[Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 07/13/2020)

[robertleva]

This article is a couple months old but I wonder how MH2 has impacted what he was saying. It seems to be a very popular set among the masses of filthy casuals. Why exactly do we need pro magic players again? Were they ever any better than kitchen table players or just more committed to a card game than your average joe?

https://www.esportstalk.com/blog/is-mtg ... -think-so/

[Aazadan]

With DRC seeing even more play than Ragavan right now, I'm not convinced he's the biggest threat in the format at the moment. But, the card is still quite good.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest this may have more to do with the fact that Channeler is $5/1.5tx and Monke is $80/120tx.

There are likely TONS of people (myself included) that would be playing 4 copies if the cost wasn't so vomit inducing. Never mind the mere notion of buying copies in BOTH paper and MTGO...

It was the winners meta game I was looking at though, I thought price was largely irrelevant on MTGO between a more efficient market and card rentals.

[Guardman]

With DRC seeing even more play than Ragavan right now, I'm not convinced he's the biggest threat in the format at the moment. But, the card is still quite good.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest this may have more to do with the fact that Channeler is $5/1.5tx and Monke is $80/120tx.

There are likely TONS of people (myself included) that would be playing 4 copies if the cost wasn't so vomit inducing. Never mind the mere notion of buying copies in BOTH paper and MTGO...

It was the winners meta game I was looking at though, I thought price was largely irrelevant on MTGO between a more efficient market and card rentals.

Most of the times yes, but I know that many card rental services aren't renting out Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer due to not having enough supply. And one rental service, Cardhoarder, suspended new applications to their card rental service (and created a waiting list) due to demand. In addition, 480 tix is a very steep barrier of entry. So I could very well see that the number of Ragavans in the winner's meta is being artificially suppressed.

[cfusionpm]

Yeah, I mean, there are hardcore UW draw/go players splashing Jeskai just to run 4 Monkeys in the board. The card is obscenely good.

As for Bauble, it seems like a prime target for an upcoming ban. Whether or not it's the right target, it ticks all the boxes of a WOTC ban. Free value, does too much for too little, over-prevalent, removing it hurts-but-doesn't-kill decks. I'm planning on selling my paper copies asap.

[pierreb]

My grixis shadow deck would be sad to have to pay for the sin of a pushed neo-delver and her loch-dwelling sister. OTOH, I think if I would be in a situation to play modern right now, I would just play UW spirits with Worship in the side. OH right, UR DRC plays wet-jump-rope Counterspell ...

[Simto]

Does anybody know if there's a major tournament coming up soon? They're usually the the ban incentives either before or after.
I still think it's way too soon for any serious ban talks though. How long has Modern Horizons 2 been out? Three weeks? With no obvious Hogak levels of broken cards? Wizards are going to let it stir around the pot for a while. And honestly, I'd say just enjoy all the new options the set has thrown out there. Be a little creative with deck building and adapt a bit before folding your arms and complaining about bans. This is supposed to be the fun time.

[robertleva]

The only data they concern themselves with is MTGO data. Not that it really matters. What they do with this data is pretty arbitrary if the past is any indication. If the data supports their reasoning for a ban, they make sure everyone knows the data. If the data does not support it, they ban whatever they feel like for whatever reasons anyway and data need not be mentioned.

Off topic but WOTC is possibly the worst company at communicating with its customers. We have no idea what the future "pro tourney" paper scene will even be, or IF it will even be. Everything is MTGO, which they turn around and treat like garbage by putting a desperately needed UI upgrade on yet another digital money sink called Arena. Seriously WOTC? Basically they will just keep churning out sets for the rest of our lives and collecting checks. They need not actually give a %$#% about us, and it shows.

[FoodChainGoblins]

Does anybody know if there's a major tournament coming up soon? They're usually the the ban incentives either before or after.
I still think it's way too soon for any serious ban talks though. How long has Modern Horizons 2 been out? Three weeks? With no obvious Hogak levels of broken cards? Wizards are going to let it stir around the pot for a while. And honestly, I'd say just enjoy all the new options the set has thrown out there. Be a little creative with deck building and adapt a bit before folding your arms and complaining about bans. This is supposed to be the fun time.

