Stop acting like a child and learn the way that businesses work. People act like this game was free to make, that wizards created it for some "greater good" to let everyone enjoy magic. Wotc and hasbro are businesses- their aim is to generate sales and deliver returns for their investors. They don't give a **** that you can't compete with the players who paid money to play the game- and no, it's not a "broken game state" when you can't compete with those players if you put literally $0 in. You are not entitled to anything when it comes to this game whatsoever. The fact that the game is free and they give you anything is free is pretty incredible- you don't get jack ***** on MTGO. MTGO doesn't even have daily rewards where you're actually able to get cards for simply playing the game. All it takes is $50 to get you into a tier 1 deck- at that point you'll win more and be rewarded for it.
Playtested more with this list against a friend who was on U/W miracles- went 4-2 and another who was playing B/W eldrazi taxes- went 4-0 (although I don't think eldrazi taxes is that great...). I am pretty blown away by how good trophy was- the land it gives, similar to path, is rarely ever relevant- modern is a format more about resources than it is a format that worries about ramping the opponent too much (standard is not like this as it's defined by the bombs). I think trophy may be a more format defining card than people are giving it credit for- it will really force decks to try to be leaner or they will not be able to keep up. Liliana and Jace working in tandem together kind of feels like a prison style gameplan- you get so much flexibility in the way that you want to address the resources that both players are working with- you can deplete resources from your opponent's hand, kill/bounce stuff of of the board, reduce the impact of your opponent's topdecks, sculpt your hand, etc.
Snap-trophy felt like a powerful enough gameplan in itself that I considered going up to 3 snaps- but don't think I have the spell density to really support it. Having that flexibility to kill 2 permanents in 3 turns is really strong. Thought scour also impressed me a lot- it has nice synergy with tasigur, goyf, snapcaster, and jace (you can get yourself out of brainstorm locks by milling yourself after brainstorming). It also provided some value against my U/W opponent- he jace brainstormed, and I suspected that he was hiding some of his better cards on top of his deck- milling him showed me that he had put a teferi on top.
I think tracker is a trap. We have access to Jace- which is far more flexible and powerful in general than a 3/2 for 3. Tracker is just so slow in the modern format without some sort of acceleration or way to play it for free (i.e. I think it's great in ponza because of the ramp package but also hitting it off of BBE is great). It could be worth exploring noble hierarch + tracker, but Tasigur + Jace is enough of a card advantage engine that it's probably unnecessary.
Overall I think this deck is favored vs.
-humans
-affinity and hardened scales
-random janky creature decks
Has even matchups vs.
-U/W/x control
-B/G/x midrange
-spirits
-Graveyard based combo- KCI, Storm
-Burn- we don't hurt ourselves nearly as much without bob, Jace fateseal can shut games out against burn.
Has bad matchups vs.
-Anything with bloodghast (hollow one, vengevine decks)
-Tron- although this matchup is probably slightly more reasonable now- Jace fateseal is also very good against tron if you survive to that stage in the game.
This breakdown is very similar to jund overall- and I think sultai will actually be a playable modern deck post-trophy.
Keeping the board clean in the early turns with trophy's flexibility has definitely made slamming jace earlier much easier- you now have nice outs to cards like hollow one or gurmag angler with trophy.
For now I actually think that thought scour might be correct- not only will it help fuel the potential turn 2 tasigur, but it also keeps up the card type count for goyf- something that can drastically go down when delving for tasigur- thought scour definitely reduces some of this tension. You can also do nifty stuff like thought scour yourself post brainstorm if you are brainstorm locked.
Have been testing this list a little bit with proxied assassin's trophies. It seems pretty smooth and reasonable- definitely a very grindy and satisfying playstlye winning with liliana and jace side by side- jace is probably the biggest reason to justify the blue splash instead of playing straight G/B rock or jund. I enjoy having so many lines of play with the planeswalker combo when you get them working in tandem- it gives the deck a lot of flexibility and allows you to attack your opponent's hand, board, and topdecks from multiple angles. Counterspells don't work particularly well with the good disruptive black cards in modern (better in legacy because counterspells are free), so I left them out. Lots of 4-ofs and 2-ofs because I want to keep things simple.
