Voice is still a great 2-for-1 blocker that can create a giant token to tangle against eldrazi-sized creatures. The token is a little soft to Displacer but does work against stuff like Koz's return. It's also just a stellar card against any grindy deck, especially blue control. I think you still want at least 2 in the 75.
Where was there even mention of a ban on this deck?? Regardless, I don't think we need to worry or even come close to discussing that scenario. We are the good guys right now.
Also, I don't think budget discussion is the best idea on a Tier 1 thread for a deck that just won a GP.
Built and played the Pantheon list tonight to a 3-1 finish. It felt good, but I think I'll be making some minor changes. Dryad Arbor main is one thing I'd like to add. A 3rd Forest or possibly an Island is another option I'm considering. I also think I will be reworking the spell suite a little bit. But overall, the deck was fun. Not a bad showing for my first time ever playing the deck anyway!
I did pick up a pile of Kikis too, so that worked out. I have the Kiki version of Grixis Twin (or perhaps we should call it Twinless Twin) all sleeved up, only now the way to win any event is clearly. Well. We all know.
I can't deny I'm having a blast (im sure my opponents aren't) at store events just racking up store credit. But I am also acutely aware this is all short term.
With regards to moving on from whatever happens in April. How much of my confidence is left? Whatever I play next, what if it takes up the largest metagame share again? What if it takes up 3/8 slots again?
Can't I just play 1 deck and like it, love it, practice it, tweak it and be really good at it? Do I have to, in the words of my friend and GP Singapore #2 Steven Tan, "Play the right deck to win"? instead of "Play what you're good at?" A balanced meta with answer quality roughly matching threat quality results in much more enjoyable games and gameplay. We all know this.
Its not just that the twin ban resulted in my URx deck becoming poorly placed in the meta that surfaced immediately after. Its about this constant fear of always being the next guy on top with a target painted on the forehead. I've already been that guy twice. Is it going to happen again? Should "will this deck be banned next?" rank above "what is my favorite playstyle?" in the list of factors when I think "what deck should I play?"
The worst deep-seated pain I have in all of this fracas is this feeling I've been guided to this point. Let me share with you my journey into Modern during KTK:
I buy play Grixis Delver, my first modern deck. Not too expensive since it skips Cryptic command, and I don't have to play Tarns.
I am constantly losing to Burn, which is horrifically prevalent.
I consider what deck has a better match up. I find myself having to splash out again for Cryp Commands and Twin, but its been a few months since I spent on Delver so I'm alright with dropping close to $100 more.
I'm doing OK on URb Control, then people are asking me why i don't just play Twin, which is less than $50 away from my list.
It makes sense and I spend that money. Its just as fun as control and I'm winning more, which is always nice.
Twin gets banned.
I've been cracking BFZ and OGW like any active MTG player, so naturally, I have eldrazi pieces lying around. I never looked at them seriously before but in the light of the Twin ban, I want a deck to play that isn't simply scraps left over from a ban.
I see BW processors and like the aggro/control style it has. Reminds me of Delver but without as much pain from mana. I buy in: $5-6 temples and $20-30 Eyes. Eyes are starting to go up at this point and I figure TKS and Smasher look strong, so its expected.
My deck (pre PT BW Processors version) is ready before PT and I have a medium power level deck that gives other midrange decks a real run for the money, I'm pleased.
PTOGW happens.
This thread happens.
Aaron says they know Eldrazi is "leaving footprints" (haha) but they won't act till April.
A sad but short reprieve for me.
Where do I go from here, next? Buy 4 Flooded strands and play Jeskai Control? What if that takes the next event by storm? Stick to Grixis Control? That seems the logical decision. All the logical decisions in the world however, aren't helping my hurt and frustration at this game that's usually been a source of happiness and fun for me. Even losing in a balanced, solid game of magic is a learning point and something to joke and laugh about. Lately though, its been sour faces and sometimes I can't look the opponent in the eye as I resolve the 2nd Smasher of the game. Its dirty and I know it. I console myself with the thought that the ban this deck deserves is coming, but I can't help but feel like I was manipulated into this sorry state.
