ver since tomb stalker came around Im as big a fan of the delve mechanic as you wil find anywhere. that said If the delve cards get oppressive, and that's a big if, the answer to it is only a bit of grave hate away, or even something like surgical extraction or extirpate. BGx just plays it's discard like normal, hitting either of DTt or Cruise, or the good spells the blue player hopes to draw into with them.
Delve is strong, and will situationally win games, but it's not go to redefine the format.
BGx is down in numbers due to burn, not a draw 3 cantrip. Once the meta really adjusts to burn BGx will come back. The meta is shifting but that doesn't mean the Jund or BG Rock or Junk are suddenly not worth playing. They just aren't well positioned right now. If these decks see a down tick in play you better believe that Twin and Storm will start being played in larger numbers, leading to a meta where the BGx shell can really do some damage. Bg can improve their burn match up as well if they want to play Courser, Finks, and as always, main deck Sooze. Bob is a liability in the match up, so this might be one of the few were you'll see bob getting sideboarded.
From my understanding of the MTGO metagame, this is absolutely correct.
Since KTK became legal, we have seen a handful of TC and DTT-based blue decks. Most of those are Ux(x) Delver decks, and a few are in the UWR Control category (the latter mostly running DTT). But we have seen a crap ton of Burn, to the extent that Burn makes up roughly 20% of the metagame right now. Even before KTK was legalized, Burn was at about 12% of the online metagame, so we have seen an additional 8% spike after the format shifted. There are a lot of reasons for this, but my guess is that it has a lot to do with cost. Burn is the cheapest Modern deck (by a lot) that is also a solid tier 1 contender. It also has an excellent matchup against the previous format frontrunner, the BGx Midrange shell. The rise of JA Storm has something to do with this too, but given that there have only been 5 JA Storms that placed 4-0/3-1 in the past 9 or so days (out of about 150+ decks), I think this is only a small contributing factor.
Sure, these observations are based on the public mothership MTGO dataset, which has its own limitations. But I imagine that, even if we looked at non-publicly published dailies, we would still see this trend on MTGO.
What does all this mean? It suggests that Delve has very little to do with the decline in BGx Midrange. It makes theoretical sense, but it's just not the picture we see on MTGO. A much likelier explanation is the parallel rise of Burn. Of course, paper metagames might give a different story, but just looking at MTGO this is the picture that appears to be emerging.
ver since tomb stalker came around Im as big a fan of the delve mechanic as you wil find anywhere. that said If the delve cards get oppressive, and that's a big if, the answer to it is only a bit of grave hate away, or even something like surgical extraction or extirpate. BGx just plays it's discard like normal, hitting either of DTt or Cruise, or the good spells the blue player hopes to draw into with them.
Delve is strong, and will situationally win games, but it's not go to redefine the format.
That said, I disagree with this last statement: Delve does redefine the format in a number of ways, although probably not as starkly as the OP suggests. TC especially makes discard a lot less valuable, both because it refuels the hand and because it is itself fueled by discarded cards. It gives a lot of decks a better BGx Midrange matchup, especially the blue-based combo and tempo decks that don't have a lot of spells that are individually more powerful than others. Even once Burn and BGx Midrange stabilize in the metagame, I expect we see a permanent decline in BGx just because some of its matchups have worsened across the board.
Delve does redefine the format in a number of ways, although probably not as starkly as the OP suggests. TC especially makes discard a lot less valuable, both because it refuels the hand and because it is itself fueled by discarded cards. It gives a lot of decks a better BGx Midrange matchup, especially the blue-based combo and tempo decks that don't have a lot of spells that are individually more powerful than others. Even once Burn and BGx Midrange stabilize in the metagame, I expect we see a permanent decline in BGx just because some of its matchups have worsened across the board.
