1. I fully admit that this is a one-of and not indicative of anything for the entire format. That being said...
2. I played in a thirty-five man modern tournament with top eight cut Saturday that was won by a UW control deck running Approach of the Second Sun. Yup. In fact the entire top 8 went down like so:
So yeah, when I talk about playing in a weirdly fair meta and don't understand the complaints, this is why.
I played in a 48 person Store Invitational Qualifier this Sunday. This was our top 16.
1st - Cruel Control.
2nd - Grixis Shadow
3rd - Mono Green Tron
4th - Mono Green Tron
5th - Bant Spirits
6th - Living End
7th - BW Eldrazi Taxes
8th - UR Breach (my first loss of the day)
Like Gkourou said, anything can happen in Modern. Looking at online results, you would expect at least 1 Hollow One, 1 KCI, and 1 Affinity. The tournament the day before that I played in had 6 Affinity decks in 32 players. I think 1 or 2 made the top 8. I faced 2 the first 2 rounds that day.
what constitutes an acceptable win percentage for you guys? the way i test right now is tweak a few slots and then give it 100 competitive matches to arrive at an overall winrate. the sample is way too small to make strong statements about individual matchups (the most i've faced a deck out of 100 is 9 or so).
i tested jace this way, with a rather disappointing win rate of 56%.
my current test card is young pyromancer as a 2of, and my win rate is 64% after 100 matches.
how satisfied would you be with this?
64% is a very good win rate IMHO, could you please also share with us how you use JTMS v.s. Pyromancer, i.e. do you play on curve, how often you side them out etc. As we can observe, the Grixis lists out there that are yielding results recently don't playing JTMS, some are using AV as a draw engine, some are playing azcanta only.
@TheAlexGnan: Is that 64% game win rate or match win rate? Either way, 64% in a competitive environment (e.g. competitive league, modern challenge, scg IQ) is a pretty good win rate. I use those events as examples because there is a very high chance each match involves a tiered decked played by a good player. Although people can spike from time to time to do well in a tournament, if you factor in the times they don't perform, they usually land around that area. 50% is literally an average showing.
that bolas build is very interesting... but intuitively, it looks a little too fragile for a curve topper....
I don't understand why people keep saying this? Its a 4 cmc 4/4 flier that strips a card, not unlike Thought Knot seer, except in exchange for not being able to be cheated out with Temples or targeted discard, Bolas does not return a card when killed, he flies, and he can upgrade. If allowed to resolve and then removed, he is a 2-for-1. If allowed to continue, he can deal lethal as a dragon or just become a PW and win. Perhaps the worst scenario for him is being countered.
Different views on the new Bolas are due to different expectations I believe. If he's played like a value creature then sure, he's a 2 for 1 when resolved, he's certainly valuable in that regard. But for 4 mana, we can resolve a JTMS that is also a sure 2 for 1, does different things, and can be lethal if allowed to continue. There must be a reason why he's played and the deck has proven to some level of success though, just hope that it truly helps the Grixis shell. Certainly something worth testing though.
@TheAlexGnan: Is that 64% game win rate or match win rate? Either way, 64% in a competitive environment (e.g. competitive league, modern challenge, scg IQ) is a pretty good win rate. I use those events as examples because there is a very high chance each match involves a tiered decked played by a good player. Although people can spike from time to time to do well in a tournament, if you factor in the times they don't perform, they usually land around that area. 50% is literally an average showing.
GDS has Lily 2.0, Grixis Control has Lily 1.0, Baby Jace, JtMS, and K-Command...I mean yeah Teferi is good but yeah.
GDS is a different story, but LoTV is definitely not a control walker, well, at least she does not fit in the traditional "draw-go" style category.
Modern is a diverse enough format atm which is really nice to see. But equating blue based control to UWx or equating Grixis color combination to death shadow is limiting our space for creativity. Grixis colors have very good tools in Kommand + Snapcaster, and Grixis control is definitely powerful enough to be playable atm. But as a fair reactive deck that contributed to 0 significant results in the past few months, it wouldn't be too greedy to ask for something would it? We can't ask for universal answers because it's a white thing, but a better finisher may help us play differently. Maybe not a walker, could be a spell, just hope it's not an easily removable creature
i just wish there exists a walker on par with teferi in Grixis colors that fits more reactive playstyles.. but then again, not many walkers are on par with teferi to begin with, and LoTV+JTMS already exist....
love the list. my list is extremely similar, these are the differences (not necessarily improvements):
I run a dismember over the 3rd terminate because it provides much needed flexibility (e.g. kills a dork t1 in a pinch) and randomly answers things like Hazoret.
