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

[Simto]

I thought Uro was fine until now but Omnath shells are probably going to get Uro banned down the line. People don't tend to like 4c decks being top dog and although there was a lot of debate going on which UGx shell was the best, all the incidental lifegain off Uro and Omnath really give you no reason to not just play four colors.

Man, I can't even with this. Even if I wanted to try those out (found a random list on Goldfish), it would cost me nearly $370 to get the 7 (seven) cards needed to make this deck. (3 Omnath, 3 W6, 1 Gargaroth) despite owning everything else for a multitude of UW, Bant, Sultai, and UR staples. #finance

That's brutal Prices are pretty insane. I got into playing magic again because it seemed like a cheap hobby lol. Got sucked into the deep end pretty quick and realsied the opposite hehe.
Whenever I played at fnm, it seemed like all the guys I played against with, what I call no compromise decks, had Magic as their only hobby/interest, so it made sense they'd be fully decked out. I have a couple of "expensive hobbies" that take up the majority for me... so stuff like "I need 4 chalice, I need 4 Karn Liberated, I want 4 of these fetch lands and 4 of those" is just impossible.
Modern became my favourite format pretty quick too and that didn't help. I need to not be a pleb anymore lol....

I hate how Omnath has gone up in price now too. I wanted to build a commander deck with him

[Ym1r]

I thought Uro was fine until now but Omnath shells are probably going to get Uro banned down the line. People don't tend to like 4c decks being top dog and although there was a lot of debate going on which UGx shell was the best, all the incidental lifegain off Uro and Omnath really give you no reason to not just play four colors.

Man, I can't even with this. Even if I wanted to try those out (found a random list on Goldfish), it would cost me nearly $370 to get the 7 (seven) cards needed to make this deck. (3 Omnath, 3 W6, 1 Gargaroth) despite owning everything else for a multitude of UW, Bant, Sultai, and UR staples. #finance

I'm in the exact same situation, own literally the entire deck except for omnath and w6. I'll just stick to my slightly outdated bant field shell. It seems like a very poor investment now with both talk about Uro bans in Modern and paper being slowed down.

Yep, same, and I even own 1 W6 and still am not inclined to buy the Omnaths and the extra W6. These power houses have made it very difficult to keep up, going from UW (buying Teferis and Azcantas) to bant (buying hierarchs and Okos) to different bant (buying snow/Uros) to bant again (Field of the dead version and all the extra lands that go with it) and/or Sultai (with all the extra stuff that go with it) to now this Omnath thing. It's just a bit too much considering every one of these changes can be from 60 to 300$. I will stick with my bant stoneblade for now, I missed a bit of midrange/control action and pass on these big mana control decks which I never really enjoyed anyway.

[Guardman]

This seems like a great Blood Moon deck meta. I'll admit I am more than a little out of the meta at the moment because of COVID preventing me from playing, but Blood Moon seems tailored made for a meta with a ton of 3 & 4-color decks running about.

[cfusionpm]

Whenever I played at fnm, it seemed like all the guys I played against with, what I call no compromise decks, had Magic as their only hobby/interest, so it made sense they'd be fully decked out. I have a couple of "expensive hobbies" that take up the majority for me... so stuff like "I need 4 chalice, I need 4 Karn Liberated, I want 4 of these fetch lands and 4 of those" is just impossible.

For sure. Many years ago, my hobbies were collecting and target shooting various firearms, modding cars, and DSLR photography. All of those are considerably more expensive than Magic, but I just kind of stopped doing each of those (or at least scaled back considerably to the point that I'm not inputting $$$ all the time). Magic, while expensive, is nothing like picking up $2500 lenses, $1500 rifles with stream of $500 ammo cases, and God knows what expensive car parts to pick up. :laugh:

This seems like a great Blood Moon deck meta. I'll admit I am more than a little out of the meta at the moment because of COVID preventing me from playing, but Blood Moon seems tailored made for a meta with a ton of 3 & 4-color decks running about.

Other than GR Ponza decks, what's a good Blood Moon deck? As a proponent of "Blue Moon" for many years, I can't in good faith consider that a "good" deck in today's meta. The only other thing I can think of is running several Moons in the side of UR/BR/Mono-R Prowess, but meh? Feels like they'd rather just kill before Moon is relevant. And most decks afraid of Moon play multiple answers and disenchant effects anyway.

