So I'm curious what your guys' view and plans on siding for the following matchups:
Mardu Pyromancer
UWR Control
UW Control
I've seen a lot of debate about what people want to bring in/keep. I've heard arguments for keeping in TBR for all of these matchups because it's your "Splinter Twin" get out of jail free card. I guess most specifically for Mardu I was talking to Gerry T about it and he said since our deck is the beatdown he likes keeping them in and foregoing the sweepers. But maybe it's still correct to bring in 1 EE or Anger in case things go south. And mainly for mardu it's a question of what we take out. My guess is some number of spot removal spells and a Street Wraith or 2 but Street Wraith doesn't seem all that bad since it is a 3/4 with unblockable. A couple of those did help me win my match against it.
For the UWR and UW I've heard some say they take out scours and Anglers along with a couple removal spells to bring in grind cards. It's weird because you want bolts for the Planeswalkers and Push/Dismember for Colonnades so you can't completely cut either. But I'd say cut Dismember against UWR since the life is more precious and cut Push against UW since dismember can kill the Gideons. Street Wraith can also be hardcast in these games as a threat if the games tend to go long a bit, but UWR can close games fast with bolts and UW has the mana denial package so it's probably a lot harder for these to steal games than against Mardu.
The UWx matchups seem brutal for the bauble versions of this deck since they can't run YP but like before the best way to steal games is to just seize to oblivion, slam shadows and hold up stubby d until you get there.
I'm still one of the proponents for Serum and it's because of the prevalence of these decks that I still want it. Also because of the 3 easiest ways this deck just loses - Mana screw and flood (although these happen with every deck so take that for what it's worth) and not drawing a threat. Also why I added a couple lootings.
Oh yeah and I know I've been saying this for a while but play a 3rd TBR in your side. Card is straight gas.
There is a lot of mardu pyromancer in my local meta (5 people play it regularly out of ~20). Three times a week I play the local modern tourney. I feel confident in saying that I've probably played the GDS-Mardu matchup in paper more than any other person on the planet.
TBR helps quickly close out games against combo decks, tron, and Valakut before they recover from your disruption. It also helps you steal games against affinity, elves, and humans. That much is true. But do you notice something all those decks I listed have in common? They have very little in the way of cheap removal/interaction. You don't have to worry as much about getting your TBR-Shadow getting disrupted. Mardu has tons of ways to break up TBR-Shadow/Angler
Fitting in a Godless Shrine with Lingering Souls coming in from the board has greatly increased my win rate against the deck. So long as you can remove/discard the pyro, then they have to rely on their souls tokens. Which is fine for them because a lingering souls can block 5/5 anglers for days while they recover. Additionally, as you are probably aware of, often times their victory involves Souls overwhelming your 1-1 removal. Boarding in and casting souls cuts those lines off for them pretty well.
Unless your meta is completely devoid of sweepers you should never run more than 1 maindeck Empty the Warren's.
Eldrazi decks run Explosives.
Grixis runs Anger as does Jeskai and Scapeshift.
Jund and Abzan use Maelstrom Pulse.
Experience runs Damnation and other sweepers.
Empty is the game plan for when your game 1 goes sideways making you unable to grapeshot for the win. Or to catch them off guard. And then an additional wincon for when opponents board in grave hate and other problem cards.
It should never be hoped upon as a standard wincon.
I was thinking about some of the high quality extort creatures and then realized that Whitemane Lion and Kor Skyfisher can both bounce themselves to abuse the extort mechanic. And then realized that since you are going black you can throw in Grey Merchent. Has anyone else already explored this space for deck design in pauper? Or was it just way too underwhelming?
Every single site I can find has broken download links. Does anyone know where working download links are? And is there a program similar to it? Thank you.
Are all these third party programs being removed by Wizards?
Between Path, Lili, Ugin, Karn, Ghost Quarter, and all the rest I don't see a problem with DD.
Seriously it might even be positive. Think of how much better D+T and U/R delver (counters and bounce) gets with decks like DD to "prey on". I know the matchup isn't extrememly lopsided in D+T and UR Delver favor, but its gotta be at least decently positive. Let not also forget Sun and Moon.
I love the decks in Legacy, I play proxied versions. It's a very fun format. That being said this insistence that it's an accessible format reeks of desperation.
It's not accessible and it never will be. Who cares? Just play it if you love it.
