pretty sure the BGx decks are running green creatures, Amulet Titan and Boggles also. I wish we could see the complete brackets and not just the top 8 pairing as I would like see what decks beat out BGx mid-range, did they fall to some combo deck or was it GDS or some kind of Eldrazi or Tron deck that knocked them out.
Also interesting that again the GDS deck that performed to a high finish was a much more streamlined aggro build with its grinder cards in the SB and double Deprive in the main
To clarify I'm talking about decks like Abzan company, knightfall and elves.
Elves at 26, some Company decks in the 20's. I'm still convinced that CoCo decks while good are just to random going to just have those games where you hit bird, bird and your looking at Eldrazi monsters, plus quite a few Grafdiggers Cages in the SB's of decks.
pretty sure the BGx decks are running green creatures, Amulet Titan and Boggles also. I wish we could see the complete brackets and not just the top 8 pairing as I would like see what decks beat out BGx mid-range, did they fall to some combo deck or was it GDS or some kind of Eldrazi or Tron deck that knocked them out.
Also interesting that again the GDS deck that performed to a high finish was a much more streamlined aggro build with its grinder cards in the SB and double Deprive in the main
Whats your source for it was created to Deal with counter-top? http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/top-decks/it-also-speaks-itself-2012-09-05 This is the only article I could find talking about it and the only mention of any specific card that it was great to Hate on was Delver of Secrets but again this card was clearly designed just to be a super flexible removal for anything 3 or less without protection from BG or Hexproof. WotC designs for Standard first and foremost always.
Fatal Push wasn't designed "for" modern, it like any other card that is good in modern was designed for standard and just happens to shine in Modern.
This is wrong. Fatal Push was purposefully designed for non-rotating formats like Modern.
A lot of people hear that WOTC doesn't test new sets/cards for anything other than limited and standard and conflate that with not designing for other formats. The two aren't the same. They design a card or two for other formats very often, they simply don't test them in those formats.
no it wasn't they said that when the designed it they understood that it would be great in non-rotating formats. It like any other card had to be balanced for Standard power levels, did they recognize that revolt as a mechanic would be better in Modern. If a card isn't balanced for standard it simply will not see print, Fatal Push is a great example of WotC taking advantage of a situation once they designed Revolt they understood what could be done with it and took advantage of the situation but they didn't even begin designing the set with the goal of making Modern playable cards they just took advantage of the situation that the Standard design afforded them. Its really to bad that the Revolt mechanic name isn't as vanilla as Prowess, I doubt it will make evergreen status so it will probably be 5-6 years before they get back to it.
I suppose I can agree that it's a tad nuanced, but they did design the card for other formats. Revolt as a mechanic was designed for Standard/Limited, but in terms of that particular card and whether it was instant/sorcery, the mana cost, and the rest of the text box, it was all created with more than limited and standard in mind.
And really that is my point, they set out to develop a Standard set, they balanced the mechanic to function in a safe fun way for standard and realized after the fact "yeah we can do things with this that will be great in older formats" but it wasn't something they had in mind from day one and it never will be. Sometimes its super easy for them to know that they can make pushed cards for older formats because the mechanic is established as great in older formats like Delve, they knew from Tombstalker's history that Delve is great in those formats so Tas, Angler, TC, DDT they had to know at as soon as they settled on that being a set in which Delve would be the showcase mechanic that it would make older format staples/potentially broken cards, but like with TC Standard design always takes the lead in terms of concerns because WotC isn't stupid they had to understand that this was functionally a AR at sorcery speed in Modern/Legacy/Vintage but like with the fore knowledge of the potential risk of printing 3,4,5cc Eldrazi they didn't care. Its easy to say look at Fatal Push because its a well balanced card but they are equally if not more likely to print things that they know will be great in Modern to the point of being broken and potentially demanding a ban to maintain meta-game health.