I run a 2nd young pyromancer, because i always want to see 1. I also find that i never want to side him out. he's been a great inclusion so far.
Serum Visions for Opt, because i still value its ability to smooth out land light draws very highly. but its close.
1x Field of Ruin for the 23 land.
2x Spell Snare for the Countersquall and 2nd Mana Leak, because since i dropped jace for pyromancer, the deck has become a bit more tempo oriented.
the biggest thing is that i dropped the 2of Jaces a while ago in favour of the pyromancers, and my win rate has gone up from 57% (which was less than great) to 66%, which is extremely significant.
And I also run 2x Azcanta. Especially with 4x thought scour main, its hands down better than jace. i dropped jace because he was so vulnerable to faster decks. and in my experience, especially in blue control mirrors, drawing Azcanta makes or breaks the match.
to the last points:
i would personally absolutely keep azcanta.
2 pyromancers have been great for me, 3 might be worth a shot.
i have no experience with Ancestral in this build.
i would not say you need additional win cons.
Great advice, glad to see similar lists perform well in the right hands.
running opt is really just my personal preference for instants. I guess I still need to explore a bit on how to play with/around Azcanta, I could be wrong here but my original choice to include Azcanta was to have it loot cards in the early stages and transform to dig for answers later. But what i'm finding currently is that the looting seems unnecessary with 8 cantrips already, and that I almost never want to drop Azcanta on curve. Azcanta is basically an investment that pays off over a few turns, the reason i find it underwhelming may well be caused by my playstyle.
In Jace's case, I'm happy with him because he essentially helps me close games pretty fast, especially against midrange. I do also find him lacking against aggro decks, but I really like him v.s. midrange/control. even the unsummon option has saved my butt numerous times, especially against GDS, unsummoning a Gurmag Angler just feels awesome. JTMS definitely doesn't provide as much value in Grixis shells compared to UW shells because of all their miracle options, but I find JTMS hard to cut. Will try different options and come back for discussion.
I was going to try and sell the "choice" of wandering fumarole over tarpit, but who would I be kidding? 3 wandering fumaroles don't even form a fraction of the price of one tarpit.... if you observe my manabase, its bloodstained mires instead of tarns too. I do what I can with the resources I have.
inb4 but you can afford JTMS - I cracked that JTMS. Have wondered if I should sell it for cash to buy Tarns, but its a JTMS i personally pulled...
I see your point, yeah budget is totally a big issue in MTG, hate that, can't fix it. Despite possessing a pile of cards that worth thousands of dollars, i still wish the overall secondary market price of these "assets" to crash, I don't care if my collection shrinks in value, as long as the overall game becomes more budget friendly, especially modern.
Neat thought on playing 4 young pyromancer + Claim, though i'd think tar pit would be more optimal than using wandering fumarole as your choice for man lands.
I've been learning from Tiemu's lists and recently had some success with it in my local store, winning a tournament 3-1 beating Blue Moon, humans and CoCo/hatebear, losing to GDS
So far I like how the deck plays because of all the redundancy and consistency, full 8 cantrips means that I can survive with a fairly low land count, and I'd be able to see half of my library most of the time.
I think this list needs improvements in a few ways:
- despite adding 2 JTMS to Tiemu's original list, it still feels threat light, a lot of times I can answer or counter every threat from my opponent but I often can't topdeck or cantrip into a threat in time to finish, especially against decks like Mardu pyromancer, GDS, and G Tron, simply can't clock them fast enough when I grind through all their plays, and get crushed by a topdecked reveler, angler, or Karn.
- with a full 8 cantrip suite I think I'm sacrificing a lot of top deck quality for consistency, on top of that, thought scour is weak when I'm desparately digging for lands early in the game.
- in my current configuration, I figured that low cost spells and 8 cantrips + 2 Azcantas help me go through my deck fairly quickly, my GY could potentially grow deeper than my library as early as turn 7 or 8, which appears to be an overkill.
