MTG Salvation

Quote from Kathal »

That is an interesting thought, I would even go further and say, that the pillars look like this atm:

Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks

I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.

Is there any card I'm missing?

Greetings,
Kathal

Noble Hierarch is much more tied to decks like humans and bant spirits than green value decks. Green value decks arent really a significant part of the meta.

Quote from FoodChainGoblins »

For me, it would be sad to see Faithless Looting. It would essentially die for Creeping Chill pushing Dredge over. Faithless Looting (just like Ancient Stirrings I guess) enables a lot of Modern strategies or make them much better. Without the card, Modern is less diverse.

*On a personal note, I am starting to get bored of Modern. People around my area know me as the "Modern dude," but I seriously am considering playing a format where I can win over 60% of the time (like Standard or Limited, which actually don't look too bad anymore). Maybe if there are some unbannings in the future, I'll be back, but right now seeing stuff on the ban list when Modern has become boring for me (because in the end, that's all that matters) is really a slap in the face.

I have been noticing as standard keep getting better people look at modern with much more scrutiny. Its hard to get behind modern right now given what it is now compared to other formats

Quote from gkourou »

Quote from Aazadan »

I've had trouble figuring out what I like in the format for awhile. Experimental Frenzy has had me brewing a lot though. There's a lot of decks in the format that I like but none that I really want to play week in and week out. I haven't really felt that way since Twin and Pod.

That's what I feel as well. Also, many other Modern players I talk to have the same feeling. There is diversity though, but Wizards artificially removing most tempo decks(what I like playing) and most toolbox decks has left two big gaps on Modern, and this has an impact. On the other hand, many more categories have been filled and keep filling with many, new decks.
Hopefully, we will keep getting cards like Knight of Autumn and Crackling Drake for those two categories.

there is deck diversity but how much overlap in strategic diversity is there. I mean how different are hollow one, bridgevine and dredge really? how different are spirits and humans really?

Quote from idSurge »

Yeah I would think if you are going to include it, you build around it. It DID work as a finisher in that Goblins deck, but then I remember 'oh right I'm playing goblins' and I get dumpstered by a good deck.

I dont know, I'm feeling pretty lost in the format right now, no deck is really fun for me to grind at the moment as there is just so much nonsense going on.

Im in a similar situation. The format keeps getting more refined and the decks I enjoy playing have fallen out of favor. So now im waiting on unbans, a radical meta shift or new cards to help out my decks, so I can justify playing fnm and mtgo. I just can't keep hemorrhaging tickets to play the few decks I enjoy playing. I could play and learn a new deck but have already had to do that multiple times because of meta shifts and bannings, now its just not worth it given that the competitive decks on average dont give the best play experience. The incentives just arent there.

are people really playing a 4 mana enchantment that doesn't do anything when you play it in a format where decks win on turn 3 a non negligible amount of time

zoo hasnt been viable since twin was banned. there are just better aggro decks and even bidget aggro decks now

I was trying to avoid going down the bushwhacker route. I mentioned the reasoning in my other post " I have seen the bushwhacker zoo decks with pelt collector and too me they are a worse all in aggro deck compared to hollow one or bridge vine and less consistent than burn"

So i played through a couple leagues with the deck I posted earlier and it felt very underwhelming on a fundamental level. It just feels like 1 mana 3/3's are just too far below rate in modern now. I mean we are jumping through some hoops to make our 1 mana 3/3's online when other decks put the same effort or less into getting 0 mana 4/4's or 1 mana 5/5's. I have seen the bushwhacker zoo decks with pelt collector and too me they are a worse all in aggro deck compared to hollow one or bridge vine and less consistent than burn. Im gonna tweak and run it through some more games but I feel that barring getting a bunch of upgrades like UW control did recently, Zoo will continue to not be competitively viable we are just too fair

This is a zoo brew with pelt collector i have been working on. Its a pretty rough list and im not sold on some cards but it does seem worth exploring. pelt collector has been very good. It becomes a 3/3 very consistently and occasionally a 4/4. Renegade rallier, vexing devil and pelt collector is a package of cards that lets you grind, gives instant board presence and gives you reach. The issue im at now is whether 1 mana 3/3's in a non all in aggro shell are where you want to be in modern as they tend to get outclassed quickly. To mitigate this i have been playing bigger creatures like goyf and kotr. The sideboard is a mess and some of the numbers in the main need toyed with il give an update if i feel the decks has legs

did people actually take graveyard hate out of their decks? its not like modern is absent of those strategies at a competitive level

i voted to unban Stoneforge Mystic, Green Sun's Zenith, Splinter Twin and Punishing Fire. These cards arent winning games pre turn 4 and incentives players to play more than 0-2 mana spells. I would like to touch on gsz in particularly as i see some claims about the card that just arent true or some assumptions of decks that it would go in that are questionable. first is gsz going in boggles, i just don't see the need. boggles isnt playing Dryad arbor to ramp its to fetch it out to play against edict effects and if they want more threats they can play Silhana Ledgewalker which has evasion. infect is similar, yes they in theory could play gsz but is that better than playing another 2 mana infect creature.

