I disagree about blue diversity. After the Twin ban, it took a little bit but blue popped out of the woodworks. Say what you want about changes since, but Ancestral Vision wasn't even seeing play consistently (and still isn't). GDS doesn't hinge on any new cards like Fatal Push, it would have been fine just jamming Bolts or other removal like Dreadbore/Terminate. We have much better diversity now with blue than we've basically ever had (now being pre-Jace). Even pre-Search for Azcanta the diversity was better.
We remember different eras...
Blue decks faded into oblivion after the twin ban. Tempo variants began to make a comback with the printing of spell queller, but even then they did not become an expected part of day two meta games until after search was printed.
So I've been watching alot of "taking turn" variants with Jace. They seem super interesting.
I also have seen the new taking-turns variants with as-foretold.
I've always wanted to break that card... and after playing a few sample games with it online: As-foretold in a taking-turns shell seems unbelievably powerful once it hits 4-5 counters.
Which started giving me a really crazy idea: what if one could modify taking turns to incorporate fast mana?
At first I tried bant (mana-dorks) but they were too week to removal.
I then started experimenting with the below build utilizing spirit guide and blood moon as an alt-win condition.
Effectively the goal of the deck is to turn 2 a blood moon or as foretold. However I had to give up alot of counter magic / extra cantrips to fit in the fast mana + blood moon package. Not sure if it's worth it.
The revisionist history of 'viable blue' is...funny. Someone at one point argued that Bant Eldrazi was a blue deck...
Either way, people can play whatever these days and 5-0, so...just play. :]
I remember those days... *shutter*.
I honestly am really excited about Jace in the format. I hope it does what Twin used to without skewing the meta to an absurd degree (decks that use jace, decks that do not use jace, and those decks used to meta game).
So far the variation in decks is exciting. There appears to be a wider-range of blue based decks now than prior to the unban, but it's still too early to tell. It also looks like creature based strategies embracing BBE are making a come-back.
Difficult to tell the complete state of the meta without any official paper events yet though.
I will say this, the new way they are presenting 5-0 decks on MTGO is interesting.
It makes it harder to tell the overall state of the meta (since it only shows unique decks) but it does show variance. (new list published today).
My personal take on Jace: I hope it does what the twin-ban was never able to accomplish: increase the variation in blue decks.
If Jace can make non UWx decks viable without skewing the meta around those decks: I would consider it a win.
If Jace can propell RUG (scapeshift and control), BUG, Mono-Blue TimeWalk, Grixis Control, etc. from "fringe" into main-stream without skewing the meta dramatically I would consider that a win.
The best JTMS list I have been able to brew is just 3 JTMS, 3 chandra TOD, 4 bloodmoon, 4 young promoncer and the rest of the deck is just cheap R/U interaction and draw filtering. This deck seems to be ok but it's clearly not optimized at all. I am finding lists online but none of them make me step back and say "Wow that might be the list." What are the best lists you guys are using or finding?
I've been mulling on this myself a little bit; something of the sort which mirrors Foretold Stompy, which saw brief success in legacy:
(Not my list; but one that was being tested by others)
Most of the key cards are modern legal; and while you dont get the sol lands, modern is also a tiny bit slower anyways.
I dont think the shell translates perfectly, but UR Chandra/Jace + Bridge + Lock pieces _feels_ like it would have the potential to be a strong shell.
The problem with lists such as this in comparison to modern... they are powerful in legacy/vintage due to fast mana. Being able to turn 1 a blood moon or turn 2 a Chandra consistently is why decks like that see play. Take that away and they are simply gimmicky.
i testet a few rounds against jeskai control feat. JtmS yesterday.
I won all three Preboard games without issues.
After Boarding the Matchup gets a lot worse. He bring in wear/tear, abrade, stony silence, Engineered Explosives, Vendilion Clique, 2 Dispel. I feel so far behind in the postboard games. I have to manage the jace, the creatures, a bunch of burnspells and his hate cards. Most i can control the creatures, jace and the hate, but then
loose to burn spells. Or i handle the burn, and creatures, then the pithing needle gets bounced and countered and jace finished me off.
Whats your advices in this matchup?
Many Guides says to board out the Witchbane Orb, Spellbomb and a Pithing Needle and put in 2 decays and a search for azcanta. I guess the needle should stay in the md and the third from the sb come to the maindeck.
So there should come 1 Needle, 2 Decay, 1 Search and maybe a Aethgrid against jace. But what should i board out, 1 Bridge, the orb and a spellbomb.
Whats your strategy in this mu and how do you play?
After the games i thought, thats not possible to handle everything. On Sunday i test the matchup more and try to mill the burnspells, handle the creatures with bridge and protect it.
i testet a few rounds against jeskai control feat. JtmS yesterday.
