MTG Salvation

If what we've seen so far is an indicator of the ratio of modern playable vs limited/commander cards the set will have, I will be disappointed. There were rumours floating around that this set had a lot of designs taken over from a scrapped WUBRG commander product and between the First Sliver, Sisay and Morophon I am starting to believe that.

If they didn't advertise this set as being specifically for Modern, I'd be less soured. If this was like, "Rainbow Masters" or whatever, I wouldn't groan with every obvious commanderbait card, and cute references like Ponder Mage would actually be charming instead of just draft fodder for the pile. Eyeballing it I'm at a ~25 out of 93 cards that might be interesting for modern, which is absurdly high for any other product, but disappointing after the marketing.



Modern Horizons was our birthday party and now it turns out we have to share the presents with the Commander people.

Also my salt about the red force is so big it needs a separate post.

Quote from Taleran »

Is there a loam deck that can make use of this in interesting ways I like this design.

Also Empty the Bears of your Neoform/Combo wins

Honestly if I ever get T1'd by Neoform one day and their wincon is OCEAN OF BEARS then all is forgiven

Control has been mainboarding Negate for years now. Almost all the creature decks run some combination of Cavern of Souls/Aether Vial/Collected Company. Against creature decks, if your counterspells can counter creatures, there's a very big chance you side them out regardless.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Relevant things Force of Negation doesn't deal with:

• Hardcast Primeval Titan
• Dredging from natural draws
• Cast triggers for Phoenix
• Cast triggers to flip Thing
• Any creature put in with Vial
• Any creature with haste
• Any creature with relevant ETB/Cast triggers
• Flurry of small spells
• Spells cast on your own turn/upkeep/combat/end step, etc

What ungodly all-encompassing magic card are you comparing Force of Negation to now that can stop all of that? Cause I need like 4 playsets

My biggest takeaway of the evening was that I didn't even really need the third wrath in the board vs spirits. Wall makes you able to ignore a small creature instead of being poked at by some random 2/2 you don't want to spend a card on which alleviates the pressure of getting your wrath a bit. Looking at mtgtop8, most UW lists now shift to playing the full 4 snapcasters, which makes spot removal better. I think I'd add a second Oust before mainboarding the third wrath

UW is always popular and is becoming a real force now, so having less dead cards in the main for the mirror is also a big plus.

Quote from Dynamite_Private »

Fact or Fiction is FINALLY on the menu, boyz!

**** yes.

We can stop the spoiler season now, between Sort of Will and Fact or Fiction I am satisfied.

I'm just ready to facedesk when the white one turns out to be lifegain

So today's B&R can't be anything but no changes for modern, right? No way they shake up the format the day after they give us our Sort of Will.

"Limits design space" has always been an awful argument, especially as they then at the same time claim they don't design cards with Modern in mind.

Print cards until something breaks, then ban what breaks. Not preemptively.

Quote from Renegade Rallier »

List of modern playable equipment:
Cranial plating

Let’s not even talk about new equipment being printed. The old ‘good’ ones like swords and batterskull aren’t even good enough on their own.

I do think Batterskull would see play with SFM, but it'd just be a decent fair play. Even in the fair matchups you can do a lot more devastating things nowadays. I'm uncertain about the swords.

Quote from Luke71 »

Why don't you test a rule that makes starting or not starting a real decision, and not just "I hope to win the roll so I can start"?

What would a rule like that look like, in your opinion?

I would not run any of these options. TBR is a unique effect. It is a finisher, adds speed, adds evasion, nullifies things like deathtouch and lifelink. It is you best card in a lot of matchups, and the singular reason you are able to win some games. The deck functions without it, but the meta as it exists now wants this to go under combo and trample over Dredge.

You should avoid the trap of "what goes in the TBR slot" when changing colors. There is no other card that does the same thing. Fatal Push in the Lightning Bolt slot, Cast Down in the Terminate slot are things that make sense, but these are all good cards. Don't feel that you need to have one of these "finishers", because they just aren't available in UB.