I feel like this deck has the potential to create a lot of nongames of magic- you curve out with 1 drop discard/removal, 2 drop threat or removal spell, 3 drop liliana kill their only remaining creature or start forcing them to discard their hand, 4 drop jace and start fatesealing them and you've basically just slammed the door shut on them having any chance of getting back in the game.
One slot I'm definitely unsure of is thought scour- I'm wondering if it's just better to play it for the potential of a turn 2 tasigur or if it's worth it to play a cantrip that gives better card selection like serum visions- I can't really justify opt because we don't gain much from playing on the opponent's turn- this is not a reactive control deck, after all, so the sorcery speed is not so much an issue as it is in draw-go control style decks.
Another thing to consider is whether or not cantrips are even worth it in the first place in a deck like this. It's hard for me to cut them because they do feel like the glue that helps you curve out and hit your land drops your powerful planeswalkers while helping enable cheap tasigurs.
I was in a similar boat as you a few months ago. Humans, affinity, and hollow one had started to dominate, and being an avid eldrazi tron player I was really disheartened being stomped by these new meta decks all of a sudden. I played "fair decks" for a few years in jeskai and abzan/ jund in my play group for fun, even though those choices were suboptimal in the meta- I would never bring these to any competitive events at all because they just weren't the best choices. One thing I noticed about all of the decks you play is that they are all linear, unfair, combo or creature combo based (bogles, affinity, scapeshift, grishoalbrand, etc.). Eldrazi tron is a bit similar to these styles, there aren't too many decision trees in the gameplay, and mostly you're just doing your thing and not worrying about your opponent as much.
Recently, however, the meta has shifted- people have recognized that humans and hollow one are arguably the best linear decks in the format, and neither are particularly great against jeskai control. Hollow one can definitely beat jeskai, but the matchup isn't particularly lopsided except when they get their very busted starts. All that time playing jeskai in my playgroup, even though it sucked, prepared me for this moment basically. I have more or less "mastered" jeskai and picked up the nuances- what matchups do you fetch lands aggressively for and which do you not, when to use cantrips, when to hold up answers rather than slam an azcanta or planeswalker, learning how to play to your outs, which openers do you keep against deck x and which do you keep against deck y, sideboarding in particular metas, etc.
In this regard I would say that it's important to master multiple archetypes in a format like modern and have decks at the ready for when you anticipate things to shift. All the decks you described are going to be suboptimal choices when a few of the best decks in the format are running turn 1 IoK/thoughtseize (i.e. mardu/jund). I would recommend that rather than focus on only one archetype, that instead you focus on mastering multiple. Choose a "fair deck" to really dig into and understand deeply. These decks often require much more time to become better with because there are many more decision trees and important sequencing decisions(fetchlands, more interactive cards like scavenging ooze, more resource management, usually more mana sinks like man lands, etc.) compared to a deck like scapeshift. Right now, I think that mardu pyromancer, jund, and jeskai control are all great decks that would be perfect choices to have a solid grasp of in addition to something like bogles. There will always be periods of time when it's better to choose a fair deck or an unfair deck and have it ready to go because of an influx of new cards from a new set (for instance, I think jeskai got some major upgrades from dominaria in teferi and damping sphere, and jund got the major upgrade of BBE not long ago). Right now fair decks are doing pretty well, and the two or three best linear aggro or combo decks are humans, hollow one, and KCI (this deck is criminally underplayed for how good it is).
Did a lot of playtesting last night with my friends- I'm still pretty new to playing faeries after being a long time jeskai/grixis control player. I was actually really impressed with how good faeries feels right now- here is my list. It's very similar to some of the 5-0 lists that have popped up on MTGO the past month or so.
