Hey guys. I'm not a Modern player so please take anything I have to say with a grain of salt.
So the current meta is very very aggressive and is very hostile towards new strategies. Tons of burn, aggro, and graveyard strategies.
While aggro and combo are having a great time, control variants are currently suffering and really can't keep up with the fast pace of everyone else. In fact, if you're control you pretty much have to find a way to cast Terminus - and it's usually JTMS. Oh and of course you run Teferi.
Do you think this is a healthy metagame? Is there a way to change it or make it better? I'd like to diversify things a little bit and find some answers to stuff which has been getting linear.
To be clear, I'm offering discussion. I'm not trying to argue which meta is best, I'd just like to read some opinions from the community.
This is one of the more classic cards I remember to deal with these kinds of metas. Cheap, deals with most current threats, and most importantly exiles - getting rid of a ton of graveyard-recursive creatures. Why don't I see top decks abusing it?
Most well-performing decks nowadays like to spam a ton of spells, like Izzet Phoenix and Grixis Death's Shadow. Cards like Ethersworn Canonist, Spirit of the Labyrinth might slow them down and decrease their early power. Thalia is run in Humans and I'm sure she's great. I know they're all very fragile bodies, but I've heard that the current meta really doesn't run enough spot removal, and this might abuse that weakness. Why don't I see this deck more?
As a side note, Linvala, Azorius Renegade seems like a great Humans card vs Delve (Hollow One, Death's Shadow), Jund's BBE, and Tron's scary walkers.
Believe me, I've continuously heard that she is a TERRIBLE card. Yes, I know she is very very narrow. But she's a cheap planeswalker that exiles graveyards and gets rid of cheap permanents, so I decided to take a closer look. I've looked at the top decks on MTGGoldfish and compared how she might fare against them.
BTW, if this seems familiar, it's because I've posted this analysis on the Orzhov control thread.
Good Matchups:
They are looking to establish a board with KCI, Scrap Trawler, Myr Retriever and the like. In turn, Kaya can get rid of most of their early artifacts, the most important being Pyrite Spellbomb, Mox Opal, and Engineered Explosives. Keep in mind that the removal is exile, so exiling their Spellbomb means that they can't get their combo off. KCI is now banned, so this is somewhat irrelevant. However I won't be surprised if another lantern deck surfaces, so this analysis might be relevant to that.
Kaya is actually pretty good here. Exiling instants and sorceries means that they can't Snap them to cast them again, or exile them for Angler's delve. Exiling Street Wraith gives us life, which is relevant in the matchup. And, of course, Kaya can very effectively deal with the all-star himself.
Looking at their sideboard we have 1 more relevant card to remove in the form of Grim Lavamancer, if they do slot it in.
Here Kaya's +1 is king. They have a ton of creatures for her to exile and gain life from, and disabling their dredgeengines can be crippling to their deck. Exiling Conflagrate is also very relevant to prevent the flashback from happening. Finally, to top it off, we can even get rid of their Shriekhorn to prevent them from running through their deck.
Kaya actually has a ton of stuff which she can remove vs this deck with her -1. The list is: Amulet of Vigor, Engineered Explosives, Walking Ballista, Sakura-Tribe Scout, Skyshroud Ranger. If we use a board wipe, most of these are creatures for her to gain us life with. However she becomes absolutely useless when they get their threats on the board, so our goal with her is to slow them down as much as possible and delay so we can find our answers, and I feel she's actually quite servicable at that.
The good news is that Kaya can kill almost half their deck with her -1, and give us lifegain from 1/3 of their deck with her +1. The bad news is that those that she can't are pretty high priority - Arcbound Ravager and Inkmoth Nexus. However, I do feel like since we're in BW we have plenty of cards that will be able to take care of those cards instead.
Also, their sideboard is highly relevant for her. They have Pithing Needle which can shut her down, but if they don't name her with it she can kill it, which is valuable. Grafidgger's Cage also shuts down our Lingering Souls and she can kill it.
Kaya is surprisingly relevant here. They have plenty of relevant creatures for us to exile from their graveyard, the most important being Bloodghast and Flamewake Phoenix, and exiling stuff from their yard is good in general to prevent Gurmag Angler and Tasigur from hitting the field. She can also get rid of their early Flameblade Adept which is important. The lifegain she gives us can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Looking at their sideboard, relevant things she can remove are Engineered Explosives and Grim Lavamancer.
