Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
No additional work. I already have the numbers for an upcoming article. They do exist in Tier 2, Tier 3, and under Tier 3. During the Twin era of 2015, any given month had (on average) 22.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. If you included Twin, it was 27.8 decks. During 2016, any given month had (on average) 24.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. This is slightly more than the non-Twin blue decks in 2015, but slightly less than the total Twin + non-Twin number of unique decks.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
No additional work. I already have the numbers for an upcoming article. They do exist in Tier 2, Tier 3, and under Tier 3. During the Twin era of 2015, any given month had (on average) 22.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. If you included Twin, it was 27.8 decks. During 2016, any given month had (on average) 24.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. This is slightly more than the non-Twin blue decks in 2015, but slightly less than the total Twin + non-Twin number of unique decks.
I assumed. My reasoning is I want to actually show the actual blue decks in circulation now. And I want people to point to each one and say what is actually needed to make those decks more competitive while sticking to their shells.
Right now, we have a lot of colorful complaining, and a strict focus on unbans. Maybe unbans and bans are not what WotC wants. Maybe they will slowly introduce better options (like FP) though new sets. It is more beneficial to them, anyways. Unbanning Preordain makes them no money (especially if Modern is thriving). Printing a modern playable blue card in an upcoming set makes them a lot more money, comparatively. So maybe asking for unbans is not the way to go. We are just wasting precious bytes in the MTGS db.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
In all honesty, how many of moderns games could currently be decided just by showing each other your opening hands? I don't actually know. Just by nature of decks being turn 3-4 kill decks there are only so many cards that you can see in a game, and thus only so many decisions that can be made.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
No additional work. I already have the numbers for an upcoming article. They do exist in Tier 2, Tier 3, and under Tier 3. During the Twin era of 2015, any given month had (on average) 22.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. If you included Twin, it was 27.8 decks. During 2016, any given month had (on average) 24.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. This is slightly more than the non-Twin blue decks in 2015, but slightly less than the total Twin + non-Twin number of unique decks.
I assumed. My reasoning is I want to actually show the actual blue decks in circulation now. And I want people to point to each one and say what is actually needed to make those decks more competitive while sticking to their shells.
Right now, we have a lot of colorful complaining, and a strict focus on unbans. Maybe unbans and bans are not what WotC wants. Maybe they will slowly introduce better options (like FP) though new sets. It is more beneficial to them, anyways. Unbanning Preordain makes them no money (especially if Modern is thriving). Printing a modern playable blue card in an upcoming set makes them a lot more money, comparatively. So maybe asking for unbans is not the way to go. We are just wasting precious bytes in the MTGS db.
Yes, for sure I (and many others, I think) would prefer counterspell or even the revolt counterspell. Given a choice between jtms, preordain, dig and counterspell, I think the latter would be the best for modern (and a specific answer to your request). However, given wotc's stance on standard and introducing cards to modern specifically through standard, this is unlikely.
We will see in the next few sets, of course. But I would be shocked to see a generic answer on the level of abrupt decay, thoughtseize, or fatal push printed in blue in the next two years.
Tough call. It really depends on what you consider to be white's role in the color pie, and I'm not sure there's a good answer to that question.
Historically, the three most characteristically white cards were probably Savannah Lions, Wrath of God, and Armageddon. White weenie strategies used Savannah Lions and Armageddon in combination with each other, effectively locking opponents out of a game. By contrast, Wrath was used in control decks, but it only kept creature decks in check.
Today, characteristically white cards are probably taxes and Wrath variants. However, it's obvious that Black is the control color in Modern, because the discardspells are so effective at their jobs. In essence, black control has crowded out white control, resulting in GBx being more prevalent than WXx control. That isn't necessarily a problem, except white hasn't found a strength to replace it. At this point, white is only uniquely good at taxing things, which isn't typically a catch-all strategy because the prevalence of both fast aggro and T4 combo in Modern spreads taxing decks pretty thin.
In my opinion, white needs something uniquely powerful. I don't really have opinions on what that thing should be. I can give examples though. A catch-all tax on creature and noncreature spells (like Lodestone Golem) at 3 CMC would be good for Modern (although it would be terrible for Vintage); right now, the 4 CMC tax that dies to Bolt just isn't cutting it. A 2 CMC Thalia-variant that only taxes your opponent's creatures would be good too; it slows down the aggro decks, but doesn't punish control. Armageddon probably isn't too powerful for Modern (aggro decks don't really care about it, and control decks make you discard/counter it), but it's still probably unfun to play against; the best thing about Armageddon is that you can't play it in Naya Zoo without nerfing Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape. Stronger landdenial also makes white weenie strategies more viable; I'm not saying we need Wasteland, but we could use something stronger than Ghost Quarter.
