MTG Salvation

Banning $60 Karn would be the death of Standard at this point.

None of those are a two drop that isn't bad on the board in multiples and is good independent of your opponents deck choice. And a lot of people do think Ensnaring Bridge is a problem card

Between the 4x Meddling Mages and the 4x Phantasmal Images it's pretty easy to cover multiple angles of removal.

I do think you are right though, and the meta hasn't fully adapted to Humans or the other go wide creature based aggro yet, with removal choices. Sweepers in general should be in way more decks. Settle the Wreckage, for example, is criminally underrated in Modern right now.

For GP Vegas right now I'm leaning towards Titan Shift with a spread of something like 2-3x Bolt, 2-3x Sweltering Suns, 1x Anger, 1x Slag Storm main deck as a hedge against the creature aggro that's so prevalent

edit: Even so, Meddling Mage is a poorly designed card

I know that you know Meddling Mage can name Path, Bolt...

And you're still at level 1. Getting rid of "Puke Combo" is bad for the meta game at large, independent of Humans, because that has an effect on other decks viability. Adding Combo back to the meta makes decks that aren't Combo better as well.

It's clear to me that Meddling Mage is the problem card. It's weird to me how people overlook this card, yet the salt flows freely over things like Ensnaring Bridge or Blood Moon. It's a two drop free win card that Humans run 8 copies of, with each copy after the first protecting the rest. Cards like Thalia and Freebooter are great, and exactly the right kind of disruption for a healthy format, Meddling Mage is a braindead relic from an age past and isn't really adding anything to the format.

No offense intended, but that's needlessly splitting hairs. When people say, "Modern is overrun with aggro" they are included Humans in that group of decks. It's an aggro deck for all intents and purposes. '

The problem though, is that it's too disruptive for being aggro.

I think Aggro beating Combo right now is the defining quality to the Modern meta. And this is almost entirely because of Humans, and Meddling Mage specifically. It's disrupting the entire meta "eco-system". Humans not only has a great matchup against decks that it should traditionally be weak too, it's almost completely removed them from the meta game at large. This in turn affects how well other decks are going to perform, independent of their specific Humans match up. If combo is less viable you see less combo at tournaments, and that trickles down to seeing less decks that beat combo, less decks that are good against the decks that beat combo...

Do you see adding more baby Karn to the list?

Hey all

In the recent 5-0 list dump there was a cool looking Valakut/Titan/Through the Breach deck. Is there any kind of discussion on this list variation here? Or somewhere you could point me to to get more information, maybe some videos?

Hollow One is a two color deck running 3-4 shocks, of which have been steadily climbing in price

Amulet being lumped into the non-interactive pile feels like a disingenuous way to make a point, and makes it difficult to take these conversations seriously after a certain while.

It's certainly, not the most interactive, as some of it's nuts draws are combo like, but you are talking about a deck that has multiple counter spells, sweepers, and dismembers in the 75, as well as EE and Ballista as control pieces, the ability to flash in Bojuka Bogs or Ghost Quarters... Bogles it is not.

Can any deck that's not U/R meet the demand for interactivity that some people are clamoring for?

Why? Gemstone is tapping for R, G, U, and occasionally W. Maybe, even B if you are running Dismember in the sideboard. It's a clear upgrade over Grove in your list. It's one of the best lands in Amulet

The lists running multiple Firespouts are cheating on basics to have 9 red sources

I finally have all my paper together and took it to a small FNM last night, only losing once. No one had seen the deck before. I took a mulligan to five a few times, and once even a four, my opponents were all like "Oh sorry, tough luck" haha, I'm just thinking don't worry, I'll be okay, as I drop a Temple and Chalice on 1 first turn, then TKS turn two

Haven't tested it yet, but I'm considering dropping the two Seagates, which I think we can all agree on at this point, and cutting some combination of Manlands instead of the Ghost Quarters for 4x Voids. Probably -1 Blink -1 Mutavault.

The way I'm seeing it Manlands and Voids kind of fulfill the same purpose in the deck. It seems most often if you are top decking well then you will be spending your mana each turn dropping some Eldrazi monster, and the if you aren't the Manlands are kind of a transition piece to let you smooth your draws out by still posing as a bit of pressure. While the Voids on the flip side are just scrying you into better top decks in the first place.

I could be totally off here, but 4x Ghost Quarter just seems like it adds major percentage points in a lot of match ups, and being able to run all four copies is a somewhat unique advantage of running CES in the first place. Same with Gemstone

I definitely don't think it needs a ban at this point. But I was just thinking about the question posed above, what deck would you build to beat Humans... I'm not sure there is one