Bad Matchups:
The monster deck that needs an answer. Admittedly Kaya does less than I'd hoped vs it - Drake doesn't care if the instants and sorceries get exiled, and there are no permanents Kaya can kill. However if the opponent is foolish enough to leave a Phoenix or Jump-Start card in the yard vs you, Kaya can get rid of it and even gain you life, which is very relevant in the matchup.
Kaya can exile Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear, but her lifegain probably won't be relevant since most of their graveyard will be noncreature spells. Her ultimate could gain us some life if we reach it, but she will most likely be killed by burn before then. Still, taking both a creature and a burn spell from them might be enough to help win the matchup.
Kaya takes care of three high priority targets which are Champion, Hierarch, and Vial. Also, her +1 will pretty much always give us lifegain. However, I feel like she is much too vulnerable to their other creatures. If we can protect her and use her +1 to try and keep stabilizing she will net us a sizable amount of lifegain, but I feel like that is a nigh impossible mission with all their threats.
Very similar to Humans. The deck has the same targets for her to kill with her -1, and just as much creatures to benefit from with her +1, but ultimately it's not enough of a defense, especially once Drogskol Captain resolves.
The deck that controls the game better than this deck does. Kaya can kill their small artifacts, most importantly Expedition Map, as well as Wurmcoil Engine tokens and Walking Ballista, but other than that she is completely useless here and will most likely be sided out.
Kaya can't really interact with spells on the stack, so she isn't useful here which isn't surprising. The best she can hope to do is exile stuff that we don't want them to reuse with Past in Flames, but that is way too minor of an effect to help in the matchup.
Admittedly I thought she was better in this matchup, but once I looked at the decklist I saw she really couldn't contribute much. She can kill Kalitas's tokens and shrink their Goyf, but that is too narrow of an effect and not much of a defense. If they do discard creatures to their LOTV, though, we can net some life out of it.
Similar to Jund. We can still shrink their Goyf, and we can eat cards in graveyard with her before their Ooze does or before Liliana, the Last Hope brings them back. Otherwise she's a dead card.
They have an Engineered Explosives and Nihil Spellbomb in sideboard, but that doesn't matter.
Also worth mentioning is that her ulti synergizes with these: Surgical Extraction / Extirpate - can shut down Dredge and Phoenix, and maybe help against storm.
Path to Exile - our lord and savior.
All things considered, I still think Kaya can be, at the very least, a solid sideboard in the current meta.
This one might be a surprise, many of you might even go look up the card since it's so niche. I agree that it's extremely conditional, but it feels like it might be an OK sideboard card.
The key with this card is to abuse the wording on the powerful cheated-into-play creatures of the current meta, on cards that do not state that "you may" put the creature into play, and currently plenty of decks have those. Arclight Phoenix, Prized Amalgam, Vengevine, Collected Company. Maybe there are more that I'm not aware of.
Even when the cards do say "you may", like Bloodghast, Narcomeba, AEther Vial, Flamewake Phoenix, etc., you can flash this card to delay their tempo and cantrip, so that you will find an actual solution.
So that's enough from me! Feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes (which I likely did). I still feel like even in the worst case there's something to talk about. What do you guys think?
There is no Modern Metagame. There are pockets of people playing certain decks, usually from the 50 or so competitively-viable decks, but sometimes random piles of nonsense because the cards they like are not good enough for Legacy, but no longer Standard legal.
In an environment like this, trying to play an "answers" deck (like a midrange or control strategy) is a discouraging and often fruitless experience. There are too many decks attacking from too many different angles to have any sort of reasonable success at the hands of your own decisions and play lines. Your match outcomes are often determined by the matchup and whether or not you draw a silver bullet sideboard card. Without a strong, proactive gameplan, being stuck with the "wrong answers" means you lose.
Because of that, the best strategies in Modern are inevitably fast, linear, powerful strategies that are either very consistent, very resilient, and/or very difficult to disrupt. Many of these are handily capable of killing you before turn 4 and can be brutal when they are on the play.
In order to combat this, an interactive "answers" deck either needs to have it's own fast/proactive plan, need to hope to draw the right cards at the right time, or simply hope to dodge their bad matchups.
