out by a super early blood moon, but so does pretty much the majority of the decks in the format.
ponza preys on decks that need to continuously develop their mana base to harness their more powerful plays. namely big mana, control, and midrange.
ive made my opinion on the deck known. im cool with it being a good deck in the format. doesnt mean im gonna stop rolling my eyes when i play against it or see it do well.
This is spot on. As someone who's played a little bit of Ponza and each of those other types of decks, Ponza does NOT prey on low mana decks that play many colors. Tron is the biggest loser here. (I'm sure y'all are crying, right?)
As a Ponza player who also plays Hollow One, I'm well aware! I crushed a Ponza player while piloting Hollow One at the last SCG IQ I was at with one land the entire game, with him on the play doing nothing but casting Stone Rain variants for 4 turns. However, my point is that there is a LOT of greed in Modern decks, and a lot of greedy players, like the Storm player who lost to Ponza in the Dallas Finale because everyone runs 17 lands, and it "totally works." In fact, my buddy 1-4 dropped at Phoenix yesterday running Storm, because "The deck just wouldn't draw right." My major point is that I'm happy to play Ponza right now because a single mana speed-bump can give you immense tempo versus a ton of Modern decks, or they can play 1-2 basics in their entire deck and suddenly be mono-Red, and proceed to lose the game. Yeah, Shadow's hard because a single Delve dude or Shadow can be all they need; or you can hit their one land, they stumble, and then they're on the back foot the whole game trying to play catch-up while you're tossing out BBEs and Stormbreaths they can't answer.
But yes, I am also SUPER happy to hose Big Mana every time I play it, lol.
The petty keyboard warrior in me wants to go list all the pros, posters, and players who predicted the end of Modern after a JTMS unban. Regarding pros, these are authors who should generally not be trusted, or at least should be treated with significant skepticism. They severely misjudged Modern and/or JTMS himself, and this serves as a big blight on their track record. Similar to Tom Ross infamously predicting a Nahiri ban after 6 months. Alternately, these players are just in it for the clicks, which is another strike against their credibility. As for users, there's a long list of posters I can think of from Reddit and this site that have a lot of crow to eat. I will certainly be skeptical about their claims in the future.
Excited to see the T8! UW Control currently in first at 33 points with some sweet Settle the Wreckage technology.
I just let it ruminate. Do you know how many players told me that "Jace, the Mind Sculptor will never get unbanned in Modern?" Now I tell them that I'm stacking up Stoneforge Mystics now. Some STILL say that it won't happen, especially now that Jace is unbanned. What the actual **** does Jace, the Mind Sculptor have to do with an unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic? I mean, I get it. But I doubt that it is a legitimate reason not to...oh snap, UW Stoneblade is going to be too good, derp, derp. These people are literally my motivation to overbuy hundreds of copies of these cards, lol.
While I'm completely ready to admit I was wrong about Jace, the argument against Stoneforge is that it simply does nothing to improve the format, and could harm aggro quite a bit. This just results in a more linear environment, which we already have plenty of, so why unban it at all?
Personally, all of mt nay-saying towards those two cards comes from personal experience/PTSD caused by a terrible Standard environment. At least there are like 10+ cards that just shut Affinity down by casting even one of them; there's very few cards that are worth casting in Modern that shut Jace down, but I'll definitely admit that I never considered how powerful and efficient the aggro in this environment is.
im down for whatever as long as the top 8 looks diverse. as much as people would like to see 4x jund + 4x jace decks in the top 8. that wouldnt really be a good representation of the format either.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Bit off topic, but this has been going on so long I've tuned out of watching the tournaments entirely and just kind of look at results now. Watching people who play fair get punished by players that don't is just wrong, even if it doesn't happen super frequently.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
except ponza doesnt even particularly prey on these types of decks. the decks that operate on hyper mana efficiency can pretty easily play through 1 or 2 stone rains getting out a delve threat or death shadow. sure they get locked out by a super early blood moon, but so does pretty much the majority of the decks in the format.
ponza preys on decks that need to continuously develop their mana base to harness their more powerful plays. namely big mana, control, and midrange.
ive made my opinion on the deck known. im cool with it being a good deck in the format. doesnt mean im gonna stop rolling my eyes when i play against it or see it do well.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)EDIT: And seriously, so much for freaking Jace, "the Doom of Modern" the Mind Sculptor eh?
