MTG Salvation

I truthfully thought IMA was fairly loaded with value. Many of the re-prints were of highly priced cards that had low supply’s. In my mind it’s definitely a sleeper set that could look really good in a few years.

You all realize this set isn't specifically designed to appease modern players? Reprint equity is a real thing and given the influx of masters sets over the past couple years they can't realistically all be loaded with staples.

They are ready

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wasteland is something that probably wouldn't hurt to have in the format either.

other than drastically redefining the whole Modern format...

Well we know Wizards isn't too bothered by doing this though bans and new cards already. Maybe they draw the line at reprints?

ehhh, I think wasteland would have a far bigger impact than any recent printing or ban/unban

Quote from Colt47 »

wasteland is something that probably wouldn't hurt to have in the format either.

other than drastically redefining the whole Modern format...

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Quote from idSurge »

Considering there is real cost for people here. I cannot imagine they are able to turn off the lights, without compensation.

Incorrect. Trading card games are discontinued all the time, and online games often eventually lose server access, effectively killing the game. Even if microtransactions are involved, even if there is an economy of items for the playerbase, the terms of service does not protect you from this. At the risk of getting flamed, the fact that WOTC could deactivate Jeremy's account without any sort of compensation for his collection is proof that WOTC is under zero obligation to do so with anyone.

WOTC could, out of the kindness of their hearts, absolutely. But you shouldn't plan on it. It would be a massive cost, and WOTC knows the average player will grumble and play along.

I think you are simply assuming the worst with no real evidence here. What happened with Jeremy is a completely different situation (and better not be discussed here).

WOTC is actually at a completely new and unique position, as no other online card game collection system ever costed as much as MTGO does to the players. Yes, people have previously invested in skins, game time, etc. but this is simply different.

If they would simply turn of the system one day, that would have a large impact not only to the MTGO players but to their whole player base. It will show that it is a company that doesn't care and give no outs to their player base. In addition, if we accept that magic is in a decline (I personally disagree), then getting SUCH a bad publicity would simply be the nail in the coffin.

I don't think wizards will ever stop the support for eternal formats. The market is just too big for them to do that. Maybe it will take time, maybe they will simply restructure how eternal formats work and what cards are allowed, but eventually something will come up, if the company continues to exist.

I don't think we should "plan" on something exactly, as you say. But, I think, we can be certain, that wizards will give some outs to the player base. Whether they will be good or bad remains to be seen, but there won't be a day where servers close with no notification and all players lose everything.

Always good to keep certain topics taboo, might interrupt someone's "safe space." Companies, especially game companies, make decisions all the time that adversely affect their playerbase. EA isn't bankrupt. As for eternal format support, I am simply referring to MTGO. If WOTC wanted to shut MTGO down in favor of Arena, they could. There is zero legal defense to it. Once it's over, it's over, and if you had $10K in assets when they pull the plug, oh well.

My point? Don't trust WOTC. They don't deserve it.

I think his point is a little bit more nuanced than what you’re addressing. Wotc/magic and EA are very different. Ea licenses games and continues to push out new ones, Magic is one game. Magic continues on and keeps on getting more sets and continues to exist as an actively played game. If wotc drops the curtains on mtgo those players aren’t then going to move on to the next wotc game, they’re going to stop playing magic and will no longer be customers of wotc. Doing so comes at a huge cost to wotc and if they were planning on doing that they will likely have some way of porting those players into different magic based product.

Quote from cfusionpm »

What deck is playing Ethersworn Canonist? Or is this 150% spike just some random buyout? It says "GW Company" on Goldfish, but links to a deck not even running it...

This is legacy driven, new miracles list all play it due to their poor match up against storm

Quote from idSurge »

If they are in this set though Colt, that would still get them into circulation. Tarn's are 80 freaking dollars.

I dont know what you mean by putting life into Modern deck building though, if I had not finally found my soul mate (Turns baby!) there are like a dozen decks I would want to build.