I have argued for the past 3 years that one of the best solutions to this situation is to give the format back Splinter Twin. It was a mediocre control deck with a strong combo win condition. It was a foundational key that no longer exists that promoted healthy play lines throughout the format. It was a deck which both helped keep linear decks under control while never stifling them out of existence (Affinity, a fast linear aggro deck was the next best deck), and promoting interaction in the forms of highly interactive decks or deckbuilding choices that skewed towards interaction over goldfishing (BGx midrange decks were the next best decks after that).
I have soap-box-argued for Twin for a while, but I also think it is the best solution. If we don't get Twin, we need some justifiable reason to want to run interaction. And we need an interactive/reactive deck that demands respect. Right now we have neither of those, and we will continue to have neither of those until Twin is released, or they accidentally print a card to make a similar deck exist. Because the rate in which we get new answers is outpaced considerably by the rate in which we get threats that break existing linear decks, or create new ones.
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You can ignore most of the above post. It's just a long-winded rant about a deck that got banned a couple of years ago.
Here's the deal:
- you say you don't play modern. Welcome!
- you also say the metagame is "aggressive and hostile to new strategies". Well what you're describing here is a competitive metagame. Same is true for standard, legacy, even stuff like Canadian highlander. If you just want to play round your kitchen table, you can ignore the rest of my post.
Modern is unique amongst constructed formats though. There are more individual viable decks than in any other.
And cfusionpm was right about something, which is that there's no one true mighty 'metagame' which encompasses modern. Your local metagame will still probably have some of the recognisable faces of the format but it'll have its own balance and breakdown. Same goes for regional GP events, the protour etc. For example it's rare to see a Japanese GP break down with the same metagame as a West-Coast US GP, although of course we'd see a lot of the same familiar decks. In the UK for instance there's a large amount of control/midrange players who were recently on a mix of UW, grixis and Mardu decks, and relatively few aggro players (that's my experience across multiple UK events)
- what does this mean? Well "modern is modern" and regardless of where you are, you'll see a mix of approximately 50 'top' decks, except the precise mix will be tweaked based on region and time. You'll be able to look at a metagame breakdown on mtggoldfish and it'll give you a rough idea of the decks currently seeing play. You'll be able to get an idea on new tech and card choices and you'll be able to prepare for competitive modern events, but you should expect to see a broad range of opposing strategies at any competitive event (yes, this makes sideboarding very hard).
- 'new strategies' can do very well in modern. The phoenix deck, for example, is a 'new' deck (relatively speaking). KCI was, a few months ago, a 'new' deck to the competitive scene. The druid/vizier deck was new with the release of amonkhet, the saheeli/cat deck was new with kaladesh, humans was a 'new' deck with the release of kitesail freebooter. hopefully you're getting my point. New decks appear in modern frequently and can do well. The trick is that the successful decks are built with the format in mind, not just a pile of cards someone likes.
- last point. Building decks for modern. There's lots going on in the format and this means that you have to be on average as fast or as disruptive as around 50 other tuned decks. Games can be over quickly but averaged out, I think the final turn in modern is around turn 5. This means that a new combo that wins on turn five could do fairly well if it has a way to disrupt or slow an opponent first. At the same time though you'd be contending with decks that perhaps aren't very consistent but can occasionally win on turn 2 or 3 (usually without disrupting their opponent, they just race). Aggro decks have a rough turn-4 hard limit because they tend to play most games in a consistent and similar fashion. Anything slower than turn 4 and your aggro deck is too slow, because aggro decks are too easy to disrupt if you sweep their initial rush.
Its completely possible to brew new decks for modern. In fact I'd argue that the huge diversity and high rate of new decks appearing gives it a brewers-paradise sort of air. However, that doesn't mean you can expect to be competitive with a pile of jank. Brewing in modern means starting from a place of deep format knowledge, understanding how you'll be raced, how you'll be disrupted, what relevant ways you can disrupt or race an opponent and what sorts of answers are useful against the decks you expect to see (which isn't easy).
Humans is a good example of this. It's a pile of small creatures and some aether vials. Individually, they don't do much but together, with cards like meddling mage, reflector mage and freebooter you have exactly the sorts of disruption you need, for a 'slower' aggro deck to be able to win games. Without those pieces, the deck wouldn't do anything. Similarly, the spirits deck contains disruptive elements which can mitigate the effect of sweepers and removal (despite which, the deck can still be too slow sometimes).