Spirits
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Spirits
its card availability! oh yeah and people arent building their jace decks right!
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Because they actively and purposefully select feature matches to showcase interesting and diverse decks. Has nothing to do with representation of the field until you get to the end of day 2 and Top 8.
Also, Jace and Jace decks are still very mediocre. It was true the day of the unban and will remain true until new cards are printed or additional cards are unbanned.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Excited to see the T8! UW Control currently in first at 33 points with some sweet Settle the Wreckage technology.
Spirits
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Spirits
If its the game I'm thinking of, he ripped Settle the Wreckage, and then eventually D.Sphere, and took over.
Spirits
This is spot on. As someone who's played a little bit of Ponza and each of those other types of decks, Ponza does NOT prey on low mana decks that play many colors. Tron is the biggest loser here. (I'm sure y'all are crying, right?)
How boring! Looks like I'm just going to have to play Burn, eh? Sad times.
I just let it ruminate. Do you know how many players told me that "Jace, the Mind Sculptor will never get unbanned in Modern?" Now I tell them that I'm stacking up Stoneforge Mystics now. Some STILL say that it won't happen, especially now that Jace is unbanned. What the actual **** does Jace, the Mind Sculptor have to do with an unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic? I mean, I get it. But I doubt that it is a legitimate reason not to...oh snap, UW Stoneblade is going to be too good, derp, derp. These people are literally my motivation to overbuy hundreds of copies of these cards, lol.
I hate to be the computer dude cliché, but I HAAAATE that matchup. I hate watching it. I hate playing it, from either side, but mostly from the UW side. It honestly just comes down to UW having an answer for literally everything or missing 1 thing and then the floodgates open. At the end of an otherwise close game, the UW player will have a Plains in play and the Tron player will have Karn, Ulamog, Ugin, and an O Stone in play with 6 lands totaling approximately 550,000,000,000 mana. It's just ugly and honestly 1 of the main reasons I've shied away from UW.
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)Spirits
Or you just sign the slip and go next door for a beer.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
As a Ponza player who also plays Hollow One, I'm well aware! I crushed a Ponza player while piloting Hollow One at the last SCG IQ I was at with one land the entire game, with him on the play doing nothing but casting Stone Rain variants for 4 turns. However, my point is that there is a LOT of greed in Modern decks, and a lot of greedy players, like the Storm player who lost to Ponza in the Dallas Finale because everyone runs 17 lands, and it "totally works." In fact, my buddy 1-4 dropped at Phoenix yesterday running Storm, because "The deck just wouldn't draw right." My major point is that I'm happy to play Ponza right now because a single mana speed-bump can give you immense tempo versus a ton of Modern decks, or they can play 1-2 basics in their entire deck and suddenly be mono-Red, and proceed to lose the game. Yeah, Shadow's hard because a single Delve dude or Shadow can be all they need; or you can hit their one land, they stumble, and then they're on the back foot the whole game trying to play catch-up while you're tossing out BBEs and Stormbreaths they can't answer.
But yes, I am also SUPER happy to hose Big Mana every time I play it, lol.
While I'm completely ready to admit I was wrong about Jace, the argument against Stoneforge is that it simply does nothing to improve the format, and could harm aggro quite a bit. This just results in a more linear environment, which we already have plenty of, so why unban it at all?
Personally, all of mt nay-saying towards those two cards comes from personal experience/PTSD caused by a terrible Standard environment. At least there are like 10+ cards that just shut Affinity down by casting even one of them; there's very few cards that are worth casting in Modern that shut Jace down, but I'll definitely admit that I never considered how powerful and efficient the aggro in this environment is.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I had heard of the deck before but didn't really know what it was trying to build mana into before I played it maybe 2 months ago