A dozen decks you may want to build, but atleast for most people that isn't very plausible if you need access to playsets of lands that are $150-$350 a playset

With everybody discussing planar bridge I figured that I would chip in my two cents by saying that it definitely seems to slow to see regular play, but will win the game ~95% of the time you untap with it. Prevalence of artifact hate that will likely increase with the re-emergence of affinity is also something that will hurt its prospects. The match-ups that I see it being good against would be grixis delver, jeskai control, abzan and abzan company. Reason I don't see it being very good against jund or grixis control are the presence of kolaghans command. additionally jund always brings in ancient grudge against us anyways and has maelstrom pulse. I don't really think the card will improve any of our bad match-ups, but I am interested to see if people's testing indicates otherwise.

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Besides it seems counter-intuitive to think that playing Fulminator on turn 3 and then attacking and cracking him on turn 4 is fast enough, but turn 4 Crumble is too slow. If crumble on turn 4 is too slow Fulminator isn't going to get the job done.

You can crack him the turn you play him. If they're behind on Tron lands, then he swings in until they hit their second.

Rain is likely better since flipping Delver ASAP is really important to the deck, of course.

Yes of course. But what I'm saying is that if you're making the argument of Fulminator being a good beater you have to acknowledge that he won't be destroying any lands on turn 3

The point is that you have the option to do either. If my opponent goes Grove/Brushland into Tron piece and I'm on the play then I have the option to beat down with my Fulminator a bit. This gets more relevant if they miss land drops or make irrelevant land drops, which Tron sometimes does. If they do go Tron piece into Tron piece, you can play and sac immediately.

and if you do use him on turn 3 instantly then he's a strictly worse molten rain.

Fulminator costs R/B and R/B, not RR. He can't be strictly worse even if you use him turn 3 immediately because he's easier to cast than Molten Rain.

I understand that Fulminator has a choice value, but against a deck like Tron the choice is rarely better than deal 2 on turn 3. I'd rather haste the 2 dmg against a deck with such inevitability. To me Fulminator shines vs UWR and b/g because of the pressure against a deck with no clock, but for a combo deck like Tron to me it seems like fireing it off instantly while also having synergy with delvers and snapcasters is much greater than having the option to choose.

I think you also pointed out why I think fulminator might be the better sideboard option, it has more utility across a broader range of match-ups. Given that decks like jeskai, abzan, jund and grixis control are not considered easy match-ups it may be worth it to run fulminator over something like molten rain, even if molten rain is slightly better against tron.

Quote from Billiondegree »

How much better do you think Tron will become in the new meta?

Tron traditionally does very well against both Jund and control decks, the exact homes for Bloodbraid Elf and Jace.

Could these unbans actually push the archetype over the top?

Disclaimer: this isn't a jab at you but it is a statement against the outrageous anti-Tron vitriol online. Maybe you are just asking a question, but I read it as in dialogue with all the other anti-Tron hyperbole.

I'm a little exhausted by the apocalyptic anti-Tron crowd. It's been particularly bad in the last year; everything is a sign of the pending Tron doomsday. Tron winning GP? Tron too strong. Too many interactive decks in Modern? Tron well-positioned for takeover. New unbans? Tron about to get insane due to being good against unbanned cards. PT around the corner? Tron the best deck get ready for bans. Lantern wins PT? Ban Stirrings so we can also hit Tron which is broken. It's just a crusade at this point. Everything becomes a sign of the coming Tron end times and it doesn't really advance our discussion or understanding of the format. I'd rather talk about Twin of all things than more unsupported anti-Tron mania.

If for whatever reason Tron starts to do well against these new decks, we'll see Hollow One, Affinity, Burn, Storm, Grishoalbrand, etc. roll right back to beat big mana. This is what we saw all year. Modern is incredibly self-correcting at this point. That's why we saw lots of big mana at GP OKC, the Modern world had a collective aneurysm, and then big mana did not make waves at either the PT or GP Van. The format is self-regulating. There is no reason to believe unbans that don't even target the deck in question will cause imbalance. We're even seeing more anti-Tron technology emerge in interactive decks, like Field of Ruin. We need to tone down the sensationalistic Modern claims and stick with more measured analysis. This measured analysis predicted every "no changes" update over the last 12+ months, predicted metagame corrections, and predicted at least the BBE unban. This is the way we should be proceeding.