If you're entering modern for the first time, don't see the format as aggressive, because honestly you won't learn much. See it as diverse and pay attention to the archetypes (combo, aggro, control, midrange, toolbox, tempo) and see how each one juggles its gameplan against the others. It's a bit of a bizarre rock/paper/scissors situation but with 40+ options instead of three. Stuff that's good doesn't stay good for too long, and the metagame constantly cycles.
Your main weapon in modern is consistency. I play lots of Tron, and before that I played Jund and RUG Scapeshift. All three of these decks do medium-power things but do them consistently. Tron (which I have most experience with) is mostly 'filler' cards aimed at drawing you into lands and improving your consistency. None of these decks have a quick win, they are all 'slow' decks, but they are able to disrupt an opponent along the right axis to delay them for a turn or two (which is often enough). Before that, I played 'eternal command' which was a combo/tempo deck without a quick win but with a powerful soft-lock on the midgame and decent tempo gameplan. Again, a 'slow' deck but it contained the right tools (at the time) to be able to generate advantage and win games.
Theres no quick fix. You gotta learn the format. It's a surprisingly friendly format if you put the time in, and are willing to accept that sometimes you'll hit that 1-deck-out-of-40 that completely wrecks you. Everyone else is in the same boat and gets wrecked on occasion too. As long as you don't assume its just you getting the bad beats and 'bad luck' you'll be fine. You WILL want to start your modern journey with one of the established decks. They exist and are successful for a reason, and you'll need a half-decent window into playing the format to get to grips with the rhythm and pacing, the to-and-fro of modern. It's more complex than standard and individual decisions matter more. Starting with a homebrew is gonna be very, very difficult if you're entering into a competitive environment. "competitive" is the key word there. People are using the best options available in every archetype.
the basis for the problem you present, where decks are getting faster, more resilient, and just overall more powerful and the format is spread so thin that everyone is just flipping coins before signing the match slip. how certain are you that twin could sufficiently change that?
you say that unbanning twin has been this solution that you have been advocating for 3 years. alright, well something like 80% of the decks that see heavy play didnt even exist 1.5 years ago; or at least are significantly different.
lets make some assumptions that i think you will agree with because i have seen you make similar claims:
-twin was not oppressive while around
-twin has not received any meaningful upgrades, and the best version if unbanned would be UR twin that pretty much looks the same as it did when legal.
how does one combo in one deck, that hasnt gotten much better, solve a problem that is founded on all these other decks getting stronger?
its the same trap that you frequently show so much scorn for when people fall into it. believing that what a card did or does in a different environment means it would do that same thing in modern right now.
would twin in the format not be beneficial at all? sure it could help a little. unban the card so people can play with a deck they enjoy. however presenting the reason it should be unbanned the way you did just doesnt make much sense. its never been, and still isnt, some panacea for what is afflicting modern.
if you DO believe that it would have prevented the alleged state of things if it had been around these last 3 years. ask yourself how it would have accomplished that. how does one combo in one deck stop 20 different high powered proactive decks from becoming a force? it oppresses them, stops them from rising up, 'polices' them. this is literally the reason many twin ban supporters cite, and what you have so vehemently argued against.
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as for the OP's question. i dont think there is an easy answer. that is kinda the point lol. the situation described is because 'answers' (ie disruption) are either too narrow or insufficient in small amounts.
wizards showed an effort in printing more targetted hate cards last year. continuing that route is one step, but i hope they continue to push it for more generic disruptive pieces that either have more cross matchup applications and or are main deck-able. modal cards, or cards that can be tailor made to be applicable in an environment like modern without disturbing standard too much. deathrite shaman is the extreme example of this.
that is also another front wizards could fight on, just allowing cards to bypass standard. unlikely at this point, but we know wizards has at least considered it at some point. for instance a card like baleful strix sounds pretty good in a format that is 50% aggro/aggro-combo.
lastly there are unbans to promote MORE decks that can be meaningfully slowed with removal. when removal gets worse because it just isnt doing its job effectively then fair-ish decks like midrange and control have to lean on drawing a smaller subset of interaction before and after sideboarding.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I’m not against a Twin unban, but I’m not buying the “oh woe is responsive decks,” when Jund and UW control are tier 1 decks and Jund has BBE and Assassin’s Trophy and UW control has Jace and Teferi.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
You given any time to RUG lately k0no? I'm seeking a Modern home for Growth Spiral.