My friends played jund and mardu mostly, so wasn't playing against anything unfair at all- I went 4-2 against my friend on jund, 2-1 against the one playing on mardu. I wanted to comment a little bit on the strengths of this deck right now:
a. Cutting some amount of cryptic commands to up your colorless land count --> I actually think this deck has basically "perfect" mana. Being only in 2 colors without too many cards that have insane mana requirements is not only very good against blood moon but also against a lot of decks in the field. I thought the 3/3 mutavault to field of ruin split was exactly where I wanted to be- and having access to 6 manlands meant that usually if I could maintain parody on board that I was actually always ahead. This mana base was among the strongest I think I've played with in modern. Previously I had tried out 3x snapcaster mage, but found there weren't enough optimal targets to make it quite as useful in this deck. I think that faeries plays a lot lower to the ground than most blue decks do- so trying to be on a "snap-cryptic" gameplan isn't quite as good as it usually is.
b. The high end threats have gotten a big buff in faeries recently- JtMS feels more at home in this deck than any other blue deck I've played. He is much easier to protect with a bunch of tiny fae running around than he is in 4x snapcaster mage.dec. Scarab god is also a nice addition as a 1-of finisher- I think he's replaceable if you wanted to play some other kind of big threat to end the game.
c. Cast down is terminate. Outside of random creatures like baral, tasigur, and azusa, cast down is definitely a great addition to the deck- and maybe could be bumped up to a 2-of. For now, I think 1x cast down and 1x dismember is fine alongside the playset of fatal pushes for big creatures. I'll consider adding in another "big creature" removal spell in the board for eldrazi, humans, hollow one, and the like.
d. The 1 mana discard/cantrip suite is weird, but somehow it works out. When I looked at these lists- I was really confused to see a split of opt/serum visions as well as 5 discard spells. I was perfectly happy playing this split- the discard seems necessary to make sure you can interact with some of the more unfair things that are happening in modern (i.e. blood moon). Cantrips to smooth out draws in a blue tempo deck are also a no-brainer. sometimes it was nice to have opt at instant speed, sometimes it was nice to set up additional turns with serum visions. Overall, I'm comfortable right now with the 1-drops in the deck.
Anyway- those are some initial thoughts, i'm going to try to put a sideboard guide together- would like your guys' advice on how you think it's best to side for the humans and hollow one matchups.
Should definitely be bringing in surgical for both storm and KCI, no reason to keep bolt in- you're not going to burn them out quick enough for it to be more relevant than potentially blowing them out with a well targeted surgical.
Assuming the talks are not just a probing or something for expanding venues, it will be interesting to see how this all unfolds. There are a lot of good reasons why Hasbro would want to open up shop with Gamestop, not the least of which is the closing of Toys'r'us. Also, interesting note: There was no fire sale of merchandise at the closing venues: the unsold goods were scooped back up to supposedly get redistributed to Walmart, Target, and other retailers.
My guess is that:
1) WoTC does legitimately want to get away from the older player base, or at least Hasbro corporate wants to.
2) There is a need to cross promote MTG Arena, and having paper tournaments at gamestop means people getting more exposure to things like redeemable game cards and the like.
3) Hasbro wants to use gamestop as a way to sell some of their toy lines besides MTG and since they are discussing the other toy lines, the idea of running paper tournaments for magic came up.
I do think they want to get away from certain groups of players and cater more towards a new audience. I'm just not sure I want to point fingers at which groups of players and the associations in the current MtG eco system like the LGS, as it would probably spark off an entire debate thread.
It's okay, we all know you mean salty, obese, 20 and 30 something neckbeards who have their ass cracks hanging out when they play and are "that guy" that doesn't wear deoderant at the LGS. Personally, I'm all on board for this- those weirdos need to figure out their life- and no, hauling a 2 liter of mountain dew around and drinking out of it is not "normal behavior" for the average person.
Scry 1 would probably be the best thing you could give the player on the draw. It's the most minimal amount that you could really give, which is probably enough to bring the play vs. draw percentages a little bit closer.
