The biggest problem when talking about Stirrings ban is that, imo, people are underestimating the damage it will do to the decks that play it.
Lantern has disappeared from the top tables after the unbans; Amulet is also not close to being a tier 1 deck. Both would probably not survive the ban.
I've talked to Tron players and they seem to agree that the current iteration cannot survive without Stirrings, since it not only helps getting Tron online but also finds wincon (something the deck cannot do as efficiently as it could when Eye was legal). I cannot speak much about KCI, but from what I've seen, the success is more due to low hate than resiliency.
These decks aren't threatening the format in any way. Also, they are different decks with different styles. Lantern is prison, KCI combo, Tron and Amulet big mana. I don't think banning it would increase diversity or help the format in any way besides taking out the public enemies.
What do you think about sideboard wincon that dont need to use the grave like Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Platinium Emperion?
I fell that Empty the Warrens isnt the best option because sometimes you cast it with 5 storm counters because you cant use the grave, them you lose the game because 10 goblins arent enough.
I don't think more wincons is what we need, nor can we really support them.
Chandra is a good card, but it's more a value engine than wincon on herself. We don't have many ways to prevent a Control player from Colonnading her to death if he wants (although we can -- and should -- punish them for it with our Storm wincons). The ult might come up one or two times, but it's realistically unreliable (like every other PW ult).
Platinum Emperion might steal some matches against Burn, but it's also unreliable. White decks will keep their paths for our cost reducers. This is also something that only works once, so even if you manage to get a free win on g2 against Burn.
However, what bothers me more about this gameplan is that it requires no less than 40% of your entire sideboard for when Storm has so much targeted hate around the format. The fact that this is terrible against UWx and Jund (grindy matchups, to which half my sideboard is devoted, the other half being anti-hate) also doesn't help.
I think we should discuss Precognition Field. It lets you have potentially all resources available during the match except your sideboard. It appears to me very strong against graveyard hate, and good overall, since there is very limited hate against enchantment g2 and g3. It makes Fetchlands better for the deck because it let you change the top card of your library. I am a big fan of fetchlands, but I play fetchless for field purposes. Jace´s Sanctum is a nice card that in the right MU's can score you a win. Primal Amulet is also nice because many opponents would never bring artifact hate against us g2, and the surprise element is very good. I am aware that some hate like detention sphere and maelstrom pulse and even Abrade, to name a few, gets it. Wear/Tear is also strong against both of these and blank against Baral/Electromancer.
All of these are slow and have the down sides, but sometimes is so useless to land a creature thats gonna be destroyed or the army of goblins ready to die.
By having all of them, you can have different things as engines, rotating it g2 and g3 it can blank many sideboard cards of your oponents, that do bring enchantment/artifact hate when they see these cards and realize they didn't put sideboards against them. So you bet next game they will be packed with it, and we just gonna be open for comboing, still having Baral/Electromancer/enchantment/artifact(that becomes a land that generates one extra mana and copies a spell) for the win.
Baral and electromancer let you win right away much easier than the rest, but Modern has become a little bit slower, we have decent pieces of interaction, specially if you are playing Caleb's list. Assuming that hate is gonna be brought against us, games will probably be slower anyways and by having a wider variety of engines that demand different cards to interact we get stronger. Also because we make a less horrible Gifts pile that doesn't envolve Noxious Revival, I'm not a big fan of the loss of 2 life and 2 cards, itself and what it could have been. I feel better getting a Snow-Island and Precog/Amulet/Jace's Sanctum/chandra or whatever.
Did you test those cards? They look interesting but I'm not sold on Sanctum and Amulet (4 mana is a real cost on a 17-land deck. It's also harder to get under counters). However, I like how they interact with our gameplay. Amulet being a middle term between Electromancer and Ascension also caught my attention.
No, because a Jace is stronger than Visions has ever been
Midrange decks will consolidate into BUG.
I doubt BUG will be a thing in Modern even with Jace. It's far more likely Grixis or Jeskai become the dominant fair deck than BUG being playable if JTMS is unbanned. I've lost count of how many times people have declared that "card X will finally make BUG good in Modern," but it never happens.
Well, I don't know if BUG will be the main blue deck, but with Jace ubanned it's by far the best BGx and that's quite sad :/
Right call from Forsythe. It would be a bad call to ban a deck that has just won the Pro Tour and not much else last year when everybody is already with the "Pro Tour winner will get banned" thinking.
However, I am still sure that Lantern is the best deck and if I'm right it will win more events this year and this will be enough to ban something (probably Whir or Bridge). 1 PT + 3 GPs in the same year looks like a good reason to ban something in modern and I doubt many people would question that.
