Those fetch-shocks are going to add up if you're expecting to cast W on 1, UG in 2, UUU or 1UG or 1WU on 3 and UUGG or 1UUU or 1WWU on 4. Astrolabe is the glue that makes your cards possible to cast. The deck will not function as is and will take a big transformation afterwards. Especially if there...

I dunno, I can just speak for myself on this: I hate some aspects of modern right now. With a vengeance. And I don't play any other format, but it's obvious that other format's player bases have the same issues we have in modern. However, that doesn't prevent me from looking foward to the possibilit...

This is a fair point actually. Astrolabe is very good at mana fixing, but being a snow artifact permanent is also a huge deal. As you say, if it was just the mana fixing, Astrolabe would see play in colors outside UGx, especially 3c decks outside UGx. But it doesn't. Not in Jund, not in Jeskai, not ...

I think I laid out very precisely why Preordain is so much better than Serum Visions. Both when looking for a combo piece AND when looking for an answer as a control deck, getting the card a turn earlier is a huge deal. Modern is a fast format, and 1 turn is a significant chunk of every game. What w...

I now squat about Legacy, but I do know that Preordain is miles and miles better than Serum Visions. Digging 3 deep instantly for a card you need is 10x better than drawing a random card and digging 4 deep for the next draw.

I do not want Preordain in this format, ever. The difference is huge.

It would be hilarious if Veil, Uro, Astrolabe and T3feri all remain legal next monday and they just ban Snoop because of some obnoxious win% hehe. That would teach us.

I'd be ok with just a Veil ban. Astrolabe, Uro and T3feri are annoying too, but Uro is manageable via GY hate, especially Cling to Dust, T3feri I honestly don't really care about even though I'm a non-white blue-control player, and Astrolabe I've become indifferent about, probably because it's been ...

State of the format is 'soon to be dead in paper, forever'. Selling Modern cards seems rather appropriate in that context. State of Modern does not just mean state of the meta, it means how long will the format last in paper. State of Modern is not a ban thread. By all means keep talking about bans...

No offence, but can discussions about selling cards be moved to the appropriate threads? it's got literally nothing to do with the modern format. I might as well be writing about my grandmother's cooking recipes. Yes, Astrolabe is in an ever larger number of decks, but it's also safe to say that pre...

So, about Astrolabe: Modern Challenge: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2020-07-05 Astrolabe decks: 12/32 decks(2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30) Veil of summer : 15/32 decks. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath : 12/32 decks. Exactly th...

Normal, live opponent play is going to be weird and distant for a long time, especially in the US. Many of our states are having to go BACK on lockdown because we are filled with morons who believe their individual freedom to not want to wear a mask is more important than the health and safety of t...

David just published a metagame breakdown for the last couple weeks on Modern Nexus. His conclusion is that it's a diverse meta game in flux. He says that with a straight face while never once mentioning that if you add Bant Snow, Temur Snow and Sultai snow together, which you should at the very lea...

The one important thing Snoop has going for it is that its goldfish is a full turn faster than Twin and the goblin tribal shell runs several mainboard tutors/diggers for both combo pieces in Matron and Ringleader. Skirk Prospector also means it can potentially ramp into casting the combo at unlikely...

The reason I still prefer modern to any other format is the idea that while there is powerful stuff going on, you still have to work for it. I know it's a bad example, but to illustrate: Modern is Logic Knot , Legacy is Counterspell . There are no completely free 2cmc Tutors for combo, Path does don...

It's just essential to differentiate the causality of success with Sanctuary. It is a roleplayer in the best super-archetype UGx in modern, and it also incidentally fits in that deck better than almost any other (only exception is Miracles). But it is only a relatively small part of what makes the d...

people are blaming it on repetitive gameplay and providing an "unfair" amount of consistency. But really, it's just getting flak from being in all the UGx shells. Sanctuary just fits perfect into the deck: Uro makes land drops to turn it on, Astrolabe enables you to fetch Island-Island-Isl...

can confirm, Grixis Control can support 2x Mystic Sanctuary . I've been on a aspiringspike-esque build for a few months now. But several points: It is still much harder to turn on Sanctuary, especially early. UGx can frequently just fetch 2-3 basics if it has Astrolabe. Grixis can't. Also UGx gets g...

If meta shares continue to rise I don't see why something out of UGx Snow wouldn't be banned sooner. The one thing Uro decks have "going for them" in terms of bannability is their dredge matchup. They cant run RIP without shutting off both Uro and Sanctuary, and anything but RIP is basical...

If we think back to the Summer Bloom ban though, Amulet Titan wasn't even a tier 1 deck meta-share wise because it's gameplan was kind of abstract and it was difficult to find the correct lines. They banned Bloom on win% alone. Yea, as you say, same deal with KCI. Having complicated, hard to pilot d...

So, I might be a little blind right now to AA requiring further action. I can certainly agree that the statistics don't lie though, and going by mtgtop8, 22% of decks playing it as a 4 of is alarming. It's the most played non land 4 of in the format, with Monastery Swiftspear being in second place ...

I just got off watching Sultai Snow take down the modern Challenge in Nassif's hands, then 5-0 the next day in Reid's. Now I'm heatedly arguing on the Sultai Control discord about how busted Astrolabe is. But seriously, the thing that stood out to me was them always slamming everything on curve with...

I'll do a little, very broad excursion on mtgtop8 from 2016 yearly meta games, because this period nicely illustrates the development from a broken format to a borderline perfect, healthy format, to the release of Modern Horizons and Modern's subsequent downfall: 2016, Eldrazi Aggro was the overall ...

I wish some people would think beyond that tough-guy mentality of "everybody else is a whining baby". If you've been playing long enough and/or have been around these forums for years, then you'll see why that phrase is close to true. I mean, UW is favored against Tron, Tron hasn't done a...

Hey look, fair decks in modern finally have the tools to compete and now fair decks is the problem! People have been arguing that modern is, essentially a rotating format because things change with every set or metagame shift. I would argue that at this point, Modern is a rotating complain. Whateve...

I have to admit to my unrelenting bias, but within the context of the format, I continue to fail to see the issue with Sanctuary. Lol I am biased too, am playing it myself a lot (though in none of the top decks). I think Sanctuary gets a lot of undeserved flak because it's in every UGx deck, be tha...