This is exactly what I was arguing. I'm not saying Delve is the reason BGx is down right now. I haven't payed attention to the data or any recent events. I just made a prediction about the long-term effects the Delve mechanic will have on the Modern meta. I don't see BGx surviving unless it starts Delving itself.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
TC especially makes discard a lot less valuable, both because it refuels the hand and because it is itself fueled by discarded cards. It gives a lot of decks a better BGx Midrange matchup, especially the blue-based combo and tempo decks that don't have a lot of spells that are individually more powerful than others. Even once Burn and BGx Midrange stabilize in the metagame, I expect we see a permanent decline in BGx just because some of its matchups have worsened across the board.
I would like to suggest that we can draw an even bigger conclusion at which the effect on discard hints: TC is strong enough to make ALL Uxx decks better positioned for 1 for 1 trades. Simply put, any deck that plays TC will trade 1 for 1 better in whatever form that takes. For much the same reason as discard getting weaker, counterspells (especially remand) in particular have been made stronger.
In the case of BGx, it will suffer on both sides of this. Counterspells (a tool jund/junk lack) are also going to be stronger against it. BGx will get hit from multiple directions as a result of how strong TC in particular is. Discard weaker, counterspells stronger. Their attrition game is severely hampered as a result.
Not that this will be a bad thing in my book, I just hope the pendulum doesn't swing too far towards blue.
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Modern Decks
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Burn RBG
They banned Ponder and preordain, and there it is, a one mana ancestrall recall that can't be misdirected, usually gets online turn 3-4 (ancestrall vision style), is a huge topdeck mid/late game.
This will be a fun season of burn vs Decks with treasure cruise and then the remainder of the format. Heck, let's hope burn doesn't get using treasure cruise too. I certainly do not fancy burn with refuels mid way. The best answer to T. Cruise is likely remand, but even then, a dedicated deck can just reuse it 2 turns later.
If you can't beat them, join them. I imagine plenty of matches being decided by the first to find a cruise, then pull so much ahead from it that opponent must get their own cruise in 1-2 turns or it is a loss. I imagine delver mirrors being quite interesting though, until treasure cruise time. And when i talk about cruise, Dig through time is very close to being the same, albeit a bit slower
At least there are plenty of Cruise/Dig mirrors! Delver and Ascendancy (and modded Burn builds) can support Cruise, while from my testing, Scapeshift, Twin, UWR (all builds), Cruel Control, strange UR combo like Possibility Storm and Breach Emrakul, UW Midrange, and more can support Dig.
Yeah, I also think Cruise/Dig are dangerous cards. I'm breaking them as hard as I can before they go under the banhammer. (I'm not certain they'll get banned, though.)
2 Cards (not to mention digging) is much different from 3.
Considering the card cost is 1, you are really getting 100% more cards with TC over DTT.
Yup, Cruise nets +2 CA, while Dig only nets +1 CA!
The +2 CA is crucial for turbo-Delve blue decks (Delver, Ascendancy, some Ux Midrange/Control builds--check out Caleb Durward's latest brew!), while Dig's far superior card selection is pretty good for slower decks that can't turbo-Delve.
I am a bit skeptical about *how* the metagame could adjust without the need for a ban.
Drawing three isn't a thing you can shore up that much because it creates an inevitable pattern in games where the first one to recover after the grindfest is going to get the upper hand. Everyone not playing blue (and also those blue decks not suited to play Cruise) will have to adjust their maindeck somehow. The alternative is playing a deck that tries not to be buried against these massive doses of CA by comboing off in a turn. As I said this is already Modern in a nutshell, but where do you think this is going in a format where blue decks are going to fire up flashbackable draw3s by turn four? That is not fair nor fun as much as copying a million times Deceiver Exarch isn't. The format is getting dangerously close to Legacy sans really broken cards.
James Fazzolari got it right: you can't really play cards specifically aimed to get rid of Cruise looming because there is none worth being maindecked.