The real sad part about Revolt is that even if they choose to make it a evergreen mechanic it would likely only ever be printed on BGand W cards kind of how Prowess was a RUand W mechanic and once moved to evergreen status remained solidly in those colors similar to Trample, Vigilance, etc... it is likely solidly locked into those color identity, same thing with Delve in BUG etc....
Fatal Push wasn't designed "for" modern, it like any other card that is good in modern was designed for standard and just happens to shine in Modern.
This is wrong. Fatal Push was purposefully designed for non-rotating formats like Modern.
A lot of people hear that WOTC doesn't test new sets/cards for anything other than limited and standard and conflate that with not designing for other formats. The two aren't the same. They design a card or two for other formats very often, they simply don't test them in those formats.
no it wasn't they said that when the designed it they understood that it would be great in non-rotating formats. It like any other card had to be balanced for Standard power levels, did they recognize that revolt as a mechanic would be better in Modern. If a card isn't balanced for standard it simply will not see print, Fatal Push is a great example of WotC taking advantage of a situation once they designed Revolt they understood what could be done with it and took advantage of the situation but they didn't even begin designing the set with the goal of making Modern playable cards they just took advantage of the situation that the Standard design afforded them. Its really to bad that the Revolt mechanic name isn't as vanilla as Prowess, I doubt it will make evergreen status so it will probably be 5-6 years before they get back to it.
I think it's a mistake to consider Mana leak to be a top 5 counterspell, and perhaps even top 10. The card is straight up bad in the late game, which is what most of the decks that would consider a 2cmc counterspell are playing towards. Negate is almost always 100% better than Mana leak because it is a hard answer into the late game and only misses threats that can be dealt with via the rest of your removal. Mana leak is really underwhelming unless you can be the beatdown in matchups that threaten to go medium-long.
Others have somehow been including Remand on the list at all, despite it seeing almost no play. The card is just too inefficient vs aggro like burn/affinity to be on the list. At least cryptic is card advantage and much more flexible. Remand being 1U:Cycle in the meta too often should also really limit its placing to the bottom wrungs. To emphasize how bad Remand is, consider that it has effectively been replaced in control decks by Spreading Seas as more effective way of disrupting your opponent. Spreading Seas is more effective at disruption than Remand. That says alot about Remand in the meta imo.
I'd like to add that Ceremonious rejection should probably have won out over Dispel in my above list due to its broader application in the meta.
I put Mana Leak over things like Negate and Logic Knot simply because its seeing play as a 3 of in UW Control currently and while Remand is seeing play in Storm I feel that it is almost more of combo enabler in that deck bouncing back your Grapeshot. I think that the fact that its functionally counterspell between T1-4 makes it solid enough as the format is dominated by decks looking to get established mostly by T3.
With increased GP support and a spot back on the PT, is Modern too popular to not support in more ways than merely getting a Masters set every other year?
Such as actively designing for Modern within the new sets. Think Fatal Push.
Could we finally see new means of injecting new cards into Modern outside of standard filtration?
It just feels like Modern is this giant oil reservoir that isn't being tapped into.
Injecting new cards is only going to be via Standard, WotC has restated this multiple times and it just isn't happening.
Fatal Push wasn't designed "for" modern, it like any other card that is good in modern was designed for standard and just happens to shine in Modern.
Didn't Stoddard say it could change?
I've only ever read them reaffirm that Modern will not get new cards from side products. Its just something that of course we all want because if you've ever played legacy you know that WotC can produce high impact cards for older formats well when the standard filter isn't mandatory.
With increased GP support and a spot back on the PT, is Modern too popular to not support in more ways than merely getting a Masters set every other year?
Such as actively designing for Modern within the new sets. Think Fatal Push.
Could we finally see new means of injecting new cards into Modern outside of standard filtration?
It just feels like Modern is this giant oil reservoir that isn't being tapped into.
Injecting new cards is only going to be via Standard, WotC has restated this multiple times and it just isn't happening.
Fatal Push wasn't designed "for" modern, it like any other card that is good in modern was designed for standard and just happens to shine in Modern.