Just buy counterfeit noble hierarchs from china- the new generation of chinese cards are really good and you can barely tell they're fake now. You'll spend $20 for a playset that would otherwise cost $400 Infraction issued for promotion of illegal activity. -- CavalryWolfPack
Corey's list looks like a complete joke: 4 k command, 4 cryptics, and 4 field of ruins? I have no clue what he's thinking with deck building like this with so much tension. Field of ruin is probably a 1 and maybe a 2 of in a 3 color control list- his deck building decisions have been really bad the last few iterations he's posted. 1 ancestral visions just makes zero sense in this meta, mardu is a better young pyromancer deck because of all the cheap interactive spells and lingering souls with bedlam value. Casting peeze into cantrips is no where near good enough to compete with the likes of the best decks in the format at the moment anyway. He may be a good player when it comes to playing the game, but deck building and balance are also very important skills to have. No wonder he got almost dead last at the MOCS- he's been way off recently.
Well, he made it to 13th in a goddamn ProTour with 4 k command, 4 cryptics and 4 fields of ruin, didn`t he? This settup grants a fantastic late-game.
If you have a good list, post it and we`ll discuss. I don`t enjoy playing the 4th FoR as well. (There`s always room for improvement :p)
I don`t think JTMS is what we want right now... I`d try the jaces in a more proactive shell, as in a Grixis midrange filled with young pyromancers so my planeswalkers are well guarded...
The pro tour was a humans dominated meta- a great matchup for any bolt/snapcaster deck. Since then the meta has shaken out completely- bogles, hollow one, humans, and linear combo like amulet titan and kci are king at the moment. There are too many diverse linear decks for control to really keep up without printing of more strong modal spells like k command that can cover more bases at the same time- it's either that or having an "oh ***** button" in a free counterspell like force of will/mental misstep. The problem is not jace- he's the best closer that blue based control decks can use and his abilities make him extremely versatile. The problem is having the correct answers in the turns leading up to slamming a jace on a clean board. Without stronger answers, control will just never really be able to keep up with all of the other powerful strategies that are popular in the format.
Considering that modern has turn 3/4 linear strategies that are creature based (humans), graveyard/creature based (hollow one), artifact based (affinity, lantern, kci), spell based (storm, burn), and enchantment based (bogles)- there is no way for a control deck to be able to cover all of their bases at the time being. I love my blue control (grixis/jeskai) more than anyone- but wizards would have to print something on the power level of force of will or mental misstep to give blue what it actually needs to be tier 1.
Alternatively, if bogles were banned out of the format, control would be poised for a major comeback- but as it stands there are no real maindeck worthy answers to enchantments in the format- a U/W or W/R modal spell like k command that had relevant lines of text as well as "destroy target enchantment/ all enchantments" would maybe be good enough to get some variation of control where it needed to be to cover all of the bases somewhat consistently.
but #muhtwin... can't believe people are still crying two years later.
The current iteration of storm would get ditched if dig were modern legal- it would adopt fetchlands and thought scours to fill the graveyard as fast as possible- they probably wouldn't even need past in flames to kill you- they could naturally go off with dig being a natural 2 for 1 that finds more cantrips and more digs.
Corey's list looks like a complete joke: 4 k command, 4 cryptics, and 4 field of ruins? I have no clue what he's thinking with deck building like this with so much tension. Field of ruin is probably a 1 and maybe a 2 of in a 3 color control list- his deck building decisions have been really bad the last few iterations he's posted. 1 ancestral visions just makes zero sense in this meta, mardu is a better young pyromancer deck because of all the cheap interactive spells and lingering souls with bedlam value. Casting peeze into cantrips is no where near good enough to compete with the likes of the best decks in the format at the moment anyway. He may be a good player when it comes to playing the game, but deck building and balance are also very important skills to have. No wonder he got almost dead last at the MOCS- he's been way off recently.
You really want to give storm access to dig through time? I think that's one of the last cards I would choose to unban if anything.
I think it's hilarious that people argue that splinter twin is interactive- it's interactive until you hit an "I win the game" button with an instant speed combo- be a man and play a real control deck that squeaks out incremental advantage over time instead of playing that bull***** and actually requires real decision making rather than turn 2 remand your spell, turn 3 cast a flash guy, turn 4 win the game- it's far too consistent to be considered fun to play with and against.
