Right now is better than pre-Twin ban without ever having to give a thought to Eldrazi Winter.
I disagree with that. It's different, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily better or worse. Just shifted around a bit. I think having gone through Eldrazi makes us forget how fun, diverse, healthy, and enjoyable the majority of 2015 was.
2015 was enjoyable until people realized how broken Bloom was and started playing it. Summer 2015 was one of the most enjoyable periods of the Modern format. Late 2015 was miserable because you couldn't play fair magic without just putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.
The Amulet and Eye bans helped Modern a lot, the Twin ban basically just caused a lateral shift in which Twin was replaced by Jeskai Nahiri and everything else was more or less unchanged.
My guess is that nothing gets banned for at least a year; if I HAD to bet on one card it would be Eldrazi Temple just because I don't trust Wizards not to print any more stupid Eldrazi in EMN, and I think there's a very slight chance that Bant Eldrazi could become a little oppressive once people optimize it more.
What I will say is that I think the Amulet ban really opened up more space in the format for fair decks. I think people underestimate how good that ban was for the modern format as a whole.
Probably, although Tron is roughly in the same position that it was in, so I'm not sure how much the eye ban really changed 2016 modern compared with 2015 modern.
Basically I think that having to deal with both Amulet and Tron in the format was just too much for fair decks and that's why they were in such a bad spot in late 2015.
Format seems like it's in a great spot right now. I don't think the Twin ban had much effect to be honest, positive or negative. If Twin were legal right now we'd probably have an extremely similar metagame, just with Twin being the most popular blue deck instead of Jeskai Nahiri.
What I will say is that I think the Amulet ban really opened up more space in the format for fair decks. I think people underestimate how good that ban was for the modern format as a whole.
There is only a card that I think it's worth discussing at any point for a possible ban: Become Immense. It makes the deck ultra explosive, super linear and fast. It is the encapsulated problem of the Modern format in one card, if there is any problem.
Blood Moons, Chokes, etc bans are all nonsense. In an eternal format like Modern, one is going to have such cards and you should adjust to this reality. You really can adjust to Blood Moon as well. Just fetch basics if you think there is a chance BM hitting the board. It hits the 3/4 colour decks, but not in a suppressive way.
The format is perfect, Become Immense ban would make diversity even greater and slow down the format a bit more, making it even better. But I do not insist on such a ban. Results show such a ban is not mandatory and we can leave it be and be fine with it.
Banning Infect would not help diversity. Infect is actually one of the police decks of Modern, believe it or not. It preys on other uninteractive combo decks and is a matchup that fair interactive decks can prey on. An Infect banning would be a bad thing for Jeskai, Grixis, Jund.
Personally, I think it's equally ridiculous to spend $2000 on pieces of cardboard as it is to spend that amount on digital cards, so don't let that stop you. I bought into MTGO several months ago and don't regret it at all, it's the best place to practice as the level of competition is generally above what you'll get at local events, and you can get a lot more reps in online.
As more of a Jund-specific recommendation, I wouldn't bother with Kalitas for the MTGO meta; his price is really inflated right now and Abzan CoCo is basically a non-existent deck online anyway, making his utility limited.
I personally hate super overpowered sideboard cards like Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, etc, and I'm glad that Wizards has stopped printing those types of cards (though I'd welcome one for colorless creatures...). However, I don't think it's reasonable to talk about banning them now.
Serum visions is actually a fine top deck late in the game, since at that point we more than likely have a spare mana and so it's essentially a free way to set up our next 2 draws.
In general it's a bit silly to look at card prices to evaluate the health of the format, especially when we have such good data that the folks over at Modern Nexus are kind enough to provide. Really, it's like going to Weather.com to check if it's raining instead of just looking out the window.
I think you're wrong on this cfusionpm, Jeskai is clearly Tier 1, and everywhere right now. I don't know what your meta is like, but I'm playing against it every time I pick up my deck right now. The price of Nahiri may have gone down, however, you have to factor in that Nahiri is still in print and isn't doing all that much in Standard right now - meaning demand is balanced with supply currently.
Maybe I live in a bubble. Nobody besides me plays it locally (other than one guy who tried Mardu before giving it up) and I never run into it online unless in a Kiki Chord build. Also, its price should at least hold steady considering it's a full 4-of Mythic. Instead, it's been on a steady fall of nearly 50% value in less than three weeks. That kind of drastic fall is from lack of demand, not simply increase in supply.
Nahiri is at $30 TCG mid right now, which is ridiculously high for a card that's from the latest set and does not see much Standard play. I don't know how much you expect a currently being printed mythic that's not a standard staple to be worth. That's pretty much the highest value a new card has ever held due to Modern play. When cards spike they almost always fall a little bit; it doesn't mean people are suddenly thinking Nahiri is not viable.
Werewolves are in sort of a tough spot as a tribal/creature deck. It's not as fast as Elves, Zoo, or Affinity, and it's about as fast as Merfolk but less disruptive.
