Locally zurgos have not only been topping our last few tournaments, but 2 have actually won all the way. Dunno what the hell is goin on exactly, but the bans have done nothing to monoR's power level it seems.
Totally agree with your analysis. That said, i wonder if you have matchup balance chart on this deck? something like:
good matchups: leovold and prosh
bad matchups: karlov titania
neutral matchup: baral, doran
Good: Any control with no lifegain outs (grixis, izzet, dimir, mono blue), animar, maelstrom wanderer
Bad: titania, karlov, atraxa, gitrog, Kalitas monoblack control
Neutral: Mirror match, MonoW aggro (we have additional avenues for offense in burn, but they have superior combat presence with first strike. Tie breaker comes down to how much life gain they have in the deck), partner decks
These matchups to me are variable, which means they can range from bad to good to neutral depending on how the deck is built.
Queen Marchesa control: If it's a superfriends control with a lot of mana rocks, zurgo's gonna have a fiesta. But if the deck plays with less rocks and more spot removal, mini-sweeps and lifegain (timely reinforcements, blessed alliance, etc), i would say the matchup is more balanced, though still slightly in zurgo's favor.
Ojutai: If authority of the consuls comes down early, GG. But outside of that, if no lifegain is prioritized, zurgo is at a heavy advantage.
Long story short: Outside of the inherently bad matchups mentioned, whether or not the matchup is good or not depends a LOT on how well prepared the deck is for monoR. Decks that are built totally ignoring the damage output of monoR will most likely be unable to take a best of 3, and are free wins regardless of how the matchup is on paper. Flip side, supposedly good matchups that find ways to compensate for red's damage output (playing blue elemental blast and hydroblast for example) can give us a hard time.
Ok, I tested a bit more with zurgo last night and I wanna share my takeaway and analysis.
Here's the thing.. he actually plays a bit more smoothly. Let's go over the bans 1 by 1:
1.) PoP is not as useful in mono colored decks. Titania is one of our worst matchups, and most of their nonbasics end up in the grave anyway. Another bad matchup where Price is not so useful is karlov. They can just fetch for basics all day without screwing themselves, and they have life gain outs. So losing PoP for another card that can function equally well across all matchups (AKA any generic burn spell) actually added consistency.
2.) If you replace [card sulfuric vortex[/card] for a rampaging ferocidon, the pros of a 3 power body with evasion, a decent passive and the identical can't gain life clause hurts as much as vortex. Here's where the difference lies actually. Vortex requires a bit more timing than one would think. If the titania matchup turns out into a straight up brawl, vortex helps them more than it helps us. Same situation with karlov if he somehow gets big enough to escape burn range (probability of this goes even higher the less burn the deck has) and starts hitting like a truck. Casting vortex with an 8/8 karlov in play hurts your clock as much as it hurts theirs. The difference is, you're the one who tapped 3 mana for it. With ferocidon on the other hand, you just cast it and let them deal with the 3/3 body however they please, with minimal detriment to your own life total in case the race doesn't turn out in your favor. There's much less risk.
3.) Eidolon of the great revel is the card most likely to backfire on us especially agianst titania. I apologize for bringing up titania every 2 sentences, but she and karlov are 2 of the most well-positioned meta decks today, and are coincidentally terrible matchups for zurgo. Anyway, when the midrange-y threats start coming out, there will come a point where eidolon will be dealing way more damage to us than to them. Same concept applies to karlov. Though their curve is lower than titania's, they can gain life. Point is, I wasn't so sad to see this go, as good as he is.
4.) Which leaves us with fireblast. Losing fireblast is an obvious nerf, but this is one card, in a deck that has no tutors and does not rely on a single card to win anyway.
Bottomline: Overall, zurgo as a whole was not nerfed, but rather a single aspect of his game was: burst. It's harder to win out of nowhere now via PoP for 14 damage against a 4 color deck, or by tapping out to all your burn and then dumping 2 lands for a fireblast. But losing access to 4 cards makes way for less burst-y but more consistent picks. Combined with the Edgar Markov ban, this announcement actually buffed MonoR's position in the meta.
