to be fair, opt is a sign that they're maybe trying to give better spells to blue. it's obviously not on the power level of ponder/preordain, but your deck may want it over serum/sleight depending on what it's trying to do. even cards like chart a course are on the cusp of being modern playable. if it was worded like, "draw two cards. if you didn't attack with a creature this turn, discard a card at your end step" it would definitely see play in. as it stands, because of it's anti-synergy with swiftspear, it needs a little more work to find its home.
holydiva, your comment tells me you never actually played twin.
the most expensive part of the deck if you're foiling is the snapcaster mages. they're 100 a pop. vendilion cliques range between 40 and 100, depending on which one you get. bitterblossoms are 40-80 depending on the version. it should be noted that MMA15 foils had a lot of issues, so that's why they're cheaper. cryptics are all over the place, thoughtseizes are 50ish for the theros one, 500 (!!!) for the OG. i've looked extensively into foiling the deck. i'm very happy the GP promo is mutavault. makes getting foils a bit easier.
The deck piloted exactly the same as I remember it. Games with BB on turn 2 play completely different from games where you don't have it. snare does a lot of work against affinity, storm, d&t, and to a lesser extent, coco. the removal suite is fine if you don't run into affinity, which i unfortunately did. i guess an alternative would be like victim of night or something, but i'm not a big fan of that.
so i played a suboptimal version of this deck for the first time about a year and a half and went 2-1 with it. the go for the throats main deck really screwed me over in game 1 vs affinity. i cliqued myself twice to bottom the two i ended up drawing. it was pretty miserable. the issue was compounded with running only 3 fatal pushes (because i only own 3). a few observations i had as i was scraping off the rust:
1. river of tears may not be that good of a land. the same goes for secluded glen. but i'm not a huge fan of running 4 fetches, as we tax our life total a decent amount already.
2. i may be off the sword plan in this particular instance of modern. this is strange because abrupt decays are at an all time low, and that's when swords (and bitter blossom) are at their best.
3. cryptic is still amazing and shouldn't be any less than a 4 of. spell snare is also very good.
4. the deck still poops on anything uxx. i really don't think we need help playing against decks that like to go long. therefore things like lily aren't really necessary, in my opinion.
5. serum visions was good in the deck. i haven't tried it with opts yet.
i actually understand what people mean by the top tier decks right now are unappealing. as someone who used to be super into the format and is looking to start playing again, looking at "tier 1" right now, and seeing eldrazi tron, GDS, UW control, storm, burn, scapeshift, and affinity makes me sad. aside from GSD, UW control, and affinity, the play in those decks is so radically different from the days of pod, jund, twin, affinity, and wur. the only deck that actually looks appealing to me because of the type of play it promotes is wur queller. of course, what i'm saying might have a large dose of nostalgia.
on a side note, big mana (not to be confused with ramp) has been an issue with the format since day 1. there still are no good ways to directly attack big mana. you used to be able to get away with going under them, but since the deck shifted to feature the mistakes of return to zen block, it's pretty hard to do that now.
Hi guys, I recently moved here and am looking to get back into modern. The game underground in Natick looks like it lacks events. Is Legends Comix and Games the best place to jam? 5 dollars on a Friday sounds like a good deal. If anyone from the area can chime in on it, i'd appreciate it.
Moving around makes me really appreciate Albany, NY. Shout out to the guys there who somehow maintain 3 or 4 competing stores that fire events consistently and have a high level of play!
p.s. what happened to that subforum that had the local meet up information?
The highest meta share deck before it was jund which was just as expensive and even then didn't post a ton of results in paper.
if you say results meaning wins, then sure. i agree. but the meta game share stuff on those websites typically indicate top 8 appearances, which is a lot more indicative of a deck's place in the format. and jund has almost always placed well in the top 8.
we've seen what happens when a top tier deck becomes insanely accessible. look at delver when it had treasure cruise. it was essentially half the price of jund and it shot up to almost 20% (or something around this number) meta game. gb is by far the best shell in the format. if goyfs and lilys were suddenly 20 bucks, you'd bet your ass a massive amount of people would jump ship to play it.
Death's shadow has a 11% (tied with eldrazi aggro) share according to mtgtop8. i'm sure one of the main reasons why it isn't more prevalent is because its shell is one of, if not the most expensive in modern.
stifle would be a good blue card to help ux strategies. it wouldn't push the control end of the blue spectrum, but it'd greatly help the tempo strategies.
the only card that's on the ban list that'll help permission blue control is top. and that brings up another batch of issues that wizards probably doesn't want to deal with in modern.
from what i see, DS jund is the natural evolution of the jund archetype. people figured out a better way to execute the "jund" game plan and a better deck was created. it's akin to people realizing that the tempo version of twin was better than straight up combo.
the lack of any "real" blue deck makes me sad though.
holydiva, your comment tells me you never actually played twin.
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Serum Visons
3 Fatal Push
2 Go for the throat
1 Dismember
2 Mana leak
1 Logic knot
2 Spell Snare
4 Cryptic Command
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Mistbind Clique
24 Lands
The deck piloted exactly the same as I remember it. Games with BB on turn 2 play completely different from games where you don't have it. snare does a lot of work against affinity, storm, d&t, and to a lesser extent, coco. the removal suite is fine if you don't run into affinity, which i unfortunately did. i guess an alternative would be like victim of night or something, but i'm not a big fan of that.
1. river of tears may not be that good of a land. the same goes for secluded glen. but i'm not a huge fan of running 4 fetches, as we tax our life total a decent amount already.
2. i may be off the sword plan in this particular instance of modern. this is strange because abrupt decays are at an all time low, and that's when swords (and bitter blossom) are at their best.
3. cryptic is still amazing and shouldn't be any less than a 4 of. spell snare is also very good.
4. the deck still poops on anything uxx. i really don't think we need help playing against decks that like to go long. therefore things like lily aren't really necessary, in my opinion.
5. serum visions was good in the deck. i haven't tried it with opts yet.
on a side note, big mana (not to be confused with ramp) has been an issue with the format since day 1. there still are no good ways to directly attack big mana. you used to be able to get away with going under them, but since the deck shifted to feature the mistakes of return to zen block, it's pretty hard to do that now.
Moving around makes me really appreciate Albany, NY. Shout out to the guys there who somehow maintain 3 or 4 competing stores that fire events consistently and have a high level of play!
p.s. what happened to that subforum that had the local meet up information?
if you say results meaning wins, then sure. i agree. but the meta game share stuff on those websites typically indicate top 8 appearances, which is a lot more indicative of a deck's place in the format. and jund has almost always placed well in the top 8.
we've seen what happens when a top tier deck becomes insanely accessible. look at delver when it had treasure cruise. it was essentially half the price of jund and it shot up to almost 20% (or something around this number) meta game. gb is by far the best shell in the format. if goyfs and lilys were suddenly 20 bucks, you'd bet your ass a massive amount of people would jump ship to play it.
the only card that's on the ban list that'll help permission blue control is top. and that brings up another batch of issues that wizards probably doesn't want to deal with in modern.
the lack of any "real" blue deck makes me sad though.