MTG Modern General

Pro Tour Bilbao Prep Edition. How do you feel about Modern as a Pro-Tour format? strawpoll.me/14975011

>playing
>hating
>brewing

>RESOURCES:
>Comprehensive Rules
>media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/resources/rules/MagicCompRules_21031101.pdf

>Current Modern Metagame
>mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO
>mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern

>DATABASES:
>magiccards.info
>gatherer.wizards.com

Previously on Modern General

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>How do you feel about Modern as a Pro-Tour format?
Modern is my favorite format so naturally I want to see it played at the highest level, but I also understand the POV that people like Eric Froehlich have where it opens to the format up to have bans be more like they are with Standard, which worries me.
I just hope that we'll get through this PT without a bunch of cards being banned and potentially fucking up my favorite decks.

>banning and not unbannings

one can only hope that it wont happen

Unless something really messed up happens, I seriously doubt it.

>unbanning
Why would WotC in their right mind ever unban ANYTHING for a Pro Tour when the point of a Pro Tour is to promote the new cards and let the new cards shine? Unbannings run contrary to this endeavor by letting an old bogeyman a chance to shine again in the spotlight.

B&R announcement is after the Pro Tour.

I'm looking at going in for my first modern deck. I found this solid blue control budget netdeck and it's been pretty solid on xmage against cpu opponents.

3 Cryptic Serpent
4 Curious Homunculus
4 Spreading Seas
1 Rise from the Tides
1 Engulf the Shore
3 Essence Scatter
4 Mana Leak
3 Negate
4 Telling Time
3 Vapor Snag
4 Serum Visions
3 Think Twice
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Tectonic Edge
19 Island

Sideboard:
1 Sun Droplet
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engulf the Shore
2 Boomerang
3 Dispel
1 Negate
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Essence Scatter

Any suggestions? I had a thought to replace the Cryptic Serpents with something that might have islandwalk, or perhaps include something to give my creatures islandwalk. I could use Spreading Seas to turn one of my opponent's lands into an island, pump up my Homonculi and hit unblocked.

Thoughts?

It could be worth it just to play the format, but this list probably isn't going to do well. Control has a hard time in Modern in general, and mono-blue in particular just doesn't have the tools to handle what the format is going to throw at it.

Well it's my first modern deck, it's only about $40, and it's only going to be for FNM and casual play. I'm not exactly expecting to go to a tournament with it.

>How do you feel about Modern as a Pro-Tour format
i feel like efro should be put into the trash where he belongs

>playing
savannah lions tribal
>hating
fat, weepy magic """""pros"""""
>brewing
this coffee my dude

>savannah lions tribal
Does Skymarcher Aspirant make the cut?

sadly no. kytheon and dryad militant do though.

Yo who was the nigga with the modern MUD list. I need that shit in my life.

This?

I want to play Bluestaff!

Mark my words, after the modern pro tour has happened, everyone will wish it hadn't.

Either:
>pros find the best deck (probably GDS desu) and top 8 will be 50% that deck
>bans follow and make modern worse

OR
>top 8 miraculously ends up quite diverse
>but one must win so all idiots jump on the bandwagon
>that deck becomes overly representative
>ends up with a ban regardless of how good it actually is

Modern basically thrives on everyone holding onto their pet deck, it's what makes the format so diverse. Once the big boys tell everyone what's ACTUALLY playable we will enter a new twin-like era eventually ending in a ban.

Can someone explain what midrange and tempo decks are? Aggro and control are pretty self-explanatory but I don't understand these two

It seems like midrange is sort of a compromise between the extremes (aggro and control) whereas tempo is closer to aggro in that it dictates the pace of the game...am I on the right track?

Tempo is aggro with control elements.
Midrange is proactive control that tries to stop your opponents plan then put down a fast clock

Tempo is about using your resources more efficiently than the opponent. You win because your opponent's gameplan gets disrupted and they fall too far behind to catch up

Midrange is about having more individually powerful cards than your opponent. You win because at the end of a lot of 1 for 1 trades, your opponent's cards are worse than yours.

Midrange and Tempo sit in between Aggro and Control, but are on opposite sides.

Tempo decks want an efficient threat on turn 1/2 (Delver of Secrets, Nimble Mongoose, etc.) And protects that threat through cheap counterspells and cheap removal. Tempo also favors card advantage to keep the tools in hand to win the game. The deck wants to control the midgame while getting damage in early and often.

