MTG Salvation

Good article and as someone who’s been on Rock for a long time I always disagreed with people who thought of them as being interchangeable. Where tracker is great in the mirror or control matchups, it’s nearly unplayable against humans or affinity where Bob is often the best card we have. I’ve settled on Bob being a core 3-4 of at all times and tracker being a flex spot of 2-4 depending on the meta. These days I’m running 2 and could even see going to zero if the meta were ever fast enough

Since when is a deck that wins through combat damage delivered by synergistic creatures not a fair deck? Humans is refreshing to see because it's the best fair creature based aggro deck we've seen in a long long time

Quote from BadMcFadden »

Im not sure which I would prefer, ban cavern of souls or make counterspell modern legal. Control is still a joke. Try casting jtms in this format using an actual blue deck with cryptics and knots. The creature decks smoke you with a zero opportunity cost land (cavern) and the combo decks chortle with glee as you pay four mana for nothing and proceed to lose the game as you flounder around with your one cryptic command or logic knot that you hoped would get there.

Cavern should have cost life to use like boseiju and/or come in tapped like boseiju. Playing it should have had a cost that you would weigh vs the benefits. People play unclaimed territory in modern - that tells you all you need to know about having uncounterable slapped on for free on this land.

And no, tapping out t3 to field of ruin it doesnt help. They get gross tempo and can ust draw another one as they invariably play four.

How on earth do we continue to have these "ban cavern or give me more powerful spells" arguments less than 24 hours out from a major event where 3 out of the top 8 decks were cryptic command decks? The argument that blue or control is underpowered flies completely in the face of tournament finishes and suggestions for more tools is actually absurd.



Modern doesn't really need anything at this point, and it absolutely doesn't need more tools given to decks that are already performing well.

I don't know that you can say BBE made RG Eldrazi into a thing when the deck won a GP right before BBE was even legal in the format

The reason it works is because a blinked leonin arbiter is a new instance of leonin arbiter, so the one that was "paid for" no longer exists and your opponent has not paid to ignore the effect of the leonin arbiter currently on the battlefield. The relevant thing to remember in these interactions is that paying for leonin arbiter's ability is a special action that does not use the stack and the stack does not resolve until both players have passed priority without taking an action. So you can't respond to your opponent paying 2 to ignore leonin arbiter's effect (and your opponent may call you on this and try and argue this point) by blinking leonin arbiter, but you will receive priority again after your opponent pays 2 to ignore leonin arbiter's effect and before the fetch resolves as they have not passed priority without taking an action. Opponent's will often try and say "I pay 2 and the fetch resolves since this doesn't use the stack you don't get priority" which is incorrect.

Quote from Superna7ural »

Quote from pierrebai »

While I understand that it's human nature to frame things to support one's belief and that's it's always tempting to use rhetoric, it's still annoying to constantly read negatively framed positions.

What I'm tired of reading about is the tired "free wins".

Some cards are good against some matchups. That's the point of playing them, isn't it? When a deck has cards that are good against a given deck and that deck pilot fails to sideboard or play properly against said card, it's not a free win. It's just wise deck building. I've watched a match this week-end where a multi-colors deck pilot chose to fetch shock land instead of basics and got locked out of his colors due to a blood moon. His opponent was ponza. It was not the first game. Fetching non-basics was just a plain greedy error.

What people call free win fall into one of the categories:

1. Early powerful cards. (Cranial plating for example)
2. Good sideboard cards. (Blood moon for example)
3. God hands. (Turn 3 Karn for example)
4. High-variance decks that can get an early win. (Let's say charbelcher, even though it's not played to any extent. Or reanimator.)

All of these are actually balanced plays. Affinity can fold to hate. Blood moon is entirely dead in some matchups and can be dead if played around smartly. Karn is a dead card if they don't assemble tron.

You don't like these cards? Fine. Just say it.

You think a card is unfair and should be banned? Fine. Just say it.

Stop talking about "Free wins." A win is a win whatever the turn it was decided, some decks are just inherently designed to be fast.

