MTG Modern General

>thinking Liliana of the Veil will get a reprint

user, no, what about the collector's value, are you crazy?

A MM reprint doesn't count for much of anything.

Which deck has the best game 1 win percentage?

Damn, maybe you'll actually do some studying.

I'd imagine infect or affinity but I don't have hard numbers, just guessing

How do you even go about building a modern deck? From what I've seen of the format there's only a few 'good' ways to go about things, which translates into only a few decks being worth playing. Is the building part taking those decks and tuning them or am I missing something?

Step 1: Build Infect
Step 2: Win game on Turn 2 or 3
Step 3: repeat until Pro Tour victory

Fucking stupid
>mythic
Master of the wild hunt
Nissa revenue
Jace the living guildpact
Guile (shifted to mythic)
Stormbreath dragon
Comet storm
Geralfs messenger (shifted to mythic)
Erebos's titan
Elspeth tirel
Heliod
Cruel ultimatum
Sword of body and mind

Modern generally rewards people who

A) have two or three decks they can play backwards and forwards. Knowing your deck is vital.

B) Knowing the matchup. What role you have to play vs. another, specific deck. This requires knowledge of other meta decks as well. You should be able to predict 85% of to your opponents decklist after the turn 2 play.

C) Knowing what deck to bring in a specific metagame. This one is a lot trickier, and where I often fail. For example, I brought Burn this past Friday, and got hit with Soul Sisters, Soul Sisters, Jund (with 5 pieces of Burn hate in the side) and Infect. It was not a good day.

I would avoid being tempted by budget alternatives, or at least, going overboard with budget options.
Generally, there are two ways to get into Modern: either vomit out the money necessary to get a deck you like, or slowly build up a collection of the staple pieces until you can eventually build the deck you want. The former has cost as a barrier to entry of course, and you may find that you don't like the deck you've bought. The latter can take months depending on how much money you want to spend, and the meta may have shifted away from the deck you wanted by then. On the plus side, this method does mean you're a bit more flexible in deck building since you probably bought up some staples you won't actually use, like Path to Exile if you decide to not splash white.

In either case, you continue buying up playsets of the cards you need. I do recommend playsets, even if you only think you need 2 or 3 of a card. Local meta or later tweaking may have you wanting a full set, buying one-offs is a hassle.

Also, if you opt to buy up a deck you like at all once, make sure it's something that's heavy on staples you can use in other decks.
Just remember that Green = Black > Red > Blue > White as far as Modern goes, and work from there. Lightning Helix is a great card, but it's not something you can stuff into most competitive decks.

>WTF HOW IS EVERYONE RICH ENOUGH FOR MODERN EXCEPT ME REEEEEEEEE

But user you'd spend a billion dollars on a yacht so Magic is super cheap if you really think about it

Jokes aside, I figure I was spending about $1.37/hr in arcades as a child, or maybe $20 - $30/week. Now, I spend that much in a month buying new cards, and I have an actual salary.

For the amount of cash I spend for every hour played, magic is more efficient than buying video games, even at some crazy 50% off sale. And don't even get me started on the savings over movie tickets.

Help with this.

2x Ajani Vengeant
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Blood Moon
2x Deploy the Gatewatch
5x Forest
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4x Gitaxian Probe
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Manamorphose
2x Mountain
2x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4x Oath of Nissa
1x Plains
2x Stomping Ground
4x Stone Rain
2x Temple Garden
4x Utopia Sprawl
3x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills

>BUG Delver doesn't run Lili in main or sideboard

The fuck is this? Why wouldn't you?

>How do you even go about building a modern deck?
Netdeck. Don't copy 1 for 1, but find a deck that works, and look at what others have brewed. Put together what you can based on budget, meta, or your own preferences.

>From what I've seen of the format there's only a few 'good' ways to go about things, which translates into only a few decks being worth playing.
The reason certain decks are the meta and cost an assload is because they are the best at what they do. You can shitbrew all you want, but your aggro is going to be worse than infect/affinity, your combo is going to be slower and less reliable than Ad Nauseam/Twin (RIP), your midrange is going to be inferior to Bant Eldrazi/Jund, ramp inferior to Tron, tempo inferior to Delver/D&T, etc.

>Is the building part taking those decks and tuning them or am I missing something?
Basically, yeah. I leave a few flex spots for wildcards in all my decks, to adjust to the meta. I use the sideboard to cram silver bullets for BAD matchups.

As in building a deck or a brew?
There's a number of viable decks out there, just try them and pick one you like. They're pretty expensive as a starting point for a hobby.

As for brewing, just do it a bunch and get familiar with the format. The best way to start brewing at a high level is looking at what decks are up and coming and incorporating elements of another deck. A good example is RG Breach using Nahiri and Path.

