Where are the reprints going to come from? Goyf and Liliana to $400 each. The fact that they can't reel those prices in and haven't even tried with one of them.
The Pro's get the blame because the community did not ask for the PT to go away, they got it put back on the schedule. Then the Pro's cried and cried.
There was really nothing wrong with the eldrazi PT, it was fun to see LSV and company run out a new brew that smash the field. The error was not fixing the format the next week, or at least before the GP's.
How *****ty must it have been for all the normal players to go to those GP's, spend good money $100's, and just get rolled by the 8 sol ring decks?? That was not a twin banning or a format problem that was WOTC sitting on their thumbs to sell more Thought knot seers and reality smashers at the expense of their players.
I disagree with the last point, wizards does not NEED to keep modern strong they, as a company, will be just fine with limited and standard and they know it.
Preface, I don't think twin should have been banned, they should have just banned exarch. This wasn't even that hard to figure out, all you needed to do was take a 1 or 2% off the decks win rate and exposing it to blowout by bolt would have done it.
That being said it's still not a big deal the combo was basicly a trun 3 kill because of the flash mechanic and the format is better with out it warping game play and deck building.
However, that won't matter since the format will just die soon. Lets be honest if Modern PT's don't promote MTG well enough for WOTC, then why bother with GP's even in the long run???
Modern and EDH are always the most popular/favorite formats when people make polls, so why piss on either?
There is no way around the fact that if there is not a promotional tour associated with a format the format is dead in the long run.
So where does that leave modern and it's fans? I don't know, I'm going to sit on my modern cards on MODO in anticipation of Peak Modern in the next couple years when it becomes clear that WOTC isn't reprinting and the prices go nuts.
Modern players, in my opinion, want a format where their entire deck is not invalidated every 12 months, cough... standard.
Modern players want a format where they can tune a deck over years, generally we don't have the time to brew, buy and assemble decks every time standard rotates.
Modern players want a format where their knowledge of the meta and format over all contributes to their ability to win matches.
Modern is the most affordable format in the long run since you can build your deck over years and constantly tune, tweak and add to it, plus there where some reprints.
Pro's complaining about the modern pro tour was always pathetic. The pros that played modern on the regular always did very well, the pros that just wanted to pick up a standard deck (dumbed down magic)with relatively little practice and have a roll at 40k hated it because they would get housed by people who actually played the modern format.
WOTC, in a sense, knows it's market I guess, this caters to kiddies who like to crack packs and pro's who want to show up at a standard PT after cramming for a week with a comparable shot at winning to most of the field.
Think about it, no one would ever be like... hey here is a Texas hold em tournament I'll just go sit in this house and play my friends for a week then i'll be more or less on par with the field no matter how much prep they did.
THIS IS WHY THE SO CALLED "PRO" COMMUNITY HAS LOBBIED TO KILL MODERN, they can not be competitive if they don't put in the time to this great format, so they want it dead.
Then they cry variance, or match up, give me a break the top 32 at the modern PT has many people who consistently do well year to year.
I agree, you really have to fight the creatures in agrodrazi.
I had some luck with hour of reckoning and a play set of raise the alarm instead of bitterblosoms. This allowed me to safley play worship, one main one board as well as a hedge against drazi/burn/zoo.
However in my one match vs the deck in the one league I played I lost 1-2 all the same, but game one and game three ended with him at 5 and 3 life respectivly, and the guy had wait for it.... Kozilek's Return maindecked... can you believe that.
If return isn't involved I win all three games pretty easily, the odd thing was that I got absolutely rolled up by a stock U/R delver list, I don't rember that deck being a problem but I haven't had to play it in a long time.
That being said I don't think tokens is in a great place right now, the reaction from the meta will be to play like living end, ensnaring bridge and sweepers which all counter our strength of being so strong in combat, evasion and clowning targeted removal.
Curse of death's hold not NoSB imo, I don't think you can assume you will have an anthem 100% of the time and if you don't well all your creatures are dead and you die to his 2/2's
Worship is great tech for these matches, I treat coco/elves like a merfolk match up, they also don't have nearly as many lords path captain overrun and you should have enough time to win regardless. If you can strip the tap 3 get mana guys with early discard that really helps too.
