Eldrazi Tron flat out can't beat combo spell decks that don't rely on the graveyard. It needs the perfect Thought-Knot into Smasher curve to compete.
E-Tron also commonly does nothing for 2 turns, or can lose tempo playing a turn 3 Matter Reshaper. It's not quite like RG Tron where it does nothing for 3 or 4 turns and nearly auto-wins with a demoralizing planeswalker/creature.
Been playing the deck a ton, the turn 2 thought-knot isn't that common. It's not magical christmas land, but it's very uncommon.
I'm not sure the deck would be viable at all if it did a ton of damage to itself, it would only beat fair slow decks and lose to everything else. Mana flood is also extremely real in this deck---like, really really real. Chalice and Relic can also flat out be blank cards game 1
Opening hands are ugly
Honestly, Eldrazi Tron was a garbage deck until Walking Ballista elevated it and Todd Stevens fixed the deck up and decided mindstones and relics is what the deck needed and cut the clunky Ulamogs/Batterskulls.
Looking at the deck on paper, it looks extremely bad, clunky and no synergy, it's actually quite a work of beauty that the deck is good, because the 75 looks ugly and unplayable in a format this fast.
What I'm interpreting here is that matches can be wildly swingy, with huge variance in outcome depending on the hodge podge of cards you draw and the matchups you face? This is literally the description of what I perceive as the biggest flaw in Modern: match results dependent so highly on luck.
That same luck could be applied to GDS. I actually had a big post written out about GDS, but lost it on a page refresh. Short version is: the deck isn't actually that hard to pilot, IMO, once your role as aggressor/control is fairly clear. From then, it feels mostly out of your hands, relying heavily on opponent's deck, whether or not they have main deck hate for you, whether or not they draw side board hate against you, and whether or not either of you stumble in your draws or land drops in a race. Another great example of many matches decided by pairings boards, dice rolls, and card draws, and another example of skill taking back seat to metagaming and deck choice.
Whether it's the case that Wizards does not like 50/50 decks or that decks with mostly 60/40-40/60 matchups no longer exist because of metagame shifts, it feels that they want to do everything in their power to INCREASE the level of variance in any given match outcome. It creates a better spectacle and is more "exciting." It's why blue filtering is all banned any anything resembling consistency is also banned (or never introduced).
This statement, I'm sorry, reeks of being spoiled of the manabase possibilities alone. Three, four, and even five color decks are pretty easy thanks to the consistency of fetch + shock.
Blue filtering is banned because they don't want combo to become stupidly consistent, and if that comes at the cost of inconsistency for all decks that is an acceptable consequence to WOTC. We can debate the veracity of that statement, but don't claim its about making the game better as a visual spectacle.
Variance in draws is why we have mulligans and access to some card draw/selection like Serum Visions, Collected Company, and even Tasigur or Snapcaster Mage. Variance is the reason matchups are 60/40 instead of 100/0. Hell, why even play out the game the way you describe the "ideal." We can just swap decklists, look up the matchup % and whoever was favored can fill out the match slip in his or her favor. There's the end of variance.
I still don't get the unbans. We have grindy interactive decks at the top of the format. Why do they need to be supplanted by Jund or Abzan running BBE or SFM? I played a four round modern event last night and played UW control twice, Abzan once, and finally Grixis Delver. I looked around, and granted out of about thirty people I barely saw Affinity, Valakut, maybe two burn decks, and myself on Storm. My real question: how does the format improve with BBE, SFM, or JTMS unbans?
2-2 tonight after taking a couple weeks off with other things going on. I need a ton more practice. Split two matches against UW control, beat Abzan midrange, and lost to Grixis Delver in the finals. Honestly I looked around and it was tons of abzan, grixis (delver and shadow), UW, and a couple of the new shadow zoo decks. This doesn't feel like a great meta for storm, I also punted repeatedly though.
Except that's a testimony for modern as a I do me you do you and we see who wins. Both of those decks are very low interaction based. PPTQ's aren't that large of a tournament so they are actually sometimes easier to meta game than just playing your 1 deck you've had forever.
Could just be the way I look at it with my experience. I've been playing this game for long before I even knew about these forums or you could just go net deck something quick. I know most modern decks more than well enough to just grab it sit down with it and play.
