Twin wins turn 4, and the combo gets blown up by a removal spell / hate. The same can't be said for zoo. Similarly, affinity can get blown out by hate even if it's not a combo deck per say.
The thing about competitive zoo decks, is that there really isn't any effective "hate" for the deck as it's simply efficient creatures & burn spells. Most decks in the format that represent consistent t4 clocks are also very vulnerable to hate or powerful sideboard cards. Nacatl zoo on the other hand really doesn't have any glaring weaknesses outside your opponent playing tons of life-gain, or kitchen-finks style cards.
Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom, Dark Confidant, & shocklands with zero life-gain and 3 removal spells. This deck just looks like it gets rolled by anything remotely aggressive.
Nah, it was a little unfavorable vs aggro, but it would generally slow down the aggro deck just enough over the first couple turns, then BB/Cryptics/Mistbind/EE would clean up and almost lock out the aggro deck. I had a decent run of success as zoo vs fae, but fae could win against Zoo (and if they wanted to SB aggressive, it could get REALLY hard).
Against Jund lifeloss is almost irrelevant, because most Jund players side out bolts against UWR for more disruption and DRS is most of the time killed on sight. And I have 4 Lightning Helix MB, 1 Batterskull and 2 Baneslayer Angel in SB. Threads are nice yes since they side out Abrupt Decay too.
This is midrange deck that can be played like tempo or control depending on situation. You must first play it and get some experience with it, then you can make good criticism. To talk about something about which you have no experience is very depressing and pure waste of time.
While he may not have made the point well, there is a valid criticism of some of the lists posted recently that boils down to, "They have no idea what they want to do with their deck, or if they do, they haven't executed on it very well."
Just look at the lists posted on the last dozen or so pages. These are lists running fistfuls of 2 of's and 3 of's because they cannot find room in their deck for a ll the good cards, nor can they focus the deck into any particular strategy.
Is it a tempo deck? Nope, too slow.
Is it a Midrange deck? Nope, not enough creatures.
Is it a control deck? Nope, not enough control
No two decks lists are even close to each other. Should I use Geist? Who knows. Should I use V Clique? Who knows. Should I use Batterskull? Who knows. Should I use Cryptic Command? Who knows. Should I use Sphinx's Revelation? Who knows. These are cards that entire decks can be made around but there is no real consensus if any of them should be included in any particular list.
There are too many separate strategies working parallel to eachother in the same deck. The deck has no focus, and Jund exploits the hell out of decks like that. In a Jund free meta sure the deck can work. But those days are gone.
I don't feel like bad builds posted randomly are a good measurement of what UWR midrange is.
These lists might be a better place to start, and I didn't see many of them that I wouldn't feel good vs Jund with.
You guys are at least 50/50 vs Tron, but an efficient Jund or BGx deck can tear you apart. Why? Because they strip your counterspells with discard then they proceed to out value you every turn with Bob, Goyf, Lili, DRS, Ooze, etc.
UWr doesnt run enough counterspells to control Jund in the best case scenario. Jund enters a late game top deck mode with a board advantage (possibly a huge board advantage) and you have no sweepers to respond to it because you are a midrange deck that cannot run sweepers. To make matters worse their topdecks are amazing.
Discard trumps counterspells every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Without the counters, UWr is a pathetic deck. It becomes a slow burn and Jund smashes it to pieces. Hell, Jund can hold it's own with Red Burn in most games, the laughable amount of burn spells UWr midrange runs are nothing to those decks. This is why UWr is gone from the recent GPs and the Dailies and the PEs.
You can fight back at them with a Turn 0 Leyline, Wrath and focus everything on protecting Geist. You can beat them by flattening their army with a cryptic at the end of their turn, then alpha striking at them with Geist and Colonade. But your deck cant actually do that because that is how a control deck works, and lets be honest you arent even trying to control a game of MTGO.
UWR midrange is the UWR version of a goodstuffs deck in modern. You guys put all of the best cards from the respective colors in a deck and hope to out value your average Joe opponent. This strategy actually worked for a while against some of the PoD decks that were popular for so long. But it does not work against Jund. Jund is back, in a big freaking way. Adapt or die - this is the rule of nature.
Anyone interested in seeing an evolved version of this deck that is an outright Jund-Killer send me a PM.
UWR midrange is not seeking to control, and properly built versions are not doing your second bolded statement. If you were seeking to control, you'd run control, not midrange, and if you were throwing good cards in, you end up with a bad deck.
