MTG Salvation

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I acually like that i can pick a deck and stick with it in modern (sans bans which I am against). I know "pros dont do that" which is fine. Let them spike, I dont care. Its often said in modern doing that is often worse because people who understand their deck will often do better in modern. Skred red guy played skred a ton before the event.

I thought he said in his interview that he built the deck the Friday before the GP?

The final version sure, but he was familiar with the archetype and new the lines and how to play against various decks in the meta.

I don't know. He didn't seem to understand how Ricochet Trap worked.

As I understand it, Kevin Lackie did test his list for some weeks but he's really not a good example for the 'just stick to a deck, learn it inside out and you can do well with it in modern'-statement. He just found the perfect deck for the metagame of the GP. Lackie said himself that decks with counterspells (especially remand) are the worst MU for him and with 4xMD Relic, 3xMD Blood Moon and 8x 1cmc Removal spells he was well prepared for Dredge, Eldrazi and Infect while the weren't that many blue decks around.
If you wanna have an example for how knowing your deck inside out helps you do well in modern you gotta take a look at Corey Burkhart: He reached top 8 with Grixis Control the third time in 365 days (GP LA 2016 and GP Pittburgh November 2015). And that was all in super different metas.

Really Wizards? Disappearing Trick couldn't have costed UU? Is a strictly better Deprive/Familiar's Ruse really so dangerous? Would have finally been a nice upgrade for Eternal Command/Ruse decks. I've been waiting for a card that puts the deck back on the map for years now...

Does anybody else think the Reveler version needs 1-2 more early threats? Maybe I'm not mulliganing correctly but keeping a hand without either Goyf or Delver seems wrong unless I got at least 1 Serum Visions and another cantrip. I don't want to see Reveler before turn 4 usually (sometimes 3, but that doesn't happen often) and Traverse doesn't get online before turn 3 neither.
So what options do we have here?
Hooting Mandrills: nonboes way too hard with Reveler
Vendillion Clique: Solid card, can imagine playing it as a 1x, but doesn't come down until turn 3.
Young Pyromancer: Generally I don't like this card in modern (more removal and creatures to block the tokens than in other formats) but she actually seems to fit in really well in the deck. 8 free Spells and Reveler to fill up your hand again. Think I'll give her some testing.
Any other cards I didn't think of?

Quote from Aaurra »

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Quote from Aaurra »

Impulse

Pleeease.

Blue doesn't need any help at the moment.

Blue is still arguably the weakest *single* color in Modern. AV barely did anything to help it IMO.

Blue is not the weakest color in Modern but white is. Blue is doing very well and is among the three (if not two) best colors for sure.

Black, White, and Blue are all just support colors in Modern. Red and Green are basically the top colors. There's not a single mono colored deck in Blue that's competitively viable. Blue Tron doesn't hold a candle to RG Tron. Taking Turns is fun, but hardly something anyone would take to a serious event with the intent to win it all. Black and White at least have things like 8Rack and Eldrazi Taxes respectively.

Also, don't argue Merfolk in favor of being mono-blue Merfolk doesn't use or need any "real" blue cards like Mana Leak, Serum Visions, Cryptic Command, etc. It's just the tribal stuff and a few other fringe things here and there. I'm talking just straight up, classic blue.

It's the same reason I don't really consider Elves to be mono green. I acknowledge that it "literally" IS, but you have to make exceptions for the decks that stick to one very specific thing, ignoring all of the typical staples and customs of their respective colors regarding this specific format.

I'm basically just trying to say to this regard; Impulse being reprinted does nothing for Merfolk in this instance, but would make classic styled mono blue decks viable. Obviously it would have applications in decks that use blue as a support color, but there's no denying, the card would be cool to have here in Modern.

I agree with you that Impulse would be a nice card to have in modern but your arguments really irritate me. If tribal decks like Elves and Merfolk don't count, where are your viable mono colour decks in modern? No competitive burn list plays only Mountains anymore, 8Rack isn't even Tier 3 (according to Modernnexus). You can bring up Eldrazi Taxes (DnT is Tier 2 right know but that also counts the BW builds and builds that lightly splash for green) but I think it's really debatable to treat them as a 'real' mono colour deck when they adjust their mana base (Eldrazi Temple) to play some of their cards.
What I'm trying to say is, there is just no reason to stay mono colour on modern, the opportunity costs to splash are just to low. And no Impulse would not make traditional mono blue (control I guess) builds viable in modern and even if it would make mono blue better, it would still be strictly inferiour to UR or UW builds (better removal and better finishers).
The only reason Elves and Merfolk are stay mono colour (and there are Uw Merfolk and Gb Elves lists too by the way) is because there aren't any cards in other colours that really advance their game plan.