Sorry for making you guys read this wall of text. I may have been masking my frustration with "happy" posts about store credit lately when I've really been simmering inside.
Regardless of how I feel, Eldrazi has to be nerfed. Not banned into oblivion, hopefully, but nerfed to Tier 1 power levels from its current undeniable Tier 0 position.
Marc, you came in at a bad time. Essentially my advice would be this: have faith in your UR core being good again. Trade away the Eldrazi NOW. Collect all the fetches you need for URx decks, especially Strands now. Get some restos and geists. In 2 months, you'll be able to build something normal and durable in the wake of the eldrazi winter.
Play eldrazi as long as you want, but we know it's getting hit at some point. Getting out now is the best way to avoid getting burned again.
I'm in a similar boat to Marc, but the difference is I still have utmost confidence in Modern for the long haul.
The Eyes and Seers I bought hoping to play a fun new deck are getting traded/sold this week. What am I going to pick up? All the staples that have always been good prior to this craziness. I'll be building Melira/Chord next, as well as finally getting some Colonnades for U/W/x variants. I even picked up a pile of Kiki-Jikis on the eve of the Twin ban.
Point is, this Eldrazi craze is kinda *****ty, sure. And we are all a bit frustrated with the format right now, especially when the Twin ban devolved into spaghetti all over WOTC's face. But they can, and will try to fix it. And I hope they succeed. Perhaps we'll finally get the unbans we've all been asking for.
So the rule of modern hasn't changed: Invest wisely. If you pick up staples that are good across the board, Snapcaster, Fetches, Restos, Finkses, than you will have options when the obvious or less obvious bans come along.
Hopefully, they fix this mess. I have faith they will. And yes, I do think it's a good chance they ban something prior to April. Only Time will Tell though.
So, no Melira Co in top 32 of SCG. Not so sure about this good matchup.
I think this is more indicative of Eldrazi dominance/popularity and format health than anything else. There were only 11 in the top 32 slots that WEREN'T Eldrazi, and half of those were Affinity. Kiki Chord did make top 8, which is a similar enough deck (especially to the Archangel/Thune build) that I think we could count that as a net positive for us. But how many people actually played Melira in the tournament? Perhaps it wasn't nearly enough crack the spaghetti-choked top end.
I'll say this: I'm much happier playing a deck that isn't on everyone's radar yet, but still performs well against most versions of eldrazi. Also, for some anecdotal evidence in the other direction, a friend of mine won an IQ on Sunday with Melira, beating 3 Eldrazi decks and going 6-1 against them in games. I assume his opponents weren't on G/R or U/W though. Finding a way to beat those versions is our next puzzle.
Well, maybe they will be a consensus for a "stock" list, but maybe not. This forum discussion has thus far only showed that there's a consensus shell for the deck, as has been pointed out. One of the beauties of the deck is that due to it's toolbox nature it's infinitely customize-able - it can be easily adjusted to account for just about any meta-game with silver bullets or alternate plan "b"s.
My suggestion would be to build the shell, then outfit it with what you what you have and what you think will work in your local meta and start practicing. One of the things that you'll learn about the deck is that it takes practice to play it well due to 1) having so many different lines of play and 2) the need to get really good at role-switching with the deck. As someone pointed out earlier, Jeff Hoogland wrote a primer on starcity games for Kiki-Chord, and a bunch of what he said applies to Abzan Coco as well (ie. about how the deck is a bit of everything - a bad combo deck, a bad midrange deck, and a bad hatebears deck - and you have to get good at knowing what to be when).
Yeah when I said consensus, I really just meant "more lists to choose from". Even Pod had a wide range of variations in its heydey. I expect Abzan Chord decks to be similar. So point is, I agree. I was pointing that out to falchion that in my research, the Abzan Company decks vary more than just 3-4 slots.