The good versions of UWR midrange generally build around Geist or flash creatures, and have a pretty nice matchup against jund, which has a hard time staying alive vs the burn and burnlike creatures you play (flyers with flash, snapcaster + burn spells you've already used to remove the creatures you mention and/or geist). I'm not sure what you're calling UWR midrange if you have the above impressions. Do you actually see people just piling up goodstuff cards? I don't see that very often, although occasionally it happens I guess. Most people that I know who play it have built their deck with a plan, not "the good cards across 3 colors."
I am a little confused where the post (in the bad-primer thread) "this deck has bad matchups vs Jund and Tron) came from. At worse I'd put those ~ 50/50, and I generally feel like it's closer to a slight edge for UWR midrange.
What do people feel bad playing against with this deck? Have I just been having a little better run than most vs those decks?
I'm not exactly excited to see those decks, as I feel better than 50% vs most decks, but the decks I least like to see are Pod and Hatebears, and UW control feels a bit worse than Jund (I need a slightly better draw against UW than Jund).
I'm not sure if you like Scepter for the fun factor, or if you're using it to prevent G1 losses to karn.dec, but if it's mostly to beat Tron, you could just run Nihil Spellbomb, which is much better and has much more utility in general, and costs less, while sometimes cantripping. Also, KCI should win with almost any sort of decent draw - the exception is when you run out of artifact-based cantrips to find your ETV or Faith's Reward, which the spellbomb gives you a slightly increased chance of finding.
I'm also not sure why you would dilute the deck with cards such as silence - I don't play this deck a ton locally, but the kind of hate that seems to beat this deck is permanent-based, like Stony Silence or Rest in Peace or DRS/Ooze, etc. I'd rather have no "protection" g1 other than maybe that above-mentioned Spellbomb, along with a good sb. This deck pretty consistently combos between turns 3-5 (I mean, really, t4, but it has a decent amount of give in both directions), and rarely fizzles, so why dilute it with cards that may kill you if you draw them early in your combo when you just needed another artifact-cantrip?
I feel like this may be why you haven't been impressed with KCI, which is mindblowing to me. KCI, if it resolves, just ignores most counterspells (since it generates a huge pile of mana and draws a bunch of cards) and the 4 cards you want to hit with it are your 2 chromatics Ss, Wellsprings, and Terrarion - you shouldn't even need to bother looping with Bauble, for example, so why would you have it.
Hey! This is my first post here. Just had on saturday a small modern tournament (36 players) with 5 rounds. Here is what i play, the results and my comments. Advice from your guys would gladly help!
It's your deck, but I feel like this is a perfect example of being unsure what your plan is. Are you control, midrange, or aggro control? You're running a weird mixture of control/midrange and midrange/aggro lands (3 colonnade, 2 tec edge + 1 Castle), which are all fine choices, but are an odd mixture. Next, your curve is a bit bloated, either at the 3-drop spot, or at the high end with Cryptics/Sphinx Rev.
The 2/3 split on Leak/Remand is another sign of being confused - when I play an aggressive-to-midrange build of this deck, I always wanted 4x remands before Leaks, and maybe Spell Snares first too, while when I'm playing control, I generally want 3-4 Leak, a couple snares, and thennnn maybe 1-2 remand, but probably not any.
I guess I'd consider, are you trying to play more aggressively or controllingly? You can go either way, and it may depend on your meta, which, from 5 rounds you described seems like a decent amount of aggro-combo decks - playing geist.dec might be poorer for you than cutting him, adding in 2 more Leaks, another Cryptic, and some other spell, turning you into flash.dec, which can still beat down, but has a realllyyyy nice game vs aggrocombo.meta.
Also, you should have a decent chance vs UW control, but it does depend on the build. If they're playing a million Finks, wall of omens, and verdict, it's hard. If they're more UWR-control-based, you're in a bit better position - cavern of souls or two in the SB can be very helpful, and so can stuff like spell snare or other cheap counters.
EDIT and when I say "it's your deck," I mean, do what you want, this is just what I see.
Yeah, as much as I love Stoneforge Mystic, I feel like people are vastly underestimating her.
SFM was good enough that there were these otherwise garbage Boros, WW, Esper, and probably other builds I am missing that featured either her exclusively over Jace, or her along with Jace.