The only card that makes any sense to come off the banned list at the moment is stoneforge mystic. It's an overly fair card that doesn't end the game on the spot and actually creates games of more interactive magic. Bringing decks like twin or pod back basically just emphasize the current "arms race kill you as fast as I can or be killed" crap that we've been seeing with the surge of decks like bogles and hollow one. The format has a clean answer to it in k command, and the equipment in this format are mediocre at best without skullclamp and jitte.
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Breeding Pool
3x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
1x Forest
1x Island
2x Overgrown Tomb
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Watery Grave
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Sorcery (6)
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
Instant (12)
4x Assassin's Trophy
4x Fatal Push
4x Thought Scour
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
Playtested more with this list against a friend who was on U/W miracles- went 4-2 and another who was playing B/W eldrazi taxes- went 4-0 (although I don't think eldrazi taxes is that great...). I am pretty blown away by how good trophy was- the land it gives, similar to path, is rarely ever relevant- modern is a format more about resources than it is a format that worries about ramping the opponent too much (standard is not like this as it's defined by the bombs). I think trophy may be a more format defining card than people are giving it credit for- it will really force decks to try to be leaner or they will not be able to keep up. Liliana and Jace working in tandem together kind of feels like a prison style gameplan- you get so much flexibility in the way that you want to address the resources that both players are working with- you can deplete resources from your opponent's hand, kill/bounce stuff of of the board, reduce the impact of your opponent's topdecks, sculpt your hand, etc.
Snap-trophy felt like a powerful enough gameplan in itself that I considered going up to 3 snaps- but don't think I have the spell density to really support it. Having that flexibility to kill 2 permanents in 3 turns is really strong. Thought scour also impressed me a lot- it has nice synergy with tasigur, goyf, snapcaster, and jace (you can get yourself out of brainstorm locks by milling yourself after brainstorming). It also provided some value against my U/W opponent- he jace brainstormed, and I suspected that he was hiding some of his better cards on top of his deck- milling him showed me that he had put a teferi on top.
I think tracker is a trap. We have access to Jace- which is far more flexible and powerful in general than a 3/2 for 3. Tracker is just so slow in the modern format without some sort of acceleration or way to play it for free (i.e. I think it's great in ponza because of the ramp package but also hitting it off of BBE is great). It could be worth exploring noble hierarch + tracker, but Tasigur + Jace is enough of a card advantage engine that it's probably unnecessary.
Overall I think this deck is favored vs.
-humans
-affinity and hardened scales
-random janky creature decks
Has even matchups vs.
-U/W/x control
-B/G/x midrange
-spirits
-Graveyard based combo- KCI, Storm
-Burn- we don't hurt ourselves nearly as much without bob, Jace fateseal can shut games out against burn.
Has bad matchups vs.
-Anything with bloodghast (hollow one, vengevine decks)
-Tron- although this matchup is probably slightly more reasonable now- Jace fateseal is also very good against tron if you survive to that stage in the game.
This breakdown is very similar to jund overall- and I think sultai will actually be a playable modern deck post-trophy.
For now I actually think that thought scour might be correct- not only will it help fuel the potential turn 2 tasigur, but it also keeps up the card type count for goyf- something that can drastically go down when delving for tasigur- thought scour definitely reduces some of this tension. You can also do nifty stuff like thought scour yourself post brainstorm if you are brainstorm locked.
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Breeding Pool
3x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
1x Forest
1x Island
2x Overgrown Tomb
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Watery Grave
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Sorcery (6)
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
Instant (12)
4x Assassin's Trophy
4x Fatal Push
4x Thought Scour
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
Have been testing this list a little bit with proxied assassin's trophies. It seems pretty smooth and reasonable- definitely a very grindy and satisfying playstlye winning with liliana and jace side by side- jace is probably the biggest reason to justify the blue splash instead of playing straight G/B rock or jund. I enjoy having so many lines of play with the planeswalker combo when you get them working in tandem- it gives the deck a lot of flexibility and allows you to attack your opponent's hand, board, and topdecks from multiple angles. Counterspells don't work particularly well with the good disruptive black cards in modern (better in legacy because counterspells are free), so I left them out. Lots of 4-ofs and 2-ofs because I want to keep things simple.
