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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
Jund and UWR are very much Goodstuff.dec where you have efficient creatures, removal and power cards. You have answers to a lot of things, have strong efficient cheap threats and if need by you can afford to grind and go 1-for-1 because you have a lot of good top decks that can break you out of bad situations and have ways to just bury your opponent with card advantage. Being three or more colours those two decks also have deep sideboarding options.
I think it says something when one of the most powerful things Jund has done is just to splash a 4th colour. And UWR is a good colour combination to behind with. A pity that synergy decks are rather weak in Modern.
On June 05 2013 07:53 DEN1ED wrote:
Recently though the more controlling version with just snapcasters and then some PWs has been putting up good results on MTGO.
Do you mean Wafo-Tapa's build? That's not new and it's been around for a while now.
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On June 05 2013 07:53 DEN1ED wrote:
UWR in modern is pretty simple. For creatures you have snapcaster, geist, resto angel, vendillion clique and recently a UWR deck with lightning angels did well at GP Portland. Then you just have all the best removal and counter like path, helix, lightning bolt, electorlyze, remand, mana leak, spellsnare, cryptic command and supreme verdict. It's just figuring out the numbers on everything. Recently though the more controlling version with just snapcasters and then some PWs has been putting up good results on MTGO.
So essentially just standard UWR tempo with a couple of modern extras and the better modern burn/counters? Pity I dont have restos or geists atm :/
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On June 05 2013 08:17 Audemed wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 07:53 DEN1ED wrote:
UWR in modern is pretty simple. For creatures you have snapcaster, geist, resto angel, vendillion clique and recently a UWR deck with lightning angels did well at GP Portland. Then you just have all the best removal and counter like path, helix, lightning bolt, electorlyze, remand, mana leak, spellsnare, cryptic command and supreme verdict. It's just figuring out the numbers on everything. Recently though the more controlling version with just snapcasters and then some PWs has been putting up good results on MTGO. So essentially just standard UWR tempo with a couple of modern extras and the better modern burn/counters? Pity I dont have restos or geists atm :/
Most Modern decks are basically really good decks from old Standard/Extended formats and then updated for better card quality. There's not many truly original ones, and those typically aren't Tier 1.
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Ah, fair enough. I'll throw something together in cockatrice and see how much it'll cost me to upgrade >.>
How "mandatory" are fetches if you don't have deck manipulation? Is the current standard manabase sufficient for this in modern or do I really need the fetches?
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On June 04 2013 13:44 micronesia wrote:
Aren't there black creatures on the board who are very much affected by milling? The more creatures/cards/etc in an opponents graveyard, the stronger they become (just as an example).
Revisiting this topic again for people thinking about this deck, decks like this, or just issues in deck design. There is nothing wrong with what Diamond or anyone else WANTS to do, it's about how to do it in the most effective manner.
Yes and no to micronesia's question. The problem with this concept is the design philosophy in each of the colors and where the game (MtG) is developing into, but more on that later if anyone is still reading.
The problem that the RealmGhast engine runs into is a lack of card equality. Micronesia is right that U/B (Blue/Black) has cards that benefit greatly from the graveyard (anybody's). However, the deck runs into issues because of:
1. The dependency on what goes into the GY.
2. The ramp nature of the deck.
3. The U/B colors.
Addressing these problems 1 by 1, the overall theme is the inherent additional variance introduced by the deck's approach will lead to terrible situations, #3 exacerbates those situations with little payoff.
#1 means that you're stuck if the opponent doesn't have anything you want/need in their GY or if you don't have things in yours, then you aren't doing anything.
#2 means that if you draw your cards in the wrong order, then you are boned, the ReamGhast engine is powerful if assembled and then you draw the spells you want to cast off of all that mana. Now if you do it the other way, it's awkward and worse. Or in the worst case scenario, you never draw the big spells and just lose.
#3 contributes to #2 and #1 because there aren't any game changing or game ending spells. For those of you that played during Primeval Titan's dominance, the game was over or heavily in its owner's favor when Titan got to swing. In UB, that's not the case.