Midrange wants to control the early game with cheap removal and slam a threat in the midgame (Tarmogoyf, Tasigur, Huntmaster of the Falls, etc.). It favors 1-for-1 cards like targeted discard spells and Terminates. It can also play a long attrition game: slowly whittling away at your resources and playing a great topdeck game (because every card of theirs is going to answer one of yours in some way).

Theu each can switchup between Aggro and Control. Both of them have to know the metagame well enough to know where they have to be on the Aggro-Control axis in a given matchup. For example, Midrange pilots will lose if they choose to play a control game when they should be the aggressor and vice versa.

>4 of inventor's fair

Who's excited for tron to finally get banned?

it won't though. it's not even close to banworthy.

What would be the decks that sit at Agro/Combo and Combo/Control?

Hows more black infect deck looking?


4x Livewire Lash
4x Ichor Rats
4x Phyrexian Crusader
3x Vampiric Link
4x Funeral Charm
4x Unnatural Endurance
4x Collective Brutality
4x Thoughtseize
4x Wrench Mind
1x Raven's Crime
4x Ifnir Deadlands
4x Inkmoth Nexus
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
14x Swamp

>Agro/Combo
infect; affinity; any deck with become immense and temur battle rage

>Combo/Control
kiki flash

Any ideas on the sideboard. How to get ride of Stony silence and layline of the void?

I was just wondering if there was a catchall name like Midrange or Tempo.

Adopt the same strategy as affinity?

Throw down an aether grid and hope for the best.

>How do you feel about Modern as a Pro-Tour format?
I'm glad to see my favorite competitive format played at such a high level. I have 0 interest in watching Standard/Draft/Sealed.
I've been away from Modern for like 6 months or so now but a few of my friends are building Modern decks and the Pro-Tour right around the corner has peaked my interest. Is there anything new and exciting I outta worry about? I'm on G/B Tron if that makes a difference.

HOT TAKE IMCOMING:
AMULET TITAN WILL TOP 8 AT THE PRO TOUR

modern more like gaydern

Just had a turn 2 win in modern, why aren't you playing zombie hunt?

I've actually considered some sort of treasure hunt variant for the kitchen table because I'm starting to get sick of always beating my friends with UB Delver. Any more sick land tech I should use?

Why play a janky mess like that when I can also get turn 2 wins with affinity.

Obviously whatever dual lands, creature lands sometimes help, Bosejiu is great to counter all those fucking counterspells, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea as a single is alright too, Bokuja bog too

Combo generally tries to be as fast as possible ("""aggro""") or control until it can combo off, so it's pointless to classify combo on the aggro/tempo/midrange/control spectrum.

BAN INFECT

Are there many decks that simply defy the classic Aggro/Control/Combo triangle? Burn, for example, sits pretty close to the middle of the triangle. Are there any others?

Burn is like the most aggro deck in existence wtf

Combo is like trying to win a game of solitaire before your opponent can interrupt.

Control/combo is the same as combo except you actually acknowledge that your opponent exists.

Aggro/combo is a glass cannon build that is more about synergy than any specific instant-win combo.

Said like someone whos never played Burn. It can play Aggro with creature heavy hands, Combo with spell heavy hands, and can control creatures on the field with Bolt/Rift Bolt/Searing Blaze/Lavamancer plus sideboard removal if needed.

Burn is an aggro deck that only plays control against faster aggro decks. Burn is not a combo deck.

>faster aggro decks
I thought the point of burn was to be the fastest aggro deck

decks like affinity or infect can out run it, in those match ups its better for burn to take a control role.

>Burn is an aggro deck that only plays control against faster aggro decks
Yes, you just reiterated what I said. Burn plays Aggro or Control depending on the specific matchup. Similar to Midrange or Tempo decks

>Burn is not a combo deck.
I think that's debatable. Not a traditional 2 card combo deck, sure, but it certainly plays similar to a goldfishing combo deck when you have 7 one mana->3 damage spells and the other player can't interact with that.

Not exactly. Lots of decks can play an aggro game faster than Burn, but Burn is resilient and consistent. Some matchups are "count to 18 as quickly as possible", but others are not. It polices the format because of the consistency, not it's sheer speed.

>bolt your face 7 times in a row is a """combo"""
The absolute state of this general.

Just because burn takes the control role when deciding who is the beatdown in an aggro match does not make it a control deck.

>t1
>play sacred foundry
>play goblin guide
>opponent scoops "I HATE COMBO"
god I love burn

Tron can't really be classified as any of those either

Tron should be banned.