About Stirrings, playing a colorless deck has a real deckbuilding cost, although I think he just meant "we don't want to ban Tron out of the format".
While I agree with most of your reasonings, I don't think Whir is the most likely candidate. Lantern is unfun to play against because it can control your hand, field and topdeck at the same time. The only thing Whir does is add consistency; however, it's also the slowest and easier to deal with card. We saw moments where Salvatto couldn't play Whir because he didn't have triple blue on the field (something not trivial for the deck). If they want to hit a consistency engine, Stirrings will take the hit.
However, I think Lantern and Ensnaring Bridge are the real banable cards; without them, Lantern loses a good bit of it's consistency and is forced to run narrow or bad cards to make up for it.
Could someone explain me why some lists play Chained to the Rocks instead of Path to Exile? Is Path's drawback so bad that it's worth to play a sorcery version weak to enchantment and land destruction or am I missing something?
To be honest, I don't think this diversity will impact on the unban chances. After all we've seen recently in modern, is it really a surprise that there are 7 archetypes on the top 8? Sure, nobody was really expecting UR Pyromancer or BR Hollow One (a deck that frequently loses to itself thanks to the randomness of Burning Inquiry and Goblin Lore ), but the sheer diversity wasn't unexpected.
However, going to the facts, no real White or Green deck made top 8. Abzan is the only deck on top 8 that would probably play SFM; BBE and GSZ's decks are nowhere to be seen. Titanshift's poor performance is actually a good reason to unban and unless a Knightfall or Elves managed to 9-1 modern but 0-6 draft, Zenith should be safe to unban and also Stoneforge if the same applies for other Abzan. The PT didn't give us enough data about Jund to judge BBE, but it's also probably safe.
So last night I faced a Rakdos Packrat deck which hit me with t1 thoughtseize (-1 search for tomorrow), t2 duress (-farseek), and t3 inquisition (-STE). Eventually I was left with 2 breaches in hand which were stuck all game while he smacked me around with packrats and rabblemaster gobs. Feels bad man.
The point being, I was really feeling the downside of this deck being a 2 card combo, and wanted to make sure that I was sideboarding correctly by taking out the breaches g2/3 and putting baloths in?
I still like to keep some TTBs against discard, since it will mostly affect your ramp and slamming a PrimeTime on Turn 6 may be too late if he has a board presence. Obstinate Baloth is anyway a reasonable call, more for the body than for the discard protection (duress and IoK naturally miss him, Seize is safe on the first few turns. This changes if you saw a Lily or Kommand, though). I'd like to see your list before saying how you should SB, but general guidelines would be, in order: Emrakul (or any other Breach fatty) > 1 Simian (only if not playing Chalice) > 1 TTB > Anger > 1 Pact (only if you run the set, I wouldn't advise running less than 3). Since he plays main deck duress is reasonable to say you won't get more than one ramp spell early game, so it's a good idea to maximize your sequencing.
Hey guys, I was wondering what deck I should create. I like any sort of play style and am not picky, but being very budget on the new cards is what I prefer.
The two decks I already have is grixis delver and ad nauseam. Therefore, I have a playset of snapcaster mages, and the lands for the two decks (minus scalding tarn) The things I am missing in these decks are: AV for delver sideboard, and 3 (out of 4) pact of negation in ad naus. The manabase for ad nauseam is all fastlands, but two hallowed fountains. The delver deck has a typical manabase with fetches shocks and spirebluff canal.
So, my question is, what deck should I begin to build into, that will cost me the least amount of money, considering the cards I already possess? Thanks so much!
I am reposting this as I did not get a response last time. Can you guys help me out? Thanks!
I'd reccomend Delver. AV isn't necessary, it's good but there are some pretty good lists that don't run it (the same can't be said about pact in ad nauseam).
I would like to get a second modern deck that's suited for my local meta and does what I like: play a lot of creatures and smash.
I love Gruul and Jund colors, my first deck was a standard Gruul Aggro deck, Prossh was my first commander and I still like all of those big green fatties.
My local meta consists of Tron variants (monoU, G/W, R/G), Skred Red, Merfolk, Infect, Dredge and the occasional decks that show up from time to time. The ones mentioned are nearly always there. (at least one Tron, often two Infect players)
Is there a deck that suits to my liking and can deal with the named decks? If not, what other decks are good for that meta?
Thanks in advance.
RG Through the Breach is a good option. The deck is a monster against slow decks and you can play Engineered Explosives and Anger of the Gods to stop fast decks (although infect can still get you with inkmoth). There are a lot of playable strong green/red creatures to play that you can either cast (Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan) or breach (Worldspine Wurm, Terastodon, Woodfall Primus). It may not be the strongest deck on your meta, but is surely a strong one that somehow fit your playstyle (you won't smash with lots of creatures, but a few strong ones and the ability to kill them with lands).