This letdown is going to be epic.

Comment Hidden

Re: matchups
I can't speak to current matchups because I don't have the data. I can speak to the 2015 matchups, which were exactly as I described them. It's funny that you say with such confidence that Twin vs. BGx "wasn't" 50/50 because it was and this proves my point beautifully; people don't know matchup %s and think they do. In an n>1000ish MTGO sample (28k overall, smaller for just BGx and Twin), Twin and BGx had a 50/50 matchup. See Karsten's old article:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-math-the-new-modern-by-the-numbers/

I also have the dataset that led to those matchup calculations and can confirm the math. I remember everyone saying that matchup was 60/40 or 40/60 or whatever, and the data clearly shows they were wrong and it was actually 50/50. This is undoubtedly being repeated today.

EDIT: To be super clear, I'm not saying Modern has some number of 50/50 matchups today or that any given matchup today is a certain %. I'm saying that people are so confident about extreme matchup %s when that historically isn't true and the real % is more even. I'm also saying that it's inaccurate/misleading/irresponsible to claim a certain matchup % without having the real data.

Quote from BlueTronFTW »

And my stance is that that is completely fine. No deck should be viable vs the entire field. When I play storm and see turn one monastery swiftspear, I know odds are against me. I don't resent the format, I don't hate the burn player. It is what it is. If I wanted to play a format with four viable decks to have any chance of even 4-0'ing an FNM, I would play standard.

I think a lot of people misunderstand his point. Across the full set of match-ups, a deck like Storm or Scapeshift has a number of 65/35s and 35/65s because of the mostly linear nature of the deck. Either the strategy works versus a particular opponent or doesn't. You'll win some of those matches by just getting out of bed in the morning (and likewise lose some). It can still make sense to play one of those decks when you see a net positive across the expected meta.

Midrange match-ups aren't typically so polarizing; there are much more 55/45s and 45/55s depending on how interaction lines up with an opponent's plan. By the nature of a deck like BGx, there aren't very many "I win" matches. It can still make sense to play one of those decks when you see a net positive across the expected meta. But if you introduce a couple of bad (and popular) 35/65 match-ups without any corresponding 65/35s, suddenly midrange becomes a terrible proposition. I think that's why you hear so many midrange players complaining about a specific match-up where they're significant underdogs. It's not that specific opponent's deck so much as that for midrange to be competitive it needs to have a chance even when it's unfavored. Otherwise you're playing a deck with a large downside risk and little upside. That can kill large swathes of a vast, popular archetype.

You're free to feel unmoved by their complaints; that's the motivation though. Most reasonable midrange players don't want to be favored in every match-up, they just want it to be mostly even-ish so that midrange remains a competitive choice. At this point, I wouldn't recommend anyone play midrange (like BGx). Either do something broken or play another archetype.

*Note -- I'm using 'midrange' here to mean 'fair midrange' since we're talking about BGx-like decks. I recognize there are other types within the spectrum.

Damn I thought the thread got deleted or something for hours. Didn't think I would find it in tier 1.

Quote from DrD2 »

- About Sylvan Primordial it's just a try, I never said it was the thing (and I agree with all you said, just I want to try it to see if it does something more or not). And I also try Nicol bolas, and I'm the first to say it was not good.

If you agree with what I said about any of them, then why did you present them in the first place? We can dartboard and thought-vomit loosely related cards all day, but what does that get us on a competitive forum? Why not test your brainstormed ideas first, then present them if they seem to be working out? At least you guys are doing that with Planar Bridge; this at least leads to discourse and arguments that can yield something we can all learn from.

- Did you even once bounce World Breaker from GY? as far as I remember it did it maybe once or twice, not more, and I'm playing this deck every single week, and we are all doing GPs here -with decent to good result for all of us- (so it's GPs level, not FNM for me). First it get exile most of the time, second it has a really light impact on the game, the only place I see it shining, is affinity (which is something for sure). I never had a chance to loose one land for bumping it, because you need 5 lands in play for doing this (as you can't loose tron, and can't loose you green mana source either), and even that is difficult if you plan ahead for Ulamog to close the game. It's fringe play that happend really not much...