I mean it all hinges on the ability to stack the "goes to grave, do X" triggers. If you can stack the triggers then it shouldn't matter if Emmy is on the top, bottom, or anywhere in between. But I am not certain it is possible to stack the triggers
EDIT: Nevermind I though that this one was more similar to the legacy version than I thought. Then I noticed you had to use Gaia's
Let me know if this is possible...
1)Right before you combo off count the number of cards in hand, grave, and in play. Subtract from 60 to find # of cards in deck. declare that you will mill that exact number.
2)Dump your deck into grave
3)Now this is the tricky part: is it possible to stack the triggers where the narcos come into play before the Emmy trigger? Or does it depend on the order they hit the grave or does the order not matter?
Cause if you can stack the triggers, then... I fail to see how they can call slow play.
It wouldn't take a long time at all to do the combo if you could the above procedure. You would just have to shuffle five times at most which is annoying but wont take THAT long.
Something I've noticed throughout the years, is that Standard is never at a consistent power level. Some years, it's considerably stronger than other years. I think the most acceptable way to pass Mother of Runes through Standard, is to sneak her in while it's going through a lower power level year so she can't be as easily abused in that environment.
Agreed, I don't get where this "too powerful for standard" mindset comes from. Sure cards like Black Lotus, Necropotence, and similar cards are way too powerful, but outside of those "super busted" cards no card is really too powerful for standard given the right environment.
And I am having a hard time envisioning any standard where Mother of Runes is too powerful. Especially when wizards thinks printing four-color capable mana bases in standard is okay when a card like Siege Rhino is tromping around.
We've had standard formats where...
-Bloodbraid Elf, Teminate, Lightning Bolt, Blightning, and IoK were all in the same deck.
-Thoughseize was followed up by a Bitter Blossom into a turn 3 counterspell on a 1/1 flier.
-Big Jace was backed up by Path, Bolt, Ponder, DoJ, and other freinds.
-People were slamming 10+ point life swings behind an ever growing unstoppable army of Rats.
-People were plunking down Freaking Dragonstorm and winning with it.
-Dark Confidant was sitting pretty along side Tarmogoyf.
Standard can handle, expecially today, could handle Mom.
I havent posted my thoughts on bans in a while but here i go.
If anything in Infect or other pump spell decks has to go its going to be one of the following.
Gitaxian Probe
I like the card but it kinda does everything you want from a cantrip in the decks that run it. It draws, triggers prowess, feeds Delve, gives valuable information and the life loss isnt even a drawback in some of these decks. Feels the most likely to me if anything from the deck gets the ax but i dont think Infect is on the chopping block this time.
Mutagenic Growth
This card screams unfair. If a deck is trying to kill you as quickly as it can then it is running a set. Some similarities with Probe in these decks. Just adds too much consistency and speed.
Become Immense
Only reason i even mention this card is they have already banned 2 other power Delve spells from that block. If they want to cripple Deaths Shadow and knock Infect down a peg (And really, it probably gets swapped with Groundswell). Doesnt take Probe away from the sometimes fair-ish blue decks running them. If they really want to hit the pump decks but without banning Probe or Growth (the consistency) then it makes sense they take away the payoff (the power).
That said, i love Infect as a deck and i have never had a problem with the deck. BUT i have been playing decks with either 4 Path, 4 Decay MD or 4 Bolt, 3 Terminate, 2 Decay, ect. forever. It feels like it makes fair decks good. Removal, counters, discard, there are a ton of ways to beat Infect if that is your goal. I dont think this is where the main problem in Modern is though is definitely contributing to the insane speed of the meta.
My gut tells me they will ban the deck that promotes linearity. The 2 decks that jump out at me the most are Dredge and Bant Eldrazi. They arent unbeatable but they are harder to beat with any sort of fair strategy. Infect, Burn, Affinity, they all get shut down easily with SB cards or a deck built with interaction. Dredge and Bant Drazi dont, they encourage going over or under them and in this case, speeding the format up with the pump decks, the uptick in Burn, and Lantern. In the case of going over, GW Tron. Dredge can fight through hate real well, Conflag adds a new level of power to the deck, and aside from Anger of the Gods, Relic, or Leyline of the Void, there isnt a great way to hate it. Their SB is dedicated to beating hate. Conflag just lets it win if it gets to dredge some Loams. Aside from hate, you can race Dredge with Burn or Infect. Eldrazi Temple was the land i thought would be banned during Eldrazi Winter. Combined with mana dorks and hyper efficient, above the curve plays, fair decks will not do their job.
