I would be okay with a Misstep-like card but Misstep itself is a meta nightmare, just look what it did to Legacy. I would completely fine with a Misstep-like card that has a requirement like "reveal a island/blue card", or return or control an island, much like the free spells from Masks (Snuff Out, ect).
On a side note, I have been really impressed with the power of Disrupting Shoal in the current meta, it catches a ton at the moment.
Sam Black has a new article on SCGPremium. It apparently says that something from Dredge needs to be banned.
It's gonna be 3 long months....
I believe this will eventually happen and hopefully helps with the metagame and make it a bit more balanced.
I fear that there is no adequate announcement that can jutify such a ban in their eyes. Only if they play the "uninteractability" card. Will they? I certainly would and I would ban it.
They have cited the online meta game for bannings before and the deck has always been more popular online. If a banning does come in Jan/April I wouldn't be surprised if it is because of it's online percentages.
I do agree that Dredge isn't helping out classical blue-based control (or anyone really), neither is Eldrazi. How I wish Oath of the Gatewatch had never been printed.
However I'm not sure how much Counterspell would swing the Jund/Junk match up, it would certainly help but discard into Lili is pretty back breaking plus there is a ton of control hate printed recently. However if you are worried about the Snap+Counterspell interaction (which I think is most peoples concern?) how about a counterspell the exiled itself (and possible the spell it countered if it is flavour thing)?
Ultimately I can't see Counterspell making it's way into modern with the currently standard design philosophy anyway, however I could see: 1U or UU
Counter target spell with CMC 3 or less
A kind of inverted Disdainful Stroke, seems fine in standard give they typically have a much wider curve then we see in modern.
As much as I like and have a lot of respect for many of people on the SCG circuit it does seem to suffer the most from legal-but-scummy play. It isn't hugely surprising though, some of the player on the SCG circuit sit right at the bottom of the Levine Trench.
One of the issues with Faeries in modern is they don't have a decent 1 drop and their curve is kind of slow for their power and impact. Plus if you look at Caleb's deck from the SCG and some of this leagues the high creature density allows you to play Collect Company which is a hell of a card.
I have only just started watching the top 8 but that would make a lot of sense. Normally you would all just go home after splitting prizes but I can't see SCG being overly happy with that. I'm also not surprised that Caleb won the top 8, he probably has the edge when exhaustion being a significant factor in play.
I'm not sure yet what will happen with Dredge but I agree it probably won't stand long if it keeps up to put results like that and winning through hate (it was seen on camera this tournament and it happened a while back with Tom Ross beating a Jund player despite turn 0 Leyline).
I was thinking of making it although it's not exactly my cup of tea but at this point I'm afraid to invest in it.
To be fair in the case of the Turn 0 Leyline, the Jund player mulliganed to oblivion trying to find it and then never drew anything of relevance. That said I could see something getting banned out of dredge, probably Amalgam. I would hate to lose Faithless Looting in modern.
RUG Delver is kind of an odd one. I complete agree with ashton, the deck is really well set up against the meta at the moment with most of the field being weak to Disrupting Shoal or the Reveler grind package, hell this is the only Tempo deck I have ever play where I WANT to sit down across from Jund. But the deck is really hard to play, takes a ton of practice, can punish you hard for mistakes, it is exhausting to play over long events and it isn't the cheapest deck to build either. All of this makes the deck unappealing to pro and grinders who are testing for a ton of formats at any one time. All that said it is certainly picking up popularity thanks to the articles on Nexus, hell I have even seen lists posted on 4chan of all places. The deck really reminds me of Bloom or Doomsday, near impossible to master but once someone puts the reps in with it can beat almost anything.
Currently RUG delver has probably my highest, consistent win rating of any modern deck I have played in a long time, although I am still at the "9th place" stage at the moment. My current plan is to play nothing else until a local GP in February and grind some big local events in the meantime. As ashton said; the deck really rewards learning from your mistakes and identifying where you went wrong, even months in I am still picking up 1-2 mistakes an event whether they cost me the match or not.