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Quote from Jenoz »

I just put this deck together, aside from a few pieces it's super cheap! Which is a great selling point. I am somewhat new to modern so I don't know the ins and outs each deck has, but this is a great deck to start with considering the straightforward plan and sheer power of the cards. One thing I want advice on is what denotes a keepable hand. Obviously we get the nut draw of Eldrazi Temple plus Eldrazi Temple/mana dork into turn 2 Thought Knot Seer which is typically a snap keep, but I don't always get that.

Is an underwhelming hand with say, Matter Reshapers, Displacers and dorks as your only real action keepable if you've got an Ancient Stirrings or Eldrazi Temple? I know hands are matchup dependent but I just wanted advice on what to generally shoot for, since matches can be won or lost by opening hands.

The first thing I generally look for is acceleration.
Hands without dorks or Temples are rarely keepable (notable exception being having your 'superhoser' like RiP against Dredge or SS against Affinity with one or two other reasonably castable cards in hand and maybe against very slow and grindy MUs with Stirrings and Reshapers as you want to avoid to mulligan to often here because of CA)
Next thing is threads or Stirrings. I wanna have at least one (better two) threads in the 3-4cmc range.
Seer is great but Reshapers/Displacers/Skyspawners are fine too. Against MUs like Tron, Ad Nauseam or Grishoalbrand you wanna get some threats on the board as soon as possible.
And as Harakesh pointed out, we're so threat dense (and we got Stirrings (and in my case Oath of Nissa aswell) to find our bigger threats in the later game that you don't need to worry if you hand doesn't have any Drowners or Smashers. Usually I actually don't want to see Drowners in my starting seven.

Hope that helps as some general advise!

Quote from Rotax94 »

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Quote from broodwarjc »

Can we survive on 22-23 lands rather than 24? I find the land flood to be real late game.

I just expressed the same thoughts two posts above.
Currently I'm running 23 lands and 2x Oath of Nissa maindeck. It's clearly worse than Stirrings but still better than Modern's best blue cantrip (Serum Visions lol.
Works fine for me so far.
I think the land base is actually the part of the deck that has the most room for innovation, as almost everybody here is just copying the landbase of the deck that got top 8 at the GP. The other parts of the deck are super tight with only 2-3 flexspots.
Ideas like Blighted Cataract or Westvale Abbey definetely derserve some testing.

I'm trying 2Impulse instaed of the one flex slot and one land, for now it's working well,impulse saved my ass twice in 6 testing games becouse i needed to path to exile a big creature

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13298&writer=Seth Manfield&articledate=5-26-2016

Impulse is not modern legal...

Quote from Kujo82 »

Jori En's Command 1RU
Instant (R)
Choose two:
- Counter target activated ability
- Counter target triggered ability
- Counter target creature spell
- Draw a card

Why is it UR?
There's nothing red about it as far as my cardpool knowledge goes. At least in modern we only have 3 cards that counter activated or triggered abilities (Squelch, Voidslime, Trickbind), which are either blue or UG and neither drawing a card nor countering a creature spell is red. So make it cost 1UG (which is a colour combination that needs help anyway) and we get a powerful but fair card if you ask me.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

If Retreat to Coralhelm is a part of the win-con engine. Wouldn't we want to be able to retrieve that integral part of the engine using say an Idyllic Tutor? If its about going "infinite" as quickly as possible, we would need to go find/fetch the pieces as quickly as possible and not wait around for top-decking them right?

I would think Collected Company would need to be a must have 3 or 4 in the main deck as well.

Wouldn't we need to protect the fragile nature of removal of our 1 key piece from things like Surgical Extraction in our sideboard as well?

Are there any W U or G spells out there that offer protection to enchantments OR let us tutor them out of our library?

So many questions.

What you are looking for is probably Commune with the Gods as TheDasuri pointed out. It digs for both halves of the combo and is a much needed 2cmc card (We won't always have a dork online T2).