I feel like this deck has the potential to create a lot of nongames of magic- you curve out with 1 drop discard/removal, 2 drop threat or removal spell, 3 drop liliana kill their only remaining creature or start forcing them to discard their hand, 4 drop jace and start fatesealing them and you've basically just slammed the door shut on them having any chance of getting back in the game.
One slot I'm definitely unsure of is thought scour- I'm wondering if it's just better to play it for the potential of a turn 2 tasigur or if it's worth it to play a cantrip that gives better card selection like serum visions- I can't really justify opt because we don't gain much from playing on the opponent's turn- this is not a reactive control deck, after all, so the sorcery speed is not so much an issue as it is in draw-go control style decks.
Another thing to consider is whether or not cantrips are even worth it in the first place in a deck like this. It's hard for me to cut them because they do feel like the glue that helps you curve out and hit your land drops your powerful planeswalkers while helping enable cheap tasigurs.
Recently, however, the meta has shifted- people have recognized that humans and hollow one are arguably the best linear decks in the format, and neither are particularly great against jeskai control. Hollow one can definitely beat jeskai, but the matchup isn't particularly lopsided except when they get their very busted starts. All that time playing jeskai in my playgroup, even though it sucked, prepared me for this moment basically. I have more or less "mastered" jeskai and picked up the nuances- what matchups do you fetch lands aggressively for and which do you not, when to use cantrips, when to hold up answers rather than slam an azcanta or planeswalker, learning how to play to your outs, which openers do you keep against deck x and which do you keep against deck y, sideboarding in particular metas, etc.
In this regard I would say that it's important to master multiple archetypes in a format like modern and have decks at the ready for when you anticipate things to shift. All the decks you described are going to be suboptimal choices when a few of the best decks in the format are running turn 1 IoK/thoughtseize (i.e. mardu/jund). I would recommend that rather than focus on only one archetype, that instead you focus on mastering multiple. Choose a "fair deck" to really dig into and understand deeply. These decks often require much more time to become better with because there are many more decision trees and important sequencing decisions(fetchlands, more interactive cards like scavenging ooze, more resource management, usually more mana sinks like man lands, etc.) compared to a deck like scapeshift. Right now, I think that mardu pyromancer, jund, and jeskai control are all great decks that would be perfect choices to have a solid grasp of in addition to something like bogles. There will always be periods of time when it's better to choose a fair deck or an unfair deck and have it ready to go because of an influx of new cards from a new set (for instance, I think jeskai got some major upgrades from dominaria in teferi and damping sphere, and jund got the major upgrade of BBE not long ago). Right now fair decks are doing pretty well, and the two or three best linear aggro or combo decks are humans, hollow one, and KCI (this deck is criminally underplayed for how good it is).
3x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
1x Drowned Catacomb
3x Field of Ruin
3x Island
3x Mutavault
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
1x Cast Down
2x Cryptic Command
1x Dismember
4x Fatal Push
2x Mana Leak
2x Opt
Enchantment (4)
4x Bitterblossom
Planeswalker (2)
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Mistbind Clique
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Spellstutter Sprite
1x The Scarab God
2x Vendilion Clique
Sorcery (7)
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Serum Visions
2x Thoughtseize
My friends played jund and mardu mostly, so wasn't playing against anything unfair at all- I went 4-2 against my friend on jund, 2-1 against the one playing on mardu. I wanted to comment a little bit on the strengths of this deck right now:
a. Cutting some amount of cryptic commands to up your colorless land count --> I actually think this deck has basically "perfect" mana. Being only in 2 colors without too many cards that have insane mana requirements is not only very good against blood moon but also against a lot of decks in the field. I thought the 3/3 mutavault to field of ruin split was exactly where I wanted to be- and having access to 6 manlands meant that usually if I could maintain parody on board that I was actually always ahead. This mana base was among the strongest I think I've played with in modern. Previously I had tried out 3x snapcaster mage, but found there weren't enough optimal targets to make it quite as useful in this deck. I think that faeries plays a lot lower to the ground than most blue decks do- so trying to be on a "snap-cryptic" gameplan isn't quite as good as it usually is.
