We have had some pretty diverse Top 8's short of the breakout event for Grixis Shadow, which didn't surprise me at all as I was saying it was the better of the shadow decks while everyone was idiotically talking about if Misra's Bauble was perhaps to good and needing to be looked at.
We have seen various base W decks performing well with Mono-White hate bears actually looking like a solid deck in the face of spell heavy decks like Grixis Shadow and built in hate against lands matter decks like any flavor of Tron. I think as long as Grixis Shadow and E-Tron continue to be top dogs it should push that deck into the top tables more often, it is a meta-call deck for sure but it isn't as easy for GDS and E-Tron to hate as people like to think.
Blue is doing better obviously with Grixis Shadow, sure its not the deck most of us blue mages wanted but its the one we got.
Black is still king and short of WotC printing slews of powerful utility spells to compete with the discard spells that currently exist nothing is going to change that.
Red has its own deck in burn and is a consistent part timer in various other builds like GDS.
Green is probably in the least represented status it has been at for long time. Still CoCo decks are a real thing and Scapeshift is still a thing.
Colorless is the most represented overall with E-Tron and Affinity. I don't see anything changing their status, Affinity does what affinity does and any deck not running white always run the risk of simply having the robots overload your hate early. Tron decks currently are actually Eldrazi decks and don't even need to assemble Tron to deploy their threats ahead of curve so the usual hate against such strategies doesn't even do much.
Short of something new coming out of the existing card pool or something from a new set injecting a new super problematic deck into the meta-game it looks over all good.
I don't really care much about the discussion regarding "linear" decks as essentially every deck is in some way linear, you only have 75 cards to win the game with and even Reactive control has a very narrow scope of functions that the deck looks to deploy to at some point win the game. I think the major thing that people really don't like is how fast many of the decks can end the game as the game ending on T4-5 on average doesn't afford much in way of time to attempt to do whatever your deck is designed to do. Only the most pure of combo decks don't care much if at all as to what their opponent is doing and those types of decks don't currently rule the format.
Shard based Mid-range like Jund/Junk will continue to be bad as long as the 1-2 combo of E-Tron and DS are as good as they are. One is just a better bigger mid-range deck that goes over the shard based ones, and the other is a aggro deck that uses the same tools the mid-range decks would use to disrupt the mid-range decks for the 2-3 turns they need to win the game.
edit: while i would love for a mid-range/control Blue deck to exist I think Modern is overall to hostel to that type of strategy. 1c.c. targeted discard is by design great against those types of strategies, hurting counterspell based control decks is what Duress was designed to do and we have way better options in TS/IoK and some type of Tap out control seems like the more likely type to ever exist.
I think i'm in a lonely position here but i actually think they have to Ban Street Wraith and Grapeshot, Unban Preordain, Stoneforge and if the numbers allow it, Bloodbraid Elf too.
By banning those two cards you get rid of the enabler which still feels degenerate by doing too much(Like Gitaxian Probe which i think it was rightfully banned) and the best and faster combo archetype that ever existed in Storm(which they obviosuly hate too) and keep us attached to Legacy speed. Instead you get: Midrange tools to be proactive and bold in SFM and BBE(although i have nightmares about BBE into LotV), and the filtering needed to align answers to questions. Spell based combo is still viable in Nauseam but a legal T4 speed, Shadow becomes slower but more consistent in Preordain, and Blue-based control gets another high power cantrip and a win con.
This is too much of a shake for an announcement alone, but in two it could work. However, i do feel by the look of the format and DS dominance numbers that Street Wraith is rightfully getting choped on August.
I don't know how this is a reply to me, but I don't think WotC will ban grapeshot now since they have not done so after so many ban's against Storm. They are generally okay with critical mass combo's existing as long as they are not the best thing in town.
Can we give GDS a few years to dominate and perhaps a few direct attempts to print some hate against it(like they did for Twin) before we start talking about banning a deck that isn't doing anything broken like instantly winning the game.
I have to say, despite Grixis being the best deck, the meta in this tournament looks good, it's pretty diverse.
I do also think it's telling that Shadow is very much keeping E-Tron in check, because E-Tron has also been doing very well in tournaments, less people are complaining about it on stream, interestingly enough
I think the fact that shadow preys on E Tron is why it is best otherwise I think E Tron is at a higher power level overall considering the rest of the metagame. Some people believe E-Tron is the actually best deck in modern including myself. Even with GDS being so popular Eldrazi is still putting up good numbers.
While I would agree that E-Tron is a very powerful deck I do think that it plays second fiddle to DS simply because DS is such a prevalent match up and doesn't have any really unwinnable or at least heavily lop sided ones. It really has to have T1 Relic and T2 Chalice or the GDS player has to have kept a very weak hand for it to run over GDS. While the GDS player can very easily run over E-Tron with a wide variety of hands and the match up gets so much better post board.
And yet some self-regulating formats see far fewer overall bans, on top of fewer bans as a percentage of the card pool. Some bans are fine. If we get another Eldrazi Winter or T4 violator then sure, ban away. But this practice of constantly trimming away a best deck results in needless, endless bans of fair and unfair decks alike. That cycle needs to be disrupted.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
I'll once again let someone else's words explain it better than myself:
Quote from Modern Nexus, Nov 2015 »
No matter how you feel about the BGx grindfest or living in fear in the URx Twin contest, it’s hard to deny the importance of these decks in Modern. We’ve seen this all year, notably at Charlotte in June, and Pittsburgh was an important next chapter in the buddy cop narrative.
... Due to its massive card pool and relative lack of generic answers, Modern is always going to have a lot of random linear decks floating around. These lists take many forms. There are the “pure” combo builds like Ad Nauseam, Hulk Combo, and Storm. There are the old-school aggro decks such as Burn, Merfolk, and more Zoos than we can name. We see ramp (Tron, Amulet Bloom), we see aggro with combo-esque elements (Affinity, Bogles, Infect, Suicide Zoo, Elves), and we see decks that are just plain weird (Time Warp). All of these strategies share an almost single-minded devotion to goldfish games. If I wanted to operationalize a definition for a “linear deck”, it would be by counting the number of maindeck cards that are at their best when used non-interactively. I’m not doing that now, but we can all see the common goldfishing thread between these kinds of decks. Also, just to be clear, these decks are not low-skill despite their linear nature. “Linear” isn’t an insult. It’s a gameplay description.