In my area, one store has already done two $1K tournaments and now 2 other stores have them scheduled, although 1 is in August (lol). Unfortunately, don't ask me about what was there; I work those days. But I can post some of the top 8. One of the tournaments was something like this for top 8.

1. Dimir Mill
2. Counter Monkey.
3. GW Taxes.
4. Jund Shadow
5. RUG Cascade.
6. Esper Blade.
7. Bogles.
8. Living End.
This was the first one that MH2 was legal. EDIT> found the next week's...
1. Heliod Company
2. BG Food
3. DnT
4. Ponza
5. Shadow
6. Goblins
7. Living End
8. Mono Black

One thing to take into consideration is that some of these players are very strong, so they can win with a variety of decks. I'll give an example of me getting 2nd place to UW Control with the player who is listed as the #1 Heliod Company player here, which I did with Cragganwick Cremator over a year ago.
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20510&d=334765&f=MO

I think each tournament had around 30 players, but it could be anywhere from 28-42. I don't know exactly.

[The Fluff]

question to everyone about Urza's Saga... in your experience, is there one specific deck that likes to use the card? Or are there several kind of modern deck that use it?

[FoodChainGoblins]

question to everyone about Urza's Saga... in your experience, is there one specific deck that likes to use the card? Or are there several kind of modern deck that use it?

I bought 4 for Amulet for what that's worth.

[Simto]

Hardened Scales decks make really good use of it too.

[The Fluff]

@FoodChainGoblins @Simto

ok, thanks for the info. I guess it slots into more than one deck.

[Simto]

Yeah, I saw a dude make a really filthy play with Urza's Saga in the Scales deck. He was playing against Green Tron who just dropped a Creator Karn, but then he proliferated his Urza's Saga with a Throne of Geth so he could tutor for and play his 1 main deck Pithing Needle and then naming Karn before he landed.
That was some filthy stuff hehe.
If only I had money....

[Ed06288]

Let's assume 4 stomping grounds, 1 cinder glade, and 1 Valakut, the molten pinnacle are in play. Dryad of the Ilsian Grove is also in play. Primeveal Titan then hits the board and grabs 2 more Valakuts. How many Valakut triggers are created? I'm thinking just 4 triggers, maybe 6, but the application Forge tells me it's 5.

How does Dryad of the ilsian grove interact with blood moon? Is it a layering thing similar to urborg, tomb of yawgmoth?

[pierreb]

Both Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle enter simultaneously. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove makes all lands mountain (among other things...) All three see two mountains entering play. So 3 x 2 = 6 triggers.

Edit: I guess Forge considers that the entering Valakut don't see themselves entering as a mountain? That seem impossible rule-wise: either both valakut see both "mountains" enter or none. It would be different if Valakut said "other mountain", but it doesn't.

[Ed06288]

Thank you, that makes sense. If you scapeshift 6 lands with the old primsmatic omen in play, grabbing 4 Valakut and 2 other land it was 6 lands hitting the battlefield times 4 Valakut for 24 triggers for 72 damage.

Dryad of the ilysian grove sure is strong, but the ramp decks that use it are centered around redundancy and card advantage; I wonder if all 4 copies should see play in amulet titan and titanshift. 3 is a more optimal number it seems.

[Simto]

I feel like not playing magic when I look at card prices lately. I'm not really playing at all lately anyway, but you know what I mean. %$#% $2k jeskai ragavan decks.
The price of admission and speculation are just too ridiculous and it's honestly ruining the game for me in some aspect.

[Tzoulis]

I feel like not playing magic when I look at card prices lately. I'm not really playing at all lately anyway, but you know what I mean. %$#% $2k jeskai ragavan decks.
The price of admission and speculation are just too ridiculous and it's honestly ruining the game for me in some aspect.

If you're buying into a new deck while you have no common cards with other decks, yeah it'll be expensive; it always was. Especially if you're aiming to get into a "goodstuff" deck (I did that recently with 5C Niv; Catacombs, Misty and Vistas were expensive AF).

That said, you don't need to play Monkey Blade to enjoy Modern at the moment. Blitz is cheap (for a modern deck), Outside of Yorion and Monkey decks, the format is more or less at the same price range, with a slight uptick due Khan fetches increasing 50% or more (All Khan fetches sans Heath are at around 25 euros, when they were 15-20 before MH2), SFM and UR/UB fastlands doubling in price.