Ultimately, I think white is in a bad spot because it doesn't have a unique role in the color pie. The best weenies in Modern are green and red. The best control cards in Modern areblack. The only land destruction sorceriesarered and played in a RG deck (Ponza), while arguably the best land destruction spell is BR. White is second or third best at doing all of the things that it used to be known for. Either WotC needs to power up taxes or they need to come up with something else that's uniquely white.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
@Kovo I would classify Blue control decks (and as above stated there is a difference between blue control and decks that are blue *merfolk*) as any deck that tries to stall in the early to mid and win in the long game while playing at instant speed as much as possible. The difference between blue control and big mana decks like Tron, or combo decks like Scapeshift, is that they try to win the game through answers, permission, and the slow incremental accumulation of advantage rather than just hanging on to survival until the game-ending hail-Mary kill shot. I think it could be argued that Scapeshift and Tron are both control decks of a fashion, but they are not the incremental interactive control decks that make for such involved games against midrange, combo, and aggro. I am actually pretty happy with the way modern looks right now, while archetype diversity may be a little low deck diversity is very high, and that's one of the reasons I love modern. However, I would say that we shouldn't be unwilling to explore unbans or be critical of a desire to help blue control decks because 1) they are a legitimately underrepresented archetype, and 2) they are a fun addition to the format.
@ktkenshinx I think that white faces the same problem as blue (namely that their sections of the color pie have been nerfed) and that both can be fixed the same way. What are whites strengths? It is the color of creature swarm, fair-play, equipment, enchantments, and lifegain. The issue is that all of those themes are fairly weak in modern sets. The creatures for creature swarm are better in other colors, wraths are more expensive and moving to black, SFM is banned and BS has WOTC spooked, Theros block wasn't close to pushing a modern enchantment deck, and lifegain is not a competitively viable modern strategy. (Blue faces similar issues w/ its counterspells, extra turns, bounce, and library manipulation being significantly weaker than they once were). The fix is easy, power up their portions of the color pie. Print another solid Brimaz level token maker, some better enchantment support, and a few more lifegain payoff cards and we'd have white weenie, W-based enchanments and soul sisters moving up modern's ranks. Or there could be a SFM unban and then everyone and their third aunt would play white, at least for a while
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
What? If people don't play it, it wont show up. You know thats how it works, right? In 70+ matches I have a 68.29% win rate. On paper I have 72.3%. And this is in 2017. And Im not the only one. And considering Im not the best Magic player around, I can only imagine a more experienced player could do even better.
If Day 1 of an event is 90% tier 1-2, then tier 1-2 is what you will see in day 2.
In regards to blue and white in Modern, it may be that they are fated to remain in their current state indefinitely, and after some time of thinking on the subject, I'm honestly not that torn up over it. I think we just need to accept that at some point, this is a color pie issue, they want blue to have permission but never removal, and they want white to have removal but never permission. Because both colors have exactly what the other wants, they end up usually being played together in the classic UW control shell, even looking historically at Modern as a format, outside of twin, the most successful archetype for blue and white decks in this format were decks that utilized both of them. Now the issue to think about in this regard, is whether this is a bad thing, and to what extent.
Its hard to quantify the power of different colors in Modern as far as "main colors" and "support colors" in the traditional sense because what do we compare them to? People complain about white or blues solo power in the format by comparing them to notable multicolor decks like jund, abzan, etc but this is clearly not a fair comparison. We could say that green is a strong main color for Modern because of Goyf or Hooting Mandrils or Traverse the Ulvenwald, but those cards are only as good as they are because of cards from other colors that are played with them, the only notable Mono green decks in the format play none of those cards, whether it is Elves or Mono-green stompy etc. And the power level of those Mono-green decks are generally perceived as much lower then their multi colored comparisons.
Honestly I'm just not sure anymore, the more I think about it, the less envious I am about the position Wotc is in, since no matter what decision they make, reasonable people can argue that they are making disastrous mistakes or saving the day all at the same time, to extent, I suppose this could simply be chalked up to the un-unified state of the Modern playerbase, everyone comes with their own perspective and its hard to try to value one perspective above others when the ultimate goal of the game is to achieve the intangible quality known as "Fun".
Just some food for thought, figured I would share my take on it.
What's this deck? And how good exactrly are you suggesting it is? Is it a RUG variation?
The same deck Ive been talking about for months. Temur Delver. Its in my sig.