Given all these linear options, why are most Modern events like Pittsburgh or Charlotte [full of diversity and interaction] and not like Porto Alegre or Dallas[linear nightmares]? Thank URx Twin and BGx Midrange. That’s not “URx Twin or BGx Midrange”. It’s “and” because healthy metagames need both decks.
It’s almost impossible for the assorted linear decks to punch through a metagame with both Twin and BGx. If you’re too deep on synergy, Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek will rip you apart. If you’re too light on interaction, an early Remand is guaranteed to keep the Twin player alive until the turn 4-5 combo. And if you’re too reliant on cheap creatures, there’s nothing like a Lightning Bolt to set you back, and there’s nothing like Twin and Jund when it comes to wielding Bolt efficiently. Linear decks can’t deal with these different policing angles and typically crumble over long tournaments. Pittsburgh showcased this effect throughout the weekend, especially in the finals where Jeskai Twin made textbook work of Affinity.
Modern breaks down in two scenarios. The first is where tournaments are too small for the metagame to arc towards Twin and BGx justice. Linear decks can dodge these policemen in smaller events, and then hope to get lucky in the single game where they get jammed up. This doesn’t work at a Grand Prix, which is exactly what Chapin talked about in his Monday article with respect to Bloom’s finishes. If you just look at small-event data, you tend to see more of the goldfish decks bullying their way to the finals. That’s not going to happen at a tournament where both Twin and Jund show up in force (or Abzan, depending on the BGx police flavor of the month). Of course, the second breakdown scenario is where one (or both) of the decks are absent. No Twin? Get ready for Affinity and Amulet to run over everything in sight. No BGx? Honesty, i can’t think of a time when there was no BGx at all, but I know that an absence of Jund sees big increases in Infect and other small-critter-based aggro.
At Pittsburgh, we saw both decks which is why the event was so healthy and such a return to old-school Modern. This is a critical observation because it shows us situations where the metagame can be broken (relatively speaking) and then self-correct just a month later. That’s important if you are playing (prepare for the correction or jump on board a policing deck), speculating (don’t play the long-game on spending on linear decks that might be here today and gone tomorrow), investing (Twin and BGx only go up because they are always here), or just trying to understand the format (we’ll always come back to these two decks no matter where the format is at any given moment). Pittsburgh should have been a faith-restoring event for all Modern players, and I am optimistic that we can keep seeing these forces in more events to come.
As of right now, we have Shadow playing the Jundish Twinish role, but not nearly as effectively, as removal of the deck from top tables simply opens the door for MORE fast linear/aggro/combo decks to fill the void. There really is *NOT* an abundance of other fair decks or other highly interactive decks, because none of the fair decks can compete with Shadow and none of the non-Shadow interactive/reactive decks can beat the linear/big mana decks.
I get it. You have an ax to grind against Twin. You can't seem to let go that Twin, despite being a "broken combo deck" as you claim (which it was not) also managed to do quite a lot of good for the format (along with old Jund) in helping regulate most of the stuff that everyone seems to complain about: fast linear decks, big mana annoyances, too many bans, etc. And it did this without ever actually pushing ANY of these decks out of competition (Affinity and Burn had excellent results most of 2015, Affinity was at a higher meta share than Twin when it was banned). It kept decks like that in check without oppressing them or letting them get out of control to the point of needing multiple additional bans. And this is because Modern has absolutely no other way to regulate itself other than a drag race to the bottom to see who can do the fastest, most busted, broken thing before getting banned. This isn't helped by the fact that set after set prints new broken things to enable more busted shenanigans, while at the same time a meaningful 1 mana cantrip is unquestionably too powerful and reasonable counterspells are absolutely off the table. Answers are not coming and decks will continue to get faster and more broken until banned, and then the next deck will be banned, and the next, and the next. This is the precedent that they have set and this is hole they have dug themselves in with their R&D, Design, and B&R choices. It will take years to recover otherwise.
Don't have a axe to grind, it was the deck I was on from the start of the format till the day it was banned. Do I think it was to good yes, overall it was simply the best Combo deck in the format unless a T4 violator deck would pop up like Bloom. What I don't like is people acting like it was something that it clearly wasn't it was a combo deck, if a combo deck can be a police deck than we should simply accept any broken combo that comes along and invalidates swaths of decks because it is simply policing those decks at that point.
I'm a UR mage, anyone who has ever played me on MTGO would have to say I was on a URx deck of some type, Twin was my deck for a long time I just don't delude myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best Combo deck in the format.
I agree that linear strategies are going to be continually problematic in the format but the argument that other will make is functionally that Twin was the lesser of 2 evils and that this combo deck should have a reserved protected status in the format, I disagree. I much prefer Grixis DS to Twin as a deck to stifle unfair strategies than Twin which was a unfair deck its self which just happened to be more well liked by others and myself. If it was unbanned I would be right back on the Twin train, but I wouldn't be and wasn't surprised if it ate a ban.
I would love for straight up counterspell to be printed again but I don't think it would actually do much for the format outside of improve some slower match ups but as it stands counterspells of nearly all stripes are very poorly positioned currently Denial is the exception because its most often a 1 mana Negate to protect your proactive threat. Cryptic will always be playable in a deck that ensure it can get to the point in the game which you can actually cast it but it is bounce, tap, cantrip spell in addition to offering a counter.
I even tried to play Twin when it was standard legal.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
That's the view I don't think is healthy right there. A format should be defined by archtype diversity not combo and linearity.
Modern was a format defined by combo decks for years, it has only really now moved away from combo decks being the best thing around. People pining for the good old days of the first years of the format are essentially asking for a format in which Combo is king.
That's a gross misrepresentation and total oversimplification.
