Lots of ideas, lots of data to pick through. What are people interested in?
I've seen it mentioned several times on social media that modern is too fast to care about card advantage and card quality is more important. So that's why more fair decks are playing faithless looting (Mardu and now GDS), being down a card doesn't matter as much if it gets you closer to your more impactful cards.
Is there a way to quantify that? What's the actual average kill turn in modern? How many cards does the loser end up with when the game is over?
Thanks for checking it out. Not seeing any negative feedback so I'll go live with this tomorrow. Looking ahead to other topics for MTG ModernMetrics, what are people interested in? Here are some ideas I've had or heard, as well as projects I have in various states of completeness:
1. SCG Modern and Legacy Open comparison: top player MWP ceilings/floors
2. Relative performance/success of top pro players in Modern and Standard
3. Calculating matchup percentages from VODs/tournament coverage/observed games
4. Metagame breakdowns
5. Diversity comparisons in different periods of Modern history
6. Data-driven ban/unban analysis
7. Probability of certain decks accomplishing certain things within a set timeframe (e.g. T3 Karn)
Lots of ideas, lots of data to pick through. What are people interested in?
3 would be great, so I can justify my rage quitting conceding early on mtgo.
I thought it was common knowledge that blue moon was favored vs other blue control decks? Just watch the UW control players stream and they cry when they get paired against steam vents.
I've been playing corey's list in the practice room on mtgo. It's surprisingly not garbage. Not playing Jace or serum visions seems bad in theory. But in actually playing the deck, I don't really miss those cards. However the way he constructed the deck, the deck has a hard time beating burn, combo and tron. But it's nuts vs creature decks, mid range and control.
I guess we'll agree to disagree. Terminate messes up the mana and your life total way too much. This deck wants to go turn 1 island most of the time. Though i'm not sure the best way to solve your tasigur answer, is go for the throat playable in your meta? For the board there's liliana's defeat, but I don't know if that's worth it in your meta.
@thealler I've never tried abrade main deck, so I don't know how it rates. I'm a big fan of negate since this deck is able to pick off a lot of creatures. You can also try a thought scour as it fuels pyre, snap, and knot, as well as clearing Jace brain storms when moon is out. Scour is good with titi. There's also sweltering sun's, which I am trying out.
I've only been playing practice games with the grixis version, but I don't think I'm sold. The black splash makes moon and cryptic worse. And the main deck Kcommand wasn't that great for me as it was hard for my snapcasters to hit the bin. The Kcommand was only amazing in the game 1s where the destroy artifact mode was relevant. The sideboard games it gets a lot better since those games are more grindy. I didn't play enough games where cast down was relevant.
I feel like terminate is a trap as you don't want to fetch either red or black early. You generally want to fetch islands unless you want to bolt something. I would stick with cast down.
You splash black to kill 4 toughness creatures, and Kcommand gives you insane late game, but I don't think those features are what the deck wants at the moment.
11 creatures main deck with 3 TiTi, 2 keranos and 2 clique
Black splash for Kcommand and 1 cast down main and sideboard collective brutality and dreadbore
I'm actually pretty intrigued by this, having access to planeswalker removal is cool against all the jaces/teferis
I was just looking at this list while browsing possible builds for Vegas, let me know if you happen to try this because I'm thoroughly interested by this list and will be trying it. Also noticed it has a 12 card sideboard, so there is some obvious room for improvement there.
The 3 thing in the ice should be in the sideboard as there are 63 cards in the main.
1. Like was previously mentioned lighthouse is nuts in any midrange and control mirror. It was one of the best cards in the twin mirror. You just got unlucky that you drew your mountain, lighthouse and cryptic early.
2. I am testing keranos out. I was playing an old list with 3 Jaces, 2 Jaces and 1 keranos might be better. Jace is pretty sweet with keranos, but obviously that's a win more situation. In the non-combo versions of UR moon decks you want some number of win conditions and keranos is acceptable. But at 5 mana there are many other cards to consider.
3. Thing in the ice depends on how mana black decks you expect to face. Getting thoughtseized, Lili edicted, or fatal pushed is pretty brutal. Discard makes it hard to flip. Playing titi in your deck makes you vulnerable to Lili's edict. And having your 2 drop get countered by a one drop is bad in this tempoish deck. If you don't expect black decks, then titi fixes a lot of bad match ups. Though boggles can path your titi.
4. Snare is a meta call.
These are all meta calls except removing light house is considered sacreligious.
1. Roger.
2. But the thing for me is I'm playing 2x Jace to start with. So going down to just 1 seems out of question to me (see list posted above).
3. Isn't that true for Vendilion Clique as well? And I mean many cards have varying impact in different MUs, think of Remand for instance. Plus, what decks are you actually thinking of specifically? 'Cause Jund plays more bolts than pushes. If you know your opponent might cast Liliana you just don't cast your Titi on turn 2. There's no need to rush it. Or maybe you set up a trap where you go turn 2 TiTi, they play Lily, and you Moon them.