The Hoogland article was a good reference. In fact, I might even branch out into kiki-chord at some point too. Deck looks fun, and I stocked up on Kikis as soon as my precious Twins were banned.
So yeah, excited to get into this wide world of Company/CoCo combo decks. Cards are on the way!
I dunno. I'm a lowly lurker, still pulling the final pieces together for this deck. But it seems like there are quite a few variations to this deck. Even excluding the Archangel-Chord version (which is essentially the same core, but obviously plays a bit differently), there are a lot of ways to build Abzan Company. I can hardly keep track of which cards I still need, there are so many possible 1-ofs and 4-ofs I could play. So yeah, seems like the "stock" list is still elusive.
That said, I'm looking forward to the results from the upcoming SCG and GPs to see what consensus is.
Anyway, looking forward to playing the deck. I've been on Zoo Company for a hot second, but that deck has its limitations. The Abzan version is appealing with the various combos and ridiculous synergy. I've always been terrified when I sat across the table from a Pod or Melira deck. It's finally time I flipped the board. Flipmode is the greatest.
What do you think of goblin grenade in zoo? We play 8 gob now (goblin guide and bushwhacker)
I think once you want Goblin Grenade, you are just trying to play a proper Goblins deck. Even in a deck with 30+ Goblins that card can have a couple issues, but it's at it's best there. In order to play it in Zoo, you'd need to really stretch for 12+ sources of fodder. It's a great card for killing people, but it's meant for a Tribal deck.
Anyway, I've still been having fun playing Naya Company the past couple months when I've had a chance to, but I have found a couple minor issues with it. Namely, it's a deck that's capable of getting to the late game, but it can easily get locked out by a variety of cards, with little way to recover. I still think it's a great option right now, but obviously it's probably better to play a smaller Zoo deck or simply go to Burn at the moment. Which I'm likely to do. However, I'm not putting down the Companies yet, as I'm in the process of building Melira CoCo, which will likely be my focus going forward. My Wild Nancies will just have to chill out with Goblin Guide, Atarka and friends.
This was what I was referring to, since you focused a lot of that post on Delver. Those two sentences literally mean "I will be playing Temur, Grixis or Jeskai Delver." I responded thusly.
And besides, I wasn't the one who overreacted. My tone may have been a bit flippant, and I apologize if that's the case, but I've put in the time and seen the results to know that Jeskai Delver has done jack ***** in the meta for the past year or more. You were the one who responded by attacking and insulting me, so **** off with this condescending "respect in respect out" bull***** and start practicing what you preach.
Fine, we're both at fault.
You still seem to have a harder time laying off on the language and "flippant" demeanor.
The point is, saying "hey bro, deck is bad. Play something else instead" is pretty disrespectful in the first place, especially when we are all trying to figure out where to go next. Not only that, but do you really know that Jeskai Delver is going to be "bad" going forward? Is the time and effort you put in actually from testing, or just spelunking the internetzes? It's not like straight U/R Delver has been off the charts either lately. Maybe has a few more notable placings, but that's about it.
If you have some information about recent testing experience or something else about Jeskai Delver, then please share it. Don't just write it off without an explanation though.
If tempers flared and you feel I started it, then I apologize as well. I just really dislike it when people make such blanket and unhelpful statements like that. I'm a grown man, I can assess what is good and bad for my own tastes.
*****, please. That was more than a little confusing.
And I remain firm in my conviction. Jeskai Delver is worse than both Grixis and UR and is not worth playing.
This wasn't THAT confusing smartass. My quote:
"but to be honest I've always loved Delver, and it might be it's time to shine again. If not that, I would recommend a Jeskai list to many of you. You can still play the Kiki package, or just go straight midrange."
While I didn't explicitly mention Delver, I was pretty clearly talking about other Jeskai strategies in general. Last time I checked, WUR Delver wasn't considered midrange and didn't exactly play kiki jiki.