People are pining (well, a minority, in this thread) for Jund and Twin to be kings again, thats really all.
Not entirely wrong! LOL. But the good things both of those decks did for the format is often overlooked or ignored entirely. First without Twin, we see linear nightmares, then after those bans we still have linear degeneracy, but it's backed up by stupidly powerful big mana. Linear can't be kept in check by reactive decks, big mana can't be kept in check by reactive decks. Death's Shadow is about the only "police" deck left which, if it keeps growing, will get banned anyway and linear/big mana will take over again, until those receive yet more bans.
In what way was that a over simplification? Twin, Pod, Storm, Infect, URprowess, DS with probe, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bloom, etc... the list goes on and on Modern for the longest time was defined by combo.
And Twin really didn't stop hyper linear decks, Burn and Infect both start moving up in the rankings after Pod is banned and it is because going under the Twin combo with your own faster kill was a viable method of beating the deck. Pod actually did more to keep those decks at bay as infinite life combo makes fast aggro like burn and zoo not a great plan and it had main deck splash hate against Infect. Not a great plan to run those types of strategies when you can anticipate running into Pod regularly at events.
And DS decks just do what Jund does faster and better. They have access to the same hand disruption and removal cards they simply play a aggro plan with its threats rather than a Mid-range one.
How realiable would be The Locust God with dire undercurrents in a control shell, yes kind of junk but a 2 cards combo kill that can pass under the bridge
That seems like a super slow thing to get online for what seems like very little pay off.
And yet some self-regulating formats see far fewer overall bans, on top of fewer bans as a percentage of the card pool. Some bans are fine. If we get another Eldrazi Winter or T4 violator then sure, ban away. But this practice of constantly trimming away a best deck results in needless, endless bans of fair and unfair decks alike. That cycle needs to be disrupted.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
That's the view I don't think is healthy right there. A format should be defined by archtype diversity not combo and linearity.
Modern was a format defined by combo decks for years, it has only really now moved away from combo decks being the best thing around. People pining for the good old days of the first years of the format are essentially asking for a format in which Combo is king.
And yet some self-regulating formats see far fewer overall bans, on top of fewer bans as a percentage of the card pool. Some bans are fine. If we get another Eldrazi Winter or T4 violator then sure, ban away. But this practice of constantly trimming away a best deck results in needless, endless bans of fair and unfair decks alike. That cycle needs to be disrupted.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
I dunno. Thia set screams edh to me. Like almost every csrd.
Well almost every set has like half the rares and mythic cards as EDH fodder. I was saying that the actual like potentially standard playable cards all just look like more mid-range creatures
First time in a while that I've been excited about a new set. You can clearly see the design shift away from midrange battlecruiser toward more viable archetypes in Standard. Unfortunately like with every set there's only a limited number of standard cards that will transfer over to non rotating formats.
That said, there are some good cards here. I think we'll see 3-5 cards be solid role-players in Modern. None will make the splash that Fatal Push did, but not all cards need to or should.
really? Looks like a bunch of 3-6c.c. mid-range stuff to me.
sorry i didn't rehash all of your review into my reply, but I didn't want to boggart the entire page of the thread with it.
The problem I have with your assessment of Supreme Will is the "its isn't dead until turns 3-5" but you can't even cast the mana leak side until turn 3 so it is always closer to starting out as dead half of a card. I think Censor is better over all because while it isn't taxing the spell for as much it also is all around cheaper for each function the card offers. Not saying it wont see play, I just have trouble thinking of a deck that can actually make use of it. Esper is already heavily clogged at the 3cc and this doesn't seem better than the things like Esper Charm or Lingering Souls, UW doesn't even run many counters at all and the ones it prefers are hard counters with upside like Cryptic or functionally hard counters like Logic Knot, Grixis also runs very light on counters in favor of creature removal and Cryptic or Spell Snare as hard counter options, Jeskai similar to UW doesn't run many counters and the ones it does run are again leaning more towards the harder counter options and is more of a long game burn deck with creature removal; maybe they swap out the one of leak for this?
Again I'm not saying it will not see play, its just that 3 mana is expensive for a affect that currently sees little to no play in the decks that have access to the affect for a mana less.
Nimble Obstructionist also I think will suffer from the cost stapled onto it, if it had the ability as a ETB trigger on top of the cycle affect it would be much more playable but as it stands the format is so fast and most decks that offering targets for the affect are doing so very early T1 T2 so maybe you snipe a T3 fetch but decks like Grixis DS will have most likely seen him in your hand by that point and either discarded him if he is problematic or simply be at a phase in the game in which they can disregard him as they will likely have you in a position of needing to cast him to chump block. And cycling this against something like Inkmoth Nexus just seems like a losing situation since affinity likely can simply pay 1 to activate it in response so you achieved what? making a Inkmoth activation cost 2 instead of 1? hardly seems worth it. the Stifle affect should have been costed at 1U if the creature is going to simply be a vanilla flash flier.
I also think that Bontu's Last Reckoning is a bit better than your giving it credit for, I could see it easily sliding into any UBx since getting to the late game is paramount in those types of decks and casting this on 3, serum visions or fatal push on 4, and having the option to Snap it back on 5 seems like a solid plan for pulling aggro decks into deep water. Haste creatures are not hyper prevalent out side of burn and your likely isn't going to want to over commit in the face of a follow up wipe on 5.
Hallow One doesn't seem worthy of a Honorable mention his stats are just bad, if you cast him for 1 you get a vanilla 4/4, way better things that you can cheat into play for 1 mana in the format. Not to mention he dies to the shatter half of Kcommand which just seems like such a swing in favor of the Kcommand caster.
Hollow One is a free card when you meet it's threshold and that's worth talking about. "dies to removal" is a poor argument for him not seeing play since he dodges fatal push/bolt with ease. I can see reanimator decks trying it out at the very least since they run faithless looting/other loot effects. Explain why Damnation/Supreme Verdict/Wrath of God are worse than Bontu's reckoning in traditional decks that are full of removal. Out of the tier 1 decks only affinity kills you by turn 3 with creatures alone for someone to turn faster wrath. Bontu's last reckoning needs a reason to be played over the other ones for it's high drawback. You have to think of Obstructionist like shadow of doubt where it gets you value for very little cost or it's a beater. You are mad that it doesn't do everything. I agree to disagree on how you view supreme will. The most played deck in the format is almost never out of mana leak range.