I'm seeking suggestions for a fairly competitive deck that can play Liliana of the Veil. I have a full playset of her, but because I lack the Bobs, Goyfs, and Verdant Catacombs, Jund isn't really an option for me.
Assume I have basically every card from New Phyrexia onward, and I also have quite a few modern staples from before that (sadly, none of the original Zendikar fetches), to include:
If you're going to play naturalize, just play destructive revelry. It's a free shock to the face.
It's a matter of personal preference and metagame. RG Breach doesn't care as much as TitanShift for the 18 life and for me, the ability to answer affinity's threats on the draw and still ramp on turn 2 makes naturalize better, but as I said, it's just personal preference
I've recently picked up RG Breach for local FNMs when Standard is in a rut. What I most like about the deck is it has an active game plan, staying power in the long game, and plays the best general hate cards in the format to fill out the deck (Chalice, Anger).
Some notes about my list and metagame:
1. Meta is around 25-40 players, slightly leaning towards budget-friendly decks/builds: Skred Red, Naya Burn, Affinity, and Infect usually have multiple pilots. I don't see much Jund, Suicide Zoo, Dredge, or Lantern Control. Rest of the field are Jeskai/Grixis Control, rarely Tron, homebrews, and tier 2-3 decks. Combo is almost non-existent right now.
2. Blood Moon is the worst card currently played against me, although I did lose to double Lost Legacy and suspect Slaughter Games to eventually be played more.
3. Because of the Blood Moon prevalence, I maindeck a Reclamation Sage and moved the Scapeshift to sideboard for the 4th Summoner's Pact. Scapeshift feels bad to draw with so many incompatible maindeck cards (Spirit Guide, Breach). I like Scapeshift for the long game and diversification of win conditions.
4. I'm trying Slaughter Games to combat hate cards and Woodfall Primus as another Pact-able finisher.
5. I'm using Relic over Cage due to Relic's flexibility against Jund. Relic
No need to play slaughter games if combo is nonexistant in your meta; it does little against blood moon on the draw; naturalize is a better option (that also gets everything played in affinity).
About Chapin's article, most of what he's saying are thought experiments, and not actual tested suggestions he's making. I do agree with him that fetches should be banned in Frontier because they enable 4 color decks without something like Blood Moon to punish you for doing it.
On the Modern bans he discusses, the idea is to purge Modern of the combo decks and decks that promote uninteractivity, and promote fair decks. Mental Misstep was an interesting side effect of the idea. In a world without fast linear combo, Misstep is a pretty fair card. With the format slowing down considerably, not every deck would even want it. If you actually enacted the plan Chapin lays out here, Modern would basically become a more powerful Standard, which is what Wizards initially wanted it to be.
That said, I don't think that's the right path to take, and I doubt Chapin does either. I think he more just put it out there to spawn discussion. I think his end goal is what we want, though: suppressing the fast linear aggro/combo decks and promoting fair and interactive decks. I don't agree with completely banning out the aggro/combo decks, but I also don't think they should be clearly the strongest strategy in the format. We need to move some of the power back to the fair decks.
The mais problem with his suggestions wasn't the bans (Lava Spike? Really?), but the fact that he labelled as "completely fair" a format with Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows.
Your argument is unstated, but implicit within the sentence I bolded above. What you're arguing is "If an unban does not slow down aggro, it is not justified." So while your reasoning is correct insofar as no, Jace, the Mind Sculptor will not beat Infect, the argument your advancing is questionable.
Many posters here (myself included) believe that Preordain is a much better target at the moment. That could actually be what you're trying to say, of course. In which case, we're in agreement on that.
What's the reasoning behind JTMS unban? It's a card that has proven to be very strong and he doesn't address any of the problems we currently have with modern (fast and linear strategies dominating the format). Yes, he is a good way to make more people play blue, but the same could be said for SFM and white; it just isn't enough to justify unbanning the most powerful PW ever printed.
About preordain, I'm saying it again: It makes control deck a little better and blue linear decks much better. There isn't a "safe" unban, but if I needed to choose one, it would be Splinter Twin.
Lantern has disappeared from the top tables after the unbans; Amulet is also not close to being a tier 1 deck. Both would probably not survive the ban.
I've talked to Tron players and they seem to agree that the current iteration cannot survive without Stirrings, since it not only helps getting Tron online but also finds wincon (something the deck cannot do as efficiently as it could when Eye was legal). I cannot speak much about KCI, but from what I've seen, the success is more due to low hate than resiliency.
These decks aren't threatening the format in any way. Also, they are different decks with different styles. Lantern is prison, KCI combo, Tron and Amulet big mana. I don't think banning it would increase diversity or help the format in any way besides taking out the public enemies.