Now to fully explain #3, UB doesn't have a game ender like Grave Titan for example right now in Standard. You are playing a defensive game until something (usually slow and expensive) to take over the game. The way Wizards decided to go with UB this cycle are all grindy cards that will end the game eventually. Grave Titan ended it in a swing or 2. Drownyard ends it in 15+ activations. You are playing a slow but steady, attrition game simply because that's what Wizards decided how UB will play.
So how does RealmGhast fit into all of this? Simply put, it doesn't. It's a nice little engine, but it's not powering anything significant. Diamond will find himself doing a whole lot of nothing (not literal nothing, nothing effective) more often than he would probably like. So the deck builder in me would simply say, keep this design in storage, move on. When M14 gets fully spoiled, maybe there's something there. Maybe when Theros (and its block) is released, there's something there. Without adding a 3rd color, the deck is kind of limited in what its able to do.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On June 05 2013 08:26 Audemed wrote:
Ah, fair enough. I'll throw something together in cockatrice and see how much it'll cost me to upgrade >.>
How "mandatory" are fetches if you don't have deck manipulation? Is the current standard manabase sufficient for this in modern or do I really need the fetches?
Uh. Well, you can run without Fetches and still be okay. But Fetches provide incredible amounts of consistency that's truly unmatched and if you plan on playing 3 or 4 colours then it means you can start playing cards with double colour requirements on turns 2+3 consistently which is really important for some decks. There's no Brainstorm to shuffle away the top of your deck, but it's something to note cause it comes up sometimes (like in Domri Rade decks).
There's chatter that Onslaught Fetches might be reprinted in Theros but it's all speculation for the moment.
Also feel free to check out all the other Modern decks that aren't Jund/UWR. See what you enjoy the most. No point getting a really expensive deck you won't like.
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On June 05 2013 08:32 MoonBear wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 08:26 Audemed wrote:
Ah, fair enough. I'll throw something together in cockatrice and see how much it'll cost me to upgrade >.>
How "mandatory" are fetches if you don't have deck manipulation? Is the current standard manabase sufficient for this in modern or do I really need the fetches? Uh. Well, you can run without Fetches and still be okay. But Fetches provide incredible amounts of consistency that's truly unmatched and if you plan on playing 3 or 4 colours then it means you can start playing cards with double colour requirements on turns 2+3 consistently which is really important for some decks. There's no Brainstorm to shuffle away the top of your deck, but it's something to note cause it comes up sometimes (like in Domri Rade decks). There's chatter that Onslaught Fetches might be reprinted in Theros but it's all speculation for the moment. Also feel free to check out all the other Modern decks that aren't Jund/UWR. See what you enjoy the most. No point getting a really expensive deck you won't like.
Hmm, I think I'll see what i can do fetchless for now. I'll take a look at other decks, but I really love UWR in standard so I think it's a good jumping off point to modern, since I have the (standard) manabase and snapcasters already, half of the expensive stuff is already available to me.
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On June 05 2013 08:08 Thrill wrote:
Completely lost interest after Reynad stopped streaming.
Sure, the guy was a diva, but the only one who displayed any flare of intellect in drafting.
It's too bad, format lends itself well to streaming.
Reynad, Celerity, and the odd Kibler/Twoo streams were all I used to watch, now just watch a VoD every so often. There's tons of new magic streamers out there, but some of them barely talk other than to bitch about things, which makes it kind of terrible to watch.
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That chatter isn't too unwarranted. I know this is borderline tinfoil hat, but after doing more research on the whole Reserved list (as per our discussion in this thread), Wizards is trying to figure out a solution to the Eternal formats. After thinking about it and given how quickly Modern became expensive, they're testing the public limits of tolerating reprinting former money cards with a lot of things they have done.
Mythic tier rarity, From the Vaults, and now Modern Masters. Due to how tied their hands are with the Reserved list, I have a pretty good feeling that Wizards is going to let Legacy run on its own and put those players into where Vintage players were so long ago except handle that situation much better.