I have some thought on gsz from another post that i feel is applicable here

"I would love to discuss a gsz unban though as I believe it is the most unbannable card on the ban list and the card gets a unwarranted bad rap. The card has never been dominate in any format and was banned early on in modern when the format was incredibly turbulent and doesn't even resemble current modern. To me cards that were banned in 2011 are in the same camp as cards that were never legal in the format. During its brief stint in modern gsz saw most of its play in zoo and 12 post, neither are part of the modern meta game anymore. Its worth noting that pod decks were around back then and opted to play chord over gsz. The reason the DCI gave for banning gsz was to increase diversity among green decks. In my opinion this has failed, as the green decks we have now are mostly company decks and scapeshift. It is hard to gauge the effect the ban has had due to the card being banned so early in the format so we just dont know if it had any impact on diversity of green decks. Green decks particularly green creature decks of the fair variety, decks were gsz sees most or would see most of its play (think gw value town, zoo, little kid abzan ) are struggling or have been completely pushed out of the format. Gsz also has a bunch of competition now so unbanning it could increase diversity among green decks. if you want to combo with creatures chord, eldritch evolution and summoners pact are all better options. Yes gsz is good turn 1 with dryad arbor, yes its good midgame, yes its good late game but cards being good at various stages of the game isn't a reason to ban or keep cards banned. I mean by that logic opt could be banned. Ask yourself when have green creature decks ever been too good or even just good in any non rotating format the ones that comes to mind was 2012 legacy maverick where it was just a good deck and pod decks in modern but i think we can all agree that pod was the issue there."

issue remains that those decks do go against wotc's stated goal of the format and reliable pre turn 4 kills has never been defined in any non arbitrary way. Again the belchers and cheerios of modern were bad with twin and bad without it.

Quote from ktkenshinx »

Twin unban talk returns! Maybe one day we'll see the vocal Twin defenders stop the crusade, but I have my doubts. The goal posts keep shifting whenever a previous goal post is attained, so I don't think anything short of the actual Twin unban itself is going to satisfy Twin proponents. First they wanted a viable blue deck in Modern's top-tier. GDS and Jeskai came around but the playstyle was allegedly wrong, the decks (to paraphrase) "weren't viable enough," they weren't "truly" top-tier, etc. Then they wanted a viable controlling deck in Modern's top-tier. UW Control is clearly that but now some Twin players are refocusing on wanting a viable UR deck (and GDS/Jeskai still don't cut it). Then it was wanting a viable police deck in Modern that slowed down the rest of the format. Humans meets that definition, but again, some Twin defenders are unhappy that it's not the specific blue tempo/combo deck that they want. This returns me to the theory, which Teysa K stated in the last few months, about how the Twin defenders won't ever be satisfied until they can blue UR tempo/combo police decks with 4 cmc enchantments and two-card combos. I.e. until the card is unbanned. I agree that anyone who is STILL arguing about Twin when it's 2.5-3 years later is probably never going to be satisfied until the card is unbanned. I just never see the Twin defenders trying new approaches to that unbanning argument. Instead, they default to the tired arguments they have continued to try for 2.5-3 years.

There are so many more interesting Modern topics. Why not discuss those instead of regressing to the mean of Twin defense talk, especially when it's the same 2-3 people always swinging the thread back in that direction? We can talk about win-rates, metagame shares, Play Design's impact on Guilds, other unbans like GSZ, Arena and MTGO considerations, etc. I think many people even prefer this new direction of discussing countermagic options, because it's at least something new and interesting that might overlap with current Play Design conversations and thinking.

As GK said earlier, there will be no strong 2 CMC counterspells while Teferi exists in Standard. The good news is that they might exist post-Teferi. See Opt being deliberately excluded from sets where Jeskai Ascendancy was Standard-legal, and see Opt returning after that card was gone. Given that R&D had a serious Counterspell conversation, I expect we'll see it in the next few years much like we saw Opt after a similar serious conversation.

The twin ban is the most controversial ban in all of magic and the deck had a large following of players. I'm not arguing for its ban or unban but it makes sense that discussions around it keep popping up.