[Simto]

Yeah you're right, but if I like having two-three decks to swap around and it's just %$#% unless I want watered down versions of them.

[stille_nacht]

You know something, besides MB Dauthi voidwalkers, it seems like GY hate is really light right now despite the prevalence of Delirium, what's up with that? Are dredge/vine/whatever just too slow to even keep up now even with hate?

[Bearscape]

People were first focused on the Urza's Saga decks, skipping gravehate for artifact/land hate. Now, it's slowly becoming clear that UR Murktide will be a top tier deck in Modern, and with that I expect gravehate to ramp up a bit again.

[robertleva]

People were first focused on the Urza's Saga decks, skipping gravehate for artifact/land hate. Now, it's slowly becoming clear that UR Murktide will be a top tier deck in Modern, and with that I expect gravehate to ramp up a bit again.

Artifact hate is much less effective vs Saga than you'd think. I'm not sure that is the reason for lack of grave hate. It's been my experience that people hate against the decks that annoy them most. UR murktide is pretty fair as far as graveyard fueled decks go, so folks are less like to "rage fill" their side with grave hate.

[cfusionpm]

Also depending on the type of GY hate, some of it Murktide can ignore or get under, and some of it actively makes Murktide better. RIP and Leyline are pretty rough, but on the play RIP could be too slow. And ones which exile GYs/cards once (Relic, Spellbomb/Surgical/etc) grow the Murktide as cards leave the yard.

They can also be shut off Delirium for Channeler if it's playing that. So while it can definitely hurt, but it's not game-ending. So I definitely agree that people may not be jamming 4x Leyline like during Hogaak, but if they have stuff in their SB already, it always comes in.

[Bearscape]

People were first focused on the Urza's Saga decks, skipping gravehate for artifact/land hate. Now, it's slowly becoming clear that UR Murktide will be a top tier deck in Modern, and with that I expect gravehate to ramp up a bit again.

Artifact hate is much less effective vs Saga than you'd think. I'm not sure that is the reason for lack of grave hate. It's been my experience that people hate against the decks that annoy them most. UR murktide is pretty fair as far as graveyard fueled decks go, so folks are less like to "rage fill" their side with grave hate.

I agree, but still people have been jamming mass artifact hate in a lot of lists. I felt very nostalgic seeing Hurkyl's Recall show up again here and there

Also depending on the type of GY hate, some of it Murktide can ignore or get under, and some of it actively makes Murktide better. RIP and Leyline are pretty rough, but on the play RIP could be too slow. And ones which exile GYs/cards once (Relic, Spellbomb/Surgical/etc) grow the Murktide as cards leave the yard.

They can also be shut off Delirium for Channeler if it's playing that. So while it can definitely hurt, but it's not game-ending. So I definitely agree that people may not be jamming 4x Leyline like during Hogaak, but if they have stuff in their SB already, it always comes in.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons UR Murktide is so powerful and why I think it'll become a mainstay; these blue tempo lists are just super consistent because they get to run so many cantrips. Even though gravehate hits it pretty hard, just having less variance compared to other decks means that over the course of many games you have an inherent edge, getting to run their gameplan more often than the opponent, even when the opponent's gameplan is designed to hate them out. Just look at Legacy Delver; those decks have had the crosshair set on them for years but still thrive.

I'd say this is a great thing btw; if UR Murktide ends up being a top tier deck, Modern is in a good spot. It's interactive, it has counterplay, and its fast clock backed up with countermagic is a good way to keep most linear combo decks back. The only thing I think could really set back UR Murktide is if it turns out to be an unhealthy amount further ahead from the other fair decks and it gets hit by a targeted ban on one or two of the threats; I also think it would survive a Mishra's Bauble ban.

[Tzoulis]

UR Murktide seems to be on top because there are few hard removal (Path etc.) being played at the moment. When the most common removal spells are Bolt, Unholy Heat and Asmor - and Push/Prismatic Ending to an extent, a deck than can easily outgrow them will naturally rise to the top. Add to that the fact that the format seems rather hostile to artifact decks, then you have tempo, fast combo and go wide decks.

Modern seems great, it keeps evolving week to week and Forgotten Realms doesn't seem poised to introduce more chaos to the format. Only downside I can see at the moment is that it is rather expensive to move into Ragavan decks.