While I do generally agree with this sentiment, you also have to understand that "free wins" are a thing in Modern. Going back to the whole Brainstorm discussion a few pages back, Modern is not a format that enables people to really work their way out of these match up crushing cards. So if Karn gets out on you before you can interact, the win% spikes dramatically.

Is that all that different from playing a creature deck and getting supreme verdicted after you've played out a bunch of elves on your past three turns? You've lost your entire board, your opponent has more cards in hand and more selection than you and the ability to generate further card advantage, why is it "gg ez" when Tron Karns you on turn 3, but when you're playing wraths against a deck that relies on playing out a bunch of creatures to win it's suddenly some brutally hard win that you had to eke out against all odds?

Quote from idSurge »

You play taxes to tilt people who want to bolt for R, and use fetchlands with wild abandon.

And I get to play Stripmine in Modern and all I had to do to make it work was fill my deck with a bunch of underpowered bears!

Oh no way, it'd been long enough since I played for the card that I thought the activation cost was just phyrexian mana. I don't know if you can actually turn 3 with it in that case, but either way the problem with the card has nothing to do with potential for turn 3 kills anyway.

Quote from SCP7 »

With Felidar Guardian Pod combos just with Kitchen Finks on the board. No, thank you. Besides it is a very strong grinding machine.

This. I played Pod, you could often times just find whatever the best card in your deck was at will, it was absurd. With today's card pool you can turn 4 combo with birthing pod and virtually any creature in the deck in your opening hand. If you have a mana dork and a finks it's a turn 3 combo. If your opponent is going to disrupt your combo you just pod into siege rhino on turn 4, then siege rhino on turn 5, then siege rhino on turn 6 on top of whatever creatures you're actually casting from hand. The deck is ******* nutty. It's amazingly fun to play, and I wish there was a world where I could play it again that wouldn't be toxic as hell to the metagame, but it shouldn't be coming back any time soon.

Ah yes, I'm sure people would have played UR Pyromancer or Kiki Combo in blue if only those cards had been printed when Twin was still legal...

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

I still feel players have to jump through hoops just to do as well as midrange, combo and aggro. Not that this is me claiming blue is bad---it just takes more dedication than normal.

I just don't understand what the interactive players want. On the one hand, I constantly here stuff about how linear decks are not skill-testing Magic and skill doesn't matter. They then naturally follow-up by saying interactive decks are the opposite: skill-testing decks where play skill and choices do matter and you can pick up tiny edges for excellent play. This part makes sense to me and I think it reflects what most interactive players believe about their decks. As a player who prefers interactive strategies, I also want such a deck to exist and I want to play it.

On the other hand, and here's the part that makes zero sense, the interactive players are always complaining that their decks take TOO much skill to win and the matchups are too hard. As someone who played a lot of UW Control on MTGO, this is exactly my favorite part of playing the deck. Mistakes were highly unforgiving and I learned from them. You didn't have Brainstorm or FoW to fall back on in case something went wrong. You had to make extremely tight decisions and gameplay to come out on top, and I loved the feeling of eking out 45/55 or worse matchups. Many decisions were related to mulligans, correct deck configuration, and reading an opponent's turn 1 play. I would imagine other Spikey interactive players would enjoy the same feeling, but instead many of them constantly complain about that same experience.

I remain convinced that many interactive players just want the 50/50 Twin type back deck. They don't want bad matchups and they try to camouflage this by saying that their matchups should be as close to 50/50 across the board, not polarized in the 20/80 or 80/20 range. The implication is that the following two decks are equally fair and equally acceptable in a format:

Deck A
Matchup 1: 50/50
Matchup 2: 45/55
Matchup 3: 55/45
Matchup 4: 50/50

Deck B
Matchup 1: 30/70
Matchup 2: 40/60
Matchup 3: 60/40
Matchup 4: 70/30

These two theoretical decks and their theoretical matchup spectrums have the same average MWP across the board. But the range is totally different in practice and Deck A is almost definitely a better deck. This is particularly true because Deck A secretly has a ton of 70/30 matchups against random decks because it's so tuned. This typically polarizes the format towards a few top-tier decks that can battle against each other on even footing, with all the lower-tier stuff getting totally pushed out by some format beasts.