Play more removal, more discard, more cantrips, or maindeck Liliana (either one) or JVP. Ditch the combo kill, and just make yourself better prepared to play a longer game. It makes the deck as a whole better on the balance. Serum Visions, Collective Brutality, Countersquall, etc, other borderline maindeck cards will generally be more impactful.


One other point. If skipping red is for budgetary reasons, then I definitely understand, lands are expensive. If budget is not an issue, a third color in Shadow is almost entirely free from a deckbuilding standpoint. You play so many fetchlands, and want lots of shocklands (often more than 4). A stock maindeck only has 2~4 red cards right now, but it is very easy to do this with almost no downside.

Thanks for the questions MrDude!

1. I think I am playing enough card selection where 24 lands is good. Celestial Colonnade coming in to play tapped is a huge draw back. If we can get past the first six or seven turns at a healthy life total and a relatively clear board our chances of winning is high. Colonnade doesn't help with that. Also i'm not a big fan of using Colonnade as a win-con, I prefer to use it as a emergency blocker, and I will never protect it unless it being alive will either immediately win me the game or lose me the game.

2. Serum Visions have been good, card selection is great. Main deck timely is really only great against burn, and I chose to replace it with absorb which is even better against burn, because it doesn't give the burn player targets for Searing Blaze. Post board when they bring out Searing Blaze, Timely becomes much better.

3. I think Cataclysmic Gearhulk is underwhelming, but have never tried it personally. tapping five mana main phase for a partial wrath, only to have it killed next turn and the opponent having a creature ready to attack sounds bad.

4. The single Stony Silence was more of a meta call. It was probably crazy, but I didn't get punished for it. I didn't play an artifact deck in the Event.

5. I did consider playing Runed Halo main deck, but ended up playing a third Jace instead. I think shutting down a maximum of four cards in an opponents deck is to narrow of an effect, and dead in to many match-ups for the main deck.

Okay now the idea of interactive and noninteractive along with the idea of non-games is being taken to a point of absurdity. Literally all types of disruption lead to non-games if your deck is highly synergistic. The only way around those "feel bad" moments is to have what most people call battlecruiser magic where removal and disruption is awful so you just take turns playing the bigger and badder permanent.

Played U/W Miracle at GP Calgary this last weekend, and thought I would do a little tournament report. Started day one with two byes thanks to a last chance trial in which I got a bye in the last round.

Round 3 Izzet Phoenix Win 2-0 (3-0)
Played in the feature match area against Alex Majlaton. The match wasn't too exciting Jace floating two terminus both games was great.

Round 4 Naya Burn Win 2-1 (4-0)
Game one he was stuck with multiple Searing Blaze in hand. Game two Cindervines wrecked me. Game three my turn three Snapcaster Mage went all the way.

Round 5 Izzet Phoenix Loss 2-0 (4-1)
Don't remember much about this match except he had the nut draw both games.

Round 6 Amulet Titan Win 2-0 (5-1)
Game one he cast Pact of Negation on my Teferi, untaps and draws (whoops). Game two he casts Summoner's Pact on his turn to find a Titan. On my turn I cast Detention Sphere on his Coalition Relic, and he can't pay for Pact. After the match his told me he has only played the deck at a couple of FNM's.

Round 7 B/G Rock Win 2-0 (6-1)
This deck just can't beat a active Jace. They play so many lands they flood out with the fateseal. After this match I was locked for my first day two!

Round 8 Tron Loss 2-0 (6-2)
Game one kept a hand with a couple path's, a settle, a pair of cantrips and two lands; a great hand against most of the meta . He casts a turn three Karn Liberated (of course) and I don't draw any lands. Game two I Field of Ruin turns 3,4,5 and 6. He still gets tron on turn 7. I think I have the game locked down with a Teferi and a flipped Azcanta, but he casts Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger which got countered, but still left me unable to recover.

Round 9 8-Rack Win 2-1 (7-2)
He caught me off guard game one, couldn't do anything about it. Games two and three never went below six cards in hand thanks to Jace.

Round 10 Izzet Phoenix Win 2-1 (8-2)
Played against the guy who won the MCQ on the Friday. Game one went long, but he was eventually able to do his thing and I died. He side boarded out his bolts for games two and three, and couldn't beat my planeswalkers.

