IMHO KiKi-Jiki Combo is better than Splinter Twin at the moment. And neither of them is good.
Jeskai Saheeli is probably better than both.
Yea, I have been very intrigued with saheeli, and I probably just need to play it more. I've played a few games with it and my sequencing was probably not where it needed to be, as I got pretty stomped the whole time.
That Twin would be bad in the current metagame and that Eye Eldrazi was the most busted deck in Modern of all times?
I would honestly never play Twin nowadays, even if it was legal. Force of Negation kills it by itself, and the so called ‘good matchups’ had improved consistency and tools to fight it over the years. I don’t know why the card is still banned. Fatal Push also happened.
Also, Dovin's Veto is a problem. A huge problem. I playtested against a UW Control with an Izzet Twin list, similar to Todd's and Veto had me wondering if Dispel would be any good in today's meta. Seems that it would not be a great idea to maindeck it, at least more than once.
That said, I believe Twin would be <5% metashare at today's Modern. Thus, super super safe.
Yea, I watched that VS Live matchup too, and it looked pretty silly. I would probably still jam it, as it's better than Kiki moon which I try to enjoy.
I've been slowly buying the pieces for E Tron, so maybe I'll just have to leave the reactive decks for good.
One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
Yes, this is definitely not fun. I still recall the time when Ravnica was spoilered, I was playing something similar to MUC (Next Level Blue?) and my local opponents - bad at playing MTG - decided to go full Choke and the likes of them in the sideboard for postboard games. Welp, there are people hating on someone else in every context, Magic is no exception. Poor sportsmanship, that's exactly it.
Yes it can be annoying, but I don't at all think that it's poor sportmanship, it's great local metagaming. If I know that there is a bunch of tron/prison at my LGS and I load up 3 ceremonious rejection in my board, is that me being a poor sport? I definitely don't see it that way, but to each their own.
I never said Phoenix is as fair as Jund/UWx (which have "degenerate" plays like cheating on mana with BBE and Terminus or ignoring timing restrictions -more evident now with T3feri) or just "fair".
Phoenix is a mesh of aggro/tempo/combo elements which show depending on their opening hands and which turn of the game you are in. It isn't a monolithic aggro/combo deck that wants to smash face as fast as possible, it can and will grind.
My problem is with putting Phoenix on the same level of "degeneracy" as Dredge, Griselbrand decks etc. If Phoenix is degenerate on that level, then the decks I mentioned in my previous post are also degenerate if not more, because their fastest draws beat Phoenix dead. Words like "degenerate" have been bestowed with (severe) negative connotations that provide nuance. If you're fine with completely different things being lumped together and described with the same term, then ok, but it isn't based on their inherent structural properties. Dredge abuses the graveyard and needs it to win, while Phoenix simply uses it as a resource, as many decks are doing (including Jund/Rock and UWx), just with more intensity. There's a fundamental difference there.
That was the point of my previous post, degenerate is a subset of unfair decks, and Phoenix is (probably most of the time) an unfair deck which modern has plenty, not degenerate. (Ab)Using that loaded term as one and the same as "unfair" will get us nowhere, the words have differing intensity. We as a community should start distinguishing and establishing those terms if we want to have a conversation where we're all on the same wavelength and not just flailing around. It will help keep the conversation grounded and probably help fit decks in molds faster.
Most posters here have established that every deck is on a sliding scale of linearity/reactiveness/degeneracy, whatever. Just because someone used the word "degenerate" doesn't mean that it's 100% BS combo or whatever, just that the sliding scale is farther on the degenerate/unfair side of things versus the fair side. I see your point of using unfair instead of degenerate as 'lighter' language, but I think most of us see the caveat of it being the sliding scale, moreso than a black-and-white definition. Just my $0.02, /shrug.
I'm somewhere in the middle of all this, and kind of ambivalent at the moment. The card previews have been awesome to my Timmy side, even though I'm never going to build Bear EDH or Changeling.dec the cards tickle my fancy. The throwback cards are awesome from an aesthetic POV, but most of them aren't very playable.
The spike side of me is on board with some of the other commenters here, thinking that this is NOT the set that we were advertised/expected from the hype build-up. Sure, there will definitely be some cards that make a splash, but a lot less than I was hoping for.
However, all that being said, I've seen a few comments that also resonate with me: if this set was a slam dunk and had a ton of must-have cards, what do you think the price point would be for those? Urza preorders are at $80 a pop! Sure, that will drop, sure the print run is supposedly demand-based, but still, I'm not sure how much I like the thought of new format staples being a buy-them-now-or-cry-later. Most casual spikes like myself aren't going to buy 4x of the chase rares/mythics in anticipation that in 6 months I'm going to want to switch decks to use those cards. Right now, I hvae about 4-5 playsets of cards that I'm going to try to pick up, and that will probably be over my budget as is. If this whole set was killer, I'd be crying a lot harder.