I have used the return-to-hand ability a number of times to help maintain threat presence, yes. In all honesty, that number probably ranges between 15-20 in all DCI-registered matches, so it's not common, but it has clinched a few for me nicely. It's especially useful against control decks (helps against their counters and Wrath effects) and midrange (trades favorably against spot removal, not worthless in the face of discard/sac effects). The only times it gets exiled, really, are against Path (you still end up ahead for your trouble, and have the corner-case O-Stone in response option...yes; I've used it and recycled him) and the mirror if they end up pulling ahead. World Breaker as a card is excellent against Affinity, yes, and it's relevant against Infect as well. If you know you have Ulamog coming, of course you make sure you stay above ten mana open, but if the game has drawn out, one in your graveyard is easy to turn into a threat if all else fails. So World Breaker is possible to cast on turn three (though four is far more likely), and is relevant as both a hardy threat and possible answer to a lot of what can give us headaches. I didn't believe in the card at first either when others were really pushing it, but after playtesting it for awhile, I understood why people were including this.

- Planar Bridge replace Relic of Progenitus in the build i've made, so no it does not improve, but does not make it more difficult either, most of the time, on this slot, I prefer by far a threat than a relic as relic really does not do much about our difficult matchs.

This bit of reasoning is understandable, but incomplete; there are more options for those slots than Planar Bridge and Relic of Progenitus! Spellskite helps as a speed-bump against so many fast aggressive decks that we are dogs to. Thought-Knot Seer is amazingly versatile, as it can give hand information, be a threat, be an out to combo decks, and really hold the line against many aggressive decks. And, of course, you can include more copies of cards to suit your meta, including Ugin, O-Stone, or Wurmcoil Engine. You need more threats? Toss them in! At least with most of these, you can cast something on turn three and on turn four.

- About the bridge to spellskite tutor, well, yes, it's 8 mana, but once it hit the board, such kind of play makes it unstoppable. While Karn is (usually Karn do a single turn with me, it just die.); Ugin is; Ulamog is; they are all like that, the only exception is emrakul 1.0. With Bridge, you can chain karn, ugin, and emrakul, and protect Bridge itself with spellskite (even if there is more chance you go for emrakul in response rather than protecting it, let's be honest). It does dodge Crumble to dust in a good way, and give you really good opportinuty against ghost quarter too.
And about the mana open: well, it's ALL THE TIME OPEN after the first turn bridge enter the battlefield, because you tutor at the last possible moment, usually between the attack phase of the opponent, or the endstep. You don't even care that much about cards you draw anymore, as you have access to all your deck now.

Spending an entire turn to have a Bridge do nothing more than protect itself is not how I want to be playing a Tron deck, and it seems by your later remark that you agree here. Emrakul 1.0 is a blank against fast aggro, the decks that beat us the most often, and even in a best-case scenario can't do anything before turn five...and that's after we've spent two turns setting it up to drop and activate Bridge! This is especially problematic since post-board, much of the hate that people bring in against us is in the form of land and/or artifact destruction. I find I have a much tougher time just setting up my mana base effectively than maintaining it once I get there and the game progresses. I will admit that pulling GQ or that extra Tron piece to dodge Crumble is neat, but against any deck packing Crumbles, Warping Wail is just leagues better if I'm that worried about it.

- You win slow/grindy matchup? I would say even jund is more difficult since we loose eye. Yes you are still favorable, but it has nothing to compare with what it was before. You easily run out of gas. Two tarmo and a liliana and you're probably out quite easily, something that was not much of a deal before... Well, this card gives consistency to the deck in the middle/late game, in the same way Eye was doing, and as bad as Eye was, you were still running it before? So why it looks difficult that this cards seems decent enough to replace Eye to you?

The main reason we're losing to GBx decks like Jund isn't because we're threat light; it's because we're cutting the core package that always gave them fits before. Tron used to play full compliments of Relic, Pyroclasm, and O-Stone, along with three Wurmcoils and a lone Emrakul. Eye of Ugin was the clincher since we could use Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying (otherwise nearly dead draws at that point) to fetch for it. It was easy to keep them out of the game like this by killing Dark Confidants before they overwhelmed us (super important in this match), shrinking Goyfs while drawing cards, and dropping extremely resilient win-cons reliably to close them out. Of course, cards like Ugin, Ulamog, and World Breaker have modernized the deck, but they perform much of the same tasks. Sanctum is much worse than Eye, but it does allow all of those big mana cards to keep payoffs coming in a very natural way for how Tron plays.