The problem is that Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere just aren't all that great in Modern, where people are already playing with higher mana curves. In Legacy you can often just win games with a turn 2 Chalice on 1 followed by a werewolf or two; you aren't going to be able to do that in Modern except against a small subset of decks.
So if you're going to make this type of deck work I think you'd need to find more appropriate hate cards for the Modern format. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon are still very good, but Chalice and Trinisphere would probably have to be replaced.
Probably something in between the straight aggro deck that you posted and the prison-y deck I just linked to would be ideal for Modern. I think being RG is probably where you want to be in Modern, too. Also, Howlpack Resurgence seems like an auto include to me.
What I think would be needed from Eldritch Moon:
A 2-drop werewolf that really puts on a fast clock or has undying or something similar...basically I super resilient Kitchen Finks type of werewolf
A cheap werewolf that generates value right away by cantripping or generates value when it dies
I just thought Affinity would be good choice here as well. It has good game against all three decks although it gets worse postboard especially against Jund but game 1 should be yours if you have good hand. I don't think there is actually any other deck that would have good game against all three.
Yeah, Affinity seems fine as well. The Tron matchup isn't a bye though like it is for Ad Naus pretty much, but Affinity is definitely favored against Tron and Burn while also being decent vs Jund as well.
You'll get different answers for the AN vs Jund matchup depending on who you ask. Andreas Ganz (GP Charlotte winner) thinks it's slightly favorable. Bob Huang thinks it's unfavorable, but not hard to steal a win.
Personally I think it's unfavorable for AN. You're trying to assemble a 2 card combo against a deck with discard, which is basically the same reason Twin was bad vs Jund.
The difference is that Jund has a tougher time dealing with a spell based combo deck than a 3 mana creature. Discard alone is not usually enough to beat ad nauseam, we usually need multiple pieces of discard along with a Goyf to out on pressure. A good hand for Jund will beat Ad Nauseam pretty much every time in game 1, but a mediocre Jund hand will usually lose. In games 2-3 it can get pretty rough for us since a turn 0 leyline means we just can't interact hardly at all until we Pulse it.
I still think AN is the best choice for the OP because while it might not be favored against Jund, you really can't ask for a deck that's favored against all 3 of Jund, Burn, and Tron. The fact that AN beats burn and Tron handily while being slightly unfavored at worst against Jund makes it an overall better choice than the other suggestions so far, IMO.
Old and boring removal? Sounds like the problem is they need to print new and interesting removal. Too bad interesting removal tends to be pretty mediocre.
I think the most interesting reprint dynamic with regards to Strix isn't it's power level in a vacuum within Modern decks, but FZA's thing about it's power level perhaps making new and powerful Countermagic a liability to print. I'm like 90% sure Counterspell isn't going to get a reprint in the modern regime of Modern-Cards-Come-Through-Standard, but would Strix be too powerful in a world of Miscalculations (to continue FZA's example) or other efficient/flexible/powerful counterspells. So to boil it down would Strix create a difficult design space for U to receive better countersuites. If so which do you think is preferable?
Personally my motto is, "If my opponent is having fun then I'm not" so I like Counterspells. However I think that their plans for Standard (and thusly Modern) are more creature centric, so I'd have to presume we'll see Strix assuming they can print it in Standard (totally doable if you create a proper environment for it to exist in.)
The thing is counterspells balance the game in a way that makes formats a lot more interesting. I never got this whole thing about counters being "unfun", I mean even if you're one of those people who has it out for control decks, which is getting your creature countered somehow less fun than getting it Doom Bladed or whatever? Counterspells add a very enjoyable element to magic. It would be a shame to me if Strix and similar cards kept getting printed and good counters didn't; then we'd get to the point where blue decks are trying to play the same sort of midrange game as Jund is, and that just makes the format more homogeneous and boring. Counters are also much better against uninteractive combo and ramp decks, which is really where blue decks in Modern need help. Like I said, we already have tons of good answers to creatures, and Strix really is just a 2-for-1 removal spell most of the time.
There are a lot of Junds and Burns in my local meta. Also there are some Tron players. I would like to find a deck that's favorable against all of them and is not a total loser against everything else. Currently I see RG Land-destruct as a good choice. My friend advised me to try some GW Aggro (Finks, Liege, PtE, etc.), but I doubt it can ever be favorable vs Tron. Can you please suggest anything else?
p.s. our team has a good cardpool so budget is not a problem.
I actually think Ad Nauseam would be the perfect choice here. The Tron matchup is insanely easy, and you essentially are playing a deck that's pre-boarded against Burn so you'll crush that all day too. Jund will be tougher, but with Spoils of the Vault and 4 sideboard Leyline of Sanctity, you should be favored.
Instead of talking about dig, I want to bring up preordain as a candidate to come off the banlist. The decks that this card "powers up" (storm and delver primarly with control getting some help) aren't tier 1 right now with delver and storm being the ones punished the hardest from the ban. This card would enable some more blue based tempo strats if unbanned.