But as many others I don't think this deck should go all in on it's combo. Because let's be honest this combo is pretty fragile and there are just faster and or more consistent combo decks in modern (Amulett, Griselshoalbrand, Ad Nauseam...).
The thing all these decks can't do but we can is beat face while threating combo so thats the way to go I think.
What I realized is that Mana Dorks+KotR+Retreat to Coralhelm do a pretty great job at ramping together. We should have some fair chances to reach 5 mana on T3 (T1 Dork->T2 KotR-> tap land to float the mana, sac it to KotR new land enters untapped->5mana or T1 Dork->T2 RtC-> tap Dork to float mana, play land, untap Dork with RtC->5mana).
So 5 mana bombs like Dragonlord Ojutai (who even synergizes pretty well with RtC) should at least be considered. If not MB then it's definetely SB material against Jund and Grixis.

I'll definetely brew with this this weekend!

Quote from Tongz »

I think Kytheon, Hero of Akros has a lot of potential. The ability to turn your 1-drop into a 4/4 indestructible by doing what aggressive decks normally do with no other cost is incredibly attractive. Not to mention that, while a 2/1 for one is unexciting, it is still playable. I think the goal in looking at his playability is to fit him in a deck that can reliably flip him early, without playing bad cards to do so.

When I first saw him I immediately thought of Preeminent Captain to turn him on with a surprise, but I think Modern Soldiers is too cute a deck to pursue.

I think he could fit into a Zoo build fine, over a Loam Lion. Additionally, he can easily fit into the 4C humans deck alongside Champion of the Parish and the like. He also has a very nice synergy with Geist of Saint Traft, making me interested in trying him alongside Geist and maybe Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in some kind of UWx build. T1 Kytheon, T2 Thalia, into T3 Geist, seems pretty strong, even with CoCos and Twin's around.

My question for you guys is, what kind of playable cards would allow him to flip in T3, or, if possible, T2? He could always mix with Raise the Alarm or something for a T3 flip, but that seems unexciting. Any thoughts on Modern playable cards that can flip him as early as T3?

burning-tree emissary into lightning mauler is a possible turn 2 flip in the 4c human deck. That already was a strong play with Champion...
I should start some brewing again:D

I largely agree with this article. It's why players like Craig Wescoe T8 a GP with a deck they've been playing for years. Or why Daniel Wong got to the Vegas T8 with Taking Turns. Or why Todd Stevens and his beloved Eldrazi Tron have so much recent success. Just take a look at some of the MTGO regulars who play their decks all the time and routinely repeat 5-0 performances in the Leagues, whether in this current metagame or in past ones. The format is significantly more skill-rewarding than many claim.

In Legacy, you have fewer matchups and overall less diversity, so skill plays out in choices on Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, FoW, Daze, Wasteland, Therapy, etc. These cards are hugely skill-tesitng, and the matchups between the top decks reflect the skill in using those cards effectively. In Modern, you don't have those same kinds of skill-testing cards (indeed, we don't have any of the above cards) but you have significantly more deck diversity. This requires more knowledge of more decks, their sideboards, your sideboarding plan against them, and your/their overall gameplan. It means you need to change how you use your cards every game.

I've watched the pros and vocal streamers that complain about variance, and when I see their games, I see endless misplays and small errors that result in losses. Slamming TS on T1 against decks with no significant T1 or T2 plays and then moaning about a topdeck that won the opponent the game. Mindlessly Bolting dorks before losing to Druid combo. Picking the wrong card off IoK/TS. Choosing the wrong mode on Esper Charm, K-Command, or Cryptic for the matchup. Killing a Baral and then tapping out with more removal in hand and getting wrecked by a T4 Electromancer into the combo after an opponent cantripped three times in the match. Keeping Affinity or Elves hands with no business spells against decks with sweepers. Making awful sideboard decisions like Leyline of Sanctity against Ad Nauseam. Choosing to stay on the play against discard decks like 8Rack. Endless misplays and misjudgments of opposing decks.

Then I watch the games of more technical pilots with deeper format knowledge and see them pick up huge margins from format knowledge. They don't tilt, complain, or blame external factors, and they break down all their choices against opposing possibilities. I don't remember the player, but I recently watched a game where a streamer was in G2 or G3 against a Storm deck. Without even looking up the opposing list, he was worried about the opponent boarding in a Blood Moon plan B and he mulliganed his first hand because it didn't have fetchlands. He kept his second and fetched an Island to Serum Visions on the draw. Sure enough, the opponent rituals into a Moon on their second turn. This is where players in that first category I described above would rage about swingy Modern cards but this guy already knew it and already had the out. Modern needs more of that play and clarity, not the complaining.