As for how good it is. I leave that up to you. Its not oppressive. Its not in its most efficient form, yet. But it works. And your win-rate generally goes up the more you practice.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
No, we are all just bad players because blue is so skill intensive no magic player has learned to master it yet. In a few years I'm sure we will see monkey gro take over the format as all of us complaining blue mages learn all the in and outs of the deck...
I seriously don't get how people can think there isn't any problem here but apparently wizards agrees so we must be the crazy ones. You and most people on this forum know that spikes want the best chance to win and don't care about color or deck bias. These are pros that have tons of time to learn every trick of every deck in the format. Anyone that can claim with a straight face that blue mages just need to practice harder are delusional.
EDIT: I saw an article earlier, can't remember where, that said this ban announcement is a lot like when you ask your girlfriend what is wrong and they respond with "nothing" when there is clearly a problem. It was referring mostly to standard but clearly the whole game revolves around standard and I just thought it was funny.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
No, we are all just bad players because blue is so skill intensive no magic player has learned to master it yet. In a few years I'm sure we will see monkey gro take over the format as all of us complaining blue mages learn all the in and outs of the deck...
I seriously don't get how people can think there isn't any problem here but apparently wizards agrees so we must be the crazy ones. You and most people on this forum know that spikes want the best chance to win and don't care about color or deck bias. These are pros that have tons of time to learn every trick of every deck in the format. Anyone that can claim with a straight face that blue mages just need to practice harder are delusional.
Keep that attitude. I guess its working for you. Spikes play whatever gives them the easiest wins. If all you do is follow pros and play what they play, I find you will continually find yourself being disappointed.
People who think pros have (or should have) the final say on what should be played, are delusional.
What's this deck? And how good exactrly are you suggesting it is? Is it a RUG variation?
The same deck Ive been talking about for months. Temur Delver. Its in my sig.
As for how good it is. I leave that up to you. Its not oppressive. Its not in its most efficient form, yet. But it works. And your win-rate generally goes up the more you practice.
I am quite familiar on this deck and I have playtested A LOT against it since a friend of mine IRL was playing with it. Gitaxian Probe is a card that was in the deck, even if it was super necessary. So, it's safe to assume that the deck got hurt by the probe banning just a little bit. Knowing that it was a good deck(certainly not garbage as cfusion suggests), but very far away from being close to Tier 1 pre-Probe banning, I find it difficult to believe that it's close to Tier 1 post-Probe banning.
My main concern is the Jund matchup. During playtest, this friend of mine had me playing Jund. And the matchup was pretty much horrendous. He is a good player with a lot of top 8's in the local region in various events, but it felt like a walk in the park from my part, despite Huntmaster of The Fells helping him a lot.
Other concerns are Ancestral Vision matchups that seemed quite concerning as well, Abzan midrange too. Azorious Control seems unbeatable also.
I would like to know more about the DS matchup though.
All in all, if Preordain gets unbanned I will look into it and probably could see the deck becoming close to Tier 1.5. As things stand, and with Probe banned, this is questionable.
Not sure what you are talking about. Jund after game 1 is actually pretty fair. I enjoy my Jund match-ups. Probe did hurt the deck in its previous form, but my win rate comes post-ban. I tend to grind alright against Jund. Im not saying its 60/40, but its not 40/60, either.
I love Ancestral Vision matchups. We are usually far ahead by turn 4. And if Im stable by then, I dont care if it resolves, because nothing else will.
I have not played too much against DS decks, yet. So far its 50% win rate. It'll take some tweaking, but they are not impossible match-ups, either.
The deck is challenging, decisions are not linear, and wins dont always come easy. But it is fun, and it is competitive, and it can (and does) win.
I hope more people adopt it, a bigger player base would contribute so much to the deck.
What's this deck? And how good exactrly are you suggesting it is? Is it a RUG variation?
The same deck Ive been talking about for months. Temur Delver. Its in my sig.
As for how good it is. I leave that up to you. Its not oppressive. Its not in its most efficient form, yet. But it works. And your win-rate generally goes up the more you practice.
I am quite familiar on this deck and I have playtested A LOT against it since a friend of mine IRL was playing with it. Gitaxian Probe is a card that was in the deck, even if it was super necessary. So, it's safe to assume that the deck got hurt by the probe banning just a little bit. Knowing that it was a good deck(certainly not garbage as cfusion suggests), but very far away from being close to Tier 1 pre-Probe banning, I find it difficult to believe that it's close to Tier 1 post-Probe banning.