I believe there is a contingent of interactive players who want Deck A and view their success on such a deck as a testament to their skill and prowess on the archetype. In reality, this deck isn't actually highlighting their skill or lack of skill. The deck is just probably too good and everyone should probably be playing it. That deck also wouldn't require as much skill to pilot as many claim. It basically plays itself because it's so good in so many situations. If you want to play skill-testing, interactive Magic, Modern has decks for you. If you want a 50/50+ interactive deck that picks up random 70/30+ games against lower-tier decks, Modern will never have such a deck (competitive Magic as a whole probably won't for any sustained period of time) and you're requesting something that isn't aligned with format realities. It would be like combo players clamoring for a tiered Hypergenesis deck to get a proper explosive combo experience.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

Splinter twin, while not too broken or powerful could severely reduce diversity so it doesn't seem beneficial to unban

To this day, I still do not understand why it is better to have a bunch of bad and mediocre decks without a good option, instead of a bunch of bad and mediocre decks with a good option. How does that in any way help the bad and mediocre decks?

Because our definition, is simply your definition.

Is UWR Control bad? If so, how is it getting Top 8's? There were 3 or 4 UR Breach decks in the Top 16 at the GP. Is it bad or mediocre?

What decks are NOT mediocre, may be a better question. UW Control?

Twin would (I know it pains me as well) limit diversity in the following ways.

1. Unless your Uxx deck has MASSIVE game against Twin, if you are playing UR, you should be on Twin. That means Blue Moon, UR Breach, Temur Moon, and UR Madcap, all of which HAVE been able to get into that Top 16 realm against the field we have of today, disappear. They become URx Twin, period.

2. Any deck that is not disruptive, and does not win prior to Turn 3/4, can simply lose the game, immediately. They could have executed an infinite life combo and tapped out with Twin on the play on their Turn 3, and lose. There are any number of jank (imo) decks, that do not have any game against Twin. I know this, you know this, we used to prey on those decks and just smirk (maybe that was just me) at how they had zero chance.

Those are decks that in this world, right now, actually have game. Those all go away.

3. Perception matters, and in a world where Jund has once again claimed its pillar, with Affinity, and apparently GxTron (...) you would 100% see people claiming if you are not on one of those decks (or the popular but less regarded decks like Burn) then you dont have a chance.

I'd drop everything and play Twin this afternoon, if it was unbanned. No more messing with GDS, or UWR Control (why play 12 turns when I can play 3.5?) or stupid 4 colour Bloodbraid brews...I would just play Twin, and so would a lot of others.

Now to go back to 'bad and mediocre decks'...well context matters. If those bad/mediocre decks are close to parity with the field, are they really bad or are they still competitive, just more narrow?

The decks have inconsistent and mediocre results, as they have had for the past two years. Hit and miss flurries of stubborn people jamming the decks over and over until a few people sporadically pull their way near (but not too near) the top. However, the same same could be said about just about any deck in the format. The difference is that people aren't taking URx decks to a GP because they expect to win; they're taking it because they love playing those decks, no matter how good or bad they may be. In today's meta, I'm honestly more sad to not be playing Delver than to not be playing Twin.

1. Considering multiple other blue decks existed at reasonable levels for years with Twin in the format, I expect many people would continue to play them. Geist, Delver, Control were all popular strategies that stayed firmly Tier 2, and drifted in and out of Tier 1 with Twin in the format. Each of those other kinds of decks got Top 8s with Twin legal. These new builds, if they are strong enough to hold their own, would continue to be played. If they're not, well that's not Twin's fault. Most builds of most URx decks today are still either too slow, too inconsistent, or both.