I've played Bogles for for over a year. I've played Grishoalbrand for around 1 year. The first PPTQ I won with Bogles had 73 players. In the first round, I was paired against Twin - the bane of my existence. Sure there were worse matchups like Ad Nauseam, Living End, or Bloom Titan, but I did not run into those as often as the dreaded Twin. I knew that I have hardly any chance to win, but I know what needs to happen in order to win. I won that round 2-0, the only time I've ever done that to Twin (usually losing 1-2). I drew well throughout the tournament, but in the top 4, I ran against Jund. After losing game 1, I had before the game Leyline of Sanctity for the 1st and 2nd times ever in games 2 and 3 to win those games. Granted, I had never had Leyline before the game, playing the deck for 6 months at the time with the full playset. Beating Twin and getting a good card for the first time in a matchup were signs that I was drawing well. I beat the Affinity player that had beaten me in the Swiss in the finals, every game going to the person playing first except the final game of the tournament, in which I won on the draw. I wouldn't say it was so much metagaming, as just being lucky and knowing how to play my deck very well.
I've played this game for way too long as well. And 8 years ago, I forced myself to learn to play archetypes other than Control. I've become a more well rounded player and actually play a lot of different decks, but for the most part I've STILL done better with decks that I played longer.
1. Bogles - over a year
2. Grishoalbrand - a year
3. RUG Scapeshift - 4 months
4. Pyromancer Storm - 3 months
These are all the decks that I've had the highest win percentage with (or pretty close to it in the case of Scapeshift and Storm). I've actually been too scared to try Grixis Death's Shadow or Knightfall at a PPTQ, despite the fact that I play them all the time outside of one. I just know that there's no way that I play those as well as I can play Titan Shift right now and Titan Shift is well placed in the meta.
I guess you could say my point is this. You don't have to win all 3 to win a PPTQ or other tournament. Sometimes it just takes 2 of them.
1. Metagaming
2. Luck
3. Skill in playing your deck
I actually lost the metagaming point that day with Bogles.
Also worth noting: just because FCG played linear decks does not mean the format is too linear. We talk about sample sizes a lot here with tournament results, and there's room for discussion. One guy playing two decks that are linear is not representative of an entire format though. No debate there.
I'm wondering. How good is Fulminator mage against this deck and how should I use the card against the UW control deck?
Should I attack with Fulminator a few times and blow up colonade only when they try to use it/ wrath the board or should I use it earlier to keep my opponent off cryptic/ Elspeth?
I think part of that depends on what deck you are playing that is running the Fulminator.
Literally every player in every event needs a little luck in dodging bad matchups to make top 8. That's inevitable, especially if there's more than a couple dozen participants. I think it's poisoning the well to take that top 8 and give every single deck an excuse that almost says "no, I know there were six unique decks but really it should have been eight grixis shadow, except this one thing happened..."
That's why it has been said many times that modern rewards understanding your deck as opposed to trying to metagame.
With increased GP support and a spot back on the PT, is Modern too popular to not support in more ways than merely getting a Masters set every other year?
Such as actively designing for Modern within the new sets. Think Fatal Push.
Could we finally see new means of injecting new cards into Modern outside of standard filtration?
It just feels like Modern is this giant oil reservoir that isn't being tapped into.
WOTC says new sets is how it introduces cards to modern. Sure, they could change that whenever they want, but I don't see that happening any time soon. And since Push and other cards (several of which built new decks) just showed up this year or last, maybe the idea of it being "untapped" is a bit off. New sets have been very relevant.
BW tokens does do poorly against traditional ramp decks like traditional Tron, but that's not seeing much play these days. BW tokens can out grind Eldrazi Tron, having push/path for their threats and tokens, intangible virtue, and Sorin, solemn visitor is too much for any midrange deck, unless they're able to get off an All is Dust. Even Hangerback walker loses power with an intangible virtue or two on the field.
Against ramp combo decks like Scapeshift and storm, disruption slows them down and the lifegain can put them out of lethal. Turn 2 auriok champion, turn 3 spectral procession and turn 4 Sorin can put a BW tokens player at 31 life by turn 4, while dealing the opponent 8 damage.
On top of that BW tokens can Side in more disruption, Aven mindcensor and Kambal against both, and then the opponent is stuck with the decision of siding in spot removal against BW tokens or not. I've had a storm player side in dismember against me because of Kambal, only to have to cast it against one of my spirit tokens. And GY hate also does a lot of work against Storm.
I mean most midrange decks now also play EE, and eldrazi tron runs ratchet bomb too. That's sorta the problem with mental magic - yes we can play out an imaginary game where things go exactly as well as you want, but that's not always the case. Not trying to disparage the deck, I've even thought about building it, but that's just my take.
I'd rather MM17 and future masters sets just get "extra" print runs like Eternal Masters did. I'm still holding out that in three months that sort of announcement will drop.
BW tokens, as I understand, is pretty bad against ramp decks because it doesn't present a clock until usually turn 4 or so right as the ramp player is about to do something bonkers. In fact, that's probably why it doesn't dominate any tournament...ever. Tokens can disrupt, and lingering souls is certainly good, but most decks have some sort of answer that they will draw before you can win.