One can try to retool a deck (e.g. playing the fourth Ooze in BGx and adapt Hatebears by switching to Dryad Militant) but with evident limitations. Cards preventing graveyard from filling are either very narrow (Rest in Peace) or very mana intensive. The best options are probably Relic or Nihil Spellbomb for being cheap and the cantrip but the problem is that a deck designed to fully (ab)use Cruise takes, like, two turns to get it online again. Also, once four or five mana are reached, needing three or four per Cruise is incredibly easy to achieve.
Previous cards that people called a ban for ended up being absorbed by the metagame more or less properly, but I'm talking about Legacy here, where the cardpool is so deep and the general powerlevel so high that even Griselbrand somehow didn't tear apart the format (..for too long). Modern is a different animal because of the lack of Brainstorm and all these cute ways of balancing out card quality and economy. One should play with and against the card to understand how it brings discontent and breaks the natural limitations of certain strategies, tempo above all. If Wizards is being as rigid as it has been in the past about keeping the game "fun" to everyone, Cruise should get the hammer. Complainers are everywhere but this time with a shade of motivation.
I was happy thinking that it was the right step towards balancing blue and black but, as usual, blue pushes things too far easily.
1. Stop talking about bans
The only reason I'm not warning people is because this is the only active thread in Community and the level of conversation is high. No need to ruin that with warnings/infractions.
2. My biggest issue with the hype around TC is the lack of data. It's easy to evaluate a card in a theoretical whiteroom and discuss its merits. It's a lot harder to translate that to success or format dominance. TC is obviously going to be successful just from the preliminary data we have. It shows up in virtually every Ux(x) Delver build both in paper and online, at least over the past two weeks. DTT has shown up in a variety of control decks. But with the exception of Burn, which has spiked about 8% in its metagame share since KTK was legalized online, no other decks have really started to explode. Certainly no TC/DTT decks. BGx Midrange has declined, but that is almost assuredly due to the Burn spike. TC/DTT decks probably contribute to that, but their share has been pretty stable relative to the pre-KTK metagame, unlike the significant increase in Burn activity. That said, it is likely that those TC/DTT decks will help to keep BGx decks down, even if Burn is the primary reason for their decline in the first place.
3. Even doing a theoretical metagame analysis, we can come out with a few situations that do not result in an unbalanced format. All of it starts with Burn. Burn seems to have arisen for two reasons. First is its excellent matchup against BGx Midrange, which had been the deck to beat for months. Second is its cost, which is way, way lower than any other tier 1 deck in the format. Those reasons give rise to a situation where metagames are saturated with Burn decks. So then what happens? All things being equal (and in theory land, we can assume that), we should see a rise in decks that can beat Burn. There are a few candidates for that deck, and that's an interesting discussion piece in itself. The question then becomes, do those anti-Burn decks run TC? Do the decks that beat those decks run TC? Where does BGx reemerge and where does TC enter the picture?
BGx has Bojuka Bog if it really needs it. The also have Tormod's Crypt if TC get bad. Both cards are good against several decks. You could also force the discard and make the blue mage snap it back if they really wanted to use is. BGx has answers, you just have to look for them. I would say Junk is probably very well positioned right now. They can play all the white hate, have Knight of the Reliquary to help tutor up cards like Bojuka Bog, can main deck Kitchen Finks and actually cast it 80-90% of the time.