2. Based on the current level of broken debauchery that can kill you on the first few turns of the game if you choose not to interact, this has never once resonated with me in any way as a reasonable thing to criticize. Especially with the frequency with which it actually happened. And if it means fragile jank brews don't get to top 8 a GP, so be it. Perhaps they should actually try to care about what their opponent is doing instead of vomiting their hand on the field and hoping to goldfish past their opponents for free wins themselves. Or accept that ignoring your opponent will cost you games a certain percentage of time.

3. So it's fine for Jund and Affinity and Tron to be pillars, but not URx? Must be nice for them. /shrug.

Basically, the fact that Jace is only really helping preexisting combo decks (Scapeshift, Knightfall, Breach) tells us that the fundamental problem in the archetype is STILL a combination of lack of answers and lack of good win conditions. You either have to win with a relatively quick/reliable combo OR you doll the dice and hope your answers line up with your opponent.

This doesn't even make sense. Jace helps existing decks with a combo because Jace isn't a card that just creates archetypes all on its own. BBE is the same - they are just super good cards. We all friggin' knew that. The problem with Twin is that you either have those other blue decks you are referring to, or twin. No cool UR Pyromancer (which top 8'ed a pro tour this year, just saying), no UW control, no grixis shadow, no jeskai flash, no UR breach, no madcap experiment shenanigans. It all becomes Twin.

I'll agree with you on one point, and I've said it about jund all the time - the idea that certain decks need to exist and be tier one as "pillars" is stupid. Modern has been evolving and changing since Twin was banned. Except for one bad period with eldrazi, the format has been incredibly diverse while also not stagnating. Innovation is constant, decks are rising and falling constantly, it's frankly amazing. The idea that a certain handful of decks need to exist for modern's health just because they were at the top five years ago is ridiculous.

Quote from cfusionpm »

The difference is that people aren't taking URx decks to a GP because they expect to win; they're taking it because they love playing those decks, no matter how good or bad they may be.

This is simply wrong. There are a lot of players, and professional players, who play URx decks at GPs AND expect to win with them. People who do magic for a living often always play for the win. Claiming that people like Jim Davis are playing UWR just for the sake of it is wrong, both because he plays to win, as well because at several points he discussed his choices.

Hi jordan

I feel like you need to change your analysis of cavern of souls in the primer.
The card definitely has value, which you are dismissing offhand. If you're going to take this line it at least deserves a more robust rationale for your dismissal.
Also I don't think it's fair to have your short analysis of the card as a way to bash other players which is what you chose to do.

The reason why I bring it back up is because tempo/control decks in modern are perhaps more widely played than before in the format as a whole, and cards like ceremonious rejection exist. It's entirely feasible in your average control matchup to have your four and five-drops countered as you curve out, leaving both you and your opponent staring each other down with maybe five mana. At this point, your opponent lands a jace, a geist, breaches an emrakul, drops a Gideon or whatever who knows, and suddenly that cavern could have made all the difference.

As someone who's interested in the deck and wishes to get some success with it, I can't believe that a card we can include so easily and has such upside can be so readily dismissed and then deflected onto 'bad players not playing around sweepers'.

At present, based on my experience playing eldrazi decks in general (and sideboarding them in with Tron as well) I've found a singleton cavern to be worthwhile, and looking st the primer I'm not really convinced to think any other way. It just reads as 'if you think it's good, you can't play the deck' which is less than helpful.

Now that I re-read you, I think I misunderstood. I was thrown off by the air quotes. :]

Quote from idSurge »

How many people at this glorified FNM?

All in all, what did this weekend and all my games since the unbans teach me?

It is pointless to play fair, you simply give up percentage points.

Time to dust off the UR Prowess.

And yet we have Jund and UW Control in the T8, with BBE and JTMS respectively. I'm pretty sure it's just as viable to those fair players as the unfair ones. In fact, UW Control also had only one representative on Day 2 to begin with and they made it all the way to T8.

I do think it's harder to play those decks in Modern and you need a really tight 75. But don't players who prefer these strategies want to see tight gameplay rewarded? I know some people just want ezmode Twin back and 50/50+ matchups across the board, but I don't think that's everyone. I think most interactive players should be totally succesful and fulfilled in this format if they put in the reps and make the right choices.