Cut all the zealous unless they are doing a lot of work in your meta, and probably the tidehollowers too.
My first move would be a second timely ASAP, or even a 3rd if your meta is super aggressive. Then like you said work on getting 3 good planes walkers. You can pre-board the 8th removal or relics etc and i think that would be more useful than those 6 slots for zealous and the tides.
And like he said, really don't worry about BB, they are nice, turn two BB does just win sometimes but then again raise the alarm is a faster clock so it's pretty even. I think i'm running 3 of each right now because I don't have champs.
If tron starts to crop up don't hesitate to add ghost quarters, I resisted for so long and got so frustrated, but it really makes the match up so much better than hoping your stony silence and discard slows them down (it never does).
I've been playing tokens for the last 18mo as my main deck and the current meta is the most hostile I've ever seen it towards this deck.
Every time I join a league it seems like a get 2x tron matches that I swear I'm about 25% to win, they basically have to draw bad even an average hand will get there it seems like vs tokens.
The long and short of it in regards to b/w tokens right now is that you're a big dog to burn, tron and bloom... That's half of the top tier, not a fun place to be.
The deck's strength is vs junk/jund, any fair deck and it's more or less a 50/50 vs all the twin decks maybe even a favorite.
If bloom gets hit with a ban, we can probably get the burn match to 50/50 with a good sideboard and some main deck TR. Then it's just tron that we're dead to, that is sort of where things where 6 months ago when I thought this was a strong deck to run out in wide open events and MTGO leagues.
Also, looking at mtgoldfish and seeing a Gaddok teeg buyout and eye of Ugin going up up up, I'm of the opinion that you'll see a ton of tron at the Modern PT and subsequently afterwards on MTGO. Seems like people are gearing up to play tron or board teeg against it.
The math is shown for the tier rankings in question, if someone has a better formula they should post it, otherwise it is an empty argument i.e saying 'well maybe there's something out there your formula doesn't catch.' Maybe it's out there but until it shows up in an event/events it is not a significant part of the meta game. Keep in mind all of these lists will be looking at the past, they are not attempting to predict the future meta game.
Regarding B/w Tokens, I think it is properly tiered in the current meta game (the system is working).
It is a strong deck, and very fun, but it is not prevalent because you run into lingering souls hate (token hate that is meant for Junk variants) or just other souls to slow you down. What normally makes B/W tokens good is that it's a strong deck flying under the radar, while it is under the radar it is not dodging hate at this time in the meta game.
Basically, B/W tokens was a post PT fate reforged casualty, it took a bullet for all the junk souls decks and it is probably properly represented as a tier 2.5 deck. However if you like the deck keep an eye on it, if Jund replaces some of the Junk or souls go out of favor in junk builds it could be a very good deck very quickly. That being said there is absolutely no reason you couldn't 3-1 or 4-0 a daily with this deck, not being on the top tier list is by no means a death sentence for a deck.
Also, just because they let Mr. woo post on CFB doesn't mean those brews are any good at all, it'd be nice if he bothered to run them through an 8 man or daily with a good result before posting.
Overall I think Twin is a bit better than the field but other than that most of the field is pretty close. Aside from Junk the top tier is pretty vulnerable to a good sideboard/mainboard meta game plan.
Note that one of the more successful amulet players was found to be a cheater. Probably takes at least one top 8 away from it.
I find bloom to be a very fragile deck and have never really had issues beating it. However, some time it just goes off and there is nothing you can do. My super double conspiracy theory is that it does way better in paper than online because of illegal deck manipulation, maybe just spread your amulets out before you cut or something relatively benign
Burn might be the only deck I would argue really isn't tier 1, but gets there due to how much it's played (it's very cheap and easy to pilot). I think it feasts on people that aren't prepared or playing decks that really need to dodge it (which is a very bad strat right now).
When burn is tier 1 it's everyone's fault, step your sideboard game up guys. Game 2 on the play with sideboard in should be a free win against burn.
I think Reid Duke was very fair, all he's really saying is once you decide to add more competitive decks past Standard, go to Modern next. The financial implications are un-said but definitely are a factor. I'm pretty sure 99% of mtg players would tell their friends the same thing when they get started in mtg, go play some standard and then try Modern.