As to the topic at hand, Modern's meta is too vast to find 'an' answer. There are many answers, some working better than others in certain situations, and if one is good enough, and able to stomach the inevitable bad match ups (that all decks have really) then you can find success with any of the VERY large number of decks possible.
Anger is a good SB card and still sees play. However it misses quite a few threats like Thing in the Ice, Crackling Drake, Hollow One, Gurmag Angler. The funny thing, is you might expect it to be good against Arclight Phoenix because it kills Phoenixes permanently, but Anger misses both of their other threats, so much so that UR Phoenix actually plays Anger itself.
D&T has a lot less free wins off Leonin Arbiter nowadays because more decks aren't playing fetchlands (e.g. Humans, Hardened Scales, even Storm. UW has 4 fetches instead of 8). Also, Pod is banned and Scapeshift isn't what it used to be.
Kaya is a terrible card. Nihil Spellbomb and Rest in Peace exile whole graveyards, not just two cards. You can only activate her ability at sorcery speed, so your opponent can just dump creatures and revive them on his turn, e.g. Loot a Bloodghast and play a land while Kaya is unable to do anything about it. Her -1 is Isolate that hits a few other inconsequential things.
It's not enough to just look at Kaya and say "oh she has lots of targets vs different decks, therefore she is good", you have to think "OK, I've exiled their stuff - now what?" Are they gonna kill you anyway because there's so much more where that came from? Probably yes.
Hallowed Moonlight is a bad SB card because it only slows your opponent for one turn, but doesn't force them to go through the motions of rebuilding their graveyard. If I blow Nihil Spellbomb against a Bloodghast deck for example, not only do I stop the Bloodghasts from coming in, but my opponent also has to work to get more Bloodghasts into his graveyard again, since the Bloodghasts that would have come in are now sitting in exile. This buys you a lot more time than Hallowed Moonlight - if you Moonlight an opponent who's about to revive Bloodghast, he just chooses to not revive them since the ability is optional. Crucially, the Bloodghasts are still in his graveyard (not in exile, like the Spellbomb case), ready to jump out on landfall. The same applies to Aether Vial. Prized Amalgam has to piggyback off Bloodghast or Narcomoeba and those are optional. Collected Company says "up to two", zero is up to two.
You given any time to RUG lately k0no? I'm seeking a Modern home for Growth Spiral.
As to the topic at hand, Modern's meta is too vast to find 'an' answer. There are many answers, some working better than others in certain situations, and if one is good enough, and able to stomach the inevitable bad match ups (that all decks have really) then you can find success with any of the VERY large number of decks possible.
As it's vaguely on topic, not recently. Growth spiral has me interested though. On three mana, being able to hold up electrolyze or spiral-->remand is quite interesting. Also being able to spiral into one-mana counters or a bolt is pleasing too. (or mainphase spiral into suspend search for tomorrow). Colour me intrigued.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
As this thread has gone off topic from OP's original intention, and since the both threads are quite similar and looking to discuss the modern metagame/health, we ask that all further discussions on the topic are taken to the State of Modern thread in order to keep all of the discussions in one place.
So the current meta is very very aggressive and is very hostile towards new strategies. Tons of burn, aggro, and graveyard strategies.
While aggro and combo are having a great time, control variants are currently suffering and really can't keep up with the fast pace of everyone else. In fact, if you're control you pretty much have to find a way to cast Terminus - and it's usually JTMS. Oh and of course you run Teferi.
Do you think this is a healthy metagame? Is there a way to change it or make it better? I'd like to diversify things a little bit and find some answers to stuff which has been getting linear.
To be clear, I'm offering discussion. I'm not trying to argue which meta is best, I'd just like to read some opinions from the community.
As a side note, Linvala, Azorius Renegade seems like a great Humans card vs Delve (Hollow One, Death's Shadow), Jund's BBE, and Tron's scary walkers.
BTW, if this seems familiar, it's because I've posted this analysis on the Orzhov control thread.
Good Matchups:
KCI is now banned, so this is somewhat irrelevant. However I won't be surprised if another lantern deck surfaces, so this analysis might be relevant to that.
Looking at their sideboard we have 1 more relevant card to remove in the form of Grim Lavamancer, if they do slot it in.
Also, their sideboard is highly relevant for her. They have Pithing Needle which can shut her down, but if they don't name her with it she can kill it, which is valuable. Grafidgger's Cage also shuts down our Lingering Souls and she can kill it.