And that was before the Skull was here to make a mess of things.
Nah, it was a little unfavorable vs aggro, but it would generally slow down the aggro deck just enough over the first couple turns, then BB/Cryptics/Mistbind/EE would clean up and almost lock out the aggro deck. I had a decent run of success as zoo vs fae, but fae could win against Zoo (and if they wanted to SB aggressive, it could get REALLY hard).
Say what.
While he may not have made the point well, there is a valid criticism of some of the lists posted recently that boils down to, "They have no idea what they want to do with their deck, or if they do, they haven't executed on it very well."
I don't feel like bad builds posted randomly are a good measurement of what UWR midrange is.
These lists might be a better place to start, and I didn't see many of them that I wouldn't feel good vs Jund with.
UWR midrange is not seeking to control, and properly built versions are not doing your second bolded statement. If you were seeking to control, you'd run control, not midrange, and if you were throwing good cards in, you end up with a bad deck.
The good versions of UWR midrange generally build around Geist or flash creatures, and have a pretty nice matchup against jund, which has a hard time staying alive vs the burn and burnlike creatures you play (flyers with flash, snapcaster + burn spells you've already used to remove the creatures you mention and/or geist). I'm not sure what you're calling UWR midrange if you have the above impressions. Do you actually see people just piling up goodstuff cards? I don't see that very often, although occasionally it happens I guess. Most people that I know who play it have built their deck with a plan, not "the good cards across 3 colors."
What do people feel bad playing against with this deck? Have I just been having a little better run than most vs those decks?
I'm not exactly excited to see those decks, as I feel better than 50% vs most decks, but the decks I least like to see are Pod and Hatebears, and UW control feels a bit worse than Jund (I need a slightly better draw against UW than Jund).
I'm also not sure why you would dilute the deck with cards such as silence - I don't play this deck a ton locally, but the kind of hate that seems to beat this deck is permanent-based, like Stony Silence or Rest in Peace or DRS/Ooze, etc. I'd rather have no "protection" g1 other than maybe that above-mentioned Spellbomb, along with a good sb. This deck pretty consistently combos between turns 3-5 (I mean, really, t4, but it has a decent amount of give in both directions), and rarely fizzles, so why dilute it with cards that may kill you if you draw them early in your combo when you just needed another artifact-cantrip?
I feel like this may be why you haven't been impressed with KCI, which is mindblowing to me. KCI, if it resolves, just ignores most counterspells (since it generates a huge pile of mana and draws a bunch of cards) and the 4 cards you want to hit with it are your 2 chromatics Ss, Wellsprings, and Terrarion - you shouldn't even need to bother looping with Bauble, for example, so why would you have it.
Anyway, this may not help, but maybe it does.
It's your deck, but I feel like this is a perfect example of being unsure what your plan is. Are you control, midrange, or aggro control? You're running a weird mixture of control/midrange and midrange/aggro lands (3 colonnade, 2 tec edge + 1 Castle), which are all fine choices, but are an odd mixture. Next, your curve is a bit bloated, either at the 3-drop spot, or at the high end with Cryptics/Sphinx Rev.
The 2/3 split on Leak/Remand is another sign of being confused - when I play an aggressive-to-midrange build of this deck, I always wanted 4x remands before Leaks, and maybe Spell Snares first too, while when I'm playing control, I generally want 3-4 Leak, a couple snares, and thennnn maybe 1-2 remand, but probably not any.
I guess I'd consider, are you trying to play more aggressively or controllingly? You can go either way, and it may depend on your meta, which, from 5 rounds you described seems like a decent amount of aggro-combo decks - playing geist.dec might be poorer for you than cutting him, adding in 2 more Leaks, another Cryptic, and some other spell, turning you into flash.dec, which can still beat down, but has a realllyyyy nice game vs aggrocombo.meta.
Also, you should have a decent chance vs UW control, but it does depend on the build. If they're playing a million Finks, wall of omens, and verdict, it's hard. If they're more UWR-control-based, you're in a bit better position - cavern of souls or two in the SB can be very helpful, and so can stuff like spell snare or other cheap counters.
EDIT and when I say "it's your deck," I mean, do what you want, this is just what I see.
SFM was good enough that there were these otherwise garbage Boros, WW, Esper, and probably other builds I am missing that featured either her exclusively over Jace, or her along with Jace.
And that was before the Skull was here to make a mess of things.