In the scenario you mentioned (two Goyfs and a LotV, so turn four at the earliest against any standard build), any one of O-Stone, Ugin, or hard-cast Ulamog blows them out. We're fortunate that, pre-board, they have to race us as hard and as fast as they can. Sure, they have incremental advantage cards like Kolaghan's Command to help them tempo us by shattering artifacts and recycling creatures, but it's usually not enough against the more classic builds of Tron. Your point of contention is that you feel we lack the late-game we used to, so you would like to get that back by playing Planar Bridge. My counter-point is that most of the games we're losing to Jund isn't due to a lack of threats, but to a failure to derail their core game plan like Tron used to. In addition, adding a win-con that ties up resources before turn four (often turn five if a planeswalker or single blocker wouldn't save us) that isn't tutorable (HUGE difference from Eye), and is also more vulnerable to cards they play post-board? Plus it tempts us to play Emmy 1.0 that is completely dead in most of our key match-ups?

Last but not least, it's a turn 4 combo not a turn 5, that get emrakul to play, not ugin, not ulamog 2.0. I don't know, it looks MUCH more solid to me than ugin or ulamog, it just seal the deal for real, and at instant speed so it dodges every possible anti emrakul threat. And yes, I usually side it out game 2, so what? I do the same with ulamog most of the time. It gives me already many games, in only two weeks of testing. Enough to say it's something to consider seriously. Quite seriously.

Let's be clear about one thing, because it's a statement of fact, and not opinion:

Grabbing Emrakul 1.0 off of a Bridge is a turn five combo.

It doesn't matter that you're doing it at instant speed to avoid Wrath effects or planeswalkers (however nice that might be) on turn four during the end step; it only matters that you're not winning with it until, at the earliest, turn five when you swing in with the annihilator trigger and 15 damage. This is critical, because it means that, in most cases, you've spent four full turns setting it up, and not interacting with the opponent. The best way to dodge the Emrakul threat? Kill you before it's relevant, and by playing Planar Bridge to set it up, you're basically rolling out the red carpet to do just that.

You guys championing Bridge always seem to be running your methods in these best-case scenarios where the opponent just scoops when they see it, because it's always at a relevant point as early as possible in the game. What decks are you using Bridge against, and in what situations? "Serious opponents" on what, exactly? Do you feel your perfect fetching of Emrakul turn four was the norm, or the exception? Where is it seriously allowing us to win matches we wouldn't have otherwise with more traditional cards in its place?

Believe it or not, I'm all for you guys proving me wrong on this. Both Ugin and World Breaker were cards that, although I loved from power and flavor standpoints (especially Ugin), I was hesitant to snap-include when others were. (Then again, I was all over jamming Newlamog, and felt that Emmy 2.0 wasn't quite up to par, however otherwise awesome it is.) Point is, no one's perfect, and my track record definitely isn't 1.000.

Planar Bridge looks amazing; what a disgustingly powerful ability it has. Having both theory-crafted and playtested with it, though, I am nowhere near even lukewarm on it like I was with those other cards. I also felt like Twin was the last possible good reason to be playing Emmy 1.0 (Newlamog really should have already replaced it even then, but I do love tearing me some aeons). The arguments I'm seeing, so far, are lacking. Keep fighting the good fight, and maybe you will prove us skeptics wrong for good.

I will say this again:

Playing suboptimal cards for the chance of a risky payoff is a trap.

Sylvan Primordial is deceptively more difficult to cast with the dual green mana requirement. You can't grab it off of Ancient Stirrings. It doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin. The trigger doesn't exile. The trigger doesn't happen if SP is countered. You can't return SP to your hand.

But hey, it combos...okay...with Planar Bridge!