I personally prefer Modern over all other formats so i'm biased. I think the difference between the best deck, say Twin, and a 'tier 2.5' deck like green stompy or whatever is minor enough, for example a pauper deck 4-0'd a Modo daily a few weeks ago in modern.
Obviously in a 10 plus round tourney these differences are multiplied and I wouldn't expect to see stompy or cheerios winning any GP's but for about $70 bucks you can have a lot of fun and success on Modo in the practice room and even dailies. Plus, you can do it for years since you will not have your deck rotated out of existence. In fact it will probably get a few good pieces out of the new sets from time to time.
Now as far as the whole is Legacy/vintage more difficult i.e skill cap argument... I think you have to say yes, there probably is, but it's not like rain man stuff or anything. It's more knowing the many interrelations from a much larger card pool. Really the same skill set as any other format but multiplied by the huge card pools.
But, and this is just my humble opinion, when I look at legacy and see that the starting point of so many competitive deck is, brainstorm, force of will, islands.... I just can't get too excited about it. For all the potential those massive card pools have, they degenerate into similar blue shells.
That being said I wish wizards would push legacy and vintage better on modo because at the end of the day more formats is always better. I don't see why they don't' have a vintage or legacy draft set up all the time. Get the prices down! The online prices are almost sane save for like 1 or 2 cards per deck.
I started messing around with SS again after some time off. I played the martyr/hawks/ascendant version for a long time but have moved off of it in favor of this version that I feel is more consistent and has more power if the game goes long.
Soul sisters ia a really fun deck to play, I can't stress that enough, is it tier 1? No, but it defiantly has game in modern, and all that means is there are maybe 5 decks that are slightly better over the long haul.
So the main changes are the figure of destiny, ajani and Mikaeus.
The ajani and mikaeus are basically anthem 5 and 6. The hero and mikaeus are both cards you can grab with your rangers in the late game. Figure is a beater you can tutor up after a board wipe is big on the turn he un-taps without conditions like the pridemates and ascendants.
Currently tuning the sideboard, I'm sure leylines and spellskites would be improvments but I'm too cheap to comint the $$ to buy them on Mtgo right now. I would really like a good card for the RWU control match-up, rest in peace was my normal go to just to stop snap-caster non-sense. Right now i'm just putting firewalkers in to jam up their removal a bit, i don't think it's a huge value and overall it's not a bad match-up anyways.
Where are the reprints going to come from? Goyf and Liliana to $400 each. The fact that they can't reel those prices in and haven't even tried with one of them.
The Pro's get the blame because the community did not ask for the PT to go away, they got it put back on the schedule. Then the Pro's cried and cried.
There was really nothing wrong with the eldrazi PT, it was fun to see LSV and company run out a new brew that smash the field. The error was not fixing the format the next week, or at least before the GP's.
How *****ty must it have been for all the normal players to go to those GP's, spend good money $100's, and just get rolled by the 8 sol ring decks?? That was not a twin banning or a format problem that was WOTC sitting on their thumbs to sell more Thought knot seers and reality smashers at the expense of their players.
I disagree with the last point, wizards does not NEED to keep modern strong they, as a company, will be just fine with limited and standard and they know it.
Preface, I don't think twin should have been banned, they should have just banned exarch. This wasn't even that hard to figure out, all you needed to do was take a 1 or 2% off the decks win rate and exposing it to blowout by bolt would have done it.
That being said it's still not a big deal the combo was basicly a trun 3 kill because of the flash mechanic and the format is better with out it warping game play and deck building.
However, that won't matter since the format will just die soon. Lets be honest if Modern PT's don't promote MTG well enough for WOTC, then why bother with GP's even in the long run???
Modern and EDH are always the most popular/favorite formats when people make polls, so why piss on either?
There is no way around the fact that if there is not a promotional tour associated with a format the format is dead in the long run.
So where does that leave modern and it's fans? I don't know, I'm going to sit on my modern cards on MODO in anticipation of Peak Modern in the next couple years when it becomes clear that WOTC isn't reprinting and the prices go nuts.
Modern players, in my opinion, want a format where their entire deck is not invalidated every 12 months, cough... standard.