The last time Chalice of the Void or Relic of Progenitus were considered viable MD options in the format was during TC Delver and PT Oath of the Gatewatch, it was because the format was in a serious hole. When most of the spells in the format that are being played are all 0, 1, and 2 mana, Chalice becomes real appealing.
I also doubt Wizards does nothing this go around. Its silly to see some cards on the ban list when we have Dredge putting half of its deck into the grave on turn 2, Eldrazi chaining Seers and Smasher's starting turn 2 and 3 respectively, and Infect (which is an unfair deck) is being considered the police deck of the format. Thats scary. Imagine if Amulet was considered a police deck, sure, every deck has to run some number of Blood Moon or go faster now. You have Rock, Paper, Scissors, and when Rock becomes an obsolete option, it kinda ruins the game doesnt it?
The format screams degeneracy. Taking a historical perspective on this format i cant see something not giving. If the format stays the same, or relatively, then viewers of GPs and Opens will get bored or upset after they see the same 4-12 decks (and most lists share some number of staples in Probe, Become Immense ect.) in the same matchups over and over. If the only changes to come to Modern come through Standard printings then, based on looking at the last 2 years worth of sets, i dont think we are in for a good time. I dont mind it, i will keep playing no matter what happens, i have had 4 decks banned from under me but i still have a half dozen sitting beside me, i will always find a deck to enjoy playing. I think this time around they will address Bant Eldrazi or Dredge through a banning. It might make viewers happy to see more interactive decks being promoted with their primary predator gone. I doubt they would do an unbanning right now considering how crazy the format is and banning something alone is likely enough to cause a stir for months. Infect is probably safe for now but its the deck to beat and historically that has been a scary thought.
Why in the world would the address Eldrazi in it's current form? It's completely fair right now.
Also... Interestingly enough. The answer to the current super speed aggro fest we currently find ourselves in lies in a card named Doomed Traveler.
I built the silly Abzan Aristocrats deck recently knowing it was bad but also knowing it was fun. And I was pleasently suprised at it's ability to take advantage of the current meta game. Plop a turn one Doomed Traveler and it's amazing at how well it can make an infect player cry. If they don't have a Blighted Agent they have to waste two pump spells keeping their infect creatures alive and that's assuming you haven't drawn one of your four paths. And even if they have a Noble to exalt into a blocker the blocker just comes back from the graveyard multiple times of through Abzan Ascendency. The matchup is an unexpected thing of beauty.
And much of what goes for that also goes for the other pump based aggro decks. Your Blood Artists can even hep put you out of range!
Unfortunatly the deck just eats it too hard to eldrazi, combo, tron, and valakut to ever be teir 1. But it also has an amazing Jund/Abzan matchup. Abzan Ascendency, Lingering Souls, and a ton of other cards do work against midrange like you wouldn't believe.
Oh god no that's a gross idea. Don't ban probe. It's one of the most interesting cards in the format and spell based combo has already taken enough of a beating. Wizards needs to stop printing hyper-efficient creatures in absence of low-mana efficient answers. It's that simple.
Stop printing such busted creatures?
Start print more efficient answers?
You don't even have to do both at the same time, just one or the other. The problem is multi-axis. And too often I see people on here acting like isn't(I've lurked a long time, modern has gotten so bad I just could no longer hold my tongue). But if they do choose one or the other they need to do it FAST.
There is one problem with modern right now, and only one: overly efficient aggro. Sometimes its efficient to the point of almost being a combo deck (Infect and UR Kiln Fiend and similar decks).
Why would you ever play spell-based combo or control or even traditional zoo/aggro? Sure there are a lot of different hyper-efficient aggro decks. WONDERFULL! Now I get to eat 10 different variation on the same vanilla ice cream. SO DIVERSE! (sarcasm).
There is a lot of mardu pyromancer in my local meta (5 people play it regularly out of ~20). Three times a week I play the local modern tourney. I feel confident in saying that I've probably played the GDS-Mardu matchup in paper more than any other person on the planet.