Why ban tron when it folds to the premiere combo deck in the format, burn?

>t1 on the draw
>Opponent goes fetch->overgrown tomb, Thoughtsieze
>Reveal hand
>2 lands, 2 swiftspear, 3 Bolts
>Op start a shaking
>"I....I-I can't win against C-C-Control"
Burn truly is the best deck.

Why?

Tron is combo/prison, though nobody seems to want to admit it's combo, and most modern players have trouble thinking of prison as being anything other than >lol bloodmoon. But it is. Tron locks people out of the game with effects that once resolved stop anything the opponent does from mattering, rather than outright winning once it's combo is assembled, and that's prison.


The reason that people get so butt hurt about it is because, like bloodmoon, there's barely any interaction that's useful, because landhate and counters aren't allowed to be useful in modern.

>landhate and counters aren't allowed to be useful in modern.
>repeatedly mentions bloodmoon
ayy

>Implying any deck can just jam bloodmoon in their sideboard to deal with problematic lands

Wow so handy and ubiquitous

Hint: The inability of decks in Modern to have answers for everything is what makes the format good.

Blood Moon doesn't really work against Tron, but aside from that it is fine land hate

It doesn't work on its own. Just windmill slamming down Blood Moon won't stop them. Combine it with pressure to close out the game and it works fine.

Tron isn't really prison, It's more of a combo/Midrange deck that seeks to have efficient trades. Karn/Ugin/Ulamogg are the ultimate X for 1s. E-Tron can be considered prison, if only for chalice.

>burn
>combo
>control
Typical 14 year old burn player
Burn is all about direct conversion of cards to damage. Each card in a burn player's hand represents about 2.5 damage. That's the gameplan.

With each combination, there's usually one side "enabling" the other one. So you have to split it up into that.

Control/Combo is usually Control enabling the Combo side. Think UR Kiki, a control deck that seeks to stall the opponent for long enough to assemble their "I Win" combo. On the other hand, a Combo Enabling Control would be something like Lantern, where a rapidly assembled combo of Lantern, Shredder, and Bridge allows the player to safely enact a control plan.

Aggro/Combo is usually Combo enabling Aggro. A powerful synergy of cards that let you kill really fast. Think Affinity. I can't imagine some sort of Aggro Enabling Combo. It would have to be a deck that somehow requires a lot of small creatures attacking or your opponent being at a low health to win the game. Maybe some sort of Bonfire of the Damned deck, or Infect?

Ponza is fine against tron for that reason, as is UW control. You don't necessarily need to drop an aggressive threat super early, but you do need to enact some sort of gameplan while disrupting their mana base.

>I can't imagine some sort of Aggro Enabling Combo

Death's Shadow decks, though its a bit twisted as you aggro yourself to enable your combo.

Modern's too much of a matchup lottery shitshow for there to be a best deck other than in a singular tournament. Thought Scour and Serum Visions are not Brainstorm and Ponder, so you don't even get that "muh consistency" that Legacy has when compared to something like playing a 52 card deck with Tron and having access to Ancient Stirrings and turn 3 Karns over 50% of the time or playing Burn where everything is just deal 3.

Kiki/twin was/is a tempo deck.

Lantern is a control deck, nothing special about it.

Affinity is just an aggro deck.


You're making this way more complicated then it has to be.

Tron is tapout (board) control, basically monoB standard decks but on steroids, the fact that you trade interacting on 1-3 for better lategame doesn't change that.

Best decks (Tier 0) can definitely appear in Modern, they just get banned, because Modern is intended to not have one.

Besides Eldrazi Winter, only tier S deck so far was Pod and arguably maybe GGT Dredge with Cathartic Reunion. Eggs was banned for tournament logistics, Amulet Bloom and Shoal Infect for speed despite not having an excessive metashare or being too consistent for the format to handle, and Twin to sell Oath packs. We're nowhere near those atm.

Delver during treasure cruise.

>We're nowhere near those atm.
I agree, though I'd say Twin is arguable as well.

Becoming Tier 0 isn't the only reason a deck can get a banning, it's just one of them.

Not even close, even though the power level was high.

i swapped a map for a ballista recently, the deck's fine without walking burrito but the more funofs the better imho
The sideboard doesn't really exist yet in truth (aside from extra welding jars being the dopest), but Stony is a nasty thing which can probably only be solved through wild transformative sideboarding, or Grid like suggested. Who knows man, it'll be a tough nut to crack.
Warping Wail/Spatial/Surgical seem like they could be of use in the sb too, idk. for now the muddy mainboard is all i could muster

Is it a good idea to have a fair "backup" deck if your primary deck is easily hated out, or is it better to just stick it out and get more reps in?