I'm fine with your convictions, but they don't apply to everyone else. If you want to present that kind of info, there is a nicer way to put it. All you had to say was, "I think Grixis or UR is better than Jeskai Delver personally." I would have been fine with that. Instead you came across like a pompous prick trying to talk down to someone else. In the climbing community, we call people like that "sprayers".
Start with respect, you'll get it back tenfold. But don't be a sprayer.
Just a heads up: Jeskai Delver is bad. UR is much better.
Uh. Okay smartguy.
For starters I wasn't talking strictly about Jeskai Delver, I was talking about Jeskai as a shard in general. Granted, that was a little confusing from my post.
So first I will reiterate: I think a Jeskai deck of some sort will prove to be strong again in the wake of Twin. Most likely it will go bigger than Delver, but you never know. I will probably pick up some form of Jeskai, and it will probably be based on whatever version sees the most success in the coming weeks. Most likely it will have Cryptic in it, maybe Geist. But not necessarily Delver.
However, saying "Jeskai Delver is bad" is an offensive and poorly written statement. For starters, it's not bad. It's certainly unpopular, but I wouldn't call it bad. And going forward, NO ONE can say what is good or bad. So try not to come across as so cocksure.
I do think 2 Horizon Canopy is reasonable. More than that is probably too many.
Also, I don't think budget discussion is the best idea on a Tier 1 thread for a deck that just won a GP.
That said, go Team Gatewatch!
Marc, you came in at a bad time. Essentially my advice would be this: have faith in your UR core being good again. Trade away the Eldrazi NOW. Collect all the fetches you need for URx decks, especially Strands now. Get some restos and geists. In 2 months, you'll be able to build something normal and durable in the wake of the eldrazi winter.
Play eldrazi as long as you want, but we know it's getting hit at some point. Getting out now is the best way to avoid getting burned again.
The Eyes and Seers I bought hoping to play a fun new deck are getting traded/sold this week. What am I going to pick up? All the staples that have always been good prior to this craziness. I'll be building Melira/Chord next, as well as finally getting some Colonnades for U/W/x variants. I even picked up a pile of Kiki-Jikis on the eve of the Twin ban.
Point is, this Eldrazi craze is kinda *****ty, sure. And we are all a bit frustrated with the format right now, especially when the Twin ban devolved into spaghetti all over WOTC's face. But they can, and will try to fix it. And I hope they succeed. Perhaps we'll finally get the unbans we've all been asking for.
So the rule of modern hasn't changed: Invest wisely. If you pick up staples that are good across the board, Snapcaster, Fetches, Restos, Finkses, than you will have options when the obvious or less obvious bans come along.
Hopefully, they fix this mess. I have faith they will. And yes, I do think it's a good chance they ban something prior to April. Only Time will Tell though.
I think this is more indicative of Eldrazi dominance/popularity and format health than anything else. There were only 11 in the top 32 slots that WEREN'T Eldrazi, and half of those were Affinity. Kiki Chord did make top 8, which is a similar enough deck (especially to the Archangel/Thune build) that I think we could count that as a net positive for us. But how many people actually played Melira in the tournament? Perhaps it wasn't nearly enough crack the spaghetti-choked top end.
I'll say this: I'm much happier playing a deck that isn't on everyone's radar yet, but still performs well against most versions of eldrazi. Also, for some anecdotal evidence in the other direction, a friend of mine won an IQ on Sunday with Melira, beating 3 Eldrazi decks and going 6-1 against them in games. I assume his opponents weren't on G/R or U/W though. Finding a way to beat those versions is our next puzzle.
Yeah when I said consensus, I really just meant "more lists to choose from". Even Pod had a wide range of variations in its heydey. I expect Abzan Chord decks to be similar. So point is, I agree. I was pointing that out to falchion that in my research, the Abzan Company decks vary more than just 3-4 slots.