Round 11 Spirits 2-1 Win (9-2)
He never seen a single Collected Company in any of the games. In game three he flooded hard after I settled and played Baneslayer.

Round 12 Grixis Shadow Win 2-0 (10-2)
Field of Ruin and a blind Terminus stole this match both games. In game two he fetched to four to shuffle a Jace fateseal to five, which left him dead to my Colannade.

Round 13 Storm Win 2-1 (11-2)
Easily my favorite match of the GP. Got paired up against someone who was 11-1-1. Game one went super long, and there was a while where all we did was draw, move to discard. Eventually she went off. Game two she went off early for a Empty the Warrens for eight. I Detention Sphere them away. She tried again the next turn, and I sphered the goblins away again, then cast surgical on her grapeshot, the cast Rest in Peace. I asked if she had anymore win-cons and she scooped a couple of turns later. Game three she kept a one lander, and didn't find a land for a few turns. I cast turn for Jace, and road him to victory.

Round 14 G/B Rock Win 2-0 (12-2)
My planeswalkers rolled over him, not much else to say.

Round 15 Dredge ID (12-2-1)
I was in fourth and got paired up against a 37 pointer. The top four tables all took the draw immediately. The only was I wasn't locked in the top 8 is if the storm played I played earlier won and my tie-breakers somehow plummeted. She lost her Round, and I was in.

Quarterfinals Izzet Phoenix Loss 2-0
Was fifth seed and played against the only person to go undefeated in the first 9 rounds. Game one he stomped me. Game two went long, I drew to many lands where any spell would have been great. He ran me out of counter spells and he got me with Lightning Bolt. He definitely out played me and I was scrambling the whole match.

Overall the deck felt great, but I think it needs more main deck answers to Phoenix.

i mean i guess i can understand the concern of the format being put into flux, either with cards from WAR or more likely with horizons. however the existing depth of the format as well as its non-rotating (and expensive) aspects naturally mitigates the meta from such chaotic fluctuations. its true that uncertainty pushes people to seek out proactive and consistent strategies, but much of the format is there already lol. decks already have to take account of and prepare for a broad swath of strategies, interactions, or angles of attack; which in turn makes it harder for something completely new to find some hole or weakness to exploit.

like if im playing jeskai or UW control and this karn picks up (with or without lattice) im not suddenly going to be confused on how or if i can respond since i either already have the tools or know which good ones exist in the vast modern card pool.

I'm annoyed becuase I picked up foils of the Jace's Spellbook Negates but this card is just too good to ignore.

That land would be one of the worst lands ever printed. The only redeeming factor is that you made it legendary so some poor sap couldn’t have 2 in play to really screw him or herself so royally. Mana Confluence is so much less of a downside than sculpting your opponent’s hand when tapping mana.

Quote from Bearscape »

March 11th I'd still would like to see Faithless Looting get the hammer,

I really hope not. I just got my foils signed at GP LA. But then again, I guess that's just tradition!

Depending on where you play, you will experience Modern differently. Similarly, depending on where you look at results, you can support almost any view of Modern health/unhealth that you hold. Want Modern to look diverse or interactive? Cite the GP Toronto T8 or the Strasbourg MCQ. Want it to look bad? Cite the GP LA T8 or a recent MTGO Challenge. Most people Will probably end up citing the picture closest to their personal experience, so if your MTGO or LGS experience is negative/positive with respect to Modern gameplay, you can find large events to support your Modern perspective.

Of course, the "true" Modern picture is somewhere in the middle. It's not as interactive as it has been in the past, and a few top decks (particularly less interactive ones) are better than many other so-called "viable" decks. But it's also nowhere close to Eldrazi Winter, interactive decks are demonstrably more viable than some critics suggest, and those hated linear decks are more vulnerable than we like to claim.

All of this is to say that Modern is probably just fine, with the potential small exception that Izzet Phoenix, for reasons I and others have explained, is probably the best deck by a margin that may approach (emphasis on May) KCI levels. That might be okay because it doesn't create the secondary KCI issues, but it is a reality to consider.