My main concern is the Jund matchup. During playtest, this friend of mine had me playing Jund. And the matchup was pretty much horrendous. He is a good player with a lot of top 8's in the local region in various events, but it felt like a walk in the park from my part, despite Huntmaster of The Fells helping him a lot.
Other concerns are Ancestral Vision matchups that seemed quite concerning as well, Abzan midrange too. Azorious Control seems unbeatable also.
I would like to know more about the DS matchup though.
All in all, if Preordain gets unbanned I will look into it and probably could see the deck becoming close to Tier 1.5. As things stand, and with Probe banned, this is questionable.
I don't remember saying it's garbage, but it's basically just Grixis Delver with extra fatties in the form of 4 Goyf and 4 Hoots. It trades K Command, Terminate, Fatal Push and extra snaps to go for a buff/protection beatdown suite. In my opinion, Grixis plays the significantly better mid and long game without giving up much in closing speed. There are numerous other better disruptive beatdown decks (namely DS Jund right now), and this deck is just strictly worse than DS Jund. It may be better or worse than Grixis Delver depending on your personal goals. What I find interesting is that literally nobody is playing this deck. It has nothing on Goldfish and 1 or 2 in the last several months on Top8. This tells me that maybe people who own Goyfs are playing the better Goyf deck, and people who want to play Delver are playing the more versatile Delver deck. It certainly has merits, but to sit on a high horse and call RUG Delver some secret hidden gem that us netdecking scrubs are too blind to discover and too unskilled to play is not only arrogant, but looks silly in the face of a year's worth of statistics and results.
I have never played with or against RUG Delver and as others have stated I haven't seen notable results from the deck posted anywhere, but lets all remember that every deck from DS Jund to Eldrazi started off as some person's jank brew until other people picked it up and it got enough interest and spotlight to be refined and perfected by the community. If Kovo's doing well with the deck than I say good for him and I hope we can see it put up some results somewhere because an interactive blue deck would be a breath of fresh air that many people have been asking for. I'm not saying anyone is actually wrong in the current debate, high performing and highly played decks are high performing and highly played because they have proven success and saying "people are uncreative" is not fair to all the brewers. However to say that just because something doesn't have top tier results yet it is bad is also not fair. BW Eldrazi processors was a cute pet deck until it morphed into heartless summoning eldrazi and ate the format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
...
I don't remember saying it's garbage, but it's basically just Grixis Delver with extra fatties in the form of 4 Goyf and 4 Hoots. It trades K Command, Terminate, Fatal Push and extra snaps to go for a buff/protection beatdown suite. In my opinion, Grixis plays the significantly better mid and long game without giving up much in closing speed. There are numerous other better disruptive beatdown decks (namely DS Jund right now), and this deck is just strictly worse than DS Jund. It may be better or worse than Grixis Delver depending on your personal goals. What I find interesting is that literally nobody is playing this deck. It has nothing on Goldfish and 1 or 2 in the last several months on Top8. This tells me that maybe people who own Goyfs are playing the better Goyf deck, and people who want to play Delver are playing the more versatile Delver deck. It certainly has merits, but to sit on a high horse and call RUG Delver some secret hidden gem that us netdecking scrubs are too blind to discover and too unskilled to play is not only arrogant, but looks silly in the face of a year's worth of statistics and results.
In my experience most players just do a lookup on winning decks, and build those decks. Which means there are a bunch of decks in players' blindspots. Im sorry that Rug Delver does not use Twin. But considering that card isn't coming off the list any time soon. I think its time to move on.
And Im not sitting on any high horse. Ive been more than transparent that Im not a pro, nor do I consider myself one. I enjoy playing competitive magic. I enjoy winning. And I enjoy my tempo deck that seems to have things you all want, but dont want to play in a temur shell. Not my problem!
I have never played with or against RUG Delver and as others have stated I haven't seen notable results from the deck posted anywhere, but lets all remember that every deck from DS Jund to Eldrazi started off as some person's jank brew until other people picked it up and it got enough interest and spotlight to be refined and perfected by the community. If Kovo's doing well with the deck than I say good for him and I hope we can see it put up some results somewhere because an interactive blue deck would be a breath of fresh air that many people have been asking for. I'm not saying anyone is actually wrong in the current debate, high performing and highly played decks are high performing and highly played because they have proven success and saying "people are uncreative" is not fair to all the brewers. However to say that just because something doesn't have top tier results yet it is bad is also not fair. BW Eldrazi processors was a cute pet deck until it morphed into heartless summoning eldrazi and ate the format.
No, no. If a pro isnt playing it, its bad. End of story.