To be honest, I do not think spellbomb is where I want to be, nor is tormod's crypt. They need to be blown pre-treasure cruise, and in case they topdeck said Cruise, they are quite bad, since delving is used when paying cost. Therefore, Relic of Progenitus would be my card of choice, since one can keep making their yard smaller, and then be blown later on to cantrip. Yes, it slows goyf, but goyf grows fast enough that I do not see it has a problem. I am unsure if I even want to bring in grave hate. If it is only coming in to stop cruise, is it really worth it? Wouldn't you rather answer the cards drawn by cruise? If they have like 6 cards do you immediately blow the spellbomb or tormod? And what if they don't have the Cruise? The only true answer I see for delve spells are countermagic, remand being most likely the best. Oh, Gaddock Teeg is also very cool against those decks, but he seems to me like a lightning rod against those decks. Unlike legacy, we can't use Mom to save gaddock teeg. I do wonder if BGx can morph into a Dark Maverick deck that can bring rest in peace from the graveyard; anyway, still unsure if that is the type of SB card I'd use against UR Delver... Time will tell, but Bojuka bog is the card I see as the best. It doesn't interfere much with our gameplan, is tutorable via KoTR, which by himself brickwalls many Delver and Burn creatures, and allows a land subpackage toolbox to be used. I have been out for a few years, but I do think there are some life gain lands, which would be awesome with Courser alongside KoTR. Timely Reinforcements is your card advantage against burn and delver.; lingering souls does the work of BGw treasure cruise very often, as well as Bob.
Can the extra graveyard hate used to fight TC have a high impact on goyf? Sure it will, but at the moment Burn and Uxx Delve decks are a more pressing concern than grave hate. I am still unsure about finks. I see finks, sc. ooze and goyf as being affected by grave hate; and I'd like to have non gy reliant beaters: Batterskull and Thrun.
Is there any card that as an ability similar to relic of progenitus but when explodes only kills opponent graveyard, or X cards from their yard? I'd love to hit a full graveyard with an Haunting Echoes, unfortunately it is counterable. Wizards please make a 3RB spell like Haunting echoes uncounterable (just like slaughter games is cranial extraction cousin)
There is such a card. It's the previously mentioned Nihil Spellbomb. Having to blow it up when they get 5 cards in their graveyard instead of 7 gets tricky, though. (I sometimes cast Treasure Cruise for 2 mana.)
Also DTT might have to be banned down the road after the meta has stabilyzed from the TC ban, because it helps combo a little too much.
Wildly speculative. Sure, DTT helps combo, but the main policing deck of combo (BGx Midrange) has been basically made extinct by Burn/Delver. Just look at these stats from July through the present:
It is interesting that Jund hasn't changed too much in this time period, but BG Rock has taken a huge hit. This makes sense given Jund's ability to run Bolt and Anger maindeck, two cards which definitely give it game in those Burn/Delver matchups. But overall, as BGx Midrange continues to decline, the combo decks that they keep in check will look stronger by comparison. We can't even imagine a metagame (yet) where Delver/Burn don't dominate and DTT is checked/not-checked by BG decks. It's all speculation.
What is not speculation, however, is just how saturated MTGO is with Burn/Delver. It's really disgusting. Either deck ALONE makes up more than any other deck had in the last year, including both Affinity, Twin, and Melira Pod. Together (to the extent we can consider them together)? 32% of the online metagame. YUCK.
And paper appears to be following that trend, although it's a gradual slide, not a sharp one.
So, seems like this happened. RIP BGx. See you next season maybe? For now, it's (finally) Delver time!
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
It still seems a bit premature to say anything conclusive, especially given that there's been exactly zero big events so far. MTGO isn't exactly known for being a breeding ground of innovation.
It still seems a bit premature to say anything conclusive, especially given that there's been exactly zero big events so far. MTGO isn't exactly known for being a breeding ground of innovation.
As I've talked about before, MTGO never sets trends on a macro level. You see new deck tech on MTGO, and you definitely see new decks. But you never see big metagame trends reversed in that venue. In order for that to happen, you need a GP to "prove" what the new metagame should look like; at least, that's how MTGO seems to react to the data. So yeah, I agree that we can't extrapolate too much about BGx's viability from MTGO. Remember that after the DRS ban, BGx also had a similar MTGO dropoff until people started playing it at PT Valencia and GP Richmond. Then it came back in force.
That said, the paper events are more worrisome. Paper event players tend to play whatever they want without too much regard for netdecking MTGO trends. That's why you rarely see the same sort of metagame polarization in paper that you see in MTGO. I remember last year, back when BGx Midrange was about 22% of the metagame or something similar, that was mostly an MTGO phenomenon. In large paper events and local tournaments, it was never much more than 15%.