They're much all in on Modern as their eternal format of focus so they'll figure out how much the public is willing to swallow the reprinting which is why you saw Commander's Arsenal's availability as scarce as it does. FtV really didn't affect anyone too severely, Commander's affected the growing casual base, now Masters affect a greater group of individuals. So all in all, it wouldn't surprise me if they take the next step and reprinted fetches in some capacity, but they're going to trek carefully and slowly. Theros might be a bit early, but it wouldn't surprise me.
As as a side note, EDH/Commander has freed up Wizard's ability to do this by a considerable margin. Even if they print underpowered fetch lands, EDH players would be happy for those just starting out or building more decks.
I am of course basing this off my own personal opinion and observations.
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Speakign of Modern, these GUBx Gifts Control decks are hella fun. Only thing I don't have after coming back from a looooooooooooooooooooong break of no Magic are the Lilianna's, fetchlands, and Snapcasters (although Witness's fill his role nicely).
Maybe its just me having a certain affinity to Gifts Ungiven. Favorite card ever.
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Modern is indeed the future. Just look at how "hands-on" Wizards is with it; they want so badly that it should be "fun" in a modern sense.
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Hey guys-- you might have seen my blog about my first impressions with MTG http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=415646 and this is kind of a follow-up question to that post.
MTG noob here, been playing for a couple weeks in person with friends and also online quite a bit last week. Mostly I've been doing the $4 phantom draft events, and with triple RTR I was doing pretty well (more-or-less breaking even since going 2-1 gave a RTR booster) but after they switched to giving a DGM booster for going 2-1 I quickly ran out of tickets. Going 3-0 still gives a nice profit but it seems like it's just too hard to consistently go 3-0 in the sealed draft format either due to variance or my skill level not being up to par. That being said, I'm now quite familiar with the RTR block (especially draft rankings and such) but I'm hesitant to pump more funds into MTGO since I want to make sure I'm spending it wisely and in ways that will help me improve my skills as much as possible.
I've read a bit online and some recommend grinding out momir games while others suggest pauper/ block standard daily events but I'm not really sure what will be the most effective use of my time and money. I have experience with grinding up +EV decisions back when I played online poker (turned $1 into over $100 in a month or two while learning the fundamentals of the game) so I'd be open to doing something like that in MTGO if it's possible.
So does anyone have any suggestions for how I can start working my way up the ranks online? I'd rather not drop much more money into my account for the time being (especially after seeing how quickly it disappeared playing limited events) but I don't mind playing in some low-risk/grindy events if that's what it takes to skill up and build a bankroll.
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United States24723 Posts
Judicator I just want to point out that I was mainly responding to "milling is such a delicate dance since it doesnt actually impact the board." Clearly cards which have stats that depend on cards in opponents' graveyards are affected, when on the board, by milling :p I can't say that it's necessarily a good strategy to use in a real tournament.
Separate topic: I just played in a 9 person booster draft (swiss). I put together a nice populate wurm deck (actually green white red) and went 2-0 in the first round. I then went 2-0 in the second round and was tied for first with one other person (my friend) with 6 points each. Then he beat me 2-0 (more luck than anything else I think) and he was in first, with me being in second place.
At the other place where I play, they stop once there are clear winners (since it gets so late). According to the guy running it, if we were using those rules we would have just stopped after round 3 with me in second. However, he said the official rules dictate that there be a fourth round, and since it wasn't late and there were newer players included, we would play the maximum number of games. I then lost 2-1 in the fourth round to a guy who had 4 points. Three people ended up finishing with 7 points, with my friend having 12 and me having 6. I got 6th out of 9th place (and someone left after round 3 or so I think).
The swing between playing with the two different rules sent me from second to sixth out of nine. What is up with that? By the way, there were prizes for first (6 boosters) and second (3 boosters). As I understand it, of the three people who got 7 points, one was considered second because of the tiebreaker rules with a more difficult strength of schedule or more 2-0 victories than 2-1 victories.
It was still fun and I got some good cards from the draft, but at the same time it was extremely demoralizing.
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@micronesia
No, I understand what you're saying, but I am trying to emphasize that even cards like Consuming Aberration isn't good enough to impact the board; simply put, a body isn't enough.