I won all three Preboard games without issues.
After Boarding the Matchup gets a lot worse. He bring in wear/tear, abrade, stony silence, Engineered Explosives, Vendilion Clique, 2 Dispel. I feel so far behind in the postboard games. I have to manage the jace, the creatures, a bunch of burnspells and his hate cards. Most i can control the creatures, jace and the hate, but then
loose to burn spells. Or i handle the burn, and creatures, then the pithing needle gets bounced and countered and jace finished me off.
Whats your advices in this matchup?
Many Guides says to board out the Witchbane Orb, Spellbomb and a Pithing Needle and put in 2 decays and a search for azcanta. I guess the needle should stay in the md and the third from the sb come to the maindeck.
So there should come 1 Needle, 2 Decay, 1 Search and maybe a Aethgrid against jace. But what should i board out, 1 Bridge, the orb and a spellbomb.
Whats your strategy in this mu and how do you play?
After the games i thought, thats not possible to handle everything. On Sunday i test the matchup more and try to mill the burnspells, handle the creatures with bridge and protect it.
Thanks dor your advice.
Are you sure the guides said board out pithing needle?
All the guides I've read state to board out cage.
Based on the PT list (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18360&d=313973&f=MO) this is how I would SB against Jace builds...
OUT
-1 cage
-1 bauble
-1 mox opal
-1 pyrite spellbomb
-1 pyxis
-1 orb
-1 whir
IN
+1 search
+1 abrupt decay
+1 collective brutality
+2 Tez
+1 nature's claim
+1 welding jar / maelstorm pulse / keep 4th whir in / pithing needle
(last spot is a flex spot that changes depending on their build and what I see).
My reasoning: against stony silence decks you typically slim down on the number of baubles/opals you run in addition to bringing in tez.
You want to increase your likelihood of winning through a stony.
You can slim whir because they often bring in dispels. Typically whir is used to force them to tap out on their turn anyways (so you can main phase push artifacts through).
I would not side out a pithing needle unless you are already playing 3. And even with the new jace builds... I could see justification for bringing it in.
The challenge with Jeskai is knowing their deck. How many burn spells do they have left? How many burn spells could they possibly be in their hand (including things like snap-caster + cryptic)? etc. You need all that knowledge to know what to mill correctly.
Both were almost immediately banned at the inception of the format
Green Sun will likely not homogenize all green decks around it. Chord of Calling, a card which can easily be compared to it, has certain advantages over Green Sun - instant speed, can grab a creature of any color, hits the graveyard (important for recursion with Eternal Witness). Eldritch Evolution, too, still has certain advantages to Green Sun.
Stoneforge Mystic should not homogenize all white decks, even though it does have a good chance to see play in Death and Taxes, Humans, Abzan, and Jeskai builds. More importantly, it should increase the playability of equipment in the format as a whole
Green Sun Zenith will never be unbanned. You can cast it for zero and it is a one mana ramp spell. (get dryad arbor)
SFM is arguably way more powerful than both BBE and JTMS.
Death's Shadow is much more Tempo than anything else.
To go back to what we were talking about before, Todd Steven's new article i think puts up a good point:
Blue was already arguably the best color in Modern, with four of the nine decks at #PTRIX that had 5% or more of the metagame share being blue with Grixis Death's Shadow, Jeskai Control, U/R Gifts Storm, and U/W Control. That's of course not even counting Five-Color Humans with their sixteen maindeck blue cards. Snapcaster Mage has been the most played creature in Modern for quite some time now without help from the most powerful planeswalker ever printed.
Blue decks did not have the best conversion rates at the PT if you are talking about pure blue control decks. (I suppose lantern control plays blue too).
I always considered midrange to be modern's version of control, just as midrange/tempo play the aggro role in legacy due to a lack of viable linear creature decks (I miss you goblins...). Discard spells, removal, grindy game ending in a big finisher. It's just proactive control. I mean modern has virtually every archetype near the top except draw-go control, which still exists anyways. I think the goalposts are just too narrow as people try to use twenty five year old definitions of decks.
The reason why I hesitate to call death shadow variants "midrange" is because they nearly all have moved towards Temur Battle Rage.
Although Death Shadow is "technically" midrange... there is Death Shadow. And then there is Jund.
Yeah but speed is not necessarily why traditional control decks dont do well in Modern (assuming they don't)
Control decks do well enough. Just because conversion rates are lower does not mean it is bad.
In truth nothing could have been unbanned and the format would still be fine.
The point I was trying to make - blue decks still under perform in relation to the entire meta.
Not having inevitability is one of the reasons why. I would argue that's also why UWx decks were more likely to go to time.