You all seem to be missing the point that when we face the decks that beat us (Burn, Infect, Ad Nauseam, etc), Planar Bridge is suboptimal. It is too slow, too much dedication across multiple turns, to reliably turn those matches around. Those decks will be on the upswing once people recognize that Tron is trending.

Also, using Bridge to fetch a Skite to defend the former assumes you have it sitting with eight untapped mana in play. Imagine how much better off you would have been with any of the other major threats already.

We already win the slow, grindy match-ups. Comfortably. Slotting a turn five combo win package might get you some wins right now, but that doesn't make it optimal.

Purklefluff, go jam that build at a more serious event and see how you do. That would be a worthy test for you to prove yourself. I don't mean to take away from how well you did at your FNM (nice!), but I cannot even count the number of times I went 4-0 with experimental builds of Tron, and I'm sure I not the only one reading or posting here that does as well. Prove its gas at a day-long event or better, against an open field, and you might make me a believer.

I don't want my question to sound too simple (or snobbish), but why do you need Planar Bridge at all?

After reading the last couple pages of discussion (a couple of times), I understand what it does, but I'm not seeing how it makes any match-up (in particular) noticeably better. I play GW and my toughest matchups are the ones where a natural turn 3 Karn isn't enough - Burn, Infect, Zoo, Ad Nauseum. Most of these decks don't even afford me the 4th-5th turn to sweep and if I miss even a simple step early, it's a lost cause. Against all of those decks, Turn 3 Bridge, Turn 4 Activation is going to be too late. [I keep looking at GR and GB as potential 'upgrades', but keep returning to GW as I feel the sideboard options are still the best].

In almost every other match-up I feel like we are able to go with our general game plan and the match-up is at least 50-55% in our favor. Early turns - develop mana, middle turns - sweep, late turns - win. Yes, I can see how an active Bridge gets you inevitability, but I find almost every threat the deck plays gives you that. Turn 3 Bridge into Turn 4 EOT Emrakul into Turn 5 win is awesome, but this deck already has the potential of Turn 3 Karn into Turn 4 Ulamog which is gg in most matches (especially if they missed a land drop along the way).

As I've read the last couple of posts, I can see where you might push a match-up from 50-55% to 52-57% in your favor, but I'm not really convinced by the arguments [I'll wait to hear testing results for a final judgement]. Specifically, to the downside mentioned - (1) Bridge taking a spell spot is HUGE. I think the generic need for Relic of Progenitus is lower, so there may be a couple spots available, but the need to NOT draw into Bridge threats is huge too. Each threat you draw minimizes the impact of a Bridge. (2) Bridge is tough because you can't rely on it, but your build needs to take it into consideration. As is pointed out, drawing a threat makes you less reliant on Bridge, but you need enough Bridges to make it relevant/worth playing. I think with the filtering, shuffle, etc. 2 should be plenty [I wouldn't play it maindeck as a 1-of and 3-4 would likely make it the focus of the deck.] (3) Artifact removal is on the rise, even maindeck. This card makes it all more relevant and powerful against us. I can see siding it out - a lot. Cards that get sided out of every match-up are usually not warranted either. Some further counterpoints to the 'upsides' - (1) Sanctum is still worth running. I run a 1-of and find it totally worth it. With 2 Bridges that I don't need to cast, Sanctum is a 'free' way to include a powerful tutor. Casting Ulamog into next turn Ulamog usually gets a concession (putting one into play won't). (2) I can probably count the number of times I'm 'mana-screwed' at 7 mana on 1 hand. I'm either color-screwed or trying to find a land to get past 8 or 9 mana to turn on Ulamog. (3) If unanswered and you stabilize, literally any threat this deck plays wins the game. In fact, sometimes you don't even need to stabilize completely with Ulamog and/or Ugin.

I'm interested to hear how testing goes and I would never try to minimize the benefits of trying new cards or strategies, but I think it's important to evaluate how much it's doing for us.

Quote from ET1 »

Ryan Overturf must be celebrating somewhere on the graves of probe and dredge

Just look at what he twitted

Finally you ********s will stop playing Pyromancers. @kjvsthehighway

https://twitter.com/RyanOverdrive/status/818536844849803265
As someone who plays Kevin's list, I felt offended