And Sheldon, nice replies, I'm always impressed with your level-headedness when basically repeating the same stances ad nauseum. I don't necessarily agree with your stances, but kudos to always being cool and calm.
All that being said, give me back ******* twin!!!! It's the only deck I've ever loved enough to never want to play anything else. RIP counterspell.
EDIT: and for the haters, since I've been working on a personal level about being more self-aware, Yes, it's probably because I'm a bad magic player and twin had a built-in number of free "Oops, I win" moments. Sue me, it was still a blast to play
Wow, I haven't been watching the prices for Urza, but I'm planning on playing him (glad I snagged a playset of sword and foundry yesterday). Just saw that the preorders are going for 80 a pop. Hopefully this is a big enough print run to bring that price down, at least to the 40's. Anyone have any thoughts? I rarely buy cards I won't use, so speccing and snagging good deals isn't something I normally do.
Urza is an instant EDH powerhouse. However, I'd be stunned to see him hold onto that kind of a price tag throughout the duration of MH's print cycle. The supply bottleneck will almost surely keep his price lofty early on, but we have confirmation that Horizons is a print to demand set. There will be plenty of product opened to satiate the EDH demand and by the time MH goes out of print, Urza will be a $15 card IMO. Although the MH spoilers have been underwhelming compared to what some people were hoping for out of the set, the Horizon Canopy cycle lands themselves could probably keep a mediocre set afloat throughout its print life. There's still about 2/3 of the set left to reveal, so I doubt there will be any issues with lack of demand once its all on the table. Speccing on anything in this set is probably a losing battle; it's going to be those existing cards that either get better or become relevant due to MH that you'd want to keep an eye on, sword & foundry that you mention are great examples.
On another note, one thing thats got me excited about MH are these slivers getting spoiled. If Modern Slivers becomes a competitive archetype following the MH release, I'll be a happy camper. However, I'm kicking myself hard for listing a Sliver Queen on eBay just last night...of course they're selling for 30%+ more than they were this time yesterday.
Thanks, that makes me feel more confident. Gives me time to try out lists on modo with my manatraders account before settling on a final list and paying out the wazoo for the playset of Urza.
Wow, I haven't been watching the prices for Urza, but I'm planning on playing him (glad I snagged a playset of sword and foundry yesterday). Just saw that the preorders are going for 80 a pop. Hopefully this is a big enough print run to bring that price down, at least to the 40's. Anyone have any thoughts? I rarely buy cards I won't use, so speccing and snagging good deals isn't something I normally do.
I don't use this forum enough to know how to embed the decklist here, but JCumiskey posted a 5-0 finish with a new combo kill in blue moon. Seems kinda sweet. For only 15 bucks it was an easy decision to grab the cards to try at the next FNM.
Cabal Therapist is a good card. Not saying it's the most OP discard spell, but in the correct shell it can do some damage. I think it will end up in black midrange strategies to fight things like storm where there needs to be a good number of spells to go off.
In a bw tokens build that may be better than paths for fighting combo/control strategies that just sit on cards.
Yea, between Bitterblossom and Bitterblossom 2.0 I could see that archetype gaining some traction.
I agree that the bubble for PW-centric cards will likely burst, but there's still a good 1-2 months left for those values to inflate. Strix can be re-printed (for the 7th time) in MH, so I'd definitely suggest ditching your copies while folks are still willing to pay $10 a pop. However, Zen fetches will not be in MH or any set within the foreseeable future, so selling now would be extremely premature IMO. Tarn may have hit/come close to it's all time high, but the others have just started making their way up to new highs. Even in the most conservative scenario where one thinks MH might introduce a land cycle that somehow makes fetches less desirable, I wouldn't begin to think about offloading them until the week or so before spoilers are set to debut.
It's best to set a threshold for the price point to sell, rather than waiting for the peak to come. The only way to know the peak is hit is to see the price start to fall, and at that point it is too late. Someone might lose out on a few extra dollars short term, but the long term is what is important.
....
That's just being conservative; there's a good chance that MH will only push demand further post-release and we could see prices climb well throughout the Summer into Fall.
Let's not keep a narrative of a silent group that just dislikes the format but doesn't talk about it, doesn't want to talk about it, but is oppressed by the people who actually like the format. It doesn't make sense. I think the total N we have from both polls is enough to give a clear picture of the active playerbase.