b. The high end threats have gotten a big buff in faeries recently- JtMS feels more at home in this deck than any other blue deck I've played. He is much easier to protect with a bunch of tiny fae running around than he is in 4x snapcaster mage.dec. Scarab god is also a nice addition as a 1-of finisher- I think he's replaceable if you wanted to play some other kind of big threat to end the game.
c. Cast down is terminate. Outside of random creatures like baral, tasigur, and azusa, cast down is definitely a great addition to the deck- and maybe could be bumped up to a 2-of. For now, I think 1x cast down and 1x dismember is fine alongside the playset of fatal pushes for big creatures. I'll consider adding in another "big creature" removal spell in the board for eldrazi, humans, hollow one, and the like.
d. The 1 mana discard/cantrip suite is weird, but somehow it works out. When I looked at these lists- I was really confused to see a split of opt/serum visions as well as 5 discard spells. I was perfectly happy playing this split- the discard seems necessary to make sure you can interact with some of the more unfair things that are happening in modern (i.e. blood moon). Cantrips to smooth out draws in a blue tempo deck are also a no-brainer. sometimes it was nice to have opt at instant speed, sometimes it was nice to set up additional turns with serum visions. Overall, I'm comfortable right now with the 1-drops in the deck.
Anyway- those are some initial thoughts, i'm going to try to put a sideboard guide together- would like your guys' advice on how you think it's best to side for the humans and hollow one matchups.
It's okay, we all know you mean salty, obese, 20 and 30 something neckbeards who have their ass cracks hanging out when they play and are "that guy" that doesn't wear deoderant at the LGS. Personally, I'm all on board for this- those weirdos need to figure out their life- and no, hauling a 2 liter of mountain dew around and drinking out of it is not "normal behavior" for the average person.
Infraction issued for promotion of illegal activity. -- CavalryWolfPack
The pro tour was a humans dominated meta- a great matchup for any bolt/snapcaster deck. Since then the meta has shaken out completely- bogles, hollow one, humans, and linear combo like amulet titan and kci are king at the moment. There are too many diverse linear decks for control to really keep up without printing of more strong modal spells like k command that can cover more bases at the same time- it's either that or having an "oh ***** button" in a free counterspell like force of will/mental misstep. The problem is not jace- he's the best closer that blue based control decks can use and his abilities make him extremely versatile. The problem is having the correct answers in the turns leading up to slamming a jace on a clean board. Without stronger answers, control will just never really be able to keep up with all of the other powerful strategies that are popular in the format.
Alternatively, if bogles were banned out of the format, control would be poised for a major comeback- but as it stands there are no real maindeck worthy answers to enchantments in the format- a U/W or W/R modal spell like k command that had relevant lines of text as well as "destroy target enchantment/ all enchantments" would maybe be good enough to get some variation of control where it needed to be to cover all of the bases somewhat consistently.
The current iteration of storm would get ditched if dig were modern legal- it would adopt fetchlands and thought scours to fill the graveyard as fast as possible- they probably wouldn't even need past in flames to kill you- they could naturally go off with dig being a natural 2 for 1 that finds more cantrips and more digs.
I think it's hilarious that people argue that splinter twin is interactive- it's interactive until you hit an "I win the game" button with an instant speed combo- be a man and play a real control deck that squeaks out incremental advantage over time instead of playing that bull***** and actually requires real decision making rather than turn 2 remand your spell, turn 3 cast a flash guy, turn 4 win the game- it's far too consistent to be considered fun to play with and against.
The only card that makes any sense to come off the banned list at the moment is stoneforge mystic. It's an overly fair card that doesn't end the game on the spot and actually creates games of more interactive magic. Bringing decks like twin or pod back basically just emphasize the current "arms race kill you as fast as I can or be killed" crap that we've been seeing with the surge of decks like bogles and hollow one. The format has a clean answer to it in k command, and the equipment in this format are mediocre at best without skullclamp and jitte.