Looking at their sideboard, relevant things she can remove are Engineered Explosives and Grim Lavamancer.
Bad Matchups:
They have an Engineered Explosives and Nihil Spellbomb in sideboard, but that doesn't matter.
Surgical Extraction / Extirpate - can shut down Dredge and Phoenix, and maybe help against storm.
Path to Exile - our lord and savior.
All things considered, I still think Kaya can be, at the very least, a solid sideboard in the current meta.
The key with this card is to abuse the wording on the powerful cheated-into-play creatures of the current meta, on cards that do not state that "you may" put the creature into play, and currently plenty of decks have those. Arclight Phoenix, Prized Amalgam, Vengevine, Collected Company. Maybe there are more that I'm not aware of.
Even when the cards do say "you may", like Bloodghast, Narcomeba, AEther Vial, Flamewake Phoenix, etc., you can flash this card to delay their tempo and cantrip, so that you will find an actual solution.
So that's enough from me! Feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes (which I likely did). I still feel like even in the worst case there's something to talk about. What do you guys think?
UWR control does use Anger of the Gods. Jund usually prefers Kalitas to anger, who is fantastic against burn, aggro, and GY decks.
As for Death and Taxes...humans is just a superior version of that right now.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
In an environment like this, trying to play an "answers" deck (like a midrange or control strategy) is a discouraging and often fruitless experience. There are too many decks attacking from too many different angles to have any sort of reasonable success at the hands of your own decisions and play lines. Your match outcomes are often determined by the matchup and whether or not you draw a silver bullet sideboard card. Without a strong, proactive gameplan, being stuck with the "wrong answers" means you lose.
Because of that, the best strategies in Modern are inevitably fast, linear, powerful strategies that are either very consistent, very resilient, and/or very difficult to disrupt. Many of these are handily capable of killing you before turn 4 and can be brutal when they are on the play.
In order to combat this, an interactive "answers" deck either needs to have it's own fast/proactive plan, need to hope to draw the right cards at the right time, or simply hope to dodge their bad matchups.
I have argued for the past 3 years that one of the best solutions to this situation is to give the format back Splinter Twin. It was a mediocre control deck with a strong combo win condition. It was a foundational key that no longer exists that promoted healthy play lines throughout the format. It was a deck which both helped keep linear decks under control while never stifling them out of existence (Affinity, a fast linear aggro deck was the next best deck), and promoting interaction in the forms of highly interactive decks or deckbuilding choices that skewed towards interaction over goldfishing (BGx midrange decks were the next best decks after that).
I have soap-box-argued for Twin for a while, but I also think it is the best solution. If we don't get Twin, we need some justifiable reason to want to run interaction. And we need an interactive/reactive deck that demands respect. Right now we have neither of those, and we will continue to have neither of those until Twin is released, or they accidentally print a card to make a similar deck exist. Because the rate in which we get new answers is outpaced considerably by the rate in which we get threats that break existing linear decks, or create new ones.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You can ignore most of the above post. It's just a long-winded rant about a deck that got banned a couple of years ago.
Here's the deal:
- you say you don't play modern. Welcome!
- you also say the metagame is "aggressive and hostile to new strategies". Well what you're describing here is a competitive metagame. Same is true for standard, legacy, even stuff like Canadian highlander. If you just want to play round your kitchen table, you can ignore the rest of my post.
Modern is unique amongst constructed formats though. There are more individual viable decks than in any other.
And cfusionpm was right about something, which is that there's no one true mighty 'metagame' which encompasses modern. Your local metagame will still probably have some of the recognisable faces of the format but it'll have its own balance and breakdown. Same goes for regional GP events, the protour etc. For example it's rare to see a Japanese GP break down with the same metagame as a West-Coast US GP, although of course we'd see a lot of the same familiar decks. In the UK for instance there's a large amount of control/midrange players who were recently on a mix of UW, grixis and Mardu decks, and relatively few aggro players (that's my experience across multiple UK events)
- what does this mean? Well "modern is modern" and regardless of where you are, you'll see a mix of approximately 50 'top' decks, except the precise mix will be tweaked based on region and time. You'll be able to look at a metagame breakdown on mtggoldfish and it'll give you a rough idea of the decks currently seeing play. You'll be able to get an idea on new tech and card choices and you'll be able to prepare for competitive modern events, but you should expect to see a broad range of opposing strategies at any competitive event (yes, this makes sideboarding very hard).