What? There's maybe 5 people who are actively critical of Modern and there are 30 voters who do not enjoy Modern. It is indicative that there IS a silent group of people who are not enjoying Modern but are not actively posting about it.
And taking the results from the reddit poll. As of the time of this post there's almost 1000 voters. It's quite clear that a significant amount of players do not enjoy Modern, around 25% on both reddit and MTGS.
In this thread, there are 27 unique posters who have actually posted, and 106 total voters. Assuming people aren't up to anything shady with accounts, that means there are 79 people who voted but did not post.
Of those 27 who voted, here's the breakdown as a percent of posters (n=27) and total posts (n=55):
1s: 6 (22% of posters, 18% of total posts)
2s: 7 (26% of posters, 25% of total posts)
3s: 0 (0% of posters, 0% of total posts)
4s: 7 (26% of posters, 38% of total posts)
5s: 1 (4% of posters, 7% of total posts)
Unknowns: 6 (22% of posters, 11% of total posts)
Based on this thread, the most common group of posters are actually the 4s and the 2s, with the most vocal of those groups being the 4s. This makes sense to me because these are the groups that are still campaigning for changes. 1s love the format and don't want to defend or address issues (they don't see any), 3s are ambivalent or indifferent and don't post, and 5s might be so checked out of a format they just hate. If this breakdown was also true in the reddit thread (hard to know), it supports a theory of a vocal minority of players who dislike Modern. The 4s and 5s represent 45% of the total posts in this thread, despite comprising only 30% of total posters and 29% of the total vote. This also makes sense to me, as we often see this effect in polls.
EDIT: deleted an incorrect line.
For the sake of data I'll chime in and say I voted for #4. Like other posters have said in regards to Legacy, I wish more decisions mattered in Modern. Micro-decisions and back-and-forth gameplay is what originally drew me to modern at the format's beginning. I will say that recently I've given up on remand and cryptic command and have picked up a glass cannon, which has actually let me have a little more enjoyment of my games. At least I get to be the one either winning or losing to my deck, rather than drawing the wrong half of my deck or not being quick enough.
Also, I agree with the poster who said that people who don't care/don't like Modern aren't posting. When I'm super into Diablo I may post on forums or visit them, when I'm bored with it, I don't. If someone isn't liking Modern atm I don't see them trawling the forums and visiting polls; they're reading about other formats/things. Just my two cents.
If it weren't for the three Modern GPs in March and Modern Horizons on the horizon (ba-dum tss), this sort of announcement, lacking any information regarding the overall format, would be disappointing. However, there's honestly no point in announcing bans/unbans or relaying thoughts on the current meta when 250 new-to-modern cards are about to be dumped into the card-pool; the sheer number of cards introduces a metric *****-load of new variables that will almost surely re-shape the metagame into something that will look much different than it does today. Sure, current T1 archetypes likely won't fall off the face of the Earth or anything, but unless all of those 250 cards end up being absolute garbage (highly unlikely), there will be an exciting period of uncertainty in Modern while players brew/experiment with their new toys.
Think back over the last 3-5 years of Modern and recall all the instances when the addition/removal of a single card/new-found strategy impacted the format (e.g. Death's Shadow, Twin/Pod ban, Dredge-enablers, Hollow One, Arclight, Push, etc); now extrapolate that to include 250 cards coming directly from Legacy's card pool or designed specifically with Modern's power level in mind. Even if 200 of those cards end up being draft fodder and/or "unplayable", we're still looking at a major meta shakeup post-horizons.
Yes, it's super exciting! Although I'd be lying if I didn't also say that I feel a little trepidation at having my in-the-mail deck that I just bought get invalidated within the next 4-6 months. Granted, it was silly to buy in to a new deck with everything coming, but I didn't have much of a choice, the money was catching my pants on fire....
I ended up pulling the trigger on Goryo's. I played tons of games on modo throughout the weekend and it just felt way better to be proactive vs sitting back and hoping I draw the right answers. Should get my cards this week and I'll run it at FNM this Friday!
I could use some input/insight as well. I've been playing a lot of T2/T3 nonsense, such as UR Through the Breach, UR kiki, Blue Moon,and now I'm on Grixis Kiki. I've been looking at two separate decks that I can pick up and are within ~$40 of each other, so that's not a huge issue. One is the sultai reclamation deck, and the other is Tom Medvec's Goryo's As Foretold Kiki deck.
Sultai Pros:
My favorite color wedge.
The spell toolbox gameplay is a lot of fun, and Blue Sun's Zenith-ing someone for 45 rarely gets old.