The article was a great read. Hell, honestly I didn't even play during Splinter Twin's time and still got a playset just in case. The format has been developing very well, and only one modern pro tour per year means the likelihood of a deck becoming very good very quickly at the precise timing needing a "shakeup ban" are low. It didn't even take that long for adjustments to be made in the face of Death's Shadow (staring at GP Vegas results, Huey was predicting 5 shadow decks and none appeared).
I said in the price discussion thread that WOTC has a financial motive to keep Modern thriving due to the high profit margin of the master sets. I could see a boost in popularity from additional exposure leading to higher print runs on those set in the future, keeping prices from booming again. After all, it makes zero sense for Karn to jump $20 per just because it wasn't in MM17...sorry griping done.
1. Good matchups against other linear decks aside from burn
2. Trickier, but not unwinnable, against disruption + clock like delver or shadow decks
3. Cross your fingers burn doesn't land an eidolon
I have yet to play against any sort of dedicated control deck. What are some changes in general gameplay against say UW control?
If a player says they are casting Esper Charm and your first question is "targeting me or you?" That's a blatant attempt at manipulation to me. If your game plan involves verbally tricking a player, even without any actual dishonesty, I take issue. I'm glad that the rules have been upgraded to include common sense dealings (as someone who was literally rules lawyer'ed at old school PTQs as a teenager. Yes, there used to only be PTQs).
That being said, one reason I love modern is that it contains a ton of complex interactions. I don't enjoy that because I like tricking people, but because this is a format that rewards extensive knowledge of dozens of archetypes and lines of play. It continues to make me laugh that some pros complain about modern because they want to have a very clear, established meta so that they can try to prepare the best deck. Seriously, Mengucci wrote about this yesterday for CFB I found it laughable that he literally said it was bad that, as a pro, modern is too diverse for him to break the format.
define interaction.
Don't define it by the opposite, please. I want to know what qualifies as interaction.
This statement, I'm sorry, reeks of being spoiled of the manabase possibilities alone. Three, four, and even five color decks are pretty easy thanks to the consistency of fetch + shock.
Blue filtering is banned because they don't want combo to become stupidly consistent, and if that comes at the cost of inconsistency for all decks that is an acceptable consequence to WOTC. We can debate the veracity of that statement, but don't claim its about making the game better as a visual spectacle.
Variance in draws is why we have mulligans and access to some card draw/selection like Serum Visions, Collected Company, and even Tasigur or Snapcaster Mage. Variance is the reason matchups are 60/40 instead of 100/0. Hell, why even play out the game the way you describe the "ideal." We can just swap decklists, look up the matchup % and whoever was favored can fill out the match slip in his or her favor. There's the end of variance.
Also worth noting: just because FCG played linear decks does not mean the format is too linear. We talk about sample sizes a lot here with tournament results, and there's room for discussion. One guy playing two decks that are linear is not representative of an entire format though. No debate there.
I think part of that depends on what deck you are playing that is running the Fulminator.
That's why it has been said many times that modern rewards understanding your deck as opposed to trying to metagame.
WOTC says new sets is how it introduces cards to modern. Sure, they could change that whenever they want, but I don't see that happening any time soon. And since Push and other cards (several of which built new decks) just showed up this year or last, maybe the idea of it being "untapped" is a bit off. New sets have been very relevant.
I mean most midrange decks now also play EE, and eldrazi tron runs ratchet bomb too. That's sorta the problem with mental magic - yes we can play out an imaginary game where things go exactly as well as you want, but that's not always the case. Not trying to disparage the deck, I've even thought about building it, but that's just my take.
I said in the price discussion thread that WOTC has a financial motive to keep Modern thriving due to the high profit margin of the master sets. I could see a boost in popularity from additional exposure leading to higher print runs on those set in the future, keeping prices from booming again. After all, it makes zero sense for Karn to jump $20 per just because it wasn't in MM17...sorry griping done.
1. Good matchups against other linear decks aside from burn
2. Trickier, but not unwinnable, against disruption + clock like delver or shadow decks
3. Cross your fingers burn doesn't land an eidolon
I have yet to play against any sort of dedicated control deck. What are some changes in general gameplay against say UW control?
That being said, one reason I love modern is that it contains a ton of complex interactions. I don't enjoy that because I like tricking people, but because this is a format that rewards extensive knowledge of dozens of archetypes and lines of play. It continues to make me laugh that some pros complain about modern because they want to have a very clear, established meta so that they can try to prepare the best deck. Seriously, Mengucci wrote about this yesterday for CFB I found it laughable that he literally said it was bad that, as a pro, modern is too diverse for him to break the format.