I still believe the best superfriends lists use restore balance, that card is super bonkers and nobody realizes it. Could be me though.

>infect wins another tournament

Times up infect players. Prepare for the banning.

Nah.
Infect is still only like, 4% of total tournament decks, and there's usually only an outlier or two in top8

Banlist no changes :^)

Because it's a terrible tempo card.

BUG delver is trash.
RUG and grixis are the only viable delver builds

Arbor Elf or Llanowar Elf?

which tournament?

>tfw been playing infect for a year and dread the banlist like the plague

At worst, you're going to lose Mutagenic Growth.
More likely, just Become Immense.

Don't worry too much, it's not like they're going to take Glistener or anything.

Seriously, which tournament was this? I like going through tournament stats

I honestly think they'd print a better card to deal with infect before banning it.

Llanowar for elves, Arbor for scapeshift

So what do I do if I don't want to buy Goyfs because I'm not that serious of a player? Are there any 'stand-ins' that aren't nearly as expensive? Scooze looks like it fits the bill.

There is one that came out in this year's Innistrad set. Delirium and it gets +4/+4 or something less than that.

The answer hasn't change from last time you asked. Unless you put ramping enchantments like utopia sprawl on your forests, go with llanowar elves to avoid the 0.00001% corner cases where being a mana ability and not using the stack actually matters.

Depends on the deck
In a tempo deck, Scooze is much too slow, but there aren't many RUG tempo decks these days. If it's a midrange deck, chances are it already runs scooze, and so you have the options of Grim Flayer or Sylvan Advocate
Personally, I'd say go for chinese fakes.

Gnarlwood Dryad?

In my RUG delver list, the problem is that I don't always get 4 card types in my graveyard as I'm either delving for Mandrills or flashing back Faithless Looting or spells via Snapcaster.

Just play grixis delver.
It's pointless to try and play rug Delver without goyf

What exactly are you trying to do? What deck is this going in? If it's just the stats, Sylvan Advocate fits the bill, providing you can get to the land requirement. Grim Flayer or Moldgraf Scavenger can work if you can get delirium online.

Sheltering Ancient or Tallaras Battalion can work if you need an above curve creature for 2. There's also a bunch of 3/2 creatures for 2.

deck is

Honestly? Don't play RUG delver right now, it's not the best delver variant and Delver isn't even amazing right now
Go with Grixis delver, it has better early removal options against the shite you'll deal with most of the time

Kalonian Tusker could work. It's an unconditional 3/3 for 2. It can be bolted, but you don't have a bunch of options.

Savage Knuckleblade could also work

I like tusker more because knuckleblade is 3 colors.

That one is too good. The one I saw was shitty as fuck. Common I think.

It was Starcitygames Indianapolis

>I honestly think they'd print a better card to deal with infect before banning it.

It's kind of hard to print a card that deals with infect better without bending it over a table

We already have 1 mana kill infect dork cards, spellskite and Melira in some lists. Are you hoping they will print Meliraskite that enters the battlefield with a bolt?

It'd be way easier to just ban BE and call it a day

If they ever did anything with original power and toughness, a 2 mana 1-power sweeper would be really effective and deal with a lot of the aggression in modern.

I guess the reason I picked Scooze for the deck was because I wanted to control graveyards more and steal goyf food.

you mean shrivel, electrickery, scouring sands, boiling earth, etc. etc etc.?

no, those can be beaten with pump spells or blessing.
Something like
>Each player sacrifices each creature they control with original power 1 or less.
I know it's fucking busted but at 3 mana and instant speed, it could fix the format

I'd also make it 1WU

>with original power 1 or less

Has MTG ever used that phrase?

Original is considered "base"

MaRo actually said he'd never use the mechanic going forward
>source: Kaladesh Live Drive to Work

Well if the wording was

>"Each player sacrifices each creature they control with BASE power 1 or less"

Then you could still beat it with a pump spell. AKA what's the fucking point

Base is the ordinary power
>Source: Tempest Remastered humility

lol like that glass canon is ever going to be ban worthy

>Want to build a Merfolk Deck
>Too poor to get AetherVial
S-stonybrook Banneret + Deeptide Harbinger works just the same right? I just want to stay MonoBlue without pissing people off, I know everytime I set off a counter I feel like that guy I'm playing with is one step closer to putting in something like Blood Moon or Choke in his deck

just play sudden shock

Insane demand, mostly.

>mtggoldfish.com/tournament/scg-modern-classic-indianapolis-2016-10-02#paper

SCG Modern Classic decklists

>Infect against Valakut breach
>infect takes another tournament
really makes you think...

What's wrong about Infect vs Breach?

It's pretty easy for infect to deal with since they don't have much to intereact with you outside of bolt. It's the same reason the guy playing Goryo's lost to infect, this same guy actually, because the deck, while powerful, just doesn't have enough tools to interact with infect early.