Also, if people want access to black, then brew with a Sultai shell, instead. It's doable, I just like my Blood Moons.
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
No, we are all just bad players because blue is so skill intensive no magic player has learned to master it yet. In a few years I'm sure we will see monkey gro take over the format as all of us complaining blue mages learn all the in and outs of the deck...
I seriously don't get how people can think there isn't any problem here but apparently wizards agrees so we must be the crazy ones. You and most people on this forum know that spikes want the best chance to win and don't care about color or deck bias. These are pros that have tons of time to learn every trick of every deck in the format. Anyone that can claim with a straight face that blue mages just need to practice harder are delusional.
Keep that attitude. I guess its working for you. Spikes play whatever gives them the easiest wins. If all you do is follow pros and play what they play, I find you will continually find yourself being disappointed.
People who think pros have (or should have) the final say on what should be played, are delusional.
I'm not saying pros should have the final say in what should be played at all, and in fact many of them don't care about modern and will gladly hop on "the best" deck. Totally willing to admit that. But you said rug delver is better with more practice. Great, don't you think Jund is better the more you practice with it also? There is always a bit of an over correction to the best deck by players that don't want to put in the work and just want what is collectively going to give them the most wins. So of course there are some decks whose win rates are better than their meta share suggests it should be. RUG delver may be one of those (bant CoCo from a few months ago comes to mind) but each deck has a certain likelihood of winning against each other deck and play testing really only maximizes your chances inside those percentages. As ktshinx already stated previously, you are improving your odds of winning testing with inferior decks, but you aren't improving your odds as much as if you were playing with a better deck to begin with.
I play BW deadguy ale as my main deck and I have UW tallowisp spirits with disrupting shoal and shining shoal, bant CoCo, grixis delver, abzan company, and a GW hardened scales human tribal deck. I've gone undefeated with each of these decks at least once at FNMs. Clearly not listening exclusively to what pros are saying but to discount them completely as some big inbred meta fest is clearly ignoring a huge part of the equation, which is reactive decks are just worse than proactive ones. I don't even care about color balance or getting a new deck myself, I just want to be able to watch some interactive matches every once in awhile. Watching the SCG Indy open was just thrilling watching a bunch of DS mirrors.
Tough call. It really depends on what you consider to be white's role in the color pie, and I'm not sure there's a good answer to that question.
Historically, the three most characteristically white cards were probably Savannah Lions, Wrath of God, and Armageddon. White weenie strategies used Savannah Lions and Armageddon in combination with each other, effectively locking opponents out of a game. By contrast, Wrath was used in control decks, but it only kept creature decks in check.
Today, characteristically white cards are probably taxes and Wrath variants. However, it's obvious that Black is the control color in Modern, because the discardspells are so effective at their jobs. In essence, black control has crowded out white control, resulting in GBx being more prevalent than WXx control. That isn't necessarily a problem, except white hasn't found a strength to replace it. At this point, white is only uniquely good at taxing things, which isn't typically a catch-all strategy because the prevalence of both fast aggro and T4 combo in Modern spreads taxing decks pretty thin.
In my opinion, white needs something uniquely powerful. I don't really have opinions on what that thing should be. I can give examples though. A catch-all tax on creature and noncreature spells (like Lodestone Golem) at 3 CMC would be good for Modern (although it would be terrible for Vintage); right now, the 4 CMC tax that dies to Bolt just isn't cutting it. A 2 CMC Thalia-variant that only taxes your opponent's creatures would be good too; it slows down the aggro decks, but doesn't punish control. Armageddon probably isn't too powerful for Modern (aggro decks don't really care about it, and control decks make you discard/counter it), but it's still probably unfun to play against; the best thing about Armageddon is that you can't play it in Naya Zoo without nerfing Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape. Stronger landdenial also makes white weenie strategies more viable; I'm not saying we need Wasteland, but we could use something stronger than Ghost Quarter.
Ultimately, I think white is in a bad spot because it doesn't have a unique role in the color pie. The best weenies in Modern are green and red. The best control cards in Modern areblack. The only land destruction sorceriesarered and played in a RG deck (Ponza), while arguably the best land destruction spell is BR. White is second or third best at doing all of the things that it used to be known for. Either WotC needs to power up taxes or they need to come up with something else that's uniquely white.
White has some unique characteristic, like taxing and exiling. But what I feel White really had going for it was the design space SFM explored. Cheating out equipment. It makes so much flavorful sense for white to be the best at handling equipment. I'd really like to see SFM in Modern because White is really weak right now and SFM does something very unique to White that the other colors can't replicate.