- I like Search for Azcanta a lot in theory, but in practice they do not provide value against fast decks like burn/goblins, and in control mirrors they are just not providing enough value. I find that im siding them out more than I leave them in
here are some of the changes I'm considering, will test them out this week, please feel free to advise:
- dropSearch for Azcanta
- add 1-2 copies of Young Pyromancer
- fitting 1-3 copies of Ancestral Vision in the deck somewhere
- look for additional wincons
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
(I posted this in the banlist topic, but then noticed this one and realized it was more relevant here)
u probably missed the fact that they make the most money from draft/limited and standard, lol
as long as the game keeps growing.... players who want an alternative to standard and want to actually keep their cards will move to a non-rotating format... the pro tour has nothing to do with that...
and as long as there is demand for the format there will be plenty of tourney support... the pro tour has never driven demand for the format...
with drafting of the new set as a big requisite for the pro tour format... it definitely was not a good showcase for modern... if they weren't going to change that this makes perfect sense...
whether it's scg or cfb someone will step in to fill the void in terms of tourney support...
+1
There will always be a non-rotating or "eternal" format, it was legacy before, it's more modern now.
The rotating standard v.s. non-rotating formats like legacy, modern is not only a problem for the two decade old MTG, it's also becoming an adventure for the younger Hearthstone. You always want people to buy their new products, but you dont want players to not be able to do anything with the older products, or the players will find a way to play with those products regardless. (e.g. EDH)
I like your list, and it essentially is what Im thinking of, the blue jund. how is are your matchups so far?
I have not had enough time (or people) to play test extensively. Plus until recently I was finalizing the 60. I only began to construct the SB today.
So far I've played pre-board "blind" games vs Infect (3-4), Affinity (1-1), and Melaria Coco (2-0).
Affinity and Infect felt very 50/50 game 1. Most of the games I lost I kept a sub-optimal hand vs those decks (tons of draw/jace but no removal).
Coco felt super easy. Tons of removal. Never feared coco nor the combo.
EDIT: I'm doing a modern even tomorrow. Will post my results.
Nice!
Another question, keeping both AV and jaces and running two full sets, did you ever feel like it was an overkill in cycling and card drawing?
That's a tricky question to be honest. And kind of a toss up. On when hand: you have TONS of overkill cycling and card drawing. There were several games where I found myself discarding a AV to Jace early in the game simply because it was redundant and not needed. At the same time that "redundancy" was marginalized by the fact that I could discard, or cycle away, redundant cards through Jace and Izzet Charm.
I never felt "burdened" by the redundancy early game. The only time the redundancy became troublesome was vs the faster decks in which I saw no removal in the first 3 turns (and by no removal I mean "maybe" 1 lightning bolt and that's it).
When Jace flips; however, the story changes. You loose the ability to loot which makes the redundancy late game more burdensome (every top-decked Jace, AV, and Inquisition post turn 5 is cringeworthy). The sheer amount of draw/card advantage also helps marginalize that; however, it still never feels good to top deck a AV or inquisition or even in some cases a Jace.
EDIT: Another tid-bit: Goblin Dark-Dwellers is very interesting card. On one hand I always find myself wanting to draw 1. It's super powerful and can easily swing the game in your favor. Getting a 4/4 that also cast's Serum Visions,Ancestral Vision, or Kolaghan's Command makes it very difficult to loose. On the other hand: the first dweller played is so powerful that subsequent dwellers are either A) win more or B) irrelevant because you are too far behind. When you are behind in the game... multiple 5 drops is the last thing you want to draw.
That being said: I have considered cutting a pia for the third dweller because it is THAT powerful in this brew. But I'm not 100% sold on that conceapt yet. (Because the draw-back of drawing more than 2 dwellers is real).
thx for the insights.
why would you say that multiple five drops is the last thing you want to see when behind? 2 for 1 on a 4/4 body isnt too irrelevant, and if you can cast a removal that might turn something around.
the reason why i asked about the overkill on draw issue is that i find your list full on both AV and serum, in addition to full set jaces, i'd feel that the list probably is either threat light or answer light. while the cycling/card draw engines are very consistent due to redundancy, a imagine a time you draw a land an AV and a jace off a resolved AV, it must feel terrible. card drawing without enough card quality seems quite dangerous, and besides, running so many draw spells really weakens the full set of snapcaster, which is another CA engine. I can't test anything atm, but in a few weeks when I will be able to, i'd probably try swapping the serum visions (maybe also a pair of jaces) for either some threats (TITI maybe?) and some answers (and swap the izzet charms for.. remand). just my two cents, dunno if the logic makes sense.
Like I said, I'm brewing a counter-less build (far more midrange).
And negate is amazing. Agree there. I decided to add Kalitas to my sb for a more aggressive clock vs combo and life-gain vs burn.
Might try to add two. but not sure where to make room.
I like your list, and it essentially is what Im thinking of, the blue jund. how is are your matchups so far?