I would love to discuss a gsz unban though as I believe it is the most unbannable card on the ban list and the card gets a unwarranted bad rap. The card has never been dominate in any format and was banned early on in modern when the format was incredibly turbulent and doesn't even resemble current modern. To me cards that were banned in 2011 are in the same camp as cards that were never legal in the format. During its brief stint in modern gsz saw most of its play in zoo and 12 post, neither are part of the modern meta game anymore. Its worth noting that pod decks were around back then and opted to play chord over gsz. The reason the DCI gave for banning gsz was to increase diversity among green decks. In my opinion this has failed, as the green decks we have now are mostly company decks and scapeshift. It is hard to gauge the effect the ban has had due to the card being banned so early in the format so we just dont know if it had any impact on diversity of green decks. Green decks particularly green creature decks of the fair variety, decks were gsz sees most or would see most of its play (think gw value town, zoo, little kid abzan ) are struggling or have been completely pushed out of the format. Gsz also has a bunch of competition now so unbanning it could increase diversity among green decks. if you want to combo with creatures chord, eldritch evolution and summoners pact are all better options. Yes gsz is good turn 1 with dryad arbor, yes its good midgame, yes its good late game but cards being good at various stages of the game isn't a reason to ban or keep cards banned. I mean by that logic opt could be banned. Ask yourself when have green creature decks ever been too good or even just good in any non rotating format the ones that comes to mind was 2012 legacy maverick where it was just a good deck and pod decks in modern but i think we can all agree that pod was the issue there.

Quote from Crimson Lancer »

Quote from Wraithpk »

Quote from Crimson Lancer »

It would drive out entirely all of the interesting "unfair" decks I enjoy playing with, as it would be the best "unfair" deck. Why play Quest Combo or Belcher EVER if Twin exists?

Twin changes nothing for decks like that, they're already unplayable from a competitive standpoint. Adding Twin to the format can't make a deck that's already unplayable even less playable. What Twin does do is make top tier uninteractive linear decks less desirable to play, and interactive decks more desirable. If you had a player on the fence between playing Hollow One or GBx for a tournament, he might land on Hollow One without Twin in the format, but maybe he plays GBx instead if Twin is legal. You can still play Hollow One in the Twin format if you want, but maybe they start running some of their sideboard interaction in the main to hedge against Twin game 1. Or maybe you just stay focused and linear and hope to dodge Twin. It makes those decks less desirable, but not unplayable.

The dream of the Brewer is that no one has tuned those decks correctly so that they ARE playable from a competitive standpoint. I've been testing the Belcher variant that one guy posted on Reddit, saying he's 20-4 in matches this past month, and it's pretty dang good. Gkouru is pretty spot-on, though, in saying that Humans is the new "fair" Twin by making these decks very difficult to play with Meddling Mage and Freebooter forcing you to interact or get trampled to death. They just don't have a 2-card "I win" button that makes them a better version of Belcher; instead, they police the format and cleanup a lot of the silly, degenerate decks a bit more while not being the best degenerate deck. I much prefer things this way, personally.

With Twin in the format, why would I even brew degenerate decks at all? Does it matter if I brew up the next Cheeri0s deck? No, because it'll still never be better than Twin.

I never thought I would see the day where people are citing decks that go against wotc's stated goals of the format as a reason to keep twin banned but here we are. I personally found it much easy and much more enjoyable to brew with twin in the format. It was something you had to account for but so is any deck that sees competitive play. Its worth mentioning that these unfair brews were bad with twin and bad without twin in the format.

Quote from BlueTronFTW »

So...we have pretty good options all over the place in terms of control, midrange, disruptive aggro, linear aggro, spell combo, creature combo (i dunno what else to call hardened scale robots), ramp decks. At this point, any claims of underrepresentation are going a bit deeper, I'd argue too deep, when discussing the health of the format. You can clearly play jund, mardu pyromancer, or grixis shadow and find success, but you also need a green toolbox midrange deck? There's humans offering a synergistic, disruptive aggro deck, but really it would be better to have SFM because mono white D&T needs to be there? At some point, I think the reality is that some decks just will not translate well to modern from every other format.

Hell, we might even have some stability for a few more months!

this actually strikes me as odd since you seem to be arguing against the main metric for which we use to evaluate modern's health, that being deck diversity. creature toolbox decks have have been a part in modern before and have a following of players. its also worth mentioning that almost all the midrange decks in the format a base black thoughtsieze decks. a green toolbox deck would offer midrange players another truly distinct option. also sfm doesn't necessarily go in mono white d&t as the deck is built around a card that punishes search effects (leonin arbiter). most arguments on unbanning sfm are about how mild it on rate in the context of modern.