The fear is that it'll only make Abzan and Bant Eldrazi decks better. Who here thinks Bant Eldrazi would put in copies of SFM maindeck?
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Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
No additional work. I already have the numbers for an upcoming article. They do exist in Tier 2, Tier 3, and under Tier 3. During the Twin era of 2015, any given month had (on average) 22.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. If you included Twin, it was 27.8 decks. During 2016, any given month had (on average) 24.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. This is slightly more than the non-Twin blue decks in 2015, but slightly less than the total Twin + non-Twin number of unique decks.
I assumed. My reasoning is I want to actually show the actual blue decks in circulation now. And I want people to point to each one and say what is actually needed to make those decks more competitive while sticking to their shells.
Right now, we have a lot of colorful complaining, and a strict focus on unbans. Maybe unbans and bans are not what WotC wants. Maybe they will slowly introduce better options (like FP) though new sets. It is more beneficial to them, anyways. Unbanning Preordain makes them no money (especially if Modern is thriving). Printing a modern playable blue card in an upcoming set makes them a lot more money, comparatively. So maybe asking for unbans is not the way to go. We are just wasting precious bytes in the MTGS db.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I don't even care that the deck is blue, I just want a reactive deck that has multiple lines of play based on what the opponent is doing with more than just the thought of "I need to make sure this blighted agent lives for one turn". I want a deck that doesn't have 80-20 or 20-80 matchups, even if that means all my matches are 40-60. I want a game with tons of decisions, each of which plays a small part in determining the outcome of the game. I want to pit my wits against yours and see who comes out on top. I don't want to just gold fish at each other. And for the record, I wasn't a twin player when it was legal and wouldn't play it if it came back but I appreciated it in the format because it made for skill intensive games.
In all honesty, how many of moderns games could currently be decided just by showing each other your opening hands? I don't actually know. Just by nature of decks being turn 3-4 kill decks there are only so many cards that you can see in a game, and thus only so many decisions that can be made.
That deck already exists. And I play it, a lot. And I win, a lot. And Im not even a pro with it, yet.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Yes, for sure I (and many others, I think) would prefer counterspell or even the revolt counterspell. Given a choice between jtms, preordain, dig and counterspell, I think the latter would be the best for modern (and a specific answer to your request). However, given wotc's stance on standard and introducing cards to modern specifically through standard, this is unlikely.
We will see in the next few sets, of course. But I would be shocked to see a generic answer on the level of abrupt decay, thoughtseize, or fatal push printed in blue in the next two years.
To put things in perspective, standard right now is 2 decks.
Historically, the three most characteristically white cards were probably Savannah Lions, Wrath of God, and Armageddon. White weenie strategies used Savannah Lions and Armageddon in combination with each other, effectively locking opponents out of a game. By contrast, Wrath was used in control decks, but it only kept creature decks in check.
Today, characteristically white cards are probably taxes and Wrath variants. However, it's obvious that Black is the control color in Modern, because the discard spells are so effective at their jobs. In essence, black control has crowded out white control, resulting in GBx being more prevalent than WXx control. That isn't necessarily a problem, except white hasn't found a strength to replace it. At this point, white is only uniquely good at taxing things, which isn't typically a catch-all strategy because the prevalence of both fast aggro and T4 combo in Modern spreads taxing decks pretty thin.
In my opinion, white needs something uniquely powerful. I don't really have opinions on what that thing should be. I can give examples though. A catch-all tax on creature and noncreature spells (like Lodestone Golem) at 3 CMC would be good for Modern (although it would be terrible for Vintage); right now, the 4 CMC tax that dies to Bolt just isn't cutting it. A 2 CMC Thalia-variant that only taxes your opponent's creatures would be good too; it slows down the aggro decks, but doesn't punish control. Armageddon probably isn't too powerful for Modern (aggro decks don't really care about it, and control decks make you discard/counter it), but it's still probably unfun to play against; the best thing about Armageddon is that you can't play it in Naya Zoo without nerfing Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape. Stronger land denial also makes white weenie strategies more viable; I'm not saying we need Wasteland, but we could use something stronger than Ghost Quarter.
