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  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from idSurge »
    Its still a good card, but for the 'pro's' to flip out like they did was pretty embarrassing. Anyone who play's control should have been able to see the impact it would have.


    Honestly, I think a lot of why people thought JTMS would be horrible for Modern was because of how ridiculous JTMS was in Standard. However sometimes people forget there is a big difference between what is good in Standard, and what is good in an eternal environment.

    *psst* unban Dread Return
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from Colt47 »
    I've looked at jace for years and the one thing that kept him popular was the performance he had in standard. Landing turn four at the earliest in modern without being able to end the game on his own is what hurts him. Heck, in some cases he can just make the game take forever.


    Yeah, my biggest complaint about the Jace unban is that they didn't exclusively ban Shaheen Soorani from playing with him....
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from idSurge »
    Something like 'You may only cast 1 spell a turn, and all creatures lose ETB Abilities and Haste' - Snoozing Cube - 2 Colourless Artifact. :p


    So you want a Rule of Law glued to a Torpor Orb, which are both stapled to Blind Obedience? What do you think Magic is? A LEGO play set? lol
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on [Primer] Lantern Control
    Quote from ciago92 »
    I definitely agree with it coming down to which percentage matters more, because I'm leaning the other direction. You're giving up 8.4% worth of a chance for a turn 2 opal to remove 5% worth of a chance to have one (more) dead card in your hand regardless of if opal is turned on. Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but I'd rather have more explosive starts with one dead card. Then again, I haven't touched the Whir version yet, so that could be less important now.


    You see here is my situation, with every game of Lantern I have played Opal is terrible Turn 1. I find myself never wanting it in my opening hand, but I want to draw it by Turns 2 or 3. It's a really weird situation honestly.

    This is why I personally opt for 3 Opals instead of 4. I think you will lose more games to drawing multiple Opals than you will to not drawing any Opals.
    Posted in: Control
  • posted a message on [Primer] Lantern Control
    So thnkr, I believe you may be on to something. Essentially the deck slots in Lantern are so tight, we need to heavily scrutinize any change from the normal list. At most, our 60 card deck has 1 flex slot, with most people deciding between Abrupt Decay, or the 4th Ensnaring Bridge. Doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room.

    This being said, I believe it is correct to go down to 3 Mox Opals. And I am going to attempt to justify this through math.

    Now before I start on taking about Opal specifically, we'll talk about how the difference between 3 and 4 copies of a card changes how often you start with multiples of them in a deck. To calculate chances of you drawing a specific card at a specific time, we use something called Hypergeometric Distribution. Honestly, there are a lot of online calculators that do a good job of explaining how the math works, so I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say, it gives us a lot of statistics off of just a few variables:

    1) Population Size - This is the size of the deck
    2) Number of Successes in Population - This is how many cards in the deck are the card we want.
    3) Sample Size - This is how many cards we will draw from the deck
    4) Number of Successes in Sample - For the card we are looking for, this is how many we wish to see in the number of cards drawn

    So when making a deck in Magic, what is the difference between a 4-of or a 3-of with concerns to having a card in our opening hand?

    Chances of having 1 or more copies of a 4-of in the opening hand: 39.9%
    Chances of having 1 or more copies of a 3-of in the opening hand: 31.5%

    As you can see, there is approximately an 8.4% difference in having a card in your opening hand if it is only a 3-of as opposed to a 4-of. Now what about the difference between having the card for turn 1? Magic is an interesting game for hypergeometric distribution because you don't draw a card on your first turn if you are going first. So if you are on the play, your chances of having a 4-of or 3-of card for turn 1 are the same as written above. However if you are on the draw, you draw a card on your first turn. This makes the sample size larger and changes our percentages just a bit:

    Chances of having 1 or more copies of a 4-of in the opening hand on the draw: 44.4%
    Chances of having 1 or more copies of a 3-of in the opening hand on the draw: 35.4%