Quote from tronix »

what i dont agree on is telling people what they are allowed to feel. you are functionally telling people that you dont agree or understand why they find particular aspects of the game un-fun, therefore they are wrong and should stop feeling that way. which strikes me as odd because you propose that there is no right way for the game to be played, then immediately begin explaining the right way.

It's fine to feel a certain way about the game. What is not fine is to include in that feeling an implicit (or explicit) suggestion that one's feeling is more valid than someone else's feeling. So if I'm playing Grixis Control and get overrun by Bogles on T3, that can certainly make me feel bad and that's totally reasonable and okay. But I can't believe or frame my feelsbad moment as a worse feelsbad moment than that of a Bogles player who gets shut down by discard and sac effects and can't execute their own game plan. They feel bad when that happens, and yet many players somehow believe this feeling is less valid, reasonable, and intense than the control player being unable to remove an aura'd up Bogle from the board. That is the unfair and biased suggestion we see all the time.

basically my point is that you are expressing your opinion on the game and format without acknowledging that other opinions are just as valid as yours.

I'm not saying that at all, and I don't know where you got that in my previous post. I'm basically saying the opposite. I am saying that the players who believe in a "proper way" to play Magic (i.e. interactive, grindy, midrangey/control games) often also believe that their feelsbad moments are more legitimate or valid than the feelsbad moments of a linear/aggro/combo player who gets shut down. They believe that the following two feelings are not equally legitimate:

a. Tron player on the play goes T3 Karn into T4 Wurmcoil against Jund and the Jund player scoops on T4 because they can't recover. The Jund player feels totally shut down and feels bad.
b. Jund player on the play goes T1 IoK, T2 TS, T3 Fulminator and the Tron player scoops on T8 after trying to assemble an engine and win condition but they are never really in the game. The Tron player feels totally shut down and feels bad.

I think most people would agree that (a) is a feelsbad moment, but many people would try to explain that (b) is totally fine and the Tron player is in the wrong for feeling bad. In fact, many would argue they were in the wrong for playing Tron at all. That is the kind of unfair and unreasonable double standard we see. I am saying both of those feelsbad moments are valid and real, not that one is and another isn't, and not that neither of the feelings are valid/real.

take a moment to consider why wizards has moved away from certain types of gameplay elements. whether or not you agree with their reasons isnt important; whats important is to realize that their reasons exist.

I don't care about what Wizards has moved away from in Standard. I just care about Modern, where they continue to promote all those styles of gameplay as recently as the last B&R update (no bans of so-called "unfun" archetypes) and M25 (reprints of so-called "unfun" cards).

Quote from tronix »

people are allowed to not like stuff or to think any manner of things are fun and unfun. as long as they arent forcing their opinion on others, i find their commentary just as valuable as anyone elses.

The problem is that the feelsbad moments for midrange/control/interactive players are often touted as more legitimate, valuable, real, and valid than the feelsbad moments for linear/aggro/combo/big mana players. In essence, those who think that non-interactive players running over interactive players feels the worst are often forcing their opinion on others.

@tronix & Spsiegel1987, When was the last time you built a deck in which you picked out cards to allow the opponent to interact with the gamestate to their hearts content? If you've included removal into your deck(s), have you ever stopped to consider what the exact purpose of that removal is?

It is there to deny the opponent the option to attack with their creature. Artifact removal is there to deny the opponent the option to use their artifacts. Discard spells, counters, etc., all there to reduce the number and significance of options from the opponent's decision tree, before they can do the same to you.

This is a major issue that comes up when people tend to define "interaction" and "linear" in a subjective way. They are doing so based on their feelings of entitlement - They feel entitled to playing the game how they want to play it, and not allow the opponent(s) to play it how they want to. We are only as entitled as the metagame and our choices in deck selection and construction allow. Kitchen table players who decry those who "netdeck" do so because they feel entitled to winning with their pile, displaying the same behavior. It's not about interacting with the opponent, it's about interacting with the gamestate more than the opponent can. If you are building a deck to allow the opponent to make significant choices as they see fit, then you're doing it wrong.