Ultimately, I think white is in a bad spot because it doesn't have a unique role in the color pie. The best weenies in Modern are green and red. The best control cards in Modern are black. The only land destruction sorceries are red and played in a RG deck (Ponza), while arguably the best land destruction spell is BR. White is second or third best at doing all of the things that it used to be known for. Either WotC needs to power up taxes or they need to come up with something else that's uniquely white.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
@Kovo I would classify Blue control decks (and as above stated there is a difference between blue control and decks that are blue *merfolk*) as any deck that tries to stall in the early to mid and win in the long game while playing at instant speed as much as possible. The difference between blue control and big mana decks like Tron, or combo decks like Scapeshift, is that they try to win the game through answers, permission, and the slow incremental accumulation of advantage rather than just hanging on to survival until the game-ending hail-Mary kill shot. I think it could be argued that Scapeshift and Tron are both control decks of a fashion, but they are not the incremental interactive control decks that make for such involved games against midrange, combo, and aggro. I am actually pretty happy with the way modern looks right now, while archetype diversity may be a little low deck diversity is very high, and that's one of the reasons I love modern. However, I would say that we shouldn't be unwilling to explore unbans or be critical of a desire to help blue control decks because 1) they are a legitimately underrepresented archetype, and 2) they are a fun addition to the format.
@ktkenshinx I think that white faces the same problem as blue (namely that their sections of the color pie have been nerfed) and that both can be fixed the same way. What are whites strengths? It is the color of creature swarm, fair-play, equipment, enchantments, and lifegain. The issue is that all of those themes are fairly weak in modern sets. The creatures for creature swarm are better in other colors, wraths are more expensive and moving to black, SFM is banned and BS has WOTC spooked, Theros block wasn't close to pushing a modern enchantment deck, and lifegain is not a competitively viable modern strategy. (Blue faces similar issues w/ its counterspells, extra turns, bounce, and library manipulation being significantly weaker than they once were). The fix is easy, power up their portions of the color pie. Print another solid Brimaz level token maker, some better enchantment support, and a few more lifegain payoff cards and we'd have white weenie, W-based enchanments and soul sisters moving up modern's ranks. Or there could be a SFM unban and then everyone and their third aunt would play white, at least for a while
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
That must be why it shows up in so many GP and SCG Top 8/16/32s, right?
If a deck actually existed like that with the strengths you claim, it would be putting up the results to show it. Good decks rise to the top in popularity because players who want to win play good decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
What? If people don't play it, it wont show up. You know thats how it works, right? In 70+ matches I have a 68.29% win rate. On paper I have 72.3%. And this is in 2017. And Im not the only one. And considering Im not the best Magic player around, I can only imagine a more experienced player could do even better.
If Day 1 of an event is 90% tier 1-2, then tier 1-2 is what you will see in day 2.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Pretty much sums up my feelings between both formats.
modern is 50% aggro, 30% ramp + scapeshift (i know it is combo but count it as a ramp deck since that's what it does), 10% control 10% combo...
having different version of aggro is not diverse, it's always aggro
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Its hard to quantify the power of different colors in Modern as far as "main colors" and "support colors" in the traditional sense because what do we compare them to? People complain about white or blues solo power in the format by comparing them to notable multicolor decks like jund, abzan, etc but this is clearly not a fair comparison. We could say that green is a strong main color for Modern because of Goyf or Hooting Mandrils or Traverse the Ulvenwald, but those cards are only as good as they are because of cards from other colors that are played with them, the only notable Mono green decks in the format play none of those cards, whether it is Elves or Mono-green stompy etc. And the power level of those Mono-green decks are generally perceived as much lower then their multi colored comparisons.
Honestly I'm just not sure anymore, the more I think about it, the less envious I am about the position Wotc is in, since no matter what decision they make, reasonable people can argue that they are making disastrous mistakes or saving the day all at the same time, to extent, I suppose this could simply be chalked up to the un-unified state of the Modern playerbase, everyone comes with their own perspective and its hard to try to value one perspective above others when the ultimate goal of the game is to achieve the intangible quality known as "Fun".
Just some food for thought, figured I would share my take on it.
The same deck Ive been talking about for months. Temur Delver. Its in my sig.
As for how good it is. I leave that up to you. Its not oppressive. Its not in its most efficient form, yet. But it works. And your win-rate generally goes up the more you practice.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
No, we are all just bad players because blue is so skill intensive no magic player has learned to master it yet. In a few years I'm sure we will see monkey gro take over the format as all of us complaining blue mages learn all the in and outs of the deck...
I seriously don't get how people can think there isn't any problem here but apparently wizards agrees so we must be the crazy ones. You and most people on this forum know that spikes want the best chance to win and don't care about color or deck bias. These are pros that have tons of time to learn every trick of every deck in the format. Anyone that can claim with a straight face that blue mages just need to practice harder are delusional.