I understand that, but the point I was concerned about is having Daze and Coutnerspell in Modern after Jace unbanning
Oh.... my bad. Yea I don't think we will ever ever ever get daze or counterspell in modern.
(did I mention ever enough times?). Counter-spell and daze would be too good for modern. Even more so than Jace.
PS: I suppose I could see a world where counter-spell would be fine for modern (and I only say that because logic knot is a close equivalent): but not daze. Free spells are very risky.
Yeah but speed is not necessarily why traditional control decks dont do well in Modern (assuming they don't)
Control decks do well enough. Just because conversion rates are lower does not mean it is bad.
In truth nothing could have been unbanned and the format would still be fine.
The point I was trying to make - blue decks still under perform in relation to the entire meta.
Not having inevitability is one of the reasons why. I would argue that's also why UWx decks were more likely to go to time.
Daze reprint but Preordain too good "for obvious reasons? Modern too fast? Lantern Control and Mardu Pyromancer in the finals of the PT. Where where your fast combo decks? How about the last 4 big torunies? Where are the fast combo decks?
PT is split between limited and constructed. You really can't get any good meta-considerations by looking at what decks top 8ed.
27-28 Point Modern Decks
- Mardu Pyromancer
- Traverse Deathshadow
- UW control
- Eldrazi Tron
24-26 point Modern Decks
- Abzan
- UW control
- Boggles
- Traverse Deathshadow
- Lantern Control
- Grixis Control
- U/R Gift Storm
- Tron
- Affinity
- Grixis Shadow
- Tron
- Eldrazi Tron
- Burn
- W/B Eldrazi
- 5 color humans
- Hallowed One
The vast majority of the decks that did well were fast. Only 5 control decks where present.
What about SCG Columbus when the finals were 2 conrol decks and the majority were on Death's Shadow?
a few things:
1) Death Shadow is not a control deck. I would actually put it in the "fast" category. It can achieve a win as early as turn 3 (though rare).
2) Control typically does very well vs those type of creature based fast decks.
What I understand what you are saying is that Modern is too fast because, without any interaction or disruption, there are decks that can win on turn 3 and 4. And you claim this is bad and why we need Daze? Interesting
a) I never said modern was too fast.
b) the entire debate started because someone mentioned perhaps wizards wanted to slow down the format a bit. Control decks have lower conversion rates in comparison to other decks. Moreover UWx control decks were more likely to go to time. Jace in theory helps with that.
I don't think Wizards agrees with the assertion that Modern is filled with interactive decks. There are so many people claiming that Jace doesn't matter because Modern is so fast.
If that's the case, then Wizards clearly feels that Modern needs to slow down. The only way to slow down a format is to empower blue permission. Reprinting Brainstorm or unbanning Ponder is out, for obvious reasons. The only way Wizards has right now to accomplish that mission is to unban Jace. I personally don't believe that's going to be enough, which is why I believe Daze and Counterspell will see print in Dominaria.
Daze reprint but Preordain too good "for obvious reasons? Modern too fast? Lantern Control and Mardu Pyromancer in the finals of the PT. Where where your fast combo decks? How about the last 4 big torunies? Where are the fast combo decks?
PT is split between limited and constructed. You really can't get any good meta-considerations by looking at what decks top 8ed.
27-28 Point Modern Decks
- Mardu Pyromancer
- Traverse Deathshadow
- UW control
- Eldrazi Tron
24-26 point Modern Decks
- Abzan
- UW control
- Boggles
- Traverse Deathshadow
- Lantern Control
- Grixis Control
- U/R Gift Storm
- Tron
- Affinity
- Grixis Shadow
- Tron
- Eldrazi Tron
- Burn
- W/B Eldrazi
- 5 color humans
- Hallowed One
The vast majority of the decks that did well were fast. Only 5 control decks where present.
What about SCG Columbus when the finals were 2 conrol decks and the majority were on Death's Shadow?
a few things:
1) Death Shadow is not a control deck. I would actually put it in the "fast" category. It can achieve a win as early as turn 3 (though rare).
2) Control typically does very well vs those type of creature based fast decks.
We remember different eras...
Blue decks faded into oblivion after the twin ban. Tempo variants began to make a comback with the printing of spell queller, but even then they did not become an expected part of day two meta games until after search was printed.
I also have seen the new taking-turns variants with as-foretold.
I've always wanted to break that card... and after playing a few sample games with it online: As-foretold in a taking-turns shell seems unbelievably powerful once it hits 4-5 counters.
Which started giving me a really crazy idea: what if one could modify taking turns to incorporate fast mana?
At first I tried bant (mana-dorks) but they were too week to removal.