    As you can undoubtedly assume, all the numbers have gone up by a marginal amount. Now why do these percentages matter? In the short term, playing a few FNMs every week, you won't notice a difference between running 3 of a card, and 4 of a card. However at large events like GPs, you play enough games you will notice the difference. For the sake of argument, lets say you win a GP, but every single round you have played 3 games. How many games have you played? Over the course of a whole GP weekend, the maximum number of games of Magic you can play is 54. This is obviously assuming you don't get into some form of ridiculous loop where you and your opponent are drawing games in the un-timed Top 8. But 54 games are a LOT of games, and you WILL feel a noticeable difference in your deck numbers. This is why this discussion is important. For high level play, you play a LOT of magic, and even the slightest changes in variance can drastically change your win percentages.\

    Now all of my above points seem to point towards wanting to have 4 Mox Opals in your deck as opposed to 3. So why did I start this off by saying that 3 is the better number? Well it's because Mox Opal is Legendary. This isn;t Chrome Mox, or a Lotus Petal where we can just slam as many as we draw onto the board without consequence. Every time we play our second one, we have to sacrifice the one that is already on the board. And the way the game mechanics work, we can't play a second Opal to turn on Metalcraft to tap both Opals for mana before sacrificing one. So having more than 1 is a detriment. So what are the chances of us having more than 1 Opal?

    On the Play - 4 Opals
    Chances of 2 or more Opals in Opening Hand/on Turn 1: 6.3%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 2: 8.2%

    On the Draw - 4 Opals
    Chances of 2 or more Opals in the Opening Hand: 6.3%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 1: 8.2%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 2: 10.3%

    We are doing the math to Turn 2, since thnkr's post above discusses our success with being able to turn on Opal for mana by turn 2. At worst, once in every ten games we'll have to deal with having two Opals on Turn 2. At best, only slightly better than that.

    On the Play - 3 Opals
    Chances of 2 or more Opals in the Opening Hand/on Turn 1: 3.3%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 2: 4.4%

    On the Draw - 3 Opals
    Chances of 2 or more Opals in the Opening Hand: 3.3%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 1: 4.4%
    Chances of 2 or more Opals on Turn 2: 5.6%

    And here are the numbers that matter to me. Look at the differences between 4 Opals, and 3 Opals. The numbers are almost completely halved. Looking at these numbers I can fairly say that you are twice as likely to get 2 or more Opals in your hand by Turn 2 if you are running 4 instead of 3. For me, this is the deciding factor. Yes the numbers are small percentages. 10% VS 5%, 39.9% VS 31.5%. The question ultimately comes down to which percentages matter more to you. For me, I'll half my chance at drawing the extra Opal
    Posted in: Control
  • posted a message on [Primer] Lantern Control
    Quote from Pistallion »
    Is Surgical Extraction used anymore? I haven't been using it and most lists I've seen doesnt, but I feel that it can be useful against decks that has a lot of problem cards, specifically RG decks with Tireless Tracker. I also have been having problems vs Through the Breach decks as well but idk if its just me or if its a bad mu


    Sam Black did a tournament this weekend, and he was running Surgical. He posted it to the Lantern Facebook group. It can definitely has it's use still, you just need the correct meta for it.
    Posted in: Control
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from Spsiegel1987 »
    So, besides for this major spoiler card


    How are you guys feeling about the designing of the cards in general? I have no clue how many allstars we have for modern in this set, but is the direction the design team moving towards feeling good or hopeful for MTG and modern?

    They seemed to add interesting effects and answers. Nothing is looking like a card that looks trash that the design team was like, "you modern players will love this!"



    There are a lot of really fun card designs in this set. I'll list a few of my favorites below:

    Broken Bond1G
    Sorcery
    Destroy target artifact or enchantment. You may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.

    Dauntless Bodyguard W
    Creature - Human Knight
    As Dauntless Bodyguard enters the battlefield, choose another creature you control.
    Sacrifice Dauntless Bodyguard: The chosen creature gains indestructible until end of turn.
    2/1

    Wizard's Lightning 2R
    Instant
    This spell costs 2 less if you control a Wizard.
    Wizard's Lightning deals 3 damage to any target.

    Wizard's Retort 1UU
    Instant
    This spell costs 1 less if you control a Wizard.
    Counter target spell.

    So why do I think these are interesting cards to look at for Modern?

    Broken Bond seems like an interesting sideboard card for Valakut decks. Yes it's Sorcery speed, but it's an Explore stapled to a Naturalize. Probably not good enough for the mainboard, but definitely seems like a good sideboard card for those decks.