4. Could you develop a little bit? In what meta would you play it, when would you cut it and how many copies would you play right now?
2. For your list with TiTi you probably don't want a 5 drop, especially one that doesn't trigger TiTi.
3. The popular cards that wreck clique are lingering souls, and electrolyze. K-command also wrecks clique but K-command wrecks a lot of cards. Clique protects itself vs Liliana by bottoming it. It also helps you kill Liliana unlike TiTi. Other than those couple of cards clique is average to amazing. Clique is a more consistent card.
4. You want snare vs storm, affinity and burn. Match ups where you are being taxed on mana in the first few turns. It's also good vs rock decks, hitting their powerful 2 drops (Bob, goyf, ooze, flayer), but rock is on the decline. Snare is fine vs snapcaster decks, but if snapcaster resolves, blue decks can recoup that card advantage, with the new walkers or Azcanta. Snare is also good vs scapeshift but that's probably a favorable match up. So you really want it vs storm, affinity, burn and rock decks. It's good against vs snapcaster and scapeshift decks, but you're fine without snare vs those decks.
* Desolate Lighthouse. Is this land really worth a slot? It seems harmless, I know. But it did happen to me a few times not to be able to cast a Cryptic because of it. On the other hand, after like close to a hundred games with the deck and several months playing it intermittently, I never got an advantage from playing this card. I did use the looting on a couple occasions (very rare), but it wasn't of much help. I mean this deck runs 7 to 8 cantrips. Do we really need more selection? I'm not sure this card is worth the clunkyness it occasionally creates and the mulligans it sometimes causes;
* Maindecking Keranos, God of Storms. So when Ross Merriam does something obviously you want to pay attention, recently he moved Keranos to the main. I'm not convinced, I feel in most MUs the card ranges from mediocre to bad. What does everybody think?
* Thing in the Ice. It seems like people are slowly appreciating what this card can do for the deck. More and more list either play 3 copies in the sideboard or straight in the maindeck. Ross himself now plays 3 sideboard copies. I wonder: why is it taking so much time, and what is actually causing most people to play 0 copies in the maindeck? To me, this card is a perfect fit for the deck. It provides a few things we need and we lack of: a finisher; pressure; a big creature; a defensive creature to survive early; a maindeck sweeper; a way to beat Bogles; a way to beat BR Hollow One. All of this not to mention the card naturally fits in the deck in terms of how easy it is to flip it with the stock cards we tend to play: a lot of cheap instant and sorceries among which 7-8 cantrips and 4 Remands. And if all of this is not enough, we live and play in a Bolt format rather than a Fatal Push format. I mean I really don't see WHY most people still shy away from this card, at least in terms of maindeck;
* Spell Snare. I have the feeling with Storm, Affinity and Jund seing less and less play, this card is getting worse right now. I know Jeskai is in a good moment and Snare is good vs Jeskai, but outside of that, the card doesn't seem to fit the meta very well. It's close to dead against a number of top decks. Even against Humans the card looks good but is actually bad (Cavern, Vial, Thalia). Are we sure we want to keep playing our 2 Snares?
1. Like was previously mentioned lighthouse is nuts in any midrange and control mirror. It was one of the best cards in the twin mirror. You just got unlucky that you drew your mountain, lighthouse and cryptic early.
2. I am testing keranos out. I was playing an old list with 3 Jaces, 2 Jaces and 1 keranos might be better. Jace is pretty sweet with keranos, but obviously that's a win more situation. In the non-combo versions of UR moon decks you want some number of win conditions and keranos is acceptable. But at 5 mana there are many other cards to consider.
3. Thing in the ice depends on how mana black decks you expect to face. Getting thoughtseized, Lili edicted, or fatal pushed is pretty brutal. Discard makes it hard to flip. Playing titi in your deck makes you vulnerable to Lili's edict. And having your 2 drop get countered by a one drop is bad in this tempoish deck. If you don't expect black decks, then titi fixes a lot of bad match ups. Though boggles can path your titi.
4. Snare is a meta call.
These are all meta calls except removing light house is considered sacreligious.
11 creatures main deck with 3 TiTi, 2 keranos and 2 clique
Black splash for Kcommand and 1 cast down main and sideboard collective brutality and dreadbore
I'm actually pretty intrigued by this, having access to planeswalker removal is cool against all the jaces/teferis
I plan to test this out with some minor tweaks. I feel like you don't want too many delve spells trying to add in K-command. I feel like the harvest pyre could be cut for a cast down, but then that makes blood moon slightly worse when you don't fetch a black source.
Also I think that list is supposed to have the titis in the side to make the numbers work it is currently 63 cards main and 12 side.