Preordain is fine IMO. I don't think any current combo deck would become too good with it, and if it did they could always just ban a combo enabler instead (which is what they usually do except when they made an exception and banned Ponder & Preordain).
2015 was enjoyable until people realized how broken Bloom was and started playing it. Summer 2015 was one of the most enjoyable periods of the Modern format. Late 2015 was miserable because you couldn't play fair magic without just putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.
The Amulet and Eye bans helped Modern a lot, the Twin ban basically just caused a lateral shift in which Twin was replaced by Jeskai Nahiri and everything else was more or less unchanged.
My guess is that nothing gets banned for at least a year; if I HAD to bet on one card it would be Eldrazi Temple just because I don't trust Wizards not to print any more stupid Eldrazi in EMN, and I think there's a very slight chance that Bant Eldrazi could become a little oppressive once people optimize it more.
Probably, although Tron is roughly in the same position that it was in, so I'm not sure how much the eye ban really changed 2016 modern compared with 2015 modern.
Basically I think that having to deal with both Amulet and Tron in the format was just too much for fair decks and that's why they were in such a bad spot in late 2015.
What I will say is that I think the Amulet ban really opened up more space in the format for fair decks. I think people underestimate how good that ban was for the modern format as a whole.
Banning Infect would not help diversity. Infect is actually one of the police decks of Modern, believe it or not. It preys on other uninteractive combo decks and is a matchup that fair interactive decks can prey on. An Infect banning would be a bad thing for Jeskai, Grixis, Jund.
As more of a Jund-specific recommendation, I wouldn't bother with Kalitas for the MTGO meta; his price is really inflated right now and Abzan CoCo is basically a non-existent deck online anyway, making his utility limited.
Nahiri is at $30 TCG mid right now, which is ridiculously high for a card that's from the latest set and does not see much Standard play. I don't know how much you expect a currently being printed mythic that's not a standard staple to be worth. That's pretty much the highest value a new card has ever held due to Modern play. When cards spike they almost always fall a little bit; it doesn't mean people are suddenly thinking Nahiri is not viable.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is a Werewolf Stompy deck similar to this one: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-werewolf-stompy-legacy
The problem is that Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere just aren't all that great in Modern, where people are already playing with higher mana curves. In Legacy you can often just win games with a turn 2 Chalice on 1 followed by a werewolf or two; you aren't going to be able to do that in Modern except against a small subset of decks.
So if you're going to make this type of deck work I think you'd need to find more appropriate hate cards for the Modern format. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon are still very good, but Chalice and Trinisphere would probably have to be replaced.
Probably something in between the straight aggro deck that you posted and the prison-y deck I just linked to would be ideal for Modern. I think being RG is probably where you want to be in Modern, too. Also, Howlpack Resurgence seems like an auto include to me.
What I think would be needed from Eldritch Moon:
That's what I can think of off the top of my head
Yeah, Affinity seems fine as well. The Tron matchup isn't a bye though like it is for Ad Naus pretty much, but Affinity is definitely favored against Tron and Burn while also being decent vs Jund as well.
The difference is that Jund has a tougher time dealing with a spell based combo deck than a 3 mana creature. Discard alone is not usually enough to beat ad nauseam, we usually need multiple pieces of discard along with a Goyf to out on pressure. A good hand for Jund will beat Ad Nauseam pretty much every time in game 1, but a mediocre Jund hand will usually lose. In games 2-3 it can get pretty rough for us since a turn 0 leyline means we just can't interact hardly at all until we Pulse it.
I still think AN is the best choice for the OP because while it might not be favored against Jund, you really can't ask for a deck that's favored against all 3 of Jund, Burn, and Tron. The fact that AN beats burn and Tron handily while being slightly unfavored at worst against Jund makes it an overall better choice than the other suggestions so far, IMO.
The thing is counterspells balance the game in a way that makes formats a lot more interesting. I never got this whole thing about counters being "unfun", I mean even if you're one of those people who has it out for control decks, which is getting your creature countered somehow less fun than getting it Doom Bladed or whatever? Counterspells add a very enjoyable element to magic. It would be a shame to me if Strix and similar cards kept getting printed and good counters didn't; then we'd get to the point where blue decks are trying to play the same sort of midrange game as Jund is, and that just makes the format more homogeneous and boring. Counters are also much better against uninteractive combo and ramp decks, which is really where blue decks in Modern need help. Like I said, we already have tons of good answers to creatures, and Strix really is just a 2-for-1 removal spell most of the time.
I actually think Ad Nauseam would be the perfect choice here. The Tron matchup is insanely easy, and you essentially are playing a deck that's pre-boarded against Burn so you'll crush that all day too. Jund will be tougher, but with Spoils of the Vault and 4 sideboard Leyline of Sanctity, you should be favored.
Preordain is fine IMO. I don't think any current combo deck would become too good with it, and if it did they could always just ban a combo enabler instead (which is what they usually do except when they made an exception and banned Ponder & Preordain).