Buying into this deck also gets me a few Misty fetches and some landbase cards that should hold value or at least be worthwhile moving into the future.
Cons:
Playing in paper will require lots of time management (slow deck, lots of shuffling, which I hate)
Deck is very skill-intensive (and I scrub at FNM quite a bit, sometimes going 3-1, usually 2-2)
The shell isn't 100% yet, and flooding out or durdling around unitl T7 or 8 and dying has happened quite a few times online.
Goryo's Pros:
Super fun deck, right up my alley with kiki, plus my other all-time favorite legendary, Grizzy.
Less known deck, so can earn a few percentage points from people not prepared.
Can win T2 some amount of the time(t1 faithless looting, kiki+exarch into bin, t2 electrodominance+ LE ) so it's at least quicker than the build I'm running now.
Can easily shift to UR living end (Nassif's list) to try other builds.
Cons:
It's a graveyard deck. Maindeck surgical is becoming quite common with phoenix, of which there is plenty at my LGS.
It's also a complex deck with many lines, and again, not a high-tier player.
Very few resources on this deck, even from Medvec, there are only a handful of videos and most are 12+ months out of date (not utilizing the Electrodominance).
Only Medve'cs 11th place finish, no other results that I've seen.
General thoughts:
With horizons on the horizon (hyuck), the metagame could drastically change in the coming months, and either deck could be a bad investment OR could be a "Glad I bought that when I did" moment. (especially in regards to land cards)
I will be playing this pretty much solely at FNM, so it obviously doesn't need to be top tier, but I will take it to Open's and GP's when they're in town.
The biggest factor here is that I have money burning a hole in my pocket. I've been set for 3 weeks or so on buying sultai, so the "buy a new deck" is really hard to turn off now. Even if waiting until horizons is a better option, I dunno if I wanna do that. I can't really even pinpoint why I started getting turned off sultai and onto Goryo's, probably too many durdle-until-I-die games on modo.
Anyways, I know that these kind of situations are impossible to predict or to tell people what the actual "best" option is, but I'm just hoping for some input and to bounce ideas around. My wife couldn't really care less and my IRL friends quit magic years ago, so forums and discord are all I have as an outlet for my thoughts.
As it stands now, I'm planning on jamming both lists on modo all weekend and make a decision by Sunday *crossing fingers prices dont' keep skyrocketing.....*
*edit* For reference, Sultai would get me 2x Misty's, 1x verdant, and 3-4 shocks. Goryo's would get me 3x blackcleave cliffs.
Yea, I have been very intrigued with saheeli, and I probably just need to play it more. I've played a few games with it and my sequencing was probably not where it needed to be, as I got pretty stomped the whole time.
Yea, I watched that VS Live matchup too, and it looked pretty silly. I would probably still jam it, as it's better than Kiki moon which I try to enjoy.
I've been slowly buying the pieces for E Tron, so maybe I'll just have to leave the reactive decks for good.
Yes it can be annoying, but I don't at all think that it's poor sportmanship, it's great local metagaming. If I know that there is a bunch of tron/prison at my LGS and I load up 3 ceremonious rejection in my board, is that me being a poor sport? I definitely don't see it that way, but to each their own.
Most posters here have established that every deck is on a sliding scale of linearity/reactiveness/degeneracy, whatever. Just because someone used the word "degenerate" doesn't mean that it's 100% BS combo or whatever, just that the sliding scale is farther on the degenerate/unfair side of things versus the fair side. I see your point of using unfair instead of degenerate as 'lighter' language, but I think most of us see the caveat of it being the sliding scale, moreso than a black-and-white definition. Just my $0.02, /shrug.
The spike side of me is on board with some of the other commenters here, thinking that this is NOT the set that we were advertised/expected from the hype build-up. Sure, there will definitely be some cards that make a splash, but a lot less than I was hoping for.
However, all that being said, I've seen a few comments that also resonate with me: if this set was a slam dunk and had a ton of must-have cards, what do you think the price point would be for those? Urza preorders are at $80 a pop! Sure, that will drop, sure the print run is supposedly demand-based, but still, I'm not sure how much I like the thought of new format staples being a buy-them-now-or-cry-later. Most casual spikes like myself aren't going to buy 4x of the chase rares/mythics in anticipation that in 6 months I'm going to want to switch decks to use those cards. Right now, I hvae about 4-5 playsets of cards that I'm going to try to pick up, and that will probably be over my budget as is. If this whole set was killer, I'd be crying a lot harder.