First off I didn't say "dies to removal" I said it dies to the least relevant side of Kcommand and I don't see reanimator decks wanting to slow down their main plan for this which it will have to do to facilitate the cards existence in the deck. Maybe a sideboard card against RiP/ Relic affects but out side of that it seems like a card that simply would make their primary plan less consistent as they will have to cut pieces to have it in the builds. Maybe Living end runs it as a early blocker while they dig for cascade cards? but again they already run utility creatures like Fulminator and Fae that pull double duty.
I didn't say that Supreme Verdict or any other wrath is worst than Bontu's, it isn't very nice to assert that I claimed something I didn't. I simply said that this is cheaper, and in Modern cheaper tends to mean better. All I said was that this is able to do what those do earlier, yes it has a draw back but it isn't as devastating as it would be for the others given that clearing the board is so much more useful than the other god's last etc.. cards. A turn against decks like DS or Affinity or Zoo or even EldarziTron makes a huge difference and while the draw back is real another reality is that the majority of cards played in decks tend to be 1c.c. so you can wrath on 3 and still likely have 1 mana up to deal with a follow up or to cast a serum visions to set up for the next turn. Decks like Grixis Shadow and Affinity are often able to have multiple creatures on board by turn 2-3 and turn 4 is a long way off and most of the aggro decks can easily have you dead by then. Look at just how little any of the wraths you mentioned are actually seeing real play, Supreme Verdict sees some in UW control but again that deck still struggles to make it in a meta-game in which faster aggro decks which it should be having a positive match up. The cost of the other affects is why Anger of the Gods see's more play its quick enough in enough match ups and hurts a specific deck dredge a lot, the other wraths in the format don't even crack into the top 50 of just non-creature spells.
Again on Nimble Obstructionist, I think it is just to expensive to ever really gain "value" out of. The biggest difference between it and something like Shadow of Doubt is the cost, shadow cost 2 and can always simply cycle. The beater side of Obstructionist is actually the least exciting part of it a 3/1 flyer with flash that nets you value every time its cast is already available and doesn't see play (clique) and I think it isn't seeing play for the same reasons the format is very quick and 3 mana for such a underwhelming card doesn't scream out to me as the 3/1 body attached to a vanilla creature doesn't scream out "beater" at all imo and if you are most often casting it for the body it is terrible. If the format ever moves back towards mid-range decks than the card becomes instantly playable, its just that in the current meta it seems to slow for anything its offering to see real play.
-This gives reanimtor a way to deal with graveyard hate since they can just start beating face with Hollow ones that they get off of their looting effects. This sounds great since Grixis reanimtor has NO WAY to beat a leyline of the void off of turn 0. I'm not confident on it seeing tons of play but that is worth mentioning hence why it got an honorable mention in my rating. Also you did say that it's bad because it dies to k-command without mentioning what removal it dodges which is very relevant. Being able to dodge fatal push and come down as a pesudo 1 mana 4/4 on turn 2 is something that only tasigur, the golden fang/gurmag angler can do which is interesting.
-Show me what statistic that anger of the gods is seeing more play than all the other wraths. The other wraths not seeing a ton a play is mainly because the decks that they go into are tier 2-3 in terms of power not because of the power level of the wraths themselves. Bontu's last reckoning has to be better than those cards to replace them hence why I asked that question. The only decks that I see Reckoning going into are 8 rack because it has issues hitting 4 mana, small pox because it plays so many planeswalkers that it doesn't mind taking a turn off and potentially tezzeret because mana rocks can help subsidize the cost.
-Have you played against a Vendilion Clique? 3/1 body on a flash creature can close out a game relatively fast since almost nothing in this format flies besides lingering souls. Nimble "always cycles" too since it's a cycling card. The best deck in the format is a "midrange" deck with a faster clock.
No i specifically said it dies to the worst mode on Kcommand which isn't a positive quality for a card that takes as much set up as this does. So do you think that Reanimator is wanting to dilute its main plan to get a vanilla 4/4? It would decrease the odds of them hitting goryo's + some fatty by 2 plan and simple and I don't think that a vanilla 4/4 that doesn't even trade with Tas Angler or even DS more often than not is that terribly exciting.
Grixis Shadow isn't a mid-range deck period. It is a aggro-control deck its at its best when it runs out a DS and or Tas/Angler in the early turns and wins by turn 4-5, it is resilient because it can grind if it has to but its primary goal is beat down aggro while striping protecting its early threats. So your just wrong on that one.
I have a play set of cliques and I haven't gotten a chance to make use of them in a year. Again the cost is the biggest thing holding it back, what deck currently is this looking like a slam dunk against? I don't think having the Stifle affect costed one less is a crazy thing to say, given that the affect is often costed at 2 anyways. IMO if your casting this in the current meta it is likely just a chump blocker to hope to keep you alive another turn so you can hope to draw a relevant card, and even then the only thing you can block profitably in against Grixis DS is snapcaster mage which isn't exactly best of trade offs given that they would have already gotten value out of the snapcaster and you essentially get to play a 3 mana very narrow potential for trading card.
here yah go, anger is the only one on the list even with the narrowing of the search to just non-creature. I don't think Bontu's has to be better than the others out right, it is simply under costed for the same affect which currently could make the difference.
sorry i didn't rehash all of your review into my reply, but I didn't want to boggart the entire page of the thread with it.