EDIT: I saw an article earlier, can't remember where, that said this ban announcement is a lot like when you ask your girlfriend what is wrong and they respond with "nothing" when there is clearly a problem. It was referring mostly to standard but clearly the whole game revolves around standard and I just thought it was funny.
Keep that attitude. I guess its working for you. Spikes play whatever gives them the easiest wins. If all you do is follow pros and play what they play, I find you will continually find yourself being disappointed.
People who think pros have (or should have) the final say on what should be played, are delusional.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Not sure what you are talking about. Jund after game 1 is actually pretty fair. I enjoy my Jund match-ups. Probe did hurt the deck in its previous form, but my win rate comes post-ban. I tend to grind alright against Jund. Im not saying its 60/40, but its not 40/60, either.
I love Ancestral Vision matchups. We are usually far ahead by turn 4. And if Im stable by then, I dont care if it resolves, because nothing else will.
I have not played too much against DS decks, yet. So far its 50% win rate. It'll take some tweaking, but they are not impossible match-ups, either.
The deck is challenging, decisions are not linear, and wins dont always come easy. But it is fun, and it is competitive, and it can (and does) win.
I hope more people adopt it, a bigger player base would contribute so much to the deck.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I don't remember saying it's garbage, but it's basically just Grixis Delver with extra fatties in the form of 4 Goyf and 4 Hoots. It trades K Command, Terminate, Fatal Push and extra snaps to go for a buff/protection beatdown suite. In my opinion, Grixis plays the significantly better mid and long game without giving up much in closing speed. There are numerous other better disruptive beatdown decks (namely DS Jund right now), and this deck is just strictly worse than DS Jund. It may be better or worse than Grixis Delver depending on your personal goals. What I find interesting is that literally nobody is playing this deck. It has nothing on Goldfish and 1 or 2 in the last several months on Top8. This tells me that maybe people who own Goyfs are playing the better Goyf deck, and people who want to play Delver are playing the more versatile Delver deck. It certainly has merits, but to sit on a high horse and call RUG Delver some secret hidden gem that us netdecking scrubs are too blind to discover and too unskilled to play is not only arrogant, but looks silly in the face of a year's worth of statistics and results.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
In my experience most players just do a lookup on winning decks, and build those decks. Which means there are a bunch of decks in players' blindspots. Im sorry that Rug Delver does not use Twin. But considering that card isn't coming off the list any time soon. I think its time to move on.
And Im not sitting on any high horse. Ive been more than transparent that Im not a pro, nor do I consider myself one. I enjoy playing competitive magic. I enjoy winning. And I enjoy my tempo deck that seems to have things you all want, but dont want to play in a temur shell. Not my problem!
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
No, no. If a pro isnt playing it, its bad. End of story.
Also, if people want access to black, then brew with a Sultai shell, instead. It's doable, I just like my Blood Moons.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I'm not saying pros should have the final say in what should be played at all, and in fact many of them don't care about modern and will gladly hop on "the best" deck. Totally willing to admit that. But you said rug delver is better with more practice. Great, don't you think Jund is better the more you practice with it also? There is always a bit of an over correction to the best deck by players that don't want to put in the work and just want what is collectively going to give them the most wins. So of course there are some decks whose win rates are better than their meta share suggests it should be. RUG delver may be one of those (bant CoCo from a few months ago comes to mind) but each deck has a certain likelihood of winning against each other deck and play testing really only maximizes your chances inside those percentages. As ktshinx already stated previously, you are improving your odds of winning testing with inferior decks, but you aren't improving your odds as much as if you were playing with a better deck to begin with.
I play BW deadguy ale as my main deck and I have UW tallowisp spirits with disrupting shoal and shining shoal, bant CoCo, grixis delver, abzan company, and a GW hardened scales human tribal deck. I've gone undefeated with each of these decks at least once at FNMs. Clearly not listening exclusively to what pros are saying but to discount them completely as some big inbred meta fest is clearly ignoring a huge part of the equation, which is reactive decks are just worse than proactive ones. I don't even care about color balance or getting a new deck myself, I just want to be able to watch some interactive matches every once in awhile. Watching the SCG Indy open was just thrilling watching a bunch of DS mirrors.
White has some unique characteristic, like taxing and exiling. But what I feel White really had going for it was the design space SFM explored. Cheating out equipment. It makes so much flavorful sense for white to be the best at handling equipment. I'd really like to see SFM in Modern because White is really weak right now and SFM does something very unique to White that the other colors can't replicate.
The fear is that it'll only make Abzan and Bant Eldrazi decks better. Who here thinks Bant Eldrazi would put in copies of SFM maindeck?