- 'new strategies' can do very well in modern. The phoenix deck, for example, is a 'new' deck (relatively speaking). KCI was, a few months ago, a 'new' deck to the competitive scene. The druid/vizier deck was new with the release of amonkhet, the saheeli/cat deck was new with kaladesh, humans was a 'new' deck with the release of kitesail freebooter. hopefully you're getting my point. New decks appear in modern frequently and can do well. The trick is that the successful decks are built with the format in mind, not just a pile of cards someone likes.
- last point. Building decks for modern. There's lots going on in the format and this means that you have to be on average as fast or as disruptive as around 50 other tuned decks. Games can be over quickly but averaged out, I think the final turn in modern is around turn 5. This means that a new combo that wins on turn five could do fairly well if it has a way to disrupt or slow an opponent first. At the same time though you'd be contending with decks that perhaps aren't very consistent but can occasionally win on turn 2 or 3 (usually without disrupting their opponent, they just race). Aggro decks have a rough turn-4 hard limit because they tend to play most games in a consistent and similar fashion. Anything slower than turn 4 and your aggro deck is too slow, because aggro decks are too easy to disrupt if you sweep their initial rush.
Its completely possible to brew new decks for modern. In fact I'd argue that the huge diversity and high rate of new decks appearing gives it a brewers-paradise sort of air. However, that doesn't mean you can expect to be competitive with a pile of jank. Brewing in modern means starting from a place of deep format knowledge, understanding how you'll be raced, how you'll be disrupted, what relevant ways you can disrupt or race an opponent and what sorts of answers are useful against the decks you expect to see (which isn't easy).
Humans is a good example of this. It's a pile of small creatures and some aether vials. Individually, they don't do much but together, with cards like meddling mage, reflector mage and freebooter you have exactly the sorts of disruption you need, for a 'slower' aggro deck to be able to win games. Without those pieces, the deck wouldn't do anything. Similarly, the spirits deck contains disruptive elements which can mitigate the effect of sweepers and removal (despite which, the deck can still be too slow sometimes).
If you're entering modern for the first time, don't see the format as aggressive, because honestly you won't learn much. See it as diverse and pay attention to the archetypes (combo, aggro, control, midrange, toolbox, tempo) and see how each one juggles its gameplan against the others. It's a bit of a bizarre rock/paper/scissors situation but with 40+ options instead of three. Stuff that's good doesn't stay good for too long, and the metagame constantly cycles.
Your main weapon in modern is consistency. I play lots of Tron, and before that I played Jund and RUG Scapeshift. All three of these decks do medium-power things but do them consistently. Tron (which I have most experience with) is mostly 'filler' cards aimed at drawing you into lands and improving your consistency. None of these decks have a quick win, they are all 'slow' decks, but they are able to disrupt an opponent along the right axis to delay them for a turn or two (which is often enough). Before that, I played 'eternal command' which was a combo/tempo deck without a quick win but with a powerful soft-lock on the midgame and decent tempo gameplan. Again, a 'slow' deck but it contained the right tools (at the time) to be able to generate advantage and win games.
Theres no quick fix. You gotta learn the format. It's a surprisingly friendly format if you put the time in, and are willing to accept that sometimes you'll hit that 1-deck-out-of-40 that completely wrecks you. Everyone else is in the same boat and gets wrecked on occasion too. As long as you don't assume its just you getting the bad beats and 'bad luck' you'll be fine. You WILL want to start your modern journey with one of the established decks. They exist and are successful for a reason, and you'll need a half-decent window into playing the format to get to grips with the rhythm and pacing, the to-and-fro of modern. It's more complex than standard and individual decisions matter more. Starting with a homebrew is gonna be very, very difficult if you're entering into a competitive environment. "competitive" is the key word there. People are using the best options available in every archetype.
the basis for the problem you present, where decks are getting faster, more resilient, and just overall more powerful and the format is spread so thin that everyone is just flipping coins before signing the match slip. how certain are you that twin could sufficiently change that?
you say that unbanning twin has been this solution that you have been advocating for 3 years. alright, well something like 80% of the decks that see heavy play didnt even exist 1.5 years ago; or at least are significantly different.
lets make some assumptions that i think you will agree with because i have seen you make similar claims:
-twin was not oppressive while around
-twin has not received any meaningful upgrades, and the best version if unbanned would be UR twin that pretty much looks the same as it did when legal.