The problem I have with your assessment of Supreme Will is the "its isn't dead until turns 3-5" but you can't even cast the mana leak side until turn 3 so it is always closer to starting out as dead half of a card. I think Censor is better over all because while it isn't taxing the spell for as much it also is all around cheaper for each function the card offers. Not saying it wont see play, I just have trouble thinking of a deck that can actually make use of it. Esper is already heavily clogged at the 3cc and this doesn't seem better than the things like Esper Charm or Lingering Souls, UW doesn't even run many counters at all and the ones it prefers are hard counters with upside like Cryptic or functionally hard counters like Logic Knot, Grixis also runs very light on counters in favor of creature removal and Cryptic or Spell Snare as hard counter options, Jeskai similar to UW doesn't run many counters and the ones it does run are again leaning more towards the harder counter options and is more of a long game burn deck with creature removal; maybe they swap out the one of leak for this?
Again I'm not saying it will not see play, its just that 3 mana is expensive for a affect that currently sees little to no play in the decks that have access to the affect for a mana less.
Nimble Obstructionist also I think will suffer from the cost stapled onto it, if it had the ability as a ETB trigger on top of the cycle affect it would be much more playable but as it stands the format is so fast and most decks that offering targets for the affect are doing so very early T1 T2 so maybe you snipe a T3 fetch but decks like Grixis DS will have most likely seen him in your hand by that point and either discarded him if he is problematic or simply be at a phase in the game in which they can disregard him as they will likely have you in a position of needing to cast him to chump block. And cycling this against something like Inkmoth Nexus just seems like a losing situation since affinity likely can simply pay 1 to activate it in response so you achieved what? making a Inkmoth activation cost 2 instead of 1? hardly seems worth it. the Stifle affect should have been costed at 1U if the creature is going to simply be a vanilla flash flier.
I also think that Bontu's Last Reckoning is a bit better than your giving it credit for, I could see it easily sliding into any UBx since getting to the late game is paramount in those types of decks and casting this on 3, serum visions or fatal push on 4, and having the option to Snap it back on 5 seems like a solid plan for pulling aggro decks into deep water. Haste creatures are not hyper prevalent out side of burn and your likely isn't going to want to over commit in the face of a follow up wipe on 5.
Hallow One doesn't seem worthy of a Honorable mention his stats are just bad, if you cast him for 1 you get a vanilla 4/4, way better things that you can cheat into play for 1 mana in the format. Not to mention he dies to the shatter half of Kcommand which just seems like such a swing in favor of the Kcommand caster.
Hollow One is a free card when you meet it's threshold and that's worth talking about. "dies to removal" is a poor argument for him not seeing play since he dodges fatal push/bolt with ease. I can see reanimator decks trying it out at the very least since they run faithless looting/other loot effects. Explain why Damnation/Supreme Verdict/Wrath of God are worse than Bontu's reckoning in traditional decks that are full of removal. Out of the tier 1 decks only affinity kills you by turn 3 with creatures alone for someone to turn faster wrath. Bontu's last reckoning needs a reason to be played over the other ones for it's high drawback. You have to think of Obstructionist like shadow of doubt where it gets you value for very little cost or it's a beater. You are mad that it doesn't do everything. I agree to disagree on how you view supreme will. The most played deck in the format is almost never out of mana leak range.
First off I didn't say "dies to removal" I said it dies to the least relevant side of Kcommand and I don't see reanimator decks wanting to slow down their main plan for this which it will have to do to facilitate the cards existence in the deck. Maybe a sideboard card against RiP/ Relic affects but out side of that it seems like a card that simply would make their primary plan less consistent as they will have to cut pieces to have it in the builds. Maybe Living end runs it as a early blocker while they dig for cascade cards? but again they already run utility creatures like Fulminator and Fae that pull double duty.
I didn't say that Supreme Verdict or any other wrath is worst than Bontu's, it isn't very nice to assert that I claimed something I didn't. I simply said that this is cheaper, and in Modern cheaper tends to mean better. All I said was that this is able to do what those do earlier, yes it has a draw back but it isn't as devastating as it would be for the others given that clearing the board is so much more useful than the other god's last etc.. cards. A turn against decks like DS or Affinity or Zoo or even EldarziTron makes a huge difference and while the draw back is real another reality is that the majority of cards played in decks tend to be 1c.c. so you can wrath on 3 and still likely have 1 mana up to deal with a follow up or to cast a serum visions to set up for the next turn. Decks like Grixis Shadow and Affinity are often able to have multiple creatures on board by turn 2-3 and turn 4 is a long way off and most of the aggro decks can easily have you dead by then. Look at just how little any of the wraths you mentioned are actually seeing real play, Supreme Verdict sees some in UW control but again that deck still struggles to make it in a meta-game in which faster aggro decks which it should be having a positive match up. The cost of the other affects is why Anger of the Gods see's more play its quick enough in enough match ups and hurts a specific deck dredge a lot, the other wraths in the format don't even crack into the top 50 of just non-creature spells.
Again on Nimble Obstructionist, I think it is just to expensive to ever really gain "value" out of. The biggest difference between it and something like Shadow of Doubt is the cost, shadow cost 2 and can always simply cycle. The beater side of Obstructionist is actually the least exciting part of it a 3/1 flyer with flash that nets you value every time its cast is already available and doesn't see play (clique) and I think it isn't seeing play for the same reasons the format is very quick and 3 mana for such a underwhelming card doesn't scream out to me as the 3/1 body attached to a vanilla creature doesn't scream out "beater" at all imo and if you are most often casting it for the body it is terrible. If the format ever moves back towards mid-range decks than the card becomes instantly playable, its just that in the current meta it seems to slow for anything its offering to see real play.
sorry i didn't rehash all of your review into my reply, but I didn't want to boggart the entire page of the thread with it.
The problem I have with your assessment of Supreme Will is the "its isn't dead until turns 3-5" but you can't even cast the mana leak side until turn 3 so it is always closer to starting out as dead half of a card. I think Censor is better over all because while it isn't taxing the spell for as much it also is all around cheaper for each function the card offers. Not saying it wont see play, I just have trouble thinking of a deck that can actually make use of it. Esper is already heavily clogged at the 3cc and this doesn't seem better than the things like Esper Charm or Lingering Souls, UW doesn't even run many counters at all and the ones it prefers are hard counters with upside like Cryptic or functionally hard counters like Logic Knot, Grixis also runs very light on counters in favor of creature removal and Cryptic or Spell Snare as hard counter options, Jeskai similar to UW doesn't run many counters and the ones it does run are again leaning more towards the harder counter options and is more of a long game burn deck with creature removal; maybe they swap out the one of leak for this?