And Sheldon, nice replies, I'm always impressed with your level-headedness when basically repeating the same stances ad nauseum. I don't necessarily agree with your stances, but kudos to always being cool and calm.
All that being said, give me back ******* twin!!!! It's the only deck I've ever loved enough to never want to play anything else. RIP counterspell.
EDIT: and for the haters, since I've been working on a personal level about being more self-aware, Yes, it's probably because I'm a bad magic player and twin had a built-in number of free "Oops, I win" moments. Sue me, it was still a blast to play
Thanks, that makes me feel more confident. Gives me time to try out lists on modo with my manatraders account before settling on a final list and paying out the wazoo for the playset of Urza.
I think he means that shroud is bad, but hexproof is worse.
https://twitter.com/CumiskeyJacob/status/1126323821869436928
Yea, between Bitterblossom and Bitterblossom 2.0 I could see that archetype gaining some traction.
You shut your dirty mouth!
But no, you're probably spot-on.
For the sake of data I'll chime in and say I voted for #4. Like other posters have said in regards to Legacy, I wish more decisions mattered in Modern. Micro-decisions and back-and-forth gameplay is what originally drew me to modern at the format's beginning. I will say that recently I've given up on remand and cryptic command and have picked up a glass cannon, which has actually let me have a little more enjoyment of my games. At least I get to be the one either winning or losing to my deck, rather than drawing the wrong half of my deck or not being quick enough.
Also, I agree with the poster who said that people who don't care/don't like Modern aren't posting. When I'm super into Diablo I may post on forums or visit them, when I'm bored with it, I don't. If someone isn't liking Modern atm I don't see them trawling the forums and visiting polls; they're reading about other formats/things. Just my two cents.
Yes, it's super exciting! Although I'd be lying if I didn't also say that I feel a little trepidation at having my in-the-mail deck that I just bought get invalidated within the next 4-6 months. Granted, it was silly to buy in to a new deck with everything coming, but I didn't have much of a choice, the money was catching my pants on fire....
Sultai Pros:
My favorite color wedge.
The spell toolbox gameplay is a lot of fun, and Blue Sun's Zenith-ing someone for 45 rarely gets old.
Buying into this deck also gets me a few Misty fetches and some landbase cards that should hold value or at least be worthwhile moving into the future.
Cons:
Playing in paper will require lots of time management (slow deck, lots of shuffling, which I hate)
Deck is very skill-intensive (and I scrub at FNM quite a bit, sometimes going 3-1, usually 2-2)
The shell isn't 100% yet, and flooding out or durdling around unitl T7 or 8 and dying has happened quite a few times online.
Goryo's Pros:
Super fun deck, right up my alley with kiki, plus my other all-time favorite legendary, Grizzy.
Less known deck, so can earn a few percentage points from people not prepared.
Can win T2 some amount of the time(t1 faithless looting, kiki+exarch into bin, t2 electrodominance+ LE ) so it's at least quicker than the build I'm running now.
Can easily shift to UR living end (Nassif's list) to try other builds.
Cons:
It's a graveyard deck. Maindeck surgical is becoming quite common with phoenix, of which there is plenty at my LGS.
It's also a complex deck with many lines, and again, not a high-tier player.
Very few resources on this deck, even from Medvec, there are only a handful of videos and most are 12+ months out of date (not utilizing the Electrodominance).
Only Medve'cs 11th place finish, no other results that I've seen.
General thoughts:
With horizons on the horizon (hyuck), the metagame could drastically change in the coming months, and either deck could be a bad investment OR could be a "Glad I bought that when I did" moment. (especially in regards to land cards)
I will be playing this pretty much solely at FNM, so it obviously doesn't need to be top tier, but I will take it to Open's and GP's when they're in town.
The biggest factor here is that I have money burning a hole in my pocket. I've been set for 3 weeks or so on buying sultai, so the "buy a new deck" is really hard to turn off now. Even if waiting until horizons is a better option, I dunno if I wanna do that. I can't really even pinpoint why I started getting turned off sultai and onto Goryo's, probably too many durdle-until-I-die games on modo.
Anyways, I know that these kind of situations are impossible to predict or to tell people what the actual "best" option is, but I'm just hoping for some input and to bounce ideas around. My wife couldn't really care less and my IRL friends quit magic years ago, so forums and discord are all I have as an outlet for my thoughts.
As it stands now, I'm planning on jamming both lists on modo all weekend and make a decision by Sunday *crossing fingers prices dont' keep skyrocketing.....*
*edit* For reference, Sultai would get me 2x Misty's, 1x verdant, and 3-4 shocks. Goryo's would get me 3x blackcleave cliffs.
Thanks peeps.