So when paper metagames start to follow MTGO trends, we should start being worried. It's a bit too early to say with certainty if paper is following that trend, but it has been every weekend since KTK got legalized. Every weekend, the Delver/Burn prevalence goes up. And every weekend, the BG Rock prevalence goes down. Maybe GP Madrid will reverse that, but maybe the GP will just continue it. We don't know yet.
I will say this; paper Jund has so far remained surprisingly resilient to the BGx decline. I think that's because its Bolt/Anger/Huntmaster inclusion give it better tools for fighting Burn/Delver than BG Rock or BGw Souls has.
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Delve is strong, and will situationally win games, but it's not go to redefine the format.
From my understanding of the MTGO metagame, this is absolutely correct.
Since KTK became legal, we have seen a handful of TC and DTT-based blue decks. Most of those are Ux(x) Delver decks, and a few are in the UWR Control category (the latter mostly running DTT). But we have seen a crap ton of Burn, to the extent that Burn makes up roughly 20% of the metagame right now. Even before KTK was legalized, Burn was at about 12% of the online metagame, so we have seen an additional 8% spike after the format shifted. There are a lot of reasons for this, but my guess is that it has a lot to do with cost. Burn is the cheapest Modern deck (by a lot) that is also a solid tier 1 contender. It also has an excellent matchup against the previous format frontrunner, the BGx Midrange shell. The rise of JA Storm has something to do with this too, but given that there have only been 5 JA Storms that placed 4-0/3-1 in the past 9 or so days (out of about 150+ decks), I think this is only a small contributing factor.
Sure, these observations are based on the public mothership MTGO dataset, which has its own limitations. But I imagine that, even if we looked at non-publicly published dailies, we would still see this trend on MTGO.
What does all this mean? It suggests that Delve has very little to do with the decline in BGx Midrange. It makes theoretical sense, but it's just not the picture we see on MTGO. A much likelier explanation is the parallel rise of Burn. Of course, paper metagames might give a different story, but just looking at MTGO this is the picture that appears to be emerging.
That said, I disagree with this last statement: Delve does redefine the format in a number of ways, although probably not as starkly as the OP suggests. TC especially makes discard a lot less valuable, both because it refuels the hand and because it is itself fueled by discarded cards. It gives a lot of decks a better BGx Midrange matchup, especially the blue-based combo and tempo decks that don't have a lot of spells that are individually more powerful than others. Even once Burn and BGx Midrange stabilize in the metagame, I expect we see a permanent decline in BGx just because some of its matchups have worsened across the board.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I would like to suggest that we can draw an even bigger conclusion at which the effect on discard hints: TC is strong enough to make ALL Uxx decks better positioned for 1 for 1 trades. Simply put, any deck that plays TC will trade 1 for 1 better in whatever form that takes. For much the same reason as discard getting weaker, counterspells (especially remand) in particular have been made stronger.
In the case of BGx, it will suffer on both sides of this. Counterspells (a tool jund/junk lack) are also going to be stronger against it. BGx will get hit from multiple directions as a result of how strong TC in particular is. Discard weaker, counterspells stronger. Their attrition game is severely hampered as a result.
Not that this will be a bad thing in my book, I just hope the pendulum doesn't swing too far towards blue.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Considering the card cost is 1, you are really getting 100% more cards with TC over DTT.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I've seen at least 2 Burn decks on MTGO with 4 Treasure Cruise. It's semi-Wheel of Fortune time for Burn. Run.
At least there are plenty of Cruise/Dig mirrors! Delver and Ascendancy (and modded Burn builds) can support Cruise, while from my testing, Scapeshift, Twin, UWR (all builds), Cruel Control, strange UR combo like Possibility Storm and Breach Emrakul, UW Midrange, and more can support Dig.