How viable are the deck post bans? whats lists are you playing?
replaced sulfuric with the new dinosaur with menace, replaced fireblast with sonic burst, replaced PoP with a random burn spell, eidolon with the new 1-drop pirate. It plays just the same. We're no worse against our good matchups, and no better against the bad ones. Again, yes on paper zurgo's worse, but by it's very nature, monoR has never been reliant on a few individual cards to win. These nerfs did nothing but piss zurgo players off IMO, which to me is the mark of a very poor banlist decision by the committee. This was I think meant to silence all the whiners who still struggle with zurgo in 2017. Seriously guys, adapt or die.
Both 1-drop vampires, the 3-drop that poops out tokens, vampire hellrider and Unexplored Territory. Mutavault also came in and Westveil came out.
who'd you cut? last i checked your list you had voldaren pariah. how often did you get to flip her?
seems underwhelming at first glance, but that 2-drop vamp that you can turn indestructible by paying 4 life could really make an impact. 3 power on the board that's resistant to sweeps. that flash one as well. both might be good tech for removal heavy decks control.
Another day of testing and Edgar is X-1 on test games against Jace High Tide and Still undefeated against Baral, nowith Ixalan updates. Strangely, the deck went 7-7 against Neheb big red. The deck plays a lot of boardwipes that hurts the players, disruption against non-basic lands and everything is big. Not to be taken too seriously since no one plays this, though.
Why Cataclysm? It's a card that becomes much better only if you have Planeswalkers behind it, and is extremely dependent on your board state as well. If you take this away, Aggro has...Armageddon and Ravages of War (if you can get it) and neither of those replicate Cat's advanatge. Balance is actually pretty fine at the moment, there aren't any fast mana rocks to ramp into it for a blowout.
Fastbond I can see being banned again, but there just isn't enough Titania/Gitrog going on around here, at least, to make it a no-brainer.
Ancestral Vision why? You can kill them well before it resolves.
Planeswalkers behind it, meaning you or your opponent? Coz cataclysm sweeps the board of walkers. Courtesy of the "sacrifice the rest" clause. It's balance that spares the walkers.
Disagree with fastbond. Duel commander is surprisingly and thankfully thriving here in the Philippines (I can find 2 tournaments of at least 14 players per week, with usually 1-2 30 or more player tourneys per month) and the number of titania players here is a little crazy. Combined with the recent ancient tomb unban, it's a bit unfair to nerf zurgo and allow all these toys for titania to play with herself with.
I agree, ancestral can stay. It's a terrible late game topdeck, and in the early game it can still lose out to fast decks.
About getting rid of free spells, I really think a fireblast ban means force of will should go too. But personally I want both to stay legal.
Magic really wasn't made to be played 1v1 at 30lp. But the only people who realize it are also intellectually disadvantaged and love green to everyone's detriment.
Did you mean "don't realize" ?
Or am I missing something.
I've been goldfishing my DC List vs Tymna+Thrasios, Tymna+Kraum, Breya and Baral all evening and I've got split feelings. I've been beating the 4C decks (7-2 vs Redless Tymna, 7-0 vs Greenless Tymna, 7-4 vs Breya), Baral doesn't give a ***** 0-7 can't do anything against him and expect similar results vs Jace, Nissa and Selvala.
Theoretically that should be comforting since the control decks are much more popular than the combo decks, but from a brewer's perspective I really don't see what I can do to improve the matches further while I can easily see these UBGx toolbox piles of value adding a single Engineered Plague or Aether Flash to cockblock us and have it down by turn 4 consistently.
Magic really wasn't made to be played 1v1 at 30lp. But the only people who realize it are also intellectually disadvantaged and love green to everyone's detriment.
and blue right?
Blue is dead in DC.
I meant the DC commitee did the right thing by making the format 20lp, but everything else they've done has been a mistake geared to overclock G and Gx decks.
Unban
Breya, Bruse, Edgar, Edric, Geist, Jace, Marath, Tasigur, Back to Basics, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Fireblast, Gifts Ungiven, Humility, Necrotic Ooze, Sensei's Divining Top and Sulfuric Vortex.
Ban
Academy Ruins, Constant Mists, Doomsday, Fastbond, High Tide, Mana Echoes and Steel of the Godhead.
Test it and see how much better this format could have been.
Not sure if we're on the same page, i was talking about the MTGO format. Or is blue dead there as well coz of the banlist?