>infect
>glass cannon

Do you play modern?

There's actually a bit of ambiguity right now.
According to MaRo, "Base" power as wording may only apply to spells or abilities that set p/t, but it also might actually work perfectly fine?

Basically, the rules don't actually outline it but the wording is a little muddy in some places, so it would be up to Tabak to determine the official ruling on it.

1BW
Choose one:
Target player sacrifices 1 attacking creature
Target player sacrifices 2 creatures

>3 mana
>get rid of 2 (TWO) creatures on your opponent's side, doesnt care if its it has any protection, hexproof or anything else

This would NEVER be printed

why is one mode more than twice as good as the other

back to the drawing board you stupid fuck

You should look at comparable cards before posting your own.

EACH player sacs two creatures for FOUR.

That's the point.
You're not going to get a targeted version for CMC 3 when the version that affects you too costs 4.

Meant to add second reply tag
But still, literally borken if that ever made it past development

>But still, literally borken if that ever made it past development
What about a colorless 5/5 hasted trampler for 5 with built in protection?

Perfectly fine :^]

>hey this one random card is exactly how all cards that have a similar effect should be balanced from now on

People aren't this retarded right?

See, using our patented Colorless Mana Technology®, we are finally able to increase the immersive nature of the Eldrazi! To increase the ambiguity and mystery behind creatures loke Reality Smasher, we equipped it with a forcible discard protection to really make our players feel like they're losing their minds!

t. WotC development :^}

I understand you have mana dudes and manamorphose and shit but 4 color blood moon deck is dumb. Just play New Chandra, Ajani, Huntmaster, and thrag tusk they will get the job done some lists even play Inferno titan.

What does Veeky Forums think of playing Gifts in modern Storm?

i know what list youre talking about, its dank as fuck

Okay, let's take another look.

So, here's the targeted version.
Now, Delve admittedly gets a little tricky to compare, but we can use other Delve cards for reference.

Murder's a CMC 3 card, right? Murderous Cut is 5. So then, where do you think a CMC 10 Delve card would fall comparatively?

It's not "one random card", you shitheel. Like I said, check "comparable cards". Plural. They're mostly going to tell you the same story.

>wew they printed shock so they would never EVER print ANYTHING like """"Wild Slash"""" its goes against everything that MAGIC HAS EVER BEEN NOTHING CAN CHANGE

In that instance you compare Wild Slash to Galvanic Blast, not Shock.

except wild slash is so marginally better than shock that it doesn't matter
the custom card has such a wildly varying power level and cost that your comparison falls flat
also judging by the fact that you chose wild slash as a comparison shows that you're a newfag to the game and it makes you seem like even more of a gibbering retard

A mild upside from a reasonably difficult to satisfy conditional clause is a hell of a lot different than shaving a few mana off a card.

I'm not going to list off every single card that they just literally made a better version of

Sac 2 effects have generally never been played because they are generally overcosted

So who is to say at one point they won't try a 3 costed variant of the card?

Thinking about buying into modern. What is the most skill intensive deck in the format? I want to have fun and make decisions. I never want to just go into autopilot and "my decks just doing it's thing". I hate that about delver and most combo decks in general

They're overcosted by your retarded metric.
Development is probably perfectly happy with the power level of double edicts that have been printed.

If they did, it would have extreme downsides. There's a reason vendetta is worse than go for the throat

>hate that about delver
Delver and tempo are quite skill intensive. Combo can be too. You've got a shit attitude

>by your retarded metric

You mean a competitive metric? By what "metric" are you saying that double edict for 4 is perfectly balanced? EDH or kitchen table?

Fuck off retard

The effect on limited desu

(You)

Just make it mythic :^)

That seems to be their justification for everything else

Delver and tempo are actually some of your best skill based options. Burn, aggro, and others are much less skilled. With delver and tempo variants, you have to use your counterspells wisely and time the drops of your own shit, while successfully preventing your opponent from getting a hand in the gamr

You are so retarded that I wonder how you remember to breathe sometimes.

Let's go ahead and apply your logic to some other cards.

>I think CMC 4 is a little high for Zombify effects
>They should really just print a CMC 1 "Return target creature from your graveyard to the battlefield" with 0 drawbacks

>Isn't it too much to be paying 5 mana to draw three cards? When will they reprint Ancestral Recall?

>I think it'd be "competitive" if they printed a 6/6 flying dragon for RR. Balance is an illusion.

Alright, I'll takeback what I said about delver. I don't like it though. Not sure why, but it just doesn't feel satisfying as a deck. Like I'm not playing magic when delver is on one side of the table. A mirror match is actually fun to watch, but any other time it's not interesting