For yet another time, we get the confirmation that banning a card always leads to more bans. 6(!!!!) Ramunap Red Decks in Top8!!! (one of them with light splash black(to play Collective Brutality and Ammit Eternal).
I am only certain that the February Modern PT Top8 won't have this extremely bad top 8 standings.
Did they ban something? Not yet so this is a bit premature. Plus what your claiming simply isn't true, this is really the only time in MTG that they had developed such poor sets that it devolved into a spiral of bannings. Really you have to go all the way back to Urza's Saga block bannings to see a level of messing up this hard from R&D. Most of the time its a single ban announcement and it actually achieved the goal like when they Banned JtmS/SFM standard hadn't seen a banning until the recent slew.
I do agree that the Modern PT probably won't look as homogeneous as any Standard PT which normally only have 2-4 decks in them anyways. Unless WotC prints some TC level stuff in the sets between now and then.
Guys, what are your predictions for the next announcement? No changes/something gets banned/ something gets unbanned - BBE, JTMS, SFM? I tend to expect an unban but I want to hear your thoughts.
No changes, WotC is okay enough with the current Modern to let it back onto the PT and I doubt they want to risk pooping in the pool before they are going to swim in it. If we get a unban I think it won't happen until after the PT.
I think that is the general problem with "fair" CoCo decks sometimes you just CoCo into garbage or completely Whiff and lose. I just don't think that a deck that can simply lose to its namesake card failing to deliver is ever going to strictly dominate other more consistent strategies.
Just FYI, Delver is the #1 most-played deck in Legacy.
I don't get to point of this as delver in legacy is way, way, way more reliable to flip, one word Brainstorm. But for real that is a terrible point to bring up I play Grixis Delver in legacy and the deck is super consistent, Modern just doesn't have any deck that can compare in terms of consistency not to mention that the deck while names "delver" is really whatever threat you stick DRS,YP, Angler it doesn't really matter as long as you can protect it and disrupt your opponent, far more similar to GDS.
CoCo decks really do need to cast CoCo, The match up is pretty easy (at least against GDS which is the deck I'm on" if they don't find and resolve a CoCo, because literally every thing the deck dies to your removal (nothing dodges push which is a very strong quality for a threat to have currently), and KotR and Tracker are the only creatures that can really just run away with the game on their own, Voice is annoying but not devastating same with Finks buys them time to draw something more powerful.
I'm not saying that new Coco brews wont pop up that are competitive, I just think that Todd Stevens doing so well with the deck is due to his play skill more than the deck being bonkers, because regardless of how good you are at playing if your CoCo's only hit mana dorks and such or whiff completely that can easily cost you a game when your opponent is playing a much more consistent deck like GDS or E-Tron as that random bad outcome will be punished by other good players.
Just to be clear I actually think that the list he ran looks way better than the Counters Company build because the that deck has the same random bad luck aspect but is even more dependent on having a very specific board state to make it worth it assembling the infinite mana loop and not hitting your Walking Ballista or drawing a E witness if you do, just way more can go wrong and the list posted is at least better at just playing dudes and functioning with random draws.
Its funny that you posted that list because I just played a 2 man on mtgo against a player running what looked like that exact list(obviously idk if it was the exact 75 since i didn't see every card) but I won and it was literally to his bad CoCo's letting me get back in the match. Won G1 to him CoCo'ing twice into nothing but mana dorks, won G2 because he straight up whiffed off his CoCo and I dealt with the 2 creatures he played pior a bird and Ramunap. That list actually does run a bit of a "Combo" with Ramunap, Azusa and GQ to try and CoCo into double strip mine every turn.
I think that is the general problem with "fair" CoCo decks sometimes you just CoCo into garbage or completely Whiff and lose. I just don't think that a deck that can simply lose to its namesake card failing to deliver is ever going to strictly dominate other more consistent strategies. Sometime you play against them and feel like you never had a chance and sometimes it feels like you just crushing them with the exact same list, its very swingy at least.
Ld is better vs valakut decks so honestly every color has some form of hate to play if the did really want to.
I wouldn't say the hate is that great. otherwise Jund would be higher up wouldn't it? dont they have access to 4 fulminators out of the sb?
and shouldn't big mana be hurting right now? the rest of the meta is pretty much either hating on it or playing fast linear decks. and it is still 1/3 of the top tiers. if midrange and control decks MUST have very poor matchups like some preach in here, than where are those matchups vs big mana? they clearly aren't that effective or the same thing would be happening to big mana as it has to jund.....
By this January imo its either time we ban something like temple or we give players better hosers vs these types of decks.
I think that the problem with E-Tron and using things like Fulminators is that while they would like to have tron they don't have to have it, while they would like to have temple they don't have to have it. You spend you T3 blowing up one of their lands after they played something either and they untap play a land a and still drop a TKS or something else developing their boards. I think the fulminator package actually does do a lot for the match up against things like Valakut decks or GxTron, E-Tron just is jam packed with built in 2:1's Matter Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher ..... it is just very hard for a deck like Jund Mid-range to profit off of the 1:1 and 2:1 trade offs it used to rely on, its just a Mid-range deck that goes slightly bigger and has a lot of creatures that net them "free" 2:1's, Oath was a very pushed set for colorless creatures and that was always a risk for shard based mid-range in modern.
I don't think you can really call E-Tron a "big mana" deck though its a mid-range Ramp deck for sure but the majority of the cards in the deck are 3,4,5,6 drops squarely in the Mid-range.
To me this is not a exanple of technical playing skill. It is more of knowing how to get a specific reaction from a judge. This isn't as much a magic skill as it is social skill because at the end of the day it comes down to who can convince a judge. An example of technical playing skill is not bolting a 2/3 goyf with no instant in the yard.
No they are both examples of technical play skill it is the rules that once you declare something it is on the stack no take back's. Getting punished for declaring something you really didn't intend is really very similar to a player getting punished because that they didn't understand that the gofy goes up to 3/4 on the instance the card resolves, i've seen plenty of newer players make that error. I understand that this isn't going to play out the way they think it will but I don't broadcast it and I am still at that moment allowing them to make a terrible misplay do to a technical aspect of the game.
I simply disagree the goyf example comes down purely to a understanding of the rules the esper charm example involves in part being able to convince a judge and arguable misrepresenting what happened during the game
no the caster of esper charm is making a error when not declaring the mode on casting; tap, tap, tap, esper charm? that means nothing if he isn't announcing the mode he is selecting then he is leaving himself open to getting screwed by the rules of the game.
People will cut you off before you can say what modes. Do we really want a contest of who can speak faster. The player casting the spell gets none of the reward and all of the punishment from this system. What if the casting player has a speech problem. Why are we rewarding this jump the gun behavior. So let's say my opponent casts cryptic command can I then name off half of the modal combinations in hopes they choose the wrong one
All you have to do is state that you haven't declared modes yet, a player cannot "force" you to make such a error it is in the rules that you do not have to accept a shortcut if you are the active player. Your totally wrong as about "the caster not getting any reward" etc... the caster can simply state I haven't declared modes yet and the other player has to wait, I mean you could get a slow play violation if your taking crazy long but the player with priority has Priority and they do not have to accept a 'shortcut' in casting etc.. that has to be mutually agreed on.
What your describing with Cryptic Command sounds nothing like the situation the poster put up with Esper charm, I mean if a person would really be so easily confused that simply stating potential combinations on Cryptic would cause them to lose sight of why they cast the card in the first place then IDK that is a level of ineptitude that I just personally can't see actually happening in a game of magic other than perhaps against a small child.
Elves at 26, some Company decks in the 20's. I'm still convinced that CoCo decks while good are just to random going to just have those games where you hit bird, bird and your looking at Eldrazi monsters, plus quite a few Grafdiggers Cages in the SB's of decks.
Also interesting that again the GDS deck that performed to a high finish was a much more streamlined aggro build with its grinder cards in the SB and double Deprive in the main
Whats your source for it was created to Deal with counter-top? http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/top-decks/it-also-speaks-itself-2012-09-05 This is the only article I could find talking about it and the only mention of any specific card that it was great to Hate on was Delver of Secrets but again this card was clearly designed just to be a super flexible removal for anything 3 or less without protection from BG or Hexproof. WotC designs for Standard first and foremost always.
And really that is my point, they set out to develop a Standard set, they balanced the mechanic to function in a safe fun way for standard and realized after the fact "yeah we can do things with this that will be great in older formats" but it wasn't something they had in mind from day one and it never will be. Sometimes its super easy for them to know that they can make pushed cards for older formats because the mechanic is established as great in older formats like Delve, they knew from Tombstalker's history that Delve is great in those formats so Tas, Angler, TC, DDT they had to know at as soon as they settled on that being a set in which Delve would be the showcase mechanic that it would make older format staples/potentially broken cards, but like with TC Standard design always takes the lead in terms of concerns because WotC isn't stupid they had to understand that this was functionally a AR at sorcery speed in Modern/Legacy/Vintage but like with the fore knowledge of the potential risk of printing 3,4,5cc Eldrazi they didn't care. Its easy to say look at Fatal Push because its a well balanced card but they are equally if not more likely to print things that they know will be great in Modern to the point of being broken and potentially demanding a ban to maintain meta-game health.
The real sad part about Revolt is that even if they choose to make it a evergreen mechanic it would likely only ever be printed on B Gand W cards kind of how Prowess was a RUand W mechanic and once moved to evergreen status remained solidly in those colors similar to Trample, Vigilance, etc... it is likely solidly locked into those color identity, same thing with Delve in BUG etc....
no it wasn't they said that when the designed it they understood that it would be great in non-rotating formats. It like any other card had to be balanced for Standard power levels, did they recognize that revolt as a mechanic would be better in Modern. If a card isn't balanced for standard it simply will not see print, Fatal Push is a great example of WotC taking advantage of a situation once they designed Revolt they understood what could be done with it and took advantage of the situation but they didn't even begin designing the set with the goal of making Modern playable cards they just took advantage of the situation that the Standard design afforded them. Its really to bad that the Revolt mechanic name isn't as vanilla as Prowess, I doubt it will make evergreen status so it will probably be 5-6 years before they get back to it.
I put Mana Leak over things like Negate and Logic Knot simply because its seeing play as a 3 of in UW Control currently and while Remand is seeing play in Storm I feel that it is almost more of combo enabler in that deck bouncing back your Grapeshot. I think that the fact that its functionally counterspell between T1-4 makes it solid enough as the format is dominated by decks looking to get established mostly by T3.
#2 Ceremonious Rejection
#3 Cryptic Command
#4 Dispel
#5 Mana Leak
#6 Logic Knot
#7 Negate
#8 Countersquall
#9 Spell Queller
#10 Unsubstantiate
I've only ever read them reaffirm that Modern will not get new cards from side products. Its just something that of course we all want because if you've ever played legacy you know that WotC can produce high impact cards for older formats well when the standard filter isn't mandatory.
Injecting new cards is only going to be via Standard, WotC has restated this multiple times and it just isn't happening.
Fatal Push wasn't designed "for" modern, it like any other card that is good in modern was designed for standard and just happens to shine in Modern.
Did they ban something? Not yet so this is a bit premature. Plus what your claiming simply isn't true, this is really the only time in MTG that they had developed such poor sets that it devolved into a spiral of bannings. Really you have to go all the way back to Urza's Saga block bannings to see a level of messing up this hard from R&D. Most of the time its a single ban announcement and it actually achieved the goal like when they Banned JtmS/SFM standard hadn't seen a banning until the recent slew.