I was pretty salty when I read the news yesterday, I admit. Rightfully so, I think. Who bans Fireblast in any kind of competitive format? Such a joke. That's pretty hard for me to get past.
That said, I guess the creature heavy versions (like mine) are going to come out a little easier than the burn heavy versions (like Yuji's). Maybe Zo-Zu comes back to the decklist now. Maybe I start playing fringe cards like Skullcrack & Flames of the Blood Hand. Maybe I can get Keldon Marauders, & Vexing Devil into the list finally (I love Devil as a fantastic post-combat play). Hell, I played Browbeat before...............
Yeah if fireblast was banned, force of will should be too. Just sayin. Different sides, same coin.
funny you say that though coz my burn heavy list actually has a zo-zu. too good into titania. One would argue turn 3 is too late for that especially on the draw, but it punishes ramunap/crucible/fastbond shenanigans. As for skullcrack I do play it, but yeah with sulfuric gone, flames of the bloodhand is suddenly more viable again.
I've been goldfishing my DC List vs Tymna+Thrasios, Tymna+Kraum, Breya and Baral all evening and I've got split feelings. I've been beating the 4C decks (7-2 vs Redless Tymna, 7-0 vs Greenless Tymna, 7-4 vs Breya), Baral doesn't give a ***** 0-7 can't do anything against him and expect similar results vs Jace, Nissa and Selvala.
Theoretically that should be comforting since the control decks are much more popular than the combo decks, but from a brewer's perspective I really don't see what I can do to improve the matches further while I can easily see these UBGx toolbox piles of value adding a single Engineered Plague or Aether Flash to cockblock us and have it down by turn 4 consistently.
Magic really wasn't made to be played 1v1 at 30lp. But the only people who realize it are also intellectually disadvantaged and love green to everyone's detriment.
Ok I actually think that the edgar ban caused a slight net positive for zurgo in terms of meta positioning despite the nerf. PoP doesn't do much to karlov, and in a matchup with life gain eidolon can actually backfire on zurgo anyway. Plus we have that new dino to replace sulfuric. Fireblast ban is ouchy tho. Not denying that nerf hurts, but I actually think that in my local meta at least, there'd be more zurgos finishing top 8 than when edgar was legal.
With the markov ban I better change the title to gear the discussion more for the MTGO banlist. I'm guessing there's a thread about the announcement in the duel primer thingy anyway.
Good: Any control with no lifegain outs (grixis, izzet, dimir, mono blue), animar, maelstrom wanderer
Bad: titania, karlov, atraxa, gitrog, Kalitas monoblack control
Neutral: Mirror match, MonoW aggro (we have additional avenues for offense in burn, but they have superior combat presence with first strike. Tie breaker comes down to how much life gain they have in the deck), partner decks
These matchups to me are variable, which means they can range from bad to good to neutral depending on how the deck is built.
Queen Marchesa control: If it's a superfriends control with a lot of mana rocks, zurgo's gonna have a fiesta. But if the deck plays with less rocks and more spot removal, mini-sweeps and lifegain (timely reinforcements, blessed alliance, etc), i would say the matchup is more balanced, though still slightly in zurgo's favor.
Ojutai: If authority of the consuls comes down early, GG. But outside of that, if no lifegain is prioritized, zurgo is at a heavy advantage.
Long story short: Outside of the inherently bad matchups mentioned, whether or not the matchup is good or not depends a LOT on how well prepared the deck is for monoR. Decks that are built totally ignoring the damage output of monoR will most likely be unable to take a best of 3, and are free wins regardless of how the matchup is on paper. Flip side, supposedly good matchups that find ways to compensate for red's damage output (playing blue elemental blast and hydroblast for example) can give us a hard time.
Here's the thing.. he actually plays a bit more smoothly. Let's go over the bans 1 by 1:
1.) PoP is not as useful in mono colored decks. Titania is one of our worst matchups, and most of their nonbasics end up in the grave anyway. Another bad matchup where Price is not so useful is karlov. They can just fetch for basics all day without screwing themselves, and they have life gain outs. So losing PoP for another card that can function equally well across all matchups (AKA any generic burn spell) actually added consistency.