Modern players want a format where they can tune a deck over years, generally we don't have the time to brew, buy and assemble decks every time standard rotates.
Modern players want a format where their knowledge of the meta and format over all contributes to their ability to win matches.
Modern is the most affordable format in the long run since you can build your deck over years and constantly tune, tweak and add to it, plus there where some reprints.
Pro's complaining about the modern pro tour was always pathetic. The pros that played modern on the regular always did very well, the pros that just wanted to pick up a standard deck (dumbed down magic)with relatively little practice and have a roll at 40k hated it because they would get housed by people who actually played the modern format.
WOTC, in a sense, knows it's market I guess, this caters to kiddies who like to crack packs and pro's who want to show up at a standard PT after cramming for a week with a comparable shot at winning to most of the field.
Think about it, no one would ever be like... hey here is a Texas hold em tournament I'll just go sit in this house and play my friends for a week then i'll be more or less on par with the field no matter how much prep they did.
THIS IS WHY THE SO CALLED "PRO" COMMUNITY HAS LOBBIED TO KILL MODERN, they can not be competitive if they don't put in the time to this great format, so they want it dead.
Then they cry variance, or match up, give me a break the top 32 at the modern PT has many people who consistently do well year to year.
RIP MODERN
I had some luck with hour of reckoning and a play set of raise the alarm instead of bitterblosoms. This allowed me to safley play worship, one main one board as well as a hedge against drazi/burn/zoo.
However in my one match vs the deck in the one league I played I lost 1-2 all the same, but game one and game three ended with him at 5 and 3 life respectivly, and the guy had wait for it.... Kozilek's Return maindecked... can you believe that.
If return isn't involved I win all three games pretty easily, the odd thing was that I got absolutely rolled up by a stock U/R delver list, I don't rember that deck being a problem but I haven't had to play it in a long time.
That being said I don't think tokens is in a great place right now, the reaction from the meta will be to play like living end, ensnaring bridge and sweepers which all counter our strength of being so strong in combat, evasion and clowning targeted removal.
Worship is great tech for these matches, I treat coco/elves like a merfolk match up, they also don't have nearly as many lords path captain overrun and you should have enough time to win regardless. If you can strip the tap 3 get mana guys with early discard that really helps too.
My normal SB would be like Wrath of god worship Timely Reinforcements in 3x Bitterblossom out.
My first move would be a second timely ASAP, or even a 3rd if your meta is super aggressive. Then like you said work on getting 3 good planes walkers. You can pre-board the 8th removal or relics etc and i think that would be more useful than those 6 slots for zealous and the tides.
And like he said, really don't worry about BB, they are nice, turn two BB does just win sometimes but then again raise the alarm is a faster clock so it's pretty even. I think i'm running 3 of each right now because I don't have champs.
If tron starts to crop up don't hesitate to add ghost quarters, I resisted for so long and got so frustrated, but it really makes the match up so much better than hoping your stony silence and discard slows them down (it never does).
Every time I join a league it seems like a get 2x tron matches that I swear I'm about 25% to win, they basically have to draw bad even an average hand will get there it seems like vs tokens.
The long and short of it in regards to b/w tokens right now is that you're a big dog to burn, tron and bloom... That's half of the top tier, not a fun place to be.
The deck's strength is vs junk/jund, any fair deck and it's more or less a 50/50 vs all the twin decks maybe even a favorite.
If bloom gets hit with a ban, we can probably get the burn match to 50/50 with a good sideboard and some main deck TR. Then it's just tron that we're dead to, that is sort of where things where 6 months ago when I thought this was a strong deck to run out in wide open events and MTGO leagues.
Also, looking at mtgoldfish and seeing a Gaddok teeg buyout and eye of Ugin going up up up, I'm of the opinion that you'll see a ton of tron at the Modern PT and subsequently afterwards on MTGO. Seems like people are gearing up to play tron or board teeg against it.
Maybe they want twin combo to die to bolt vov
First rule of legacy, brainstorming is more difficult than curing cancer
Second rule of legacy, if it's not a counter spell it's not interaction
I'm obviously exaggerating but it seems that way sometimes
Regarding B/w Tokens, I think it is properly tiered in the current meta game (the system is working).