I do agree that the Modern PT probably won't look as homogeneous as any Standard PT which normally only have 2-4 decks in them anyways. Unless WotC prints some TC level stuff in the sets between now and then.
No changes, WotC is okay enough with the current Modern to let it back onto the PT and I doubt they want to risk pooping in the pool before they are going to swim in it. If we get a unban I think it won't happen until after the PT.
I don't get to point of this as delver in legacy is way, way, way more reliable to flip, one word Brainstorm. But for real that is a terrible point to bring up I play Grixis Delver in legacy and the deck is super consistent, Modern just doesn't have any deck that can compare in terms of consistency not to mention that the deck while names "delver" is really whatever threat you stick DRS,YP, Angler it doesn't really matter as long as you can protect it and disrupt your opponent, far more similar to GDS.
CoCo decks really do need to cast CoCo, The match up is pretty easy (at least against GDS which is the deck I'm on" if they don't find and resolve a CoCo, because literally every thing the deck dies to your removal (nothing dodges push which is a very strong quality for a threat to have currently), and KotR and Tracker are the only creatures that can really just run away with the game on their own, Voice is annoying but not devastating same with Finks buys them time to draw something more powerful.
I'm not saying that new Coco brews wont pop up that are competitive, I just think that Todd Stevens doing so well with the deck is due to his play skill more than the deck being bonkers, because regardless of how good you are at playing if your CoCo's only hit mana dorks and such or whiff completely that can easily cost you a game when your opponent is playing a much more consistent deck like GDS or E-Tron as that random bad outcome will be punished by other good players.
Just to be clear I actually think that the list he ran looks way better than the Counters Company build because the that deck has the same random bad luck aspect but is even more dependent on having a very specific board state to make it worth it assembling the infinite mana loop and not hitting your Walking Ballista or drawing a E witness if you do, just way more can go wrong and the list posted is at least better at just playing dudes and functioning with random draws.
I think that is the general problem with "fair" CoCo decks sometimes you just CoCo into garbage or completely Whiff and lose. I just don't think that a deck that can simply lose to its namesake card failing to deliver is ever going to strictly dominate other more consistent strategies. Sometime you play against them and feel like you never had a chance and sometimes it feels like you just crushing them with the exact same list, its very swingy at least.
I think that the problem with E-Tron and using things like Fulminators is that while they would like to have tron they don't have to have it, while they would like to have temple they don't have to have it. You spend you T3 blowing up one of their lands after they played something either and they untap play a land a and still drop a TKS or something else developing their boards. I think the fulminator package actually does do a lot for the match up against things like Valakut decks or GxTron, E-Tron just is jam packed with built in 2:1's Matter Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher ..... it is just very hard for a deck like Jund Mid-range to profit off of the 1:1 and 2:1 trade offs it used to rely on, its just a Mid-range deck that goes slightly bigger and has a lot of creatures that net them "free" 2:1's, Oath was a very pushed set for colorless creatures and that was always a risk for shard based mid-range in modern.
I don't think you can really call E-Tron a "big mana" deck though its a mid-range Ramp deck for sure but the majority of the cards in the deck are 3,4,5,6 drops squarely in the Mid-range.
All you have to do is state that you haven't declared modes yet, a player cannot "force" you to make such a error it is in the rules that you do not have to accept a shortcut if you are the active player. Your totally wrong as about "the caster not getting any reward" etc... the caster can simply state I haven't declared modes yet and the other player has to wait, I mean you could get a slow play violation if your taking crazy long but the player with priority has Priority and they do not have to accept a 'shortcut' in casting etc.. that has to be mutually agreed on.
What your describing with Cryptic Command sounds nothing like the situation the poster put up with Esper charm, I mean if a person would really be so easily confused that simply stating potential combinations on Cryptic would cause them to lose sight of why they cast the card in the first place then IDK that is a level of ineptitude that I just personally can't see actually happening in a game of magic other than perhaps against a small child.