how does one combo in one deck, that hasnt gotten much better, solve a problem that is founded on all these other decks getting stronger?
its the same trap that you frequently show so much scorn for when people fall into it. believing that what a card did or does in a different environment means it would do that same thing in modern right now.
would twin in the format not be beneficial at all? sure it could help a little. unban the card so people can play with a deck they enjoy. however presenting the reason it should be unbanned the way you did just doesnt make much sense. its never been, and still isnt, some panacea for what is afflicting modern.
if you DO believe that it would have prevented the alleged state of things if it had been around these last 3 years. ask yourself how it would have accomplished that. how does one combo in one deck stop 20 different high powered proactive decks from becoming a force? it oppresses them, stops them from rising up, 'polices' them. this is literally the reason many twin ban supporters cite, and what you have so vehemently argued against.
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as for the OP's question. i dont think there is an easy answer. that is kinda the point lol. the situation described is because 'answers' (ie disruption) are either too narrow or insufficient in small amounts.
wizards showed an effort in printing more targetted hate cards last year. continuing that route is one step, but i hope they continue to push it for more generic disruptive pieces that either have more cross matchup applications and or are main deck-able. modal cards, or cards that can be tailor made to be applicable in an environment like modern without disturbing standard too much. deathrite shaman is the extreme example of this.
that is also another front wizards could fight on, just allowing cards to bypass standard. unlikely at this point, but we know wizards has at least considered it at some point. for instance a card like baleful strix sounds pretty good in a format that is 50% aggro/aggro-combo.
lastly there are unbans to promote MORE decks that can be meaningfully slowed with removal. when removal gets worse because it just isnt doing its job effectively then fair-ish decks like midrange and control have to lean on drawing a smaller subset of interaction before and after sideboarding.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
As to the topic at hand, Modern's meta is too vast to find 'an' answer. There are many answers, some working better than others in certain situations, and if one is good enough, and able to stomach the inevitable bad match ups (that all decks have really) then you can find success with any of the VERY large number of decks possible.
Spirits
D&T has a lot less free wins off Leonin Arbiter nowadays because more decks aren't playing fetchlands (e.g. Humans, Hardened Scales, even Storm. UW has 4 fetches instead of 8). Also, Pod is banned and Scapeshift isn't what it used to be.
Kaya is a terrible card. Nihil Spellbomb and Rest in Peace exile whole graveyards, not just two cards. You can only activate her ability at sorcery speed, so your opponent can just dump creatures and revive them on his turn, e.g. Loot a Bloodghast and play a land while Kaya is unable to do anything about it. Her -1 is Isolate that hits a few other inconsequential things.
It's not enough to just look at Kaya and say "oh she has lots of targets vs different decks, therefore she is good", you have to think "OK, I've exiled their stuff - now what?" Are they gonna kill you anyway because there's so much more where that came from? Probably yes.
Hallowed Moonlight is a bad SB card because it only slows your opponent for one turn, but doesn't force them to go through the motions of rebuilding their graveyard. If I blow Nihil Spellbomb against a Bloodghast deck for example, not only do I stop the Bloodghasts from coming in, but my opponent also has to work to get more Bloodghasts into his graveyard again, since the Bloodghasts that would have come in are now sitting in exile. This buys you a lot more time than Hallowed Moonlight - if you Moonlight an opponent who's about to revive Bloodghast, he just chooses to not revive them since the ability is optional. Crucially, the Bloodghasts are still in his graveyard (not in exile, like the Spellbomb case), ready to jump out on landfall. The same applies to Aether Vial.
Prized Amalgam has to piggyback off Bloodghast or Narcomoeba and those are optional. Collected Company says "up to two", zero is up to two.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
As it's vaguely on topic, not recently. Growth spiral has me interested though. On three mana, being able to hold up electrolyze or spiral-->remand is quite interesting. Also being able to spiral into one-mana counters or a bolt is pleasing too. (or mainphase spiral into suspend search for tomorrow). Colour me intrigued.
Spirits
That's a really nice post. What's your opinion on U Tron competitiveness for MTG Online and below major event level of play?
As this thread has gone off topic from OP's original intention, and since the both threads are quite similar and looking to discuss the modern metagame/health, we ask that all further discussions on the topic are taken to the State of Modern thread in order to keep all of the discussions in one place.
Thread locked.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge