to me, the best shells for GSZ are gw company (and it will be like legacy's maverick, something that seems interesting in modern), elves (but i doubt that chord/company are worst to run than the zenith) and maybe amulet titan/scapeshift. The only thing that seems to keep zenith out of modern is the "all games plays the same" that wizards seems to hate
i still cant see the problem of upgrading cantrips in modern. GDS gets better? what's the problem with that? the deck will still lose against the same decks as now. Storm gets better? the boost of consistency is minimal with just preordain (maybe ponder would be too much, but i still think is fine), the same for ad nauseam
The real upgrade is for fair decks playing blue, not for combo decks, cause the unfair decks already play a lot of cantrips to find their pieces, so a minimal upgrade on one of them is not a lot
about other cards: i think that SFM and GSZ would be very good for the format. Twin would be fine too, but people has bad memories about the card, so maybe it needs more time to return
people are always worried about blue consistency with all the other non-blue decks in the format being superior. I think that even brainstorm would be awesome for modern to fight the dominance of thoughtseize and inquisition, and to help finding sideboard cards
my opinion is not the norm, but what makes blue so dominant in legacy is just not brainstorm, i think that in modern would be fine
the humans deck is broken in the sense that it breaks one of the most important aspects of magic, you need to choose a color to gain access to certain effects, and normally, if you splash a color, it comes with a downside (for example, be color screwed), but this doesnt happen to humans. you can choose anything and painfree, cause your manabase is PERFECT, and, with the philosophy of WOTC, everyset you have more and more powerful humans to feed the deck, and you dont even care what are the colors of such creatures. it's hilarious
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
to be honest, i think that humans (all the deck. there's no single card that seems powerful enough to justify a ban. i think that the manabase of the deck is a problem) and burning inquiry are the more problematic aspects of modern. Burning inquiry is just no fun and abusable for hollow one/dredge
2) I have sided out 4 Amulet of Vigor and 4 Explore vs. the really grindy decks like Jund, Grixis Shadow, and BUG (essentially BGx with Logic Knot and ScM). Is this not correct? It seems to work. I put in a bunch more creatures, in fact all of them.
I used to loooove Serum Visions in this deck. In fact, I even liked it more than Ancient Stirrings, although admittedly Ancient Stirrings is a better card in many ways. But I think that Blue is tough to get early, in fact it is the main reason I'm "scared" to side in 3 Spell Pierce.
i normally side out amulets and stirrings in grindy matchups, and maybe some scouts. the reason to take out stirrings even being a really good card is that without amulet, and with so much more creatures than in g1, i feel that it loses a lot of value (you dont always find tolaria to transmute :P) but explore is an awesome card against midrange
i think that the problem with modern today is that consistency cannot match redundancy. With better cantrips, decks that try to control the "unfair" decks could find the right tools in time. With better cantrips you can run more silver bullets, wich is awesome in a format so big as modern
Maybe ive played against bad control players, but i really like the matchup against control, if you can protect your cavern, they really cant draw the same quality of cards, cause you use tolaria to titan chain them, and then kill them with walking ballista
(and it seems even easier if you play with kessig, cause every creature and khalni garden tokens are lethal threats, but i didnt test the card)
I played the deck A LOT with and without summer bloom, but i dont consider myself a godly amulet pilot, so i find strange that so many players here and on facebook are having problems with control
ive played against jeskai, uw and ur, and our deck seems tailored to beat that kind of decks (and midrange)
i really dont like how humans is capable of casting 5 color creatures. In every set, there are new humans, and with that insane manabase that 5color humans have, it's almost imposible to not improve the deck with every release. A near perfect manabase seems like cheating sometimes. You have a fast clock with very powerful disruption and you dont have to care about casting costs. It's like a bad joke
my 2 cents
i love the deck, but i think that you need to practice a lot more with it than with any other modern deck, without being superior (or even equal). For example, you can be a medium titanshift player and win the same (or more) amount of games than an experienced amulet player (blame on summer bloom banning haha)
But, amulet has what i think as a "secret advantage": Very few players knows how to play against this deck, so if you are good with amulet titan, this can improve your winrate by a large margin
on another topic, im foiling the deck, and there are cards that are really difficult to find, it's a little frustrating hahaa
im thinking about cutting tect edge entirely for a split between ghost quarter and field of ruin, cause i like crucible on the sideboard, what do you guys think? to me, the chance of destroying ad infinitum our opponent's manabase seems very good, and it is a strategy that i applied before playing the deck agains things like e tron or bg tron. Thoughts?
i dont feel like ghost quarter, tectonic and maaaybe field of ruin are good against valakut, not only because they can easily recover cause they dont even need to play valakut before they shotgun you in one turn, and the strategies that can play those cards are strategies that are normaly bad against a deck that just need to make land drops to kill you
i think that valakut decks are more oppresive than storm in the sense that storm has cards that completely destroys them, like rule of law and more (even with counterhate like echoing truth) but valakut decks are more free to develop it game plan without opposition
The real upgrade is for fair decks playing blue, not for combo decks, cause the unfair decks already play a lot of cantrips to find their pieces, so a minimal upgrade on one of them is not a lot
about other cards: i think that SFM and GSZ would be very good for the format. Twin would be fine too, but people has bad memories about the card, so maybe it needs more time to return
my opinion is not the norm, but what makes blue so dominant in legacy is just not brainstorm, i think that in modern would be fine
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
i normally side out amulets and stirrings in grindy matchups, and maybe some scouts. the reason to take out stirrings even being a really good card is that without amulet, and with so much more creatures than in g1, i feel that it loses a lot of value (you dont always find tolaria to transmute :P) but explore is an awesome card against midrange
(and it seems even easier if you play with kessig, cause every creature and khalni garden tokens are lethal threats, but i didnt test the card)
I played the deck A LOT with and without summer bloom, but i dont consider myself a godly amulet pilot, so i find strange that so many players here and on facebook are having problems with control
ive played against jeskai, uw and ur, and our deck seems tailored to beat that kind of decks (and midrange)
i love the deck, but i think that you need to practice a lot more with it than with any other modern deck, without being superior (or even equal). For example, you can be a medium titanshift player and win the same (or more) amount of games than an experienced amulet player (blame on summer bloom banning haha)
But, amulet has what i think as a "secret advantage": Very few players knows how to play against this deck, so if you are good with amulet titan, this can improve your winrate by a large margin
on another topic, im foiling the deck, and there are cards that are really difficult to find, it's a little frustrating hahaa