Yeah, I also think Cruise/Dig are dangerous cards. I'm breaking them as hard as I can before they go under the banhammer. (I'm not certain they'll get banned, though.)
Yup, Cruise nets +2 CA, while Dig only nets +1 CA!
The +2 CA is crucial for turbo-Delve blue decks (Delver, Ascendancy, some Ux Midrange/Control builds--check out Caleb Durward's latest brew!), while Dig's far superior card selection is pretty good for slower decks that can't turbo-Delve.
1. Stop talking about bans
The only reason I'm not warning people is because this is the only active thread in Community and the level of conversation is high. No need to ruin that with warnings/infractions.
2. My biggest issue with the hype around TC is the lack of data. It's easy to evaluate a card in a theoretical whiteroom and discuss its merits. It's a lot harder to translate that to success or format dominance. TC is obviously going to be successful just from the preliminary data we have. It shows up in virtually every Ux(x) Delver build both in paper and online, at least over the past two weeks. DTT has shown up in a variety of control decks. But with the exception of Burn, which has spiked about 8% in its metagame share since KTK was legalized online, no other decks have really started to explode. Certainly no TC/DTT decks. BGx Midrange has declined, but that is almost assuredly due to the Burn spike. TC/DTT decks probably contribute to that, but their share has been pretty stable relative to the pre-KTK metagame, unlike the significant increase in Burn activity. That said, it is likely that those TC/DTT decks will help to keep BGx decks down, even if Burn is the primary reason for their decline in the first place.
3. Even doing a theoretical metagame analysis, we can come out with a few situations that do not result in an unbalanced format. All of it starts with Burn. Burn seems to have arisen for two reasons. First is its excellent matchup against BGx Midrange, which had been the deck to beat for months. Second is its cost, which is way, way lower than any other tier 1 deck in the format. Those reasons give rise to a situation where metagames are saturated with Burn decks. So then what happens? All things being equal (and in theory land, we can assume that), we should see a rise in decks that can beat Burn. There are a few candidates for that deck, and that's an interesting discussion piece in itself. The question then becomes, do those anti-Burn decks run TC? Do the decks that beat those decks run TC? Where does BGx reemerge and where does TC enter the picture?
TC makes Liliana of the Veil a bit worse, but if you know what to target in their hand, Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek are still great cards.
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There is such a card. It's the previously mentioned Nihil Spellbomb. Having to blow it up when they get 5 cards in their graveyard instead of 7 gets tricky, though. (I sometimes cast Treasure Cruise for 2 mana.)
Counter-Cat
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As I've talked about before, MTGO never sets trends on a macro level. You see new deck tech on MTGO, and you definitely see new decks. But you never see big metagame trends reversed in that venue. In order for that to happen, you need a GP to "prove" what the new metagame should look like; at least, that's how MTGO seems to react to the data. So yeah, I agree that we can't extrapolate too much about BGx's viability from MTGO. Remember that after the DRS ban, BGx also had a similar MTGO dropoff until people started playing it at PT Valencia and GP Richmond. Then it came back in force.
That said, the paper events are more worrisome. Paper event players tend to play whatever they want without too much regard for netdecking MTGO trends. That's why you rarely see the same sort of metagame polarization in paper that you see in MTGO. I remember last year, back when BGx Midrange was about 22% of the metagame or something similar, that was mostly an MTGO phenomenon. In large paper events and local tournaments, it was never much more than 15%.
So when paper metagames start to follow MTGO trends, we should start being worried. It's a bit too early to say with certainty if paper is following that trend, but it has been every weekend since KTK got legalized. Every weekend, the Delver/Burn prevalence goes up. And every weekend, the BG Rock prevalence goes down. Maybe GP Madrid will reverse that, but maybe the GP will just continue it. We don't know yet.
I will say this; paper Jund has so far remained surprisingly resilient to the BGx decline. I think that's because its Bolt/Anger/Huntmaster inclusion give it better tools for fighting Burn/Delver than BG Rock or BGw Souls has.