    Dauntless Bodyguard seems like a really interesting card for Hate Bears decks. Imagine you are playing against a deck where Thalia is extremely good. You can either cast, or use Aether Vial to get down the Bodyguard and have it act as a protective spell for your Thalia to keep her alive. And it attacks for 2 to boot, which is great. Bodyguard also has good stock in Humans lists. Is Meddling Mage going to be the reason you win this game? Cool now you have a way to protect it from unanticipated non-path/dismember removal.

    The Wizard spells are interesting, but I think to get the context of why they may be good, we need to list some good playable Wizards that are legal in Modern: Augur of Bolas, Baral, Chief of Compliance, Dark Confidant, Delver of Secrets(only pre-flip), Goblin Electromancer, Grim Lavamancer, Izzet Staticaster, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Magus of the Moon, Snapcaster Mage, and Vendilion Clique. I tried to only list Wizard creatures that do, in some form, see Modern play. I didn't list them, but there are also a lot of Merfolk creatures that happen to be Wizards, so keep that in mind as well. In decks that are running these creatures, they now can have access to not only Counterspell but Lightning Bolts 5-8. Now I think if these cards see play it will most likely be in a form of Delver shell. But these cards should make some decks in Modern more interesting.

    I mean think of this play pattern. Turn 3, use Wizard's Retort as a Cancel. Turn 4, you can cast Snapcaster Mage, and then flash the Retort back as a Counterspell. If that the most powerful play pattern ever? Oh hell no. In fact I think it's below average. But it is still interesting to me.
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on [Primer] Lantern Control
    Quote from axman »

    What do we cut for it though?
    I'm not 100% sold that it is main-decked... but maybe. It is very very good.


    The question is, does it do a job better than any specific card already in the main board?

    I know in my version of Lantern, I've been running 3 Opals instead of 4, so I have the slot for it. However in the more traditional lists running 4 Opals, I think the card you'd cut for it may actually be Grafdigger's Cage.

    From my experience, Cage's main advantage in the mainboard is it stopping Snapcaster Mage and Past in Flames in the mainboard. And while both of these are very good effects to stop, I think Sphere may be able to do a better job. Hear me out.

    First and foremost we'll address Past in Flames. Now Storm is a deck, that can still win with you having a Cage in play. All they need to do is to have a bunch of Cantrips, a bunch of mana, and to not brick on all their draws. I have lost plenty of times to Storm with a Cage in play, wherein the match would be completely over if that Cage was a Sphere. Being unable to gain mana from their rituals hurts the deck so much it isn't even funny.

    Then we have Snapcaster Mage. Against Control, using trying to Thoughtseize Cryptic Commands is pretty important, as they help us keep our Bridges in play. Stopping an opponent from going Snap Cryptic is pretty important in these match ups. However, just as Whirring for Cage in response to Snapcaster is a great way to deal with it, so is Whirring for Sphere, at least when they only leave the 4 mana open for Cryptic. Arguably Sphere is definitely worse than Cage in these situations, but it'll take testing I feel to see how much worse.

    Finally, Cage stops other graveyard shenanigans, which Sphere does not. I don't know about your experience, but in most instances, Bridge is enough for me against most graveyard decks, I don't need Cage. At least not for Game 1. I think Sphere helps match-ups like Storm and Tron much more than Cage helps us against graveyard decks. The wild card are Snapcaster decks. Maybe we want both Cage and Sphere, and the cut is something like a Bauble, I am not sure. Obviously all of this will need to be tested.
    Posted in: Control
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from idSurge »
    Bolt, Snap, Bolt = 6 mana? Completely unreasonable. Counter wars? Forget it.


    It's actually 7 mana.

    Bolt - R
    Snap - 1U + 1
    Bolt - R + 2
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on [Primer] Lantern Control
    Quote from thnkr »
    Holy smokes, we got an artifact to Whir for that hates on both Tron and Storm.

    Damping Sphere
    2
    Artifact
    If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
    Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.


    Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock Lock

    So, we're running 1 of these mainboard right? I don't see any downside to doing with this what we do with Cage. 1 main, and 1 side for the specific match ups where it is needed.