I don't think more wincons is what we need, nor can we really support them.
Chandra is a good card, but it's more a value engine than wincon on herself. We don't have many ways to prevent a Control player from Colonnading her to death if he wants (although we can -- and should -- punish them for it with our Storm wincons). The ult might come up one or two times, but it's realistically unreliable (like every other PW ult).
Platinum Emperion might steal some matches against Burn, but it's also unreliable. White decks will keep their paths for our cost reducers. This is also something that only works once, so even if you manage to get a free win on g2 against Burn.
However, what bothers me more about this gameplan is that it requires no less than 40% of your entire sideboard for when Storm has so much targeted hate around the format. The fact that this is terrible against UWx and Jund (grindy matchups, to which half my sideboard is devoted, the other half being anti-hate) also doesn't help.
Did you test those cards? They look interesting but I'm not sold on Sanctum and Amulet (4 mana is a real cost on a 17-land deck. It's also harder to get under counters). However, I like how they interact with our gameplay. Amulet being a middle term between Electromancer and Ascension also caught my attention.
Well, I don't know if BUG will be the main blue deck, but with Jace ubanned it's by far the best BGx and that's quite sad :/
However, I am still sure that Lantern is the best deck and if I'm right it will win more events this year and this will be enough to ban something (probably Whir or Bridge). 1 PT + 3 GPs in the same year looks like a good reason to ban something in modern and I doubt many people would question that.
About Stirrings, playing a colorless deck has a real deckbuilding cost, although I think he just meant "we don't want to ban Tron out of the format".
However, I think Lantern and Ensnaring Bridge are the real banable cards; without them, Lantern loses a good bit of it's consistency and is forced to run narrow or bad cards to make up for it.
However, going to the facts, no real White or Green deck made top 8. Abzan is the only deck on top 8 that would probably play SFM; BBE and GSZ's decks are nowhere to be seen. Titanshift's poor performance is actually a good reason to unban and unless a Knightfall or Elves managed to 9-1 modern but 0-6 draft, Zenith should be safe to unban and also Stoneforge if the same applies for other Abzan. The PT didn't give us enough data about Jund to judge BBE, but it's also probably safe.
I still like to keep some TTBs against discard, since it will mostly affect your ramp and slamming a PrimeTime on Turn 6 may be too late if he has a board presence. Obstinate Baloth is anyway a reasonable call, more for the body than for the discard protection (duress and IoK naturally miss him, Seize is safe on the first few turns. This changes if you saw a Lily or Kommand, though). I'd like to see your list before saying how you should SB, but general guidelines would be, in order: Emrakul (or any other Breach fatty) > 1 Simian (only if not playing Chalice) > 1 TTB > Anger > 1 Pact (only if you run the set, I wouldn't advise running less than 3). Since he plays main deck duress is reasonable to say you won't get more than one ramp spell early game, so it's a good idea to maximize your sequencing.
I'd reccomend Delver. AV isn't necessary, it's good but there are some pretty good lists that don't run it (the same can't be said about pact in ad nauseam).
RG Through the Breach is a good option. The deck is a monster against slow decks and you can play Engineered Explosives and Anger of the Gods to stop fast decks (although infect can still get you with inkmoth). There are a lot of playable strong green/red creatures to play that you can either cast (Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan) or breach (Worldspine Wurm, Terastodon, Woodfall Primus). It may not be the strongest deck on your meta, but is surely a strong one that somehow fit your playstyle (you won't smash with lots of creatures, but a few strong ones and the ability to kill them with lands).
I'd say Mardu Midrange (with Nahiri and Emrakul as the main wincon).
Yeah, sorry, my mistake
It's a matter of personal preference and metagame. RG Breach doesn't care as much as TitanShift for the 18 life and for me, the ability to answer affinity's threats on the draw and still ramp on turn 2 makes naturalize better, but as I said, it's just personal preference
No need to play slaughter games if combo is nonexistant in your meta; it does little against blood moon on the draw; naturalize is a better option (that also gets everything played in affinity).
The mais problem with his suggestions wasn't the bans (Lava Spike? Really?), but the fact that he labelled as "completely fair" a format with Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows.
What's the reasoning behind JTMS unban? It's a card that has proven to be very strong and he doesn't address any of the problems we currently have with modern (fast and linear strategies dominating the format). Yes, he is a good way to make more people play blue, but the same could be said for SFM and white; it just isn't enough to justify unbanning the most powerful PW ever printed.
About preordain, I'm saying it again: It makes control deck a little better and blue linear decks much better. There isn't a "safe" unban, but if I needed to choose one, it would be Splinter Twin.