I have not had enough time (or people) to play test extensively. Plus until recently I was finalizing the 60. I only began to construct the SB today.
So far I've played pre-board "blind" games vs Infect (3-4), Affinity (1-1), and Melaria Coco (2-0).
Affinity and Infect felt very 50/50 game 1. Most of the games I lost I kept a sub-optimal hand vs those decks (tons of draw/jace but no removal).
Coco felt super easy. Tons of removal. Never feared coco nor the combo.
EDIT: I'm doing a modern even tomorrow. Will post my results.
Nice!
Another question, keeping both AV and jaces and running two full sets, did you ever feel like it was an overkill in cycling and card drawing?
That's a tricky question to be honest. And kind of a toss up. On when hand: you have TONS of overkill cycling and card drawing. There were several games where I found myself discarding a AV to Jace early in the game simply because it was redundant and not needed. At the same time that "redundancy" was marginalized by the fact that I could discard, or cycle away, redundant cards through Jace and Izzet Charm.
I never felt "burdened" by the redundancy early game. The only time the redundancy became troublesome was vs the faster decks in which I saw no removal in the first 3 turns (and by no removal I mean "maybe" 1 lightning bolt and that's it).
When Jace flips; however, the story changes. You loose the ability to loot which makes the redundancy late game more burdensome (every top-decked Jace, AV, and Inquisition post turn 5 is cringeworthy). The sheer amount of draw/card advantage also helps marginalize that; however, it still never feels good to top deck a AV or inquisition or even in some cases a Jace.
EDIT: Another tid-bit: Goblin Dark-Dwellers is very interesting card. On one hand I always find myself wanting to draw 1. It's super powerful and can easily swing the game in your favor. Getting a 4/4 that also cast's Serum Visions,Ancestral Vision, or Kolaghan's Command makes it very difficult to loose. On the other hand: the first dweller played is so powerful that subsequent dwellers are either A) win more or B) irrelevant because you are too far behind. When you are behind in the game... multiple 5 drops is the last thing you want to draw.
That being said: I have considered cutting a pia for the third dweller because it is THAT powerful in this brew. But I'm not 100% sold on that conceapt yet. (Because the draw-back of drawing more than 2 dwellers is real).
thx for the insights.
why would you say that multiple five drops is the last thing you want to see when behind? 2 for 1 on a 4/4 body isnt too irrelevant, and if you can cast a removal that might turn something around.
the reason why i asked about the overkill on draw issue is that i find your list full on both AV and serum, in addition to full set jaces, i'd feel that the list probably is either threat light or answer light. while the cycling/card draw engines are very consistent due to redundancy, a imagine a time you draw a land an AV and a jace off a resolved AV, it must feel terrible. card drawing without enough card quality seems quite dangerous. I can't test anything atm, but in a few weeks when I will be able to, i'd probably try swapping the serum visions (maybe also a pair of jaces) for either some threats (TITI maybe?) and some answers (and swap the izzet charms for.. remand). just my two cents, dunno if the logic makes sense.
Cruel Control??? wow nice!
64% is a very good win rate IMHO, could you please also share with us how you use JTMS v.s. Pyromancer, i.e. do you play on curve, how often you side them out etc. As we can observe, the Grixis lists out there that are yielding results recently don't playing JTMS, some are using AV as a draw engine, some are playing azcanta only.
Different views on the new Bolas are due to different expectations I believe. If he's played like a value creature then sure, he's a 2 for 1 when resolved, he's certainly valuable in that regard. But for 4 mana, we can resolve a JTMS that is also a sure 2 for 1, does different things, and can be lethal if allowed to continue. There must be a reason why he's played and the deck has proven to some level of success though, just hope that it truly helps the Grixis shell. Certainly something worth testing though.
that bolas build is very interesting... but intuitively, it looks a little too fragile for a curve topper....
GDS is a different story, but LoTV is definitely not a control walker, well, at least she does not fit in the traditional "draw-go" style category.
Modern is a diverse enough format atm which is really nice to see. But equating blue based control to UWx or equating Grixis color combination to death shadow is limiting our space for creativity. Grixis colors have very good tools in Kommand + Snapcaster, and Grixis control is definitely powerful enough to be playable atm. But as a fair reactive deck that contributed to 0 significant results in the past few months, it wouldn't be too greedy to ask for something would it? We can't ask for universal answers because it's a white thing, but a better finisher may help us play differently. Maybe not a walker, could be a spell, just hope it's not an easily removable creature
Great advice, glad to see similar lists perform well in the right hands.
running opt is really just my personal preference for instants. I guess I still need to explore a bit on how to play with/around Azcanta, I could be wrong here but my original choice to include Azcanta was to have it loot cards in the early stages and transform to dig for answers later. But what i'm finding currently is that the looting seems unnecessary with 8 cantrips already, and that I almost never want to drop Azcanta on curve. Azcanta is basically an investment that pays off over a few turns, the reason i find it underwhelming may well be caused by my playstyle.