Again I'm not saying it will not see play, its just that 3 mana is expensive for a affect that currently sees little to no play in the decks that have access to the affect for a mana less.
Nimble Obstructionist also I think will suffer from the cost stapled onto it, if it had the ability as a ETB trigger on top of the cycle affect it would be much more playable but as it stands the format is so fast and most decks that offering targets for the affect are doing so very early T1 T2 so maybe you snipe a T3 fetch but decks like Grixis DS will have most likely seen him in your hand by that point and either discarded him if he is problematic or simply be at a phase in the game in which they can disregard him as they will likely have you in a position of needing to cast him to chump block. And cycling this against something like Inkmoth Nexus just seems like a losing situation since affinity likely can simply pay 1 to activate it in response so you achieved what? making a Inkmoth activation cost 2 instead of 1? hardly seems worth it. the Stifle affect should have been costed at 1U if the creature is going to simply be a vanilla flash flier.
I also think that Bontu's Last Reckoning is a bit better than your giving it credit for, I could see it easily sliding into any UBx since getting to the late game is paramount in those types of decks and casting this on 3, serum visions or fatal push on 4, and having the option to Snap it back on 5 seems like a solid plan for pulling aggro decks into deep water. Haste creatures are not hyper prevalent out side of burn and your likely isn't going to want to over commit in the face of a follow up wipe on 5.
Hallow One doesn't seem worthy of a Honorable mention his stats are just bad, if you cast him for 1 you get a vanilla 4/4, way better things that you can cheat into play for 1 mana in the format. Not to mention he dies to the shatter half of Kcommand which just seems like such a swing in favor of the Kcommand caster.
Also is it just me or does this block overall have a much lower power level than the previous Kaladesh block?
I guess it's a good thing for standard if they are trying to decrease the power level of threats, but I thought we were supposed to get some good answer cards starting in this set? I am just not seeing these here. At least nothing that would impact modern - perhaps standard
I can't really agree with you. Bontu's Last Reckoning is very likely to be effective in this format, Supreme Will is potentially quite good in the same way that Censor is good, and I'd say over all that we've gotten some effective answers in the last couple of sets. Yeah, Amonkhet seems to be a lower power level than Kaladesh, but Kaladesh was by all accounts designed specifically to print some Modern staples.
Why do people keep saying this? Kaladesh wasn't designed specifically to print some Modern staples, they printed a card fatal push which they realized would be better in eternal formats than in standard that doesn't mean they designed the card specifically for those formats. They also understood that the new eldarzi would be better in eternal formats, same with TC and DDT. WotC rarely ever prints cards with Modern, Legacy or Vintage in mind in Standard sets. The last time I remember them saying the specifically designed a card for Modern was Rending Volley.
Big difference between understanding that a card would be better in older formats than in Standard as opposed to specifically designing cards for those formats.
I do agree that Bontu's Last Reckoning is the most likely card to see Modern play. Supreme Will might but it depends if a deck exists that can be competitive with a worst version of Mana Leak, if they wanted the dig put one in hand those affects all ready exist things like Forbidden Alchemy and while the flexible modal nature of the card is nice it is irrelevant if the Mana Leak side is useless more often than not. If it had one more mode like return target non-land perm to its owners hand it would certainly see play but as it stands now most modal cards have to offer 4 different modes before they cut the mustard.
Also is it just me or does this block overall have a much lower power level than the previous Kaladesh block?
I guess it's a good thing for standard if they are trying to decrease the power level of threats, but I thought we were supposed to get some good answer cards starting in this set? I am just not seeing these here. At least nothing that would impact modern - perhaps standard
Well to be fair they did print some answers, they are just Standard power level. Yeah the sets certainly seems to be one that they have scaled back on certain while escalating on other affects which is how WotC tends to create the illusion of "power" in Standard. They had a powerful counter in dragons and have scaled back the affect for the sets following and they printed Disallow and Censor which means they will probably be scaling back on the power of counterspells for up coming sets.
no ban's
no unbans
We have had some pretty diverse Top 8's short of the breakout event for Grixis Shadow, which didn't surprise me at all as I was saying it was the better of the shadow decks while everyone was idiotically talking about if Misra's Bauble was perhaps to good and needing to be looked at.
We have seen various base W decks performing well with Mono-White hate bears actually looking like a solid deck in the face of spell heavy decks like Grixis Shadow and built in hate against lands matter decks like any flavor of Tron. I think as long as Grixis Shadow and E-Tron continue to be top dogs it should push that deck into the top tables more often, it is a meta-call deck for sure but it isn't as easy for GDS and E-Tron to hate as people like to think.
Blue is doing better obviously with Grixis Shadow, sure its not the deck most of us blue mages wanted but its the one we got.
Black is still king and short of WotC printing slews of powerful utility spells to compete with the discard spells that currently exist nothing is going to change that.
Red has its own deck in burn and is a consistent part timer in various other builds like GDS.
Green is probably in the least represented status it has been at for long time. Still CoCo decks are a real thing and Scapeshift is still a thing.
Colorless is the most represented overall with E-Tron and Affinity. I don't see anything changing their status, Affinity does what affinity does and any deck not running white always run the risk of simply having the robots overload your hate early. Tron decks currently are actually Eldrazi decks and don't even need to assemble Tron to deploy their threats ahead of curve so the usual hate against such strategies doesn't even do much.
Short of something new coming out of the existing card pool or something from a new set injecting a new super problematic deck into the meta-game it looks over all good.
I don't really care much about the discussion regarding "linear" decks as essentially every deck is in some way linear, you only have 75 cards to win the game with and even Reactive control has a very narrow scope of functions that the deck looks to deploy to at some point win the game. I think the major thing that people really don't like is how fast many of the decks can end the game as the game ending on T4-5 on average doesn't afford much in way of time to attempt to do whatever your deck is designed to do. Only the most pure of combo decks don't care much if at all as to what their opponent is doing and those types of decks don't currently rule the format.