However it is also good to step away from it from time to time. I work mostly nights at an observatory so I will switch to something "mind-less" when I'm not in the mental space for it. It can save you get burned out on a deck, especially if you are having a bad run with it.
Modern is largely fine, or at least a hell of a lot better than you could be led to believe from some articles written by major sites.
That said I would like the format to have a couple more policing decks to help balance out the format a little more. We already have the shells of a lot of these kinds decks but many of the have fail to reach the big times for extended periods, decks like Mardu Midrange/Control, Bant CoCo, UR Delver (excluding the TC period), Grixis Control, Esper Control, Grixis Delver, Knightfall and RUG Delver all have the capacity to step up as the next interactive deck outside of the BGx shell but they are all missing something to put them over. For some it is a threat, others an answer, and some just need more exposure.
I'm honestly not sure how the format would go about fixing this with the knowledge we already have. The banlist is close to tapped out at this point, and while there are reprints that might help the format (Pyrokinesis, Prohibit, Innocent Blood) WotC is shackled hugely by the standard design space, which I think is going to become an increasing big issue for the format. Another option moving forward is to make older cards modern legal through the masters series, and possibly even new cards designed for Modern by first printing them in a set like Conspiracy.
On the white needing help matter: White's problems go way deeper than just meta-percentage, it lacks a real identify outside of just being a support colour. There is only one card on the banlist which could come off and there isn't even much you could reprint to help it out.
Thanks for the great new set of videos, they look great!
I only had a couple of things to mention about your last match although it both cases it didn't end up mattering:
The turn you cast Spite and Traverse for Reveler, you could have Traversed for the Reveler then cast Spite so you get to scry before drawing 3.
I am curious about the turn when you scryed the Traverse to the bottom of your library; I personally would have keep it on top to make sure I hit my 3rd land drop but I'm honestly not sure which is the correct play there.
Thanks again for the video content, it is great to see the deck getting played!
If you are generous Control currently takes up 6.7% of the whole meta game, with one deck above tier 3.
Not really...
Abzan and Jund are aggro-control.
Tier 2 control/ hybrids are: Jeskai, RG Tron (combo-ramp-control with 7-8 sweepers and bunch of planeswalkers and fatties), Hatebears (aggro/prison), Grixis delver (tempo).
Traditional U control decks dominating the game = nowhere to be seen for the last 16 years (unless for several months in Standard until WOTC prints answers).
While I disagree with some of your assessments of archetype and I have no desire to ever get dragged into that conversion ever again, I didn't say decks with control aspects are at 6.7% of the meta, I said control decks are at 6.7% of the meta. Almost any deck can be argued a "hybrid control" deck if any amount of interaction makes them "hybrid control".
As for control decks not being viable in 16 years, we have: Vintage, Legacy, Extended (although dead), and regular appearances in standard (Esper Dragons, Sphinx's Rev control, Caw Blade). Modern is pretty much the only format in existence that hasn't a control deck be a top contender for an extended period of time.
I both praise and curse the introduction of Abrupt Decay entering the format, it just depends which side of the table I am on.
As for RUG midrange there is a forum located here, however it is very slow moving. There is also the following: Reid Duke's article on RUG midrange Video sets on said deck
I am also certain that Caleb Durward did some videos on RUG Kiki but I will be damned if I can find them, might have been on his stream though.
Unfortunately I don't think we will see a Twin unban for at least a couple of years because it would mean WotC admitting they stuffed up and that the ban list was used to further something outside of format health.
What I would like to see is the introduction of some solid, flexible answers into the URx pool however we are shackled by standard design philosophy which keeps creating better questions and worse answers.
Ultimately I think the only bullet they have left in the gun is Preordain or Jace, but like you said you risk increasing the cost of blue decks by huge amount (I would guess closer to $1000 then $600) without actually making them any better against the issues they are suffering from.
On a side note, I have been really impressed with the power of Disrupting Shoal in the current meta, it catches a ton at the moment.