In Jace's case, I'm happy with him because he essentially helps me close games pretty fast, especially against midrange. I do also find him lacking against aggro decks, but I really like him v.s. midrange/control. even the unsummon option has saved my butt numerous times, especially against GDS, unsummoning a Gurmag Angler just feels awesome. JTMS definitely doesn't provide as much value in Grixis shells compared to UW shells because of all their miracle options, but I find JTMS hard to cut. Will try different options and come back for discussion.
I see your point, yeah budget is totally a big issue in MTG, hate that, can't fix it. Despite possessing a pile of cards that worth thousands of dollars, i still wish the overall secondary market price of these "assets" to crash, I don't care if my collection shrinks in value, as long as the overall game becomes more budget friendly, especially modern.
I've been learning from Tiemu's lists and recently had some success with it in my local store, winning a tournament 3-1 beating Blue Moon, humans and CoCo/hatebear, losing to GDS
My list looks like this:
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Young Pyromancer
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Planeswalkers(2):
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
Spells (27)
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
3 Terminate
1 Countersquall
1 Logic Knot
3 Kolaghan's Command
4 Cryptic Command
4 Opt
4 Thought Scour
2 Mana Leak
2 Search for Azcanta
Lands (22)
1 Blood Crypt
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Stean Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
So far I like how the deck plays because of all the redundancy and consistency, full 8 cantrips means that I can survive with a fairly low land count, and I'd be able to see half of my library most of the time.
I think this list needs improvements in a few ways:
- despite adding 2 JTMS to Tiemu's original list, it still feels threat light, a lot of times I can answer or counter every threat from my opponent but I often can't topdeck or cantrip into a threat in time to finish, especially against decks like Mardu pyromancer, GDS, and G Tron, simply can't clock them fast enough when I grind through all their plays, and get crushed by a topdecked reveler, angler, or Karn.
- with a full 8 cantrip suite I think I'm sacrificing a lot of top deck quality for consistency, on top of that, thought scour is weak when I'm desparately digging for lands early in the game.
- in my current configuration, I figured that low cost spells and 8 cantrips + 2 Azcantas help me go through my deck fairly quickly, my GY could potentially grow deeper than my library as early as turn 7 or 8, which appears to be an overkill.
- I like Search for Azcanta a lot in theory, but in practice they do not provide value against fast decks like burn/goblins, and in control mirrors they are just not providing enough value. I find that im siding them out more than I leave them in
here are some of the changes I'm considering, will test them out this week, please feel free to advise:
- dropSearch for Azcanta
- add 1-2 copies of Young Pyromancer
- fitting 1-3 copies of Ancestral Vision in the deck somewhere
- look for additional wincons
u probably missed the fact that they make the most money from draft/limited and standard, lol
+1
There will always be a non-rotating or "eternal" format, it was legacy before, it's more modern now.
The rotating standard v.s. non-rotating formats like legacy, modern is not only a problem for the two decade old MTG, it's also becoming an adventure for the younger Hearthstone. You always want people to buy their new products, but you dont want players to not be able to do anything with the older products, or the players will find a way to play with those products regardless. (e.g. EDH)
Sorry but this is the closest I found... http://www.starcitygames.com/content/classics
Please advise
Where can I find the decklists?
thx for the insights.
why would you say that multiple five drops is the last thing you want to see when behind? 2 for 1 on a 4/4 body isnt too irrelevant, and if you can cast a removal that might turn something around.
the reason why i asked about the overkill on draw issue is that i find your list full on both AV and serum, in addition to full set jaces, i'd feel that the list probably is either threat light or answer light. while the cycling/card draw engines are very consistent due to redundancy, a imagine a time you draw a land an AV and a jace off a resolved AV, it must feel terrible. card drawing without enough card quality seems quite dangerous. I can't test anything atm, but in a few weeks when I will be able to, i'd probably try swapping the serum visions (maybe also a pair of jaces) for either some threats (TITI maybe?) and some answers (and swap the izzet charms for.. remand). just my two cents, dunno if the logic makes sense.