I then started experimenting with the below build utilizing spirit guide and blood moon as an alt-win condition.
Effectively the goal of the deck is to turn 2 a blood moon or as foretold. However I had to give up alot of counter magic / extra cantrips to fit in the fast mana + blood moon package. Not sure if it's worth it.
Thoughts welcomed.!
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Creature (7)
3 snapcaster mage
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Spells (28)
2 Cryptic Command
4 Blood Moon
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Exhaustion
4 Serum Visions
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
4 As Foretold
10 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
3 Tolaria West
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 steam vents
I remember those days... *shutter*.
I honestly am really excited about Jace in the format. I hope it does what Twin used to without skewing the meta to an absurd degree (decks that use jace, decks that do not use jace, and those decks used to meta game).
So far the variation in decks is exciting. There appears to be a wider-range of blue based decks now than prior to the unban, but it's still too early to tell. It also looks like creature based strategies embracing BBE are making a come-back.
Difficult to tell the complete state of the meta without any official paper events yet though.
That should not be surprising given the new posting method.
They only post decks that are significantly different from one another.
So if twenty decks go 5-0 with the same list, only one of them will post.
It makes it harder to tell the overall state of the meta (since it only shows unique decks) but it does show variance. (new list published today).
My personal take on Jace: I hope it does what the twin-ban was never able to accomplish: increase the variation in blue decks.
If Jace can make non UWx decks viable without skewing the meta around those decks: I would consider it a win.
If Jace can propell RUG (scapeshift and control), BUG, Mono-Blue TimeWalk, Grixis Control, etc. from "fringe" into main-stream without skewing the meta dramatically I would consider that a win.
The problem with lists such as this in comparison to modern... they are powerful in legacy/vintage due to fast mana. Being able to turn 1 a blood moon or turn 2 a Chandra consistently is why decks like that see play. Take that away and they are simply gimmicky.
Are you sure the guides said board out pithing needle?
All the guides I've read state to board out cage.
Based on the PT list (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18360&d=313973&f=MO) this is how I would SB against Jace builds...
OUT
-1 cage
-1 bauble
-1 mox opal
-1 pyrite spellbomb
-1 pyxis
-1 orb
-1 whir
IN
+1 search
+1 abrupt decay
+1 collective brutality
+2 Tez
+1 nature's claim
+1 welding jar / maelstorm pulse / keep 4th whir in / pithing needle
(last spot is a flex spot that changes depending on their build and what I see).
My reasoning: against stony silence decks you typically slim down on the number of baubles/opals you run in addition to bringing in tez.
You want to increase your likelihood of winning through a stony.
You can slim whir because they often bring in dispels. Typically whir is used to force them to tap out on their turn anyways (so you can main phase push artifacts through).
I would not side out a pithing needle unless you are already playing 3. And even with the new jace builds... I could see justification for bringing it in.
The challenge with Jeskai is knowing their deck. How many burn spells do they have left? How many burn spells could they possibly be in their hand (including things like snap-caster + cryptic)? etc. You need all that knowledge to know what to mill correctly.
Green Sun Zenith will never be unbanned. You can cast it for zero and it is a one mana ramp spell. (get dryad arbor)
SFM is arguably way more powerful than both BBE and JTMS.
Blue decks did not have the best conversion rates at the PT if you are talking about pure blue control decks. (I suppose lantern control plays blue too).
My biggest concern with a three part system is fringe decks that occasionally have good tournament finishes.
The reason why I hesitate to call death shadow variants "midrange" is because they nearly all have moved towards Temur Battle Rage.
Although Death Shadow is "technically" midrange... there is Death Shadow. And then there is Jund.
Oh.... my bad. Yea I don't think we will ever ever ever get daze or counterspell in modern.
(did I mention ever enough times?). Counter-spell and daze would be too good for modern. Even more so than Jace.
PS: I suppose I could see a world where counter-spell would be fine for modern (and I only say that because logic knot is a close equivalent): but not daze. Free spells are very risky.
Control decks do well enough. Just because conversion rates are lower does not mean it is bad.
In truth nothing could have been unbanned and the format would still be fine.
The point I was trying to make - blue decks still under perform in relation to the entire meta.
Not having inevitability is one of the reasons why. I would argue that's also why UWx decks were more likely to go to time.
a) I never said modern was too fast.
b) the entire debate started because someone mentioned perhaps wizards wanted to slow down the format a bit. Control decks have lower conversion rates in comparison to other decks. Moreover UWx control decks were more likely to go to time. Jace in theory helps with that.
a few things:
1) Death Shadow is not a control deck. I would actually put it in the "fast" category. It can achieve a win as early as turn 3 (though rare).
2) Control typically does very well vs those type of creature based fast decks.