The Hoogland article was a good reference. In fact, I might even branch out into kiki-chord at some point too. Deck looks fun, and I stocked up on Kikis as soon as my precious Twins were banned.
So yeah, excited to get into this wide world of Company/CoCo combo decks. Cards are on the way!
That said, I'm looking forward to the results from the upcoming SCG and GPs to see what consensus is.
Anyway, looking forward to playing the deck. I've been on Zoo Company for a hot second, but that deck has its limitations. The Abzan version is appealing with the various combos and ridiculous synergy. I've always been terrified when I sat across the table from a Pod or Melira deck. It's finally time I flipped the board. Flipmode is the greatest.
I think once you want Goblin Grenade, you are just trying to play a proper Goblins deck. Even in a deck with 30+ Goblins that card can have a couple issues, but it's at it's best there. In order to play it in Zoo, you'd need to really stretch for 12+ sources of fodder. It's a great card for killing people, but it's meant for a Tribal deck.
Anyway, I've still been having fun playing Naya Company the past couple months when I've had a chance to, but I have found a couple minor issues with it. Namely, it's a deck that's capable of getting to the late game, but it can easily get locked out by a variety of cards, with little way to recover. I still think it's a great option right now, but obviously it's probably better to play a smaller Zoo deck or simply go to Burn at the moment. Which I'm likely to do. However, I'm not putting down the Companies yet, as I'm in the process of building Melira CoCo, which will likely be my focus going forward. My Wild Nancies will just have to chill out with Goblin Guide, Atarka and friends.
Yea we sully.
F this I'm out. Mrmonday wants to feel empowered. Good for him.
Rest of you, good luck in the format.
Fine, we're both at fault.
You still seem to have a harder time laying off on the language and "flippant" demeanor.
The point is, saying "hey bro, deck is bad. Play something else instead" is pretty disrespectful in the first place, especially when we are all trying to figure out where to go next. Not only that, but do you really know that Jeskai Delver is going to be "bad" going forward? Is the time and effort you put in actually from testing, or just spelunking the internetzes? It's not like straight U/R Delver has been off the charts either lately. Maybe has a few more notable placings, but that's about it.
If you have some information about recent testing experience or something else about Jeskai Delver, then please share it. Don't just write it off without an explanation though.
If tempers flared and you feel I started it, then I apologize as well. I just really dislike it when people make such blanket and unhelpful statements like that. I'm a grown man, I can assess what is good and bad for my own tastes.
This wasn't THAT confusing smartass. My quote:
"but to be honest I've always loved Delver, and it might be it's time to shine again. If not that, I would recommend a Jeskai list to many of you. You can still play the Kiki package, or just go straight midrange."
While I didn't explicitly mention Delver, I was pretty clearly talking about other Jeskai strategies in general. Last time I checked, WUR Delver wasn't considered midrange and didn't exactly play kiki jiki.
I'm fine with your convictions, but they don't apply to everyone else. If you want to present that kind of info, there is a nicer way to put it. All you had to say was, "I think Grixis or UR is better than Jeskai Delver personally." I would have been fine with that. Instead you came across like a pompous prick trying to talk down to someone else. In the climbing community, we call people like that "sprayers".
Start with respect, you'll get it back tenfold. But don't be a sprayer.
Uh. Okay smartguy.
For starters I wasn't talking strictly about Jeskai Delver, I was talking about Jeskai as a shard in general. Granted, that was a little confusing from my post.
So first I will reiterate: I think a Jeskai deck of some sort will prove to be strong again in the wake of Twin. Most likely it will go bigger than Delver, but you never know. I will probably pick up some form of Jeskai, and it will probably be based on whatever version sees the most success in the coming weeks. Most likely it will have Cryptic in it, maybe Geist. But not necessarily Delver.
However, saying "Jeskai Delver is bad" is an offensive and poorly written statement. For starters, it's not bad. It's certainly unpopular, but I wouldn't call it bad. And going forward, NO ONE can say what is good or bad. So try not to come across as so cocksure.