    This card better have damn good art lol
    Posted in: Control
  • posted a message on [Primer] Ironworks Combo
    Quote from tangrams »
    Damping Sphere
    2
    Artifact
    If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
    Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.

    ---------------------

    This card is the death of ironworks as a competitive archetype. It's a very attractive sideboard option since it hoses popular decks like tron and storm, and since it's colorless literally any fair deck can cast it. Imagine every deck having access to 2-3 copies of rule of law or eidolon of the great revel in the sideboard; this card is just as much of a hoser as those are. Really disappointed in wizards for stapling two incredibly powerful and distinct taxing effects on one card and making it colorless. It's an absolute no brainer to put this in pretty much every modern sideboard.

    It's been a great run with this deck over the last ~6 months, I've put hundreds of hours into mastering all the sequencing interactions and tuning the list to a place I'm happy with. The deck won me hundreds of tix on modo and performed very well in the modern rptq, so I don't feel like the work I put into it was for nothing. I just wish I could've had a few chances to play it in high level events after all the time I spent on it.

    If you still want to bring this deck to fnm it's certainly a deck you can play, but be prepared to lose many postboard games to your opponent slamming the sphere on turn 2. Yes, you can bring in nature's claim or abrupt decay to kill it, but having answer cards like this in your deck greatly reduces your ability to combo off, and you're dropping percentage points just by having them in your deck. Your opponent doesn't even have to draw the orb, just the potential for them to play it makes your deck worse by forcing you to cut combo pieces for reactive spells. Keep in mind that you'll have to bring your answer spells in for pretty much every matchup since the orb will be so ubiquitous. If your plan for postboard games is to hope to draw exactly as many answers as your opponent draws hosers, then it's time to play a different deck.


    So yes, every deck is going to run Sphere. Not only does is slow down/stop combo decks like KCI and Storm, it also is a massive hit against every variant of Tron, as well as some decks like Ponza or Mono-Green Devotion that are trying to get a lot of mana out of very few lands.

    However it isn't the end of KCI. Now, at the very least I think Lantern will become a nightmare match up, since I can see them running 1 of these in the main to tutor with Whir (I know I'll be putting it in my Lantern list), and game 1 it's really hard to deal with. However, Sphere as a card is beatable. We already have to board in card like Abrupt Decay and Nature's Claim to deal with hate for the deck anyway.

    Rest in Peace, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Relic of Pogenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, there are plenty of cards we need to answer already that are horrible for our deck to deal with, some much worse than others. Yes the worst cards (RiP and Stony) are exclusive to decks running white mana, but does that mean we have to instantly concede Games 2 and 3 to any deck running white? No, we just have to find ways to deal with it.
    Posted in: Modern Archives - Proven
  • posted a message on [[Official]] Modern Prices Discussion
    Quote from Daeyel »
    With the overwhelmingly popular reception of Standard Challenge decks, how long till we see a line of say, 20 different Modern Challenge decks?

    Burn at $100, Affinity and Tron at $300, Elves, Merfolk, Soul Sisters etc all priced competitively, all the way up to Death's Shadow and Jund.

    It would be an amazing idea, putting exactly the needed reprints into the marketplace at the same time it puts a hard cap on singles prices.


    I doubt we will ever see something like that. Wizards releasing these decks now is a way for them to squeeze as much value as they can out of the blocks that will be rotating out of Standard in the Fall. I don't ever see Wizards printing a product like this for Modern.
    Posted in: Modern
  • posted a message on [Primer] Ironworks Combo
    Anyone been having any success with the deck lately?

    I had an interesting game a few days ago where the last 5 cards in my deck were Whir, Whir, Whir, Whir, Reservoir. That was interesting lol
    Posted in: Modern Archives - Proven
  • posted a message on [[Official]] Modern Prices Discussion
    So today I realize I can sell the shell of the 8-Rack deck I no longer play for close to $650. Thank you Liliana, I have been wanting a new computer. Grin
    Posted in: Modern
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 10/02/18)
    Quote from axman »
    When does this go live?


    I think MaRo said on his blog it should take effect around the release of Dominaria.
    Posted in: Modern Archives
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