TBR helps quickly close out games against combo decks, tron, and Valakut before they recover from your disruption. It also helps you steal games against affinity, elves, and humans. That much is true. But do you notice something all those decks I listed have in common? They have very little in the way of cheap removal/interaction. You don't have to worry as much about getting your TBR-Shadow getting disrupted. Mardu has tons of ways to break up TBR-Shadow/Angler
Fitting in a Godless Shrine with Lingering Souls coming in from the board has greatly increased my win rate against the deck. So long as you can remove/discard the pyro, then they have to rely on their souls tokens. Which is fine for them because a lingering souls can block 5/5 anglers for days while they recover. Additionally, as you are probably aware of, often times their victory involves Souls overwhelming your 1-1 removal. Boarding in and casting souls cuts those lines off for them pretty well.
Eldrazi decks run Explosives.
Grixis runs Anger as does Jeskai and Scapeshift.
Jund and Abzan use Maelstrom Pulse.
Experience runs Damnation and other sweepers.
Empty is the game plan for when your game 1 goes sideways making you unable to grapeshot for the win. Or to catch them off guard. And then an additional wincon for when opponents board in grave hate and other problem cards.
It should never be hoped upon as a standard wincon.
Every single site I can find has broken download links. Does anyone know where working download links are? And is there a program similar to it? Thank you.
Are all these third party programs being removed by Wizards?
Am I seriously the first to make that joke on this subforum?
Okay anyways... What spell would this replace in Grixis and Jund?
Seriously it might even be positive. Think of how much better D+T and U/R delver (counters and bounce) gets with decks like DD to "prey on". I know the matchup isn't extrememly lopsided in D+T and UR Delver favor, but its gotta be at least decently positive. Let not also forget Sun and Moon.
It's not accessible and it never will be. Who cares? Just play it if you love it.
Let me know if this is possible...
1)Right before you combo off count the number of cards in hand, grave, and in play. Subtract from 60 to find # of cards in deck. declare that you will mill that exact number.
2)Dump your deck into grave
3)Now this is the tricky part: is it possible to stack the triggers where the narcos come into play before the Emmy trigger? Or does it depend on the order they hit the grave or does the order not matter?
Cause if you can stack the triggers, then... I fail to see how they can call slow play.
It wouldn't take a long time at all to do the combo if you could the above procedure. You would just have to shuffle five times at most which is annoying but wont take THAT long.
And I am having a hard time envisioning any standard where Mother of Runes is too powerful. Especially when wizards thinks printing four-color capable mana bases in standard is okay when a card like Siege Rhino is tromping around.
We've had standard formats where...
-Bloodbraid Elf, Teminate, Lightning Bolt, Blightning, and IoK were all in the same deck.
-Thoughseize was followed up by a Bitter Blossom into a turn 3 counterspell on a 1/1 flier.
-Big Jace was backed up by Path, Bolt, Ponder, DoJ, and other freinds.
-People were slamming 10+ point life swings behind an ever growing unstoppable army of Rats.
-People were plunking down Freaking Dragonstorm and winning with it.
-Dark Confidant was sitting pretty along side Tarmogoyf.
Standard can handle, expecially today, could handle Mom.
Why in the world would the address Eldrazi in it's current form? It's completely fair right now.
I built the silly Abzan Aristocrats deck recently knowing it was bad but also knowing it was fun. And I was pleasently suprised at it's ability to take advantage of the current meta game. Plop a turn one Doomed Traveler and it's amazing at how well it can make an infect player cry. If they don't have a Blighted Agent they have to waste two pump spells keeping their infect creatures alive and that's assuming you haven't drawn one of your four paths. And even if they have a Noble to exalt into a blocker the blocker just comes back from the graveyard multiple times of through Abzan Ascendency. The matchup is an unexpected thing of beauty.
And much of what goes for that also goes for the other pump based aggro decks. Your Blood Artists can even hep put you out of range!
Unfortunatly the deck just eats it too hard to eldrazi, combo, tron, and valakut to ever be teir 1. But it also has an amazing Jund/Abzan matchup. Abzan Ascendency, Lingering Souls, and a ton of other cards do work against midrange like you wouldn't believe.
Stop printing such busted creatures?
Start print more efficient answers?
You don't even have to do both at the same time, just one or the other. The problem is multi-axis. And too often I see people on here acting like isn't(I've lurked a long time, modern has gotten so bad I just could no longer hold my tongue). But if they do choose one or the other they need to do it FAST.
Why would you ever play spell-based combo or control or even traditional zoo/aggro? Sure there are a lot of different hyper-efficient aggro decks. WONDERFULL! Now I get to eat 10 different variation on the same vanilla ice cream. SO DIVERSE! (sarcasm).