Yep, same, and I even own 1 W6 and still am not inclined to buy the Omnaths and the extra W6. These power houses have made it very difficult to keep up, going from UW (buying Teferis and Azcantas) to bant (buying hierarchs and Okos) to different bant (buying snow/Uros) to bant again (Field of the dead version and all the extra lands that go with it) and/or Sultai (with all the extra stuff that go with it) to now this Omnath thing. It's just a bit too much considering every one of these changes can be from 60 to 300$. I will stick with my bant stoneblade for now, I missed a bit of midrange/control action and pass on these big mana control decks which I never really enjoyed anyway.

Yeah, I've already thrown away a bunch of money/tix building UW/Bant/Sultai piles going through a similar, depressing process, as I store away $,$$$+ worth of UR staples currently collecting dust.

[Guardman]

This seems like a great Blood Moon deck meta. I'll admit I am more than a little out of the meta at the moment because of COVID preventing me from playing, but Blood Moon seems tailored made for a meta with a ton of 3 & 4-color decks running about.

Other than GR Ponza decks, what's a good Blood Moon deck? As a proponent of "Blue Moon" for many years, I can't in good faith consider that a "good" deck in today's meta. The only other thing I can think of is running several Moons in the side of UR/BR/Mono-R Prowess, but meh? Feels like they'd rather just kill before Moon is relevant. And most decks afraid of Moon play multiple answers and disenchant effects anyway.

I played in an extremely Tron heavy meta (Tron usually made up from a 1/3 to 2/3 of the deck in any given night), so I ran a Tron killer deck in Mono-Red Madness that also did good against any deck that ran a greedier mana base (and that 4-color deck looks greedy as hell) and Amulet Titan. The deck is a bit out of date (would run another Blood Moon main board and another in the sideboard in this meta for example), but it is what I play: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7269

Also Mono-Red Prison seems like it would be well positioned against all of the Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath decks.

[cfusionpm]

Well apparently there was an announcement for an update to Standard that I totally missed. 100% Uro gets banned Monday in Standard. Should alleviate some of the apprehensions for buying in for Modern, but honestly... I don't think it's safe here either.

Which is a shame. Uro piles have probably been the most enjoyable thing I've played as a lover of blue control decks.

[Ed06288]

so when is this zendikar set officialy legal for modern? and how do flip lands work?

[drmarkb]

Modern has an issue in that the cards are very expensive, but given the reprint policy and FIRE philosophy plus their approach to banning, there is a huge risk in buying at peak prices. Pioneer faces the same issue, but the price of current standard cards is likely to be low going forward.

[The Fluff]

Any chance Valakut Exploration can find a home in modern? It looks like a decent card.
Should be easy to activate with all the fetch we have here.

[Aazadan]

Any chance Valakut Exploration can find a home in modern? It looks like a decent card.
Should be easy to activate with all the fetch we have here.

znr-175-valakut-exploration.jpg

Maybe. We had Chandra, Pyromaster be playable for a while, as well as the enchantment that was a similar effect. The format moved past those, but this is easier to splash and a mana cheaper. A 1 time 3 mana investment to get an extra card per turn is rather efficient.

[blkdemonight]

Any chance Valakut Exploration can find a home in modern? It looks like a decent card.
Should be easy to activate with all the fetch we have here.

znr-175-valakut-exploration.jpg

Maybe. We had Chandra, Pyromaster be playable for a while, as well as the enchantment that was a similar effect. The format moved past those, but this is easier to splash and a mana cheaper. A 1 time 3 mana investment to get an extra card per turn is rather efficient.

I've played against the enchantment in Arena Limited. It's very good in a linear deck especially when you know not everyone carries disenchant mainboard.

[Aazadan]

I've played against the enchantment in Arena Limited. It's very good in a linear deck especially when you know not everyone carries disenchant mainboard.

The power level of limited vs modern is quite different though, as is the number of times it can trigger. That said, I think it has a lot of potential.

[The Fluff]

speaking of potential... is it good to order a playset of Valakut Exploration now? Or wait for prices to settle down. Well, I know it's only 2 dollars each, but losses from corona has drained a lot of my money... so I want to get explorations and some other new cards as cheap as possible.

[robertleva]

What are we thinking about Scourge of the Skyclaves in Modern? It works well in Pioneer but I haven't tried modern yet. Thoughts?

[cfusionpm]

What are we thinking about Scourge of the Skyclaves in Modern? It works well in Pioneer but I haven't tried modern yet. Thoughts?

It looks like a black Tarmogoyf with upside. It also looks like $45 a copy on MTGO. So... 🤷‍♂️

Seems nuts in any aggressive deck.

