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On October 28 2013 15:28 Cel.erity wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 09:48 mr_tolkien wrote:
Hopping in the discussion : I think if you get an open draft Green isn't the strongest color, but it has the big advantage of being the deepest color. Pretty much all green commons are playable, and most of their rares are bombs. Disagree strongly, in fact it's pretty much the opposite. Green has the highest power level if you get multiple copies of its best commons, but it is not as deep as blue, and its cards suffer from being divided into multple strategies. The G/R and G/W decks generally need vastly different cards than the G/U and G/B decks. At some point, if green is dry, you're just drafting more vanilla bodies and tricks that you don't need. It's only "deep" in terms of above-average playable filler, which is not as much of an issue in Theros draft. Blue is the most flexible color, green is the most powerful color, black is the most synergistic color, and white is the most focused color. Red is not really a color.
Mostly agreed. Combined, you get some fascinating trends: two totally different (Agro and control) UW deck types for example. Blue white heroic focussing on hoplites, aqueous form, maybe daxos, wingsteed rider, blue and white buff spells is very powerful, but you can also build blue white control with oxes, guardians, and then a bunch of fliers, benthic giants and bestow, both are totally viable. Whereas blue black you can't really build agro generally, and should probably go black red or black green in most situations where you could go black blue agro.
Though I disagree about red. Yes, it works incredibly well with white in this set (red white heroic is such an easy archetype to build in draft). But it DOES hold its own as well. Dragons mantle in mono red is a very scary thing indeed, especially on an ill tempered cyclops or two headed Cerberus. Plus fanatic of mogis is pretty great (though obviously in draft it pales in comparison to grey merchant).
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I fucking hate modern, literally every single deck is just built around hating on fair decks and try to not interact at all, dumb fucking trash format
/rant
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On October 29 2013 05:17 Canas wrote:
I fucking hate modern, literally every single deck is just built around hating on fair decks and try to not interact at all, dumb fucking trash format
/rant
Glances over at Vintage, shivers slightly.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
If you're looking into Modern and want to just win, then you're going to be very limited in terms of deck choice. Modern has reached a point where it's all driven in terms of mana efficiency. Ari Lax had a really good article about this that's worth reading. And Brian Kibler's thoughts about Thoughseize is also relevant.
It makes sense though that in a format where there's a massive card pool, people are going to be all over creating uninteractive decks or decks that pose questions they don't want you to have answers for. (Also why I don't particularly like UWR even though I want to play Draw-Go so badly lol). Still doesn't mean you can't play a fair deck though.
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In a way, I feel like by banning all the really degenerate cards, wizards pushed a lot of diversity in the "not-quite-degenerate but definitely not interactive" combo-ish decks. Which sounds good until you realize that you can't actually play an "answers" deck because of the diversity in the "questions" the format is capable of posing.
Combined with the fact that wizards banned all the really really good "fair" cards (stuff like wild nacatl, GSZ, Jace, Preordain/ponder (okay that might not be fair), top, visions, etc) means that you can't interact profitably with enough of the format for interaction to be worth pursuing.
My 2cents.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
Several bans are disappointing but are still ok (thing like Top slowing down games so much even though Miracles should be a thing). Some don't really make that much sense (like GSZ, Nactl and Ancestral Visions).
There's also the problem of consistency and how much your deck dies to itself and bad mulligans. But that's another story.
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I just play in Modern to cast Stone Rain and Molten Rain, who cares about anything else.
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On October 29 2013 06:32 MoonBear wrote:
Several bans are disappointing but are still ok (thing like Top slowing down games so much even though Miracles should be a thing). Some don't really make that much sense (like GSZ, Nactl and Ancestral Visions).
There's also the problem of consistency and how much your deck dies to itself and bad mulligans. But that's another story.
Nactl was a gut reaction ban and definitely seems like it needs to be looked at again. Modern tournament streams could definitely use some sideways aggro decks instead of purely tempo/mana ramp decks.
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Wizards kneejerked their bans, some of the cards should have been banned (BBElf should be on that list in the first place), but the others were so speculative (like Grave Troll). Like eternal formats need some kind of standard to build a meta around instead of artificially shaking up the meta because a deck got too popular. Give a chance for players to build answers against. Such a bleh format.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
Although, playing Bloodbraid Elf and cascading into Boom/Bust and choosing Bust was hilarious. Bonus points for the lethal swing with a Knight of the Reliquary.
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They should look at Stoneforge and Nacatl and maybe Bitterblossom. There's definitely nothing degenerate about Nacatl.
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Can any modern dredge deck (without the bannings) ever beat Turn-1 Deathrite shaman (and green mana) anyway? Don't think so.
I dunno, I love the idea of modern. And I'm not that opposed to how it plays right now, but I feel like it coulda been quite a bit more.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
DRS was a big blow to a lot of Graveyard strategies and Scavenging Ooze just makes it even harder. Combine it with things like Tron running maindeck Relic of Progenitus and so on and you just end up very sad if you're trying to use the Graveyward as a resource.
If you want to do something obscene with the Graveyard, you may as well abuse Goryo's Vengence.
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If I play Darksteel Citadel, Mox Opal, Mox Opal (turn 1) Can I tap either mox opal for mana at any point?