Shard based Mid-range like Jund/Junk will continue to be bad as long as the 1-2 combo of E-Tron and DS are as good as they are. One is just a better bigger mid-range deck that goes over the shard based ones, and the other is a aggro deck that uses the same tools the mid-range decks would use to disrupt the mid-range decks for the 2-3 turns they need to win the game.
edit: while i would love for a mid-range/control Blue deck to exist I think Modern is overall to hostel to that type of strategy. 1c.c. targeted discard is by design great against those types of strategies, hurting counterspell based control decks is what Duress was designed to do and we have way better options in TS/IoK and some type of Tap out control seems like the more likely type to ever exist.
I don't know how this is a reply to me, but I don't think WotC will ban grapeshot now since they have not done so after so many ban's against Storm. They are generally okay with critical mass combo's existing as long as they are not the best thing in town.
Can we give GDS a few years to dominate and perhaps a few direct attempts to print some hate against it(like they did for Twin) before we start talking about banning a deck that isn't doing anything broken like instantly winning the game.
While I would agree that E-Tron is a very powerful deck I do think that it plays second fiddle to DS simply because DS is such a prevalent match up and doesn't have any really unwinnable or at least heavily lop sided ones. It really has to have T1 Relic and T2 Chalice or the GDS player has to have kept a very weak hand for it to run over GDS. While the GDS player can very easily run over E-Tron with a wide variety of hands and the match up gets so much better post board.
Don't have a axe to grind, it was the deck I was on from the start of the format till the day it was banned. Do I think it was to good yes, overall it was simply the best Combo deck in the format unless a T4 violator deck would pop up like Bloom. What I don't like is people acting like it was something that it clearly wasn't it was a combo deck, if a combo deck can be a police deck than we should simply accept any broken combo that comes along and invalidates swaths of decks because it is simply policing those decks at that point.
I'm a UR mage, anyone who has ever played me on MTGO would have to say I was on a URx deck of some type, Twin was my deck for a long time I just don't delude myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best Combo deck in the format.
I agree that linear strategies are going to be continually problematic in the format but the argument that other will make is functionally that Twin was the lesser of 2 evils and that this combo deck should have a reserved protected status in the format, I disagree. I much prefer Grixis DS to Twin as a deck to stifle unfair strategies than Twin which was a unfair deck its self which just happened to be more well liked by others and myself. If it was unbanned I would be right back on the Twin train, but I wouldn't be and wasn't surprised if it ate a ban.
I would love for straight up counterspell to be printed again but I don't think it would actually do much for the format outside of improve some slower match ups but as it stands counterspells of nearly all stripes are very poorly positioned currently Denial is the exception because its most often a 1 mana Negate to protect your proactive threat. Cryptic will always be playable in a deck that ensure it can get to the point in the game which you can actually cast it but it is bounce, tap, cantrip spell in addition to offering a counter.
I even tried to play Twin when it was standard legal.
In what way was that a over simplification? Twin, Pod, Storm, Infect, URprowess, DS with probe, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bloom, etc... the list goes on and on Modern for the longest time was defined by combo.
And Twin really didn't stop hyper linear decks, Burn and Infect both start moving up in the rankings after Pod is banned and it is because going under the Twin combo with your own faster kill was a viable method of beating the deck. Pod actually did more to keep those decks at bay as infinite life combo makes fast aggro like burn and zoo not a great plan and it had main deck splash hate against Infect. Not a great plan to run those types of strategies when you can anticipate running into Pod regularly at events.
And DS decks just do what Jund does faster and better. They have access to the same hand disruption and removal cards they simply play a aggro plan with its threats rather than a Mid-range one.
That seems like a super slow thing to get online for what seems like very little pay off.
Modern was a format defined by combo decks for years, it has only really now moved away from combo decks being the best thing around. People pining for the good old days of the first years of the format are essentially asking for a format in which Combo is king.
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
Well almost every set has like half the rares and mythic cards as EDH fodder. I was saying that the actual like potentially standard playable cards all just look like more mid-range creatures
really? Looks like a bunch of 3-6c.c. mid-range stuff to me.
No i specifically said it dies to the worst mode on Kcommand which isn't a positive quality for a card that takes as much set up as this does. So do you think that Reanimator is wanting to dilute its main plan to get a vanilla 4/4? It would decrease the odds of them hitting goryo's + some fatty by 2 plan and simple and I don't think that a vanilla 4/4 that doesn't even trade with Tas Angler or even DS more often than not is that terribly exciting.
Grixis Shadow isn't a mid-range deck period. It is a aggro-control deck its at its best when it runs out a DS and or Tas/Angler in the early turns and wins by turn 4-5, it is resilient because it can grind if it has to but its primary goal is beat down aggro while striping protecting its early threats. So your just wrong on that one.
I have a play set of cliques and I haven't gotten a chance to make use of them in a year. Again the cost is the biggest thing holding it back, what deck currently is this looking like a slam dunk against? I don't think having the Stifle affect costed one less is a crazy thing to say, given that the affect is often costed at 2 anyways. IMO if your casting this in the current meta it is likely just a chump blocker to hope to keep you alive another turn so you can hope to draw a relevant card, and even then the only thing you can block profitably in against Grixis DS is snapcaster mage which isn't exactly best of trade offs given that they would have already gotten value out of the snapcaster and you essentially get to play a 3 mana very narrow potential for trading card.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/spells
here yah go, anger is the only one on the list even with the narrowing of the search to just non-creature. I don't think Bontu's has to be better than the others out right, it is simply under costed for the same affect which currently could make the difference.
First off I didn't say "dies to removal" I said it dies to the least relevant side of Kcommand and I don't see reanimator decks wanting to slow down their main plan for this which it will have to do to facilitate the cards existence in the deck. Maybe a sideboard card against RiP/ Relic affects but out side of that it seems like a card that simply would make their primary plan less consistent as they will have to cut pieces to have it in the builds. Maybe Living end runs it as a early blocker while they dig for cascade cards? but again they already run utility creatures like Fulminator and Fae that pull double duty.