2.) If you replace [card sulfuric vortex[/card] for a rampaging ferocidon, the pros of a 3 power body with evasion, a decent passive and the identical can't gain life clause hurts as much as vortex. Here's where the difference lies actually. Vortex requires a bit more timing than one would think. If the titania matchup turns out into a straight up brawl, vortex helps them more than it helps us. Same situation with karlov if he somehow gets big enough to escape burn range (probability of this goes even higher the less burn the deck has) and starts hitting like a truck. Casting vortex with an 8/8 karlov in play hurts your clock as much as it hurts theirs. The difference is, you're the one who tapped 3 mana for it. With ferocidon on the other hand, you just cast it and let them deal with the 3/3 body however they please, with minimal detriment to your own life total in case the race doesn't turn out in your favor. There's much less risk.
3.) Eidolon of the great revel is the card most likely to backfire on us especially agianst titania. I apologize for bringing up titania every 2 sentences, but she and karlov are 2 of the most well-positioned meta decks today, and are coincidentally terrible matchups for zurgo. Anyway, when the midrange-y threats start coming out, there will come a point where eidolon will be dealing way more damage to us than to them. Same concept applies to karlov. Though their curve is lower than titania's, they can gain life. Point is, I wasn't so sad to see this go, as good as he is.
4.) Which leaves us with fireblast. Losing fireblast is an obvious nerf, but this is one card, in a deck that has no tutors and does not rely on a single card to win anyway.
Bottomline: Overall, zurgo as a whole was not nerfed, but rather a single aspect of his game was: burst. It's harder to win out of nowhere now via PoP for 14 damage against a 4 color deck, or by tapping out to all your burn and then dumping 2 lands for a fireblast. But losing access to 4 cards makes way for less burst-y but more consistent picks. Combined with the Edgar Markov ban, this announcement actually buffed MonoR's position in the meta.
replaced sulfuric with the new dinosaur with menace, replaced fireblast with sonic burst, replaced PoP with a random burn spell, eidolon with the new 1-drop pirate. It plays just the same. We're no worse against our good matchups, and no better against the bad ones. Again, yes on paper zurgo's worse, but by it's very nature, monoR has never been reliant on a few individual cards to win. These nerfs did nothing but piss zurgo players off IMO, which to me is the mark of a very poor banlist decision by the committee. This was I think meant to silence all the whiners who still struggle with zurgo in 2017. Seriously guys, adapt or die.
i would have thought paying 4 life once or maybe even twice wouldn't be much of a problem in 30 life against control..
who'd you cut? last i checked your list you had voldaren pariah. how often did you get to flip her?
seems underwhelming at first glance, but that 2-drop vamp that you can turn indestructible by paying 4 life could really make an impact. 3 power on the board that's resistant to sweeps. that flash one as well. both might be good tech for removal heavy decks control.
which ixalan cards made your list?
Planeswalkers behind it, meaning you or your opponent? Coz cataclysm sweeps the board of walkers. Courtesy of the "sacrifice the rest" clause. It's balance that spares the walkers.
Disagree with fastbond. Duel commander is surprisingly and thankfully thriving here in the Philippines (I can find 2 tournaments of at least 14 players per week, with usually 1-2 30 or more player tourneys per month) and the number of titania players here is a little crazy. Combined with the recent ancient tomb unban, it's a bit unfair to nerf zurgo and allow all these toys for titania to play with herself with.
I agree, ancestral can stay. It's a terrible late game topdeck, and in the early game it can still lose out to fast decks.
About getting rid of free spells, I really think a fireblast ban means force of will should go too. But personally I want both to stay legal.
Not sure if we're on the same page, i was talking about the MTGO format. Or is blue dead there as well coz of the banlist?
Yeah if fireblast was banned, force of will should be too. Just sayin. Different sides, same coin.
funny you say that though coz my burn heavy list actually has a zo-zu. too good into titania. One would argue turn 3 is too late for that especially on the draw, but it punishes ramunap/crucible/fastbond shenanigans. As for skullcrack I do play it, but yeah with sulfuric gone, flames of the bloodhand is suddenly more viable again.
and blue right?
The zurgo nerfs too. Wow. Dc shifting the meta towards green it seems. Ironic considering they were vocal about B/G dominance way back.