I haven't really caught up with the new legend rule 
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
No. You play the second Mox Opal. It resolves. Before any abilities can be activated, you have to check for state based actions. The legendary rule check then comes in. You now have to choose which one to keep. So you never get a chance to active a Mox Opal while both are in play.
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So I've calmed down after a terrible experience tonight to share some of my thoughts on the format. I play UWR control in modern, here's the exact list I run: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/uwr-control-20-05-13-2/
Basically, played in a tournament at my LGS, went 0-3 drop.
Match 1 I played vs kiki pod, and those games were truly depressing, game 1 I was so close to winning, I was a bit stalled on mana, but it looked pretty good anyway, I have clique in play, with snapcaster, bolt, helix and sphinx's revelation in hand, he has a resto angel and two birthing pods in play, with one card in hand that I know is a phantasmal image from clique a few turns earlier, and he's at 10 life.
I bolt, snapcaster bolt his resto angel to let my clique bring him down to 7, and giving me lethal next turn. I pass, he draws for his turn, plays a misty rainforest, fetches for an island, plays phantasmal image, copying clique, getting rid of my helix, he then pods his image into a redcap, which he then pods into a zealous conscripts to untap a pod with, then he pods the redcap into a kiki-jiki. Game.
I was just speechless after that game, but we go on to game 2. I don't draw a sweeper when I need one and kind of just fold over to kitchen finks and resto angels.
Match 2, bogles. Fuck my life. He plays dudes and auras, I lose.
Match 3, G/W hatebears. At this point I'm tilting a bit, so I play badly and quickly die to mindcensors sniping several fetch lands (that I get 0 hits off each time), with smiters, voices and resto angels to finish me off. At this point I'm just so disheartened that I just drop from the tournament.
While none of these decks may be huge offenders of being the most uninteractive and degenerate decks of the format, it kind of felt like it at the time, and I very likely could've played differently to end up winning, but jesus. I don't even dislike combo, like, I play belcher in legacy, but despite it being a fairly all in kind of deck, it still feels like there is more interaction when I play belcher than when I play UWR control a lot more often than you'd think.
I just feel like fair decks need to get something to justify playing a fair deck over an unfair deck, or a way to interact with certain kinds of decks, ancestral visions getting unbanned would be a good start, in my opinion.
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On October 29 2013 06:55 MoonBear wrote:
Although, playing Bloodbraid Elf and cascading into Boom/Bust and choosing Bust was hilarious. Bonus points for the lethal swing with a Knight of the Reliquary.
Naya Reliqgeddon sounds like an awesome deck name!
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
Your deck looks really similar to the one Shuuhei played at Worlds. Trying to hit RR for Anger of the Gods into UUU for Cryptic seems like it would be a bit rough though?
UWR has issues with Selenya stuff since you lean so heavily on 3 damage spells that can't break a Smiter. So it's not a terribly good matchup. Boggles is also a matter of sideboard tax. But yes, UWR Control is a bit rough to play depending on who you face.
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Vintage is actually very interactive, the only really non-interactive deck is Dredge.
Jund is a fair deck and has done well over the course of Modern's life as a format. Fair decks are fine in Modern as long as they are proactive. I think it's more accurate to say that reactive decks aren't good enough to justify not playing something proactive in Modern, rather than fair/unfair.
I'm not a huge fan of Anger of the Gods. I understand that exiling is relevant, but I feel like any match where you want a red sweeper is a match where you'd rather have Pyroclasm. Hallowed Burial and Terminus are likely better if you need a sweeper that doesn't leave behind an Elemental or a persist dude.
I dunno, I'm not a fan of Modern but it's mostly because the games are generally uninteresting and a lot of matches come down to who sees more sideboard cards. I'm mostly fine with which decks are viable since you can play quite a few decks, even if they all play the same.
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On October 29 2013 09:10 MCMcEmcee wrote:
Vintage is actually very interactive, the only really non-interactive deck is Dredge.
Jund is a fair deck and has done well over the course of Modern's life as a format. Fair decks are fine in Modern as long as they are proactive. I think it's more accurate to say that reactive decks aren't good enough to justify not playing something proactive in Modern, rather than fair/unfair.
I'm not a huge fan of Anger of the Gods. I understand that exiling is relevant, but I feel like any match where you want a red sweeper is a match where you'd rather have Pyroclasm. Hallowed Burial and Terminus are likely better if you need a sweeper that doesn't leave behind an Elemental or a persist dude.
I dunno, I'm not a fan of Modern but it's mostly because the games are generally uninteresting and a lot of matches come down to who sees more sideboard cards. I'm mostly fine with which decks are viable since you can play quite a few decks, even if they all play the same.
Yup, I actually agree with a lot of this, very well worded. The angers used to be pyroclasms, but they got replaced because I really want a turn 4 wrath to be available, so hallowed burial is out of the question, so that leaves anger of the gods.
And I'm thinking I'll try a more midrangey take on the deck for the next few weeks, take out the verdict, anger, gideon and sphinx's revelations to add another snapcaster, clique, as well as 3 resto angels to be able to be a bit more proactive and actually end games when they're supposed to end, instead of durdling around and waiting for a wincon to appear from the top of my deck.
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EPT