It is a strong deck, and very fun, but it is not prevalent because you run into lingering souls hate (token hate that is meant for Junk variants) or just other souls to slow you down. What normally makes B/W tokens good is that it's a strong deck flying under the radar, while it is under the radar it is not dodging hate at this time in the meta game.
Basically, B/W tokens was a post PT fate reforged casualty, it took a bullet for all the junk souls decks and it is probably properly represented as a tier 2.5 deck. However if you like the deck keep an eye on it, if Jund replaces some of the Junk or souls go out of favor in junk builds it could be a very good deck very quickly. That being said there is absolutely no reason you couldn't 3-1 or 4-0 a daily with this deck, not being on the top tier list is by no means a death sentence for a deck.
Also, just because they let Mr. woo post on CFB doesn't mean those brews are any good at all, it'd be nice if he bothered to run them through an 8 man or daily with a good result before posting.
Note that one of the more successful amulet players was found to be a cheater. Probably takes at least one top 8 away from it.
I find bloom to be a very fragile deck and have never really had issues beating it. However, some time it just goes off and there is nothing you can do. My super double conspiracy theory is that it does way better in paper than online because of illegal deck manipulation, maybe just spread your amulets out before you cut or something relatively benign
Burn might be the only deck I would argue really isn't tier 1, but gets there due to how much it's played (it's very cheap and easy to pilot). I think it feasts on people that aren't prepared or playing decks that really need to dodge it (which is a very bad strat right now).
When burn is tier 1 it's everyone's fault, step your sideboard game up guys. Game 2 on the play with sideboard in should be a free win against burn.
I personally prefer Modern over all other formats so i'm biased. I think the difference between the best deck, say Twin, and a 'tier 2.5' deck like green stompy or whatever is minor enough, for example a pauper deck 4-0'd a Modo daily a few weeks ago in modern.
Obviously in a 10 plus round tourney these differences are multiplied and I wouldn't expect to see stompy or cheerios winning any GP's but for about $70 bucks you can have a lot of fun and success on Modo in the practice room and even dailies. Plus, you can do it for years since you will not have your deck rotated out of existence. In fact it will probably get a few good pieces out of the new sets from time to time.
Now as far as the whole is Legacy/vintage more difficult i.e skill cap argument... I think you have to say yes, there probably is, but it's not like rain man stuff or anything. It's more knowing the many interrelations from a much larger card pool. Really the same skill set as any other format but multiplied by the huge card pools.
But, and this is just my humble opinion, when I look at legacy and see that the starting point of so many competitive deck is, brainstorm, force of will, islands.... I just can't get too excited about it. For all the potential those massive card pools have, they degenerate into similar blue shells.
That being said I wish wizards would push legacy and vintage better on modo because at the end of the day more formats is always better. I don't see why they don't' have a vintage or legacy draft set up all the time. Get the prices down! The online prices are almost sane save for like 1 or 2 cards per deck.
Just my poorly worded 2 cents
Soul sisters ia a really fun deck to play, I can't stress that enough, is it tier 1? No, but it defiantly has game in modern, and all that means is there are maybe 5 decks that are slightly better over the long haul.
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Spectral Procession
4 Ranger of Eos
2 Windbrisk Heights
21 Plains
4 Path to Exile
4 Honor of the Pure
2 Hero of Bladehold
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Figure of Destiny
1 Ajani Goldmane
3 Celestial Flare
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Mirran Crusader
3 Suppression Field
So the main changes are the figure of destiny, ajani and Mikaeus.
The ajani and mikaeus are basically anthem 5 and 6. The hero and mikaeus are both cards you can grab with your rangers in the late game. Figure is a beater you can tutor up after a board wipe is big on the turn he un-taps without conditions like the pridemates and ascendants.
Currently tuning the sideboard, I'm sure leylines and spellskites would be improvments but I'm too cheap to comint the $$ to buy them on Mtgo right now. I would really like a good card for the RWU control match-up, rest in peace was my normal go to just to stop snap-caster non-sense. Right now i'm just putting firewalkers in to jam up their removal a bit, i don't think it's a huge value and overall it's not a bad match-up anyways.
Any thoughts?