However I'm not sure how much Counterspell would swing the Jund/Junk match up, it would certainly help but discard into Lili is pretty back breaking plus there is a ton of control hate printed recently. However if you are worried about the Snap+Counterspell interaction (which I think is most peoples concern?) how about a counterspell the exiled itself (and possible the spell it countered if it is flavour thing)?
Ultimately I can't see Counterspell making it's way into modern with the currently standard design philosophy anyway, however I could see:
1U or UU
Counter target spell with CMC 3 or less
A kind of inverted Disdainful Stroke, seems fine in standard give they typically have a much wider curve then we see in modern.
One of the issues with Faeries in modern is they don't have a decent 1 drop and their curve is kind of slow for their power and impact. Plus if you look at Caleb's deck from the SCG and some of this leagues the high creature density allows you to play Collect Company which is a hell of a card.
Looking forward to the vids!
Currently RUG delver has probably my highest, consistent win rating of any modern deck I have played in a long time, although I am still at the "9th place" stage at the moment. My current plan is to play nothing else until a local GP in February and grind some big local events in the meantime. As ashton said; the deck really rewards learning from your mistakes and identifying where you went wrong, even months in I am still picking up 1-2 mistakes an event whether they cost me the match or not.
However it is also good to step away from it from time to time. I work mostly nights at an observatory so I will switch to something "mind-less" when I'm not in the mental space for it. It can save you get burned out on a deck, especially if you are having a bad run with it.
That said I would like the format to have a couple more policing decks to help balance out the format a little more. We already have the shells of a lot of these kinds decks but many of the have fail to reach the big times for extended periods, decks like Mardu Midrange/Control, Bant CoCo, UR Delver (excluding the TC period), Grixis Control, Esper Control, Grixis Delver, Knightfall and RUG Delver all have the capacity to step up as the next interactive deck outside of the BGx shell but they are all missing something to put them over. For some it is a threat, others an answer, and some just need more exposure.
I'm honestly not sure how the format would go about fixing this with the knowledge we already have. The banlist is close to tapped out at this point, and while there are reprints that might help the format (Pyrokinesis, Prohibit, Innocent Blood) WotC is shackled hugely by the standard design space, which I think is going to become an increasing big issue for the format. Another option moving forward is to make older cards modern legal through the masters series, and possibly even new cards designed for Modern by first printing them in a set like Conspiracy.
On the white needing help matter: White's problems go way deeper than just meta-percentage, it lacks a real identify outside of just being a support colour. There is only one card on the banlist which could come off and there isn't even much you could reprint to help it out.
I only had a couple of things to mention about your last match although it both cases it didn't end up mattering:
- The turn you cast Spite and Traverse for Reveler, you could have Traversed for the Reveler then cast Spite so you get to scry before drawing 3.
- I am curious about the turn when you scryed the Traverse to the bottom of your library; I personally would have keep it on top to make sure I hit my 3rd land drop but I'm honestly not sure which is the correct play there.
Thanks again for the video content, it is great to see the deck getting played!As for control decks not being viable in 16 years, we have: Vintage, Legacy, Extended (although dead), and regular appearances in standard (Esper Dragons, Sphinx's Rev control, Caw Blade). Modern is pretty much the only format in existence that hasn't a control deck be a top contender for an extended period of time.
As for RUG midrange there is a forum located here, however it is very slow moving. There is also the following:
Reid Duke's article on RUG midrange
Video sets on said deck
I am also certain that Caleb Durward did some videos on RUG Kiki but I will be damned if I can find them, might have been on his stream though.
What I would like to see is the introduction of some solid, flexible answers into the URx pool however we are shackled by standard design philosophy which keeps creating better questions and worse answers.
Ultimately I think the only bullet they have left in the gun is Preordain or Jace, but like you said you risk increasing the cost of blue decks by huge amount (I would guess closer to $1000 then $600) without actually making them any better against the issues they are suffering from.