The one thing that interests me is no search for Azcanta. But I guess he wanted to play mostly at instant speed save for a few sorcery speed finishers. Surely one is better than the 4th electrolyze. Think of milling think twice, that value.
So what happens vs leylines or rest in peace? Hope to cryptic bounce and then thoughtseize? I can't see the deck getting very far without snapcaster or flipped azcanta for CA? And sanctity is rough as it turns off Jace ultimate and burn to the dome.
Or am I overthinking how much these cards hurt?
It looks like he just wanted to play with some of his pet cards. I'm surprised there's no teachings.
He's never beating an average hand from burn or tron.
Obviously enchantments are strong vs grixis. You can't really solve that. Playing delve creatures to beat leyline is bad vs rest in peace. He was hoping to dodge it.
I think it is a problem, when the creature is a Bird, Hierarch or even a Dark Confidant. I'm not that big of a fan to kill the mana creatures, but Oust them was mostly a good thing as they normally don't want to re-draw it. Pathing Confindant is really bad just because you have to do it in your turn and Jund really likes beeing ramped for T3. There maybe some other situation, where it is really bad, but mostly I do agree, that the upsides of Path are way better for this kind of deck than the downsides, especially when you overload on these effects with Settle and Field.
UW is favored vs most bird decks. Who cares if they play a bird unless it's ponza with a sick curve. But I do agree path is a terrible card vs rock decks. But even with path as the removal spell vs rock decks the match up is very close.
I guess to clarify. Path does have downsides. But I think a bigger weakness of the deck is lack of good 2 cmc counters.
Yeah, that is abolutely right, but I'm sure they will not give us Counterpell, which would be fine for the format I think so maybe some kind of fatal push Counter? But again, I don't expect them to do that anytime soon. Something what I would like in the format would be an Unexpectedly Absent, which could be really shut down some of the bad situations this deck could face. For lifegain, you mostly need something that is added to another effect. I do play 1-2 Blessed Alliance Main as well as one Sphinx's Revelation for these reasons, but mostly other cards would be more effective if I wouldn't value the lifegain part of these cards.
Prohibit is a "fatal push" counter, but it's probably not playable. miscalculation could be interesting, but it's probably more playable in the control decks without path.
UW has the tools to crush creature decks with settle the wreckage, oust, condemn, terminus, etc...
UW has the tools to he favored vs combo with all the various blue counter spells.
But when you try to make a balanced deck, trying to beat fair and unfair decks. It's the counter spell suite that's the weakest, as they are all situational, until you hit 3/4 mana(but none of the 3 mana counters are worth playing).
I think this deck will see more improvement from getting a better counterspell than getting a 1 cmc removal spell.
Jund only plays 1 maybe 2 terminates, so switching to a card that does not kill tasigur is not going to make jund cry.
The problem with UW is not that path gives people extra land, or that we need additional removal spells to beat creature decks.
The problem with UW is the linear decks who try to kill us on turn 4 (dredge, storm, hollow one, breach, bogles). We need a better unconditional counter spell and a to a lesser extent a better life gain card that you can main deck.
Black helps against the blue based combo deck with discard, but discard sucks if you don't have a clock. If you're playing black, one of the best cards is liliana of the veil. Liliana forces you to play a more proactive game forcing your opponents to react than trying to answer all of the opponent's threats. Then you're playing less sweet instant speed cards like counters and snapcasters. Then it's like why aren't you playing jund or some shadow deck?
Kiki combo might be slightly better as the twiddle creatures are pretty nuts vs tron. Against both tron and storm you'll want some number of mana leaks a card that not many people are playing in UR moon decks.
The guy was drunk and meant to play Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/90zvi8/4c_knightfall_modern_challenge/
I've seen it mentioned several times on social media that modern is too fast to care about card advantage and card quality is more important. So that's why more fair decks are playing faithless looting (Mardu and now GDS), being down a card doesn't matter as much if it gets you closer to your more impactful cards.
Is there a way to quantify that? What's the actual average kill turn in modern? How many cards does the loser end up with when the game is over?
3 would be great, so I can justify my
rage quittingconceding early on mtgo.https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/8vknnf/ross_merriam_features_a_grixis_control_list_by/
So what was the list that was played? This list with Keranos over Scorpion God?
I've been playing corey's list in the practice room on mtgo. It's surprisingly not garbage. Not playing Jace or serum visions seems bad in theory. But in actually playing the deck, I don't really miss those cards. However the way he constructed the deck, the deck has a hard time beating burn, combo and tron. But it's nuts vs creature decks, mid range and control.
I think you meant to say blue control. As there are some playable blue cards.
This set seems weak for modern, it's mostly sideboard filler except for the blue spirit lord, which might make bant spirits more competitive.