>sideboard options
the only solutuon i can think of is to add in lands for artifact and enchant removal, or at least a profetic prisim

>playan
Grixis shadow, deck is hard man. Was playing ad naus before this and I could usually go 3-1 or better at modern night, now I haven't done better than 2-2. Lots of decisions and sideboarding is tough. Been playing young pyros in the board, and they have been great.
>hating
The humans player at my shop has sb mirran crusaders so that sucks
>brewing
Blue moon but you splash green for goyf and huntmaster. Not sure why you would want then but I saw boohoogland playing a deck like this a long time ago and huntmaster is sweet so I wanna try it.

>huntmaster
>werewolf explicitly doesn't transform when the Moon comes online
fucken dropped holy shit

>playing
Grixis Death's Shadow
>hating
Matchup chicken
>brewing
Nothing

I'm running Bolt instead of Fatal Push in the mainboard now though if that counts as brewing. Half the time I end up Bolting myself but that's more than Fatal Push would've done.

Is UR Kiki Moon worth building over the Madcap or Breach variant? I like tempo, Kiki, and snappy, but don't want to waste money on something unplayable

How the fuck should we know? My local weekly Modern event was won by Martyr Proc in a field full of tier 1 decks so just build and play whatever man.

This is for mtgo, so local meta is less important. I think I'll go for it

GRIXIS EVERYTHING PILE
>As Foretold
>Living End
>Kiki Exarch
IT ONLY DOES EVERYTHING

Sign me up. List? This sounds hilarious

Anyone bummed that Blooicide aka KilnFiend.dec fell off after everyone was [[[netdecking]]] at the Team Unified Modern? What a meta, too.
>become immense with infect
>battlerage with kilnfiend
>become immense+battlerage with 5c Death's Zoo

Silly things happen in Team Unified.

right?
And Affinity/Lantern too (your choice of Opal deck)
I think the Efro article can be summed up by looking at the past ban-event due to the Pro Modern Tourney, the Team Unified that killed Probe (rip in peace jeskass bros, you didn't deserve this). It's already happened, and it will happen again.
Were there a Team Unified with all pros, the meta would be a imo a continuation of Worlds; Shadow (grixis instead of zoo), Infect (still good not ded, Blossoming is a dope new card and shaper's is also really strong tech), and Opal deck (Lantern everywhere!!!). Infect isn't a given, could be Burn or Storm (or Valakut even), anything sortof in the same vein archtypically, aka far right (aggro unfair). Basically far right deck, Opal deck, Shadow deck.

oh fuck and how could I forget Eldrazi deck (either Bant, using Nobles in place of infect, or the best Eldrazi Temple deck in the game, ETron)

starcitygames.com/article/36550_Daily-Digest-Classic-Griselbrand.html

here u go senpai

>day 1 is always drafting
i just cant get into drafting.

Then don't. Just wait for the constructed rounds.

You're missing what I meant when I said tron is prison. Tron isn't winning because it has favourable trades, it wins because it stops your opponent from playing that matters. There's next to nothing you can play that stops you from being locked out once a Karn, a ugin, or ulamog resolves, and THAT is what makes it prison , not the fact that it then make favourable trades.

Ugin locks the board from playing any more creatures when he comes down. If you don't have around 5 power to spare just to get rid of Karn, he eats whatever you most don't want to lose. The vast majority of decks CANNOT get out of two resolved lock pieces from tron.

Modern in the most boring format.

Bought 9 packs for €90.

No Lili or Snappy ;_;
Wonder if the box was mapped.

Pretty weak troll.

I'm going to do a Sealed night with a box of the last 24 sets. I wish I could quit crack.

>with a box of the last 24 sets
You're gonna open 24 boxes in one night?

I translated that as meaning he bought one pack from each of the last 24 sets.

I've got €1800 in the bank, I guess I'll buy a couple of boxes of MM25 and Dominaria if they're not shit, and a couple of Unstable. If MM25 is shit I'mma buy another MM17 box.

Oh, yeah.

EFro pls go and stay go.

There are several creatures like this one in ixalan block that produce treasure tokens when made in exchange for higher cmc. Are they any good? Do you think you could use them to store up Mana for blowout turns?

No, it's too slow, and a shell that could work with something slow has better options.