Quote from Lilijuana »

Their reason for banning probe was as succinct and to the point as it gets...and correct. I don't see how tournament reports are necessary when they are addressing how the card influences gameplay.

You mentioned the Delver deck above. It runs 17 lands and essentially 56 cards b/c Probe enables such a composition to be viable when normally it would not.

This rationale is arbitrary and applies to dozens of cards in the format. Gameplay reasons are all subjective. That is why we should prefer objective reasons like T4 rule violations and format diversity violations. Name a Tier 1 staple in Modern and I'm sure half a dozen people in this thread could knit together a rhetorical argument about why that card is busted because it is too strong in gameplay. We cannot have Wizards start banning cards for those reasons because it's completely unpredictable and doesn't necessarily improve the format.

Here's the Probe rationale I would have written, assuming I had their data:

"Looking at the results of Modern games on MTGO, we found that no single top-tier deck was consistently winning before turn four and violating the turn four rule. That said, many players complained about how fast the format was. We did a deeper dive and also found that too many overall games were ending before turn four as a result of numerous fast, linear, aggressive strategies, although no single deck was to blame. Rather than ban individual cards from each of these decks (no one of which was alone in violation), we looked at cards shared between all of them to decrease the overall number of games won before turn four. Probe was the most offensive of those shared cards, appearing in the greatest percentage of pre-turn four wins relative to any other shared card.

This finding is supported by Probe's gameplay: it gives perfect information, draws a card, fuels delve, and even pumps creatures for basically no investment. Although it is unfortunate other decks will suffer from Probe's removal (e.g. Delver, U/R Storm), we believe Probe's banning will have a net positive on the format as it overall decreases the chance of fast, top-tier decks winning before turn four. Those decks will likely also find replacements and stay viable. In the interest of the turn four rule, Gitaxian Probe is banned."

This took me ten minutes to write and probably summarizes Wizards' analysis of the card. It also would have preemptively addressed most of the anger around the ban.

The anger at this announcement is unusually overblown and unwarranted, even considering the general Modern outcry at such changes. Although there are definitely some legitimately scary elements of the ban update, most people are complaining about elements that are totally fine, or even heartening.

The GGT ban is perfectly fine. It keeps the deck a top-tier contender without leaving it a Tier 1 mainstay. This lets other GY decks return (remember old faithful Abzan Company?) and lets everyone free up SB slots to fight other decks. The "scary" part about this ban is that it's a reversal of a previous ban, which is unprecedented but not really that scary. I'm fine with companies and organizations changing their minds based on new realities. In these regards, the GGT ban gets top marks from me.

Probe ban gets a B-. Yes, it's effective at taking a little bit off the top of most fast decks without killing any of them outright. In that regard, it's a solid A. Unfortunately, it does this at the expense of very fair Delver decks, which were great for format health. That's C-, unintended consequence ban territory. More importantly, these kinds of silly bans just underscore Modern's problems: WHERE THE HECK ARE OUR GENERIC ANSWERS AND POLICING CARDS/STRATEGIES?? You don't see these absurd bans in Legacy because the format has internal regulation from cards, not external regulations from bans. I'm not saying we need Legacy's exact answers, but we do need answers and we needed them a year ago. Push is a good step in the right direction, but it can't be the final step. If we don't get these kinds of cards, we'll keep stomaching more corner-case bans like Probe and keep inciting even more ban mania and format instability.

So, if the bans themselves aren't that terrible, what's the real problem?

The problem is the update itself. It doesn't cite tournament finishes, doesn't refer back to format guidelines and rules, doesn't anticipate objections to the bans, and overall doesn't build format confidence. It looked like the article was thrown together in less than an hour, when I'm sure Wizards did mountains of testing and analysis before deciding on some of those bans. If Wizards communicated this to their audience, people wouldn't be so up in arms about these changes. Especially if they threw us a bone about how they want to see how the new format shakes out before deciding on possible unbans. That would have been great! Instead, we got a very elementary update with extremely basic reasons. No wonder people are upset: Wizards hasn't done anything to try and build confidence after a big banlist shakeup.

I hope we get some clarification in the coming weeks. I'm sick and tired of delving through AMAs and Twitter posts to figure out Wizards' banlist policy and process. This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to advocate on behalf of the format and entice players to join. With ban mania everywhere, it's hard to stay evidence-based and level-headed, particularly when Wizards doesn't give us any tools to help that fight.

I actually wasn't a huge fan of exarch. The key situations came up slightly less frequently than the mana caused problems.