Also, almost confused you with MoonBear since I just saw the red hammer, it was weird.
Tiebreaks are done based on OPP's match win percentage.
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4 swiss rounds are necessary to rank 9 people, but it works in a shitty way because of the low number of players. If you have the full 16 players it would make more sense, as you would get a bunch of ties at 6 pts after the 3rd round that you need to work out. As the second place after the 3rd round, you should in theory be matched with the 1st place (9pts) but since you just played him and there arent other 6 pts because of a strange tie somewhere, you both get paired down which sucks.
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United States24723 Posts
I think I prefer a prize system like online where prizes are determined by how many matches you win rather than place... I guess no system is perfect though.
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On June 05 2013 15:06 micronesia wrote:
I think I prefer a prize system like online where prizes are determined by how many matches you win rather than place... I guess no system is perfect though.
I want to say its the same online as its offline, just more consistent and you don't have awkward numbers of like 9. Louuster highlighted the messed up nature of the tournament given how things played out.
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On June 05 2013 14:58 Louuster wrote:
4 swiss rounds are necessary to rank 9 people, but it works in a shitty way because of the low number of players. If you have the full 16 players it would make more sense, as you would get a bunch of ties at 6 pts after the 3rd round that you need to work out. As the second place after the 3rd round, you should in theory be matched with the 1st place (9pts) but since you just played him and there arent other 6 pts because of a strange tie somewhere, you both get paired down which sucks.
I played a in a 9 man standard last week. I won first round and then got paired down 3 rounds in a row lol. Went 4-0...
On June 05 2013 08:14 MoonBear wrote:I think it says something when one of the most powerful things Jund has done is just to splash a 4th colour. And UWR is a good colour combination to behind with. A pity that synergy decks are rather weak in Modern. Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 07:53 DEN1ED wrote:
Recently though the more controlling version with just snapcasters and then some PWs has been putting up good results on MTGO. Do you mean Wafo-Tapa's build? That's not new and it's been around for a while now.
Ya it's been around but I think it is becoming the more popular version nowadays. Also, magic in general has just become much less about synergy. It's really sad. That's what happens when they just keep printing cards that are all very powerful by themselves like thragtusk, olivia, huntmaster etc etc. They only deck that really relies on synergy is Aristocrats and even that deck can just go Reckoner into falkenrath and just play lots of good cards to win. I miss the days of decks like ghost dad where you played a lot of "bad" cards but they all worked together perfectly to make a powerful deck. Affinity too, even if it was broken.
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On June 06 2013 02:32 DEN1ED wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 14:58 Louuster wrote:
4 swiss rounds are necessary to rank 9 people, but it works in a shitty way because of the low number of players. If you have the full 16 players it would make more sense, as you would get a bunch of ties at 6 pts after the 3rd round that you need to work out. As the second place after the 3rd round, you should in theory be matched with the 1st place (9pts) but since you just played him and there arent other 6 pts because of a strange tie somewhere, you both get paired down which sucks.
I played a in a 9 man standard last week. I won first round and then got paired down 3 rounds in a row lol. Went 4-0... Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 08:14 MoonBear wrote:I think it says something when one of the most powerful things Jund has done is just to splash a 4th colour. And UWR is a good colour combination to behind with. A pity that synergy decks are rather weak in Modern. On June 05 2013 07:53 DEN1ED wrote:
Recently though the more controlling version with just snapcasters and then some PWs has been putting up good results on MTGO. Do you mean Wafo-Tapa's build? That's not new and it's been around for a while now. Ya it's been around but I think it is becoming the more popular version nowadays. Also, magic in general has just become much less about synergy. It's really sad. That's what happens when they just keep printing cards that are all very powerful by themselves like thragtusk, olivia, huntmaster etc etc. They only deck that really relies on synergy is Aristocrats and even that deck can just go Reckoner into falkenrath and just play lots of good cards to win. I miss the days of decks like ghost dad where you played a lot of "bad" cards but they all worked together perfectly to make a powerful deck. Affinity too, even if it was broken.
I miss synergy decks too. 
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EPT