I didn't say that Supreme Verdict or any other wrath is worst than Bontu's, it isn't very nice to assert that I claimed something I didn't. I simply said that this is cheaper, and in Modern cheaper tends to mean better. All I said was that this is able to do what those do earlier, yes it has a draw back but it isn't as devastating as it would be for the others given that clearing the board is so much more useful than the other god's last etc.. cards. A turn against decks like DS or Affinity or Zoo or even EldarziTron makes a huge difference and while the draw back is real another reality is that the majority of cards played in decks tend to be 1c.c. so you can wrath on 3 and still likely have 1 mana up to deal with a follow up or to cast a serum visions to set up for the next turn. Decks like Grixis Shadow and Affinity are often able to have multiple creatures on board by turn 2-3 and turn 4 is a long way off and most of the aggro decks can easily have you dead by then. Look at just how little any of the wraths you mentioned are actually seeing real play, Supreme Verdict sees some in UW control but again that deck still struggles to make it in a meta-game in which faster aggro decks which it should be having a positive match up. The cost of the other affects is why Anger of the Gods see's more play its quick enough in enough match ups and hurts a specific deck dredge a lot, the other wraths in the format don't even crack into the top 50 of just non-creature spells.
Again on Nimble Obstructionist, I think it is just to expensive to ever really gain "value" out of. The biggest difference between it and something like Shadow of Doubt is the cost, shadow cost 2 and can always simply cycle. The beater side of Obstructionist is actually the least exciting part of it a 3/1 flyer with flash that nets you value every time its cast is already available and doesn't see play (clique) and I think it isn't seeing play for the same reasons the format is very quick and 3 mana for such a underwhelming card doesn't scream out to me as the 3/1 body attached to a vanilla creature doesn't scream out "beater" at all imo and if you are most often casting it for the body it is terrible. If the format ever moves back towards mid-range decks than the card becomes instantly playable, its just that in the current meta it seems to slow for anything its offering to see real play.
The problem I have with your assessment of Supreme Will is the "its isn't dead until turns 3-5" but you can't even cast the mana leak side until turn 3 so it is always closer to starting out as dead half of a card. I think Censor is better over all because while it isn't taxing the spell for as much it also is all around cheaper for each function the card offers. Not saying it wont see play, I just have trouble thinking of a deck that can actually make use of it. Esper is already heavily clogged at the 3cc and this doesn't seem better than the things like Esper Charm or Lingering Souls, UW doesn't even run many counters at all and the ones it prefers are hard counters with upside like Cryptic or functionally hard counters like Logic Knot, Grixis also runs very light on counters in favor of creature removal and Cryptic or Spell Snare as hard counter options, Jeskai similar to UW doesn't run many counters and the ones it does run are again leaning more towards the harder counter options and is more of a long game burn deck with creature removal; maybe they swap out the one of leak for this?
Again I'm not saying it will not see play, its just that 3 mana is expensive for a affect that currently sees little to no play in the decks that have access to the affect for a mana less.
Nimble Obstructionist also I think will suffer from the cost stapled onto it, if it had the ability as a ETB trigger on top of the cycle affect it would be much more playable but as it stands the format is so fast and most decks that offering targets for the affect are doing so very early T1 T2 so maybe you snipe a T3 fetch but decks like Grixis DS will have most likely seen him in your hand by that point and either discarded him if he is problematic or simply be at a phase in the game in which they can disregard him as they will likely have you in a position of needing to cast him to chump block. And cycling this against something like Inkmoth Nexus just seems like a losing situation since affinity likely can simply pay 1 to activate it in response so you achieved what? making a Inkmoth activation cost 2 instead of 1? hardly seems worth it. the Stifle affect should have been costed at 1U if the creature is going to simply be a vanilla flash flier.
I also think that Bontu's Last Reckoning is a bit better than your giving it credit for, I could see it easily sliding into any UBx since getting to the late game is paramount in those types of decks and casting this on 3, serum visions or fatal push on 4, and having the option to Snap it back on 5 seems like a solid plan for pulling aggro decks into deep water. Haste creatures are not hyper prevalent out side of burn and your likely isn't going to want to over commit in the face of a follow up wipe on 5.
Hallow One doesn't seem worthy of a Honorable mention his stats are just bad, if you cast him for 1 you get a vanilla 4/4, way better things that you can cheat into play for 1 mana in the format. Not to mention he dies to the shatter half of Kcommand which just seems like such a swing in favor of the Kcommand caster.
Why do people keep saying this? Kaladesh wasn't designed specifically to print some Modern staples, they printed a card fatal push which they realized would be better in eternal formats than in standard that doesn't mean they designed the card specifically for those formats. They also understood that the new eldarzi would be better in eternal formats, same with TC and DDT. WotC rarely ever prints cards with Modern, Legacy or Vintage in mind in Standard sets. The last time I remember them saying the specifically designed a card for Modern was Rending Volley.
Big difference between understanding that a card would be better in older formats than in Standard as opposed to specifically designing cards for those formats.
I do agree that Bontu's Last Reckoning is the most likely card to see Modern play. Supreme Will might but it depends if a deck exists that can be competitive with a worst version of Mana Leak, if they wanted the dig put one in hand those affects all ready exist things like Forbidden Alchemy and while the flexible modal nature of the card is nice it is irrelevant if the Mana Leak side is useless more often than not. If it had one more mode like return target non-land perm to its owners hand it would certainly see play but as it stands now most modal cards have to offer 4 different modes before they cut the mustard.
Well to be fair they did print some answers, they are just Standard power level. Yeah the sets certainly seems to be one that they have scaled back on certain while escalating on other affects which is how WotC tends to create the illusion of "power" in Standard. They had a powerful counter in dragons and have scaled back the affect for the sets following and they printed Disallow and Censor which means they will probably be scaling back on the power of counterspells for up coming sets.