[robertleva]

Yeah I ripped one in limited but I was wondering if i should shell out now for the playset or wait. I think may as well get them now. Its a black goyf I think it will find uses for years to come. There's a no lands combo deck in Pioneer now, I assume Modern will make something even more disgusting with Charbelcher.

[FoodChainGoblins]

Yeah I ripped one in limited but I was wondering if i should shell out now for the playset or wait. I think may as well get them now. Its a black goyf I think it will find uses for years to come. There's a no lands combo deck in Pioneer now, I assume Modern will make something even more disgusting with Charbelcher.

Charbelcher has already been tested quite a bit on MTGO. Many of the top streamers have concluded that it's just not super good. It can definitely be a player though and people will play it until opponents figure out the best ways to interact.

[Aazadan]

Well apparently there was an announcement for an update to Standard that I totally missed. 100% Uro gets banned Monday in Standard. Should alleviate some of the apprehensions for buying in for Modern, but honestly... I don't think it's safe here either.

Which is a shame. Uro piles have probably been the most enjoyable thing I've played as a lover of blue control decks.

It might be Uro, it's more likely to be Omnath though from what I'm hearing. The card is apparently just completely over the top.

[Amalgam]

Well apparently there was an announcement for an update to Standard that I totally missed. 100% Uro gets banned Monday in Standard. Should alleviate some of the apprehensions for buying in for Modern, but honestly... I don't think it's safe here either.

Which is a shame. Uro piles have probably been the most enjoyable thing I've played as a lover of blue control decks.

It might be Uro, it's more likely to be Omnath though from what I'm hearing. The card is apparently just completely over the top.

I doubt Wizards bans anything in their new set that is what, 2 weeks old? They will ban around it from older sets so they don't affect pack sales. If Omnath continues to be an issue after this they will ban it in 3-4 months. This has kind of been their track record so far

[Aazadan]

What are we thinking about Scourge of the Skyclaves in Modern? It works well in Pioneer but I haven't tried modern yet. Thoughts?

I think it can turn Death's Shadow into a solid two color variant.

[ktkenshinx]

What are we thinking about Scourge of the Skyclaves in Modern? It works well in Pioneer but I haven't tried modern yet. Thoughts?

Scourge is an excellent Modern card. We thought it would be sweet when spoiled (Temur Battle Rage combo is too sick), and it's almost proven to be even better in practice. We've seen a string of outstanding Rakdos Shadow finishes since ZNR's release, and it looks like it checks a lot of boxes for a strong Modern regular. Notably, it incorporates some of the best elements of Rakdos Prowess (already a good deck) and adds in the best pieces of Shadow (DS, hand disruption, etc.). I think we'll see a bunch of strong Rakdos Shadow finishes in weeks to come.

[The Fluff]

What are we thinking about Scourge of the Skyclaves in Modern? It works well in Pioneer but I haven't tried modern yet. Thoughts?

as someone in the thread already said. It looks like a black tarmogoyf. Quite strong.

perhaps a new staple of shadow decks?

[Aazadan]

Well, not to talk about Standard, but time to get your Uro's if you think it can stay unbanned in Modern.

Also... I feel glad to play Modern right now primarily. New Secret Lair drop announced with brand new, mechanically unique cards, that are Eternal format legal. Modern and Pioneer are the only two non rotating formats that are going to get to dodge that nonsense.

[cfusionpm]

Well, not to talk about Standard, but time to get your Uro's if you think it can stay unbanned in Modern.

I wouldn't get my hopes up with a finishing line like this:

"Finally, I'd like to emphasize that for this B&R change our focus was primarily on Standard and Historic, with an eye for the upcoming 2020 Season Grand Finals. Changes to other formats, if needed, will be included in future updates."

The only reason Uro is not gone here yet is we don't have a spotlight on our format. There is no meaningful competitive stage, and effectively zero paper support right now.

Maybe if Uros dip deep enough in price, might be worth picking up, but I wouldn't do it with any degree of confidence I could even play them once paper play returns normally.

[Aazadan]

The only reason Uro is not gone here yet is we don't have a spotlight on our format. There is no meaningful competitive stage, and effectively zero paper support right now.

Maybe if Uros dip deep enough in price, might be worth picking up, but I wouldn't do it with any degree of confidence I could even play them once paper play returns normally.

It's possible. It's also possible that Uro is only remaining on top due to a lack of a spotlight and people aren't innovating anything to really fight the meta, rather sticking with Uro as it's easy.

The Secret Lair thing has me really nervous though, and it goes directly against what Wizards claimed they would do with them when they first started.