I've only been playing practice games with the grixis version, but I don't think I'm sold. The black splash makes moon and cryptic worse. And the main deck Kcommand wasn't that great for me as it was hard for my snapcasters to hit the bin. The Kcommand was only amazing in the game 1s where the destroy artifact mode was relevant. The sideboard games it gets a lot better since those games are more grindy. I didn't play enough games where cast down was relevant.
I feel like terminate is a trap as you don't want to fetch either red or black early. You generally want to fetch islands unless you want to bolt something. I would stick with cast down.
You splash black to kill 4 toughness creatures, and Kcommand gives you insane late game, but I don't think those features are what the deck wants at the moment.
The 3 thing in the ice should be in the sideboard as there are 63 cards in the main.
2. For your list with TiTi you probably don't want a 5 drop, especially one that doesn't trigger TiTi.
3. The popular cards that wreck clique are lingering souls, and electrolyze. K-command also wrecks clique but K-command wrecks a lot of cards. Clique protects itself vs Liliana by bottoming it. It also helps you kill Liliana unlike TiTi. Other than those couple of cards clique is average to amazing. Clique is a more consistent card.
4. You want snare vs storm, affinity and burn. Match ups where you are being taxed on mana in the first few turns. It's also good vs rock decks, hitting their powerful 2 drops (Bob, goyf, ooze, flayer), but rock is on the decline. Snare is fine vs snapcaster decks, but if snapcaster resolves, blue decks can recoup that card advantage, with the new walkers or Azcanta. Snare is also good vs scapeshift but that's probably a favorable match up. So you really want it vs storm, affinity, burn and rock decks. It's good against vs snapcaster and scapeshift decks, but you're fine without snare vs those decks.
1. Like was previously mentioned lighthouse is nuts in any midrange and control mirror. It was one of the best cards in the twin mirror. You just got unlucky that you drew your mountain, lighthouse and cryptic early.
2. I am testing keranos out. I was playing an old list with 3 Jaces, 2 Jaces and 1 keranos might be better. Jace is pretty sweet with keranos, but obviously that's a win more situation. In the non-combo versions of UR moon decks you want some number of win conditions and keranos is acceptable. But at 5 mana there are many other cards to consider.
3. Thing in the ice depends on how mana black decks you expect to face. Getting thoughtseized, Lili edicted, or fatal pushed is pretty brutal. Discard makes it hard to flip. Playing titi in your deck makes you vulnerable to Lili's edict. And having your 2 drop get countered by a one drop is bad in this tempoish deck. If you don't expect black decks, then titi fixes a lot of bad match ups. Though boggles can path your titi.
4. Snare is a meta call.
These are all meta calls except removing light house is considered sacreligious.
I plan to test this out with some minor tweaks. I feel like you don't want too many delve spells trying to add in K-command. I feel like the harvest pyre could be cut for a cast down, but then that makes blood moon slightly worse when you don't fetch a black source.
Also I think that list is supposed to have the titis in the side to make the numbers work it is currently 63 cards main and 12 side.
It looks like he just wanted to play with some of his pet cards. I'm surprised there's no teachings.
He's never beating an average hand from burn or tron.
Obviously enchantments are strong vs grixis. You can't really solve that. Playing delve creatures to beat leyline is bad vs rest in peace. He was hoping to dodge it.
UW is favored vs most bird decks. Who cares if they play a bird unless it's ponza with a sick curve. But I do agree path is a terrible card vs rock decks. But even with path as the removal spell vs rock decks the match up is very close.
I guess to clarify. Path does have downsides. But I think a bigger weakness of the deck is lack of good 2 cmc counters.
Prohibit is a "fatal push" counter, but it's probably not playable. miscalculation could be interesting, but it's probably more playable in the control decks without path.
UW has the tools to crush creature decks with settle the wreckage, oust, condemn, terminus, etc...
UW has the tools to he favored vs combo with all the various blue counter spells.
But when you try to make a balanced deck, trying to beat fair and unfair decks. It's the counter spell suite that's the weakest, as they are all situational, until you hit 3/4 mana(but none of the 3 mana counters are worth playing).
I think this deck will see more improvement from getting a better counterspell than getting a 1 cmc removal spell.
The problem with UW is not that path gives people extra land, or that we need additional removal spells to beat creature decks.
The problem with UW is the linear decks who try to kill us on turn 4 (dredge, storm, hollow one, breach, bogles). We need a better unconditional counter spell and a to a lesser extent a better life gain card that you can main deck.
Black helps against the blue based combo deck with discard, but discard sucks if you don't have a clock. If you're playing black, one of the best cards is liliana of the veil. Liliana forces you to play a more proactive game forcing your opponents to react than trying to answer all of the opponent's threats. Then you're playing less sweet instant speed cards like counters and snapcasters. Then it's like why aren't you playing jund or some shadow deck?
If you wanted to play some UBw version, i'd go with this list Shaun McLaren tried out a month ago. And make some tweaks to it.