A better definition of "linear", when referring to a deck, is an objective one, in the designs of the inherent decision trees and other single-minded characteristics. Examples of single-minded characteristics are when there is a greedy manabase that is easily shut off by Blood Moon (their manabase has a single aspect that can be shut off, or "lined out"), or when about everything in the deck has cmc 1 that can be shut off by Chalice of the Void (the curve has a single aspect that can be "lined out"), or the deck is all-in on creature combat and can be shut off by Ensnaring Bridge (and, again, all of the branches on their decision tree are now "lined out").

Now, when we build or choose our decks, we would be naive or obstinate to not accept that there is some inherent weak characteristic of the deck that can effectively be "lined out". If this were not the case, then there would be only one correct deck to play (see: Eldrazi Winter or Flash Hulk). None of us are entitled to win every game as we wish. None of us are even entitled to force other players to play the game how we wish. We can only build and choose our decks. That other player has just as much a claim on how the game should be played as we do, however much we find it "unfun".

Now, our method of recognizing this aspect of the game (and all games) says a lot about our character and level of maturity. How seriously would you take me if I insisted that, if we were to play chess, you were only allowed to attack the flanks (1. a4, 1. h4) and not go for control of the center of the board?

Quote from Dressedspring1 »

Quote from idSurge »

The meta like ETron, GTron, Storm, Affinity, and GDS. That meta, is not good for the game.

Aside from the incredibly suspect inclusion of GDS in the non interactive category, you're making a subjective judgement and passing it off as given that "that meta, is not good for the game". Modern continued to see strong growth during periods when all of those decks were at the top of the metagame so I would argue that you're conflating "good for the game" with what you like to play. Personally I think there is substantially more interesting decision making in the midrange vs aggro/combo matchup, or the affinity mirror as opposed to midrange mirrors which often come down to the person top decking two good things beating the person who top decked two lands. That is however only my value based judgement and I wouldn't go so far as to say whether it's good for the game or not. I would suspect however that the metagame in which the most people are happy is one in which a variety of strategies from linear to interactive are competitively viable. People get caught up in this narrative that interactive strategies are the ones that belong in magic and seem to forget that cards like goblin guide were deliberately printed to enable aggro strategies and those strategies are every bit as valid as anything else.

Correct. Its 100% subjective, I should have put 'imo' after it. I found that meta dull, in the extreme. I'll take Jund and URx games all day, every day, IN ADDITION to those and other decks (Burn, Elves, whatever) but I feel that that meta, was pushing out, or down, other strategies (mid range, and control) far too much.

All, of course, imo.

Quote from tronix »

Quote from Pistallion »

Drawing sideboard cards increase your win %, obviously. But we'd rather have it so that games don't rely solely on drawing them or losing.

Dressedspring1 said it just a few posts before:

sorry i am still not understanding your point. haymaker hate cards have existed forever. 2 months ago leading up to the pro-tour, when people were loving the format - the same hate cards were being played and still were important in matchups.

suddenly 1 narrow hate card against 2 decks gets spoiled and the modern format devolves into a format where only getting lucky and drawing sideboard cards matters?

also deaths shadow didnt emerge as some response to format conditions. if you watch the evolution of the deck over the last 1.5-2 years starting with suicide zoo its clear it was a slow dawning realization that 'holy crap deaths shadow is really freaking powerful', and was then incorporated into every midrange strategy playing black. it was so powerful that decks warped around the card creating the DS decks we see today.

They printed a card that is pretty flexible in hitting multiple matchups. It is an unnecessary printing and is pandering to the crybabies that constantly cry about Tron and Storm, that's my point. From my experience, especially in paper magic where it is much softer than online magic, people who don't play the deck have a pretty bad understanding of the Storm deck.

Also, your last part about Death's Shadow is a misunderstand of Dressedspring1's point. It is not about the evolution of Death Shadow decks, its about how the format forms around other powerful decks like Death Shadow decks