"As of early Thursday morning, roughly 16 hours after launch, there were 2,496 players in the league."
Because there is not a limit to how many accounts a player can have and use at the same time(s) you can never write a sentence like this.
The real number is probably like 1400.
Yeah, which is why I would hate to discard Eye. I'd rather just keep it in hand in case of Wasteland. I will say, I'm more frightened of Wasteland when I play RUG or BUG Delver than with Eldrazi. It's normal to keep a one lander with Delver and if it gets destroyed, it can put you so far behind it actually becomes the thing that kills you. Not nearly as scary when you're playing with 26 lands, 16 of which are sol lands.
There is nothing wrong with being "stuck" with this game after so many years, but I sincerely I hope you are using your time for better things. Something more appropriate to your "intellect" (hey, sounds pretty nice intellect!).
I'm not saying nerfing Tron is bad in itself. It's bad if they do it because they just want to nerf Eldrazi.
And the reason control is unplayable is because there are too many different archetypes doing their own thing, each requiring different answers and all being very fast. Twin was playable because it could play control but it was also capable of winning fast.
I'm surprised Serum Visions barely changed price at all. For many years I've made a few bucks off of money commons and flashback drafts. Cards like Snap and Cloud of Faeries used to go down to .50 during flashback week and then back up to like $2 over time. Serum didn't change price at all. It was $2ish before its flashback week and it's still the same, if not lower. I bought a ton at $2.21-$2.65 right at the end of the flashbacks and currently the best buy price I see is $2.07. Is it because of the change to play points with flashback drafts? Is it coincidentally not getting played as much in the last few months? Did people hoard them all as soon as they came into the system? Is the economics of Modern different and most of my experience with this is with Pauper & Legacy cards?
Less downtime reeks of laziness and I'm sure that there will probably be a card or game breaking bug that will last an even more inordinate amount of time than they currently do because of updates.
Both you and Brent have very good suggestions. I have yet to play against Sneak and Show so it never entered my mind that Endbringer will blank Emrakul. After Brent pointed that out I took out all 3 Ashen Rider. And as you said, I went down to 25 lands. I also added 2 Jittes, along with a Dismember in both the deck and the sideboard. I also want Crucible in the side but I haven't yet. I should probably do a follow up article on Eldrazi because there are a lot of different lists right now and I would love to find the best one.
Also, not sure because I'm just testing it out, but I tossed a Coercive Portal into the sideboard. I figured it could help against the more grindy decks like Miracles and Grixis since they can rip apart my hand with Cabal Therapy.
Having played against the Eldrazi deck quite a bit the past few weeks, I have a couple random suggestions.
- I agree with Brent up there on Reshaper. It seems pretty weak in a world with so many copies of Swords and Terminus. Revoker isn't super exciting, but I'm not sure what else you'd want to play here. Phyrexian Metamorph maybe if you're looking to fill the 3 drop slot.
- If you're overly concerned with Sneak and Show, you could consider replacing some number of City of Traitors, Urborg, or Mishra's Factory with Karakas, freeing up the Ashen Rider slots in the sideboard while giving yourself a better game 1.
- Dropping the Mox Diamonds probably means you can cut a couple lands as well. I would probably add in at least a pair of Jittes or maybe a Batterskull
- Eldrazi are super vulnerable to mana disruption. With Lands on the rise I would pack a couple copies of Pithing Needle since Revoker can't touch Wasteland, Port, Thespian's Stage or Maze of Ith, and it's more reliable against Miracles. I might even go as far as siding a couple Crucible of Worlds as protection from opposing Wastes.
I disagree with point 2. Tron's inevitability is one of the factors that has been keeping control out of Modern. Without Eye, they lose this and maybe we are one step closer to a format with some semblance of balance among the macro-archetypes.
1) with just one of the two lands legal, the deck is simply a good deck at most, probably not even tier 1. It doesn't matter if it's one or the other. Eye may lead to more busted draws but it also is worse for the average draw because drawing 2 Temples is good but drawing 2 Eyes is not.
2) nerfing Tron as collateral damage is bad. If they were doing it because they felt Tron was too good, I'd be fine with that, but being just collateral damage, when there is another option, seems like a poor decision.
I'm not opposed to nerfing Tron in itself, but there are other decks that could use a nerf, especially affinity. And seeing other decks getting nerfed or banned (like Twin), while affinity never loses anything is a very good move in my opinion.
Eye would be the more realistic ban if only one is hit and not the other as producing 2 mana on turn one is less of an issue than "producing" up to 12 mana worth of reduction on the play or 14 on the draw in some situations.
Granted seeing that many of your low drops that soon is highly improbable, even at 2-3 playables you are getting 4-6 mana value from a single land.
The collateral damage to tron would likely be something they'd consider desirable as well.
Though I still feel the situation isn't "that bad" since the sort of all-in play leaves you open to a heavy blowout as well.
Certainly that level of aggro warps the format to some extent.
But at the present time it is still an interesting deviation to what we had from my perspective.
Even a simple Bile Blight into Mutilate line would cover a lot of it.
There are a lot of options for stalling into a sweeper as well.
Might we see more fog style decks now?
More control builds?
I'm interested in seeing how the meta shifts around before we see the impending bans..
Well, it's a miraculous fire. :) Of course, I would suggest adding 7-8 fetches to avoid the waste of a Harbinger search. I would also add 2-3 (probably 2) Ancient Tombs with the high CC of these cards. That would still leave 10 Forests for Cultivates, more than ample. I might even cut 1 more Forest for a Mirri's Guile for more turn 1-options and to help the Bonfire plan. With 4 Cultivates especially, but also as a good card in general, you might also want to consider a miser's Exploration.
I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but it's well argued, nd I'll leave it at that.
Looking at the speculation for the future flashback schedule, I'm assuming it'll take a break for Eternal Masters (and that's why they only published the first chunk of the year).
I read the Eldrazi Math article and I'm certain it is wrong as it ignores the hands where you get the 4 T1 cards with 2 of the 3 T2 cards and the other card in your opening 7 being a wastes, then drawing the missing piece on T2.
"As of early Thursday morning, roughly 16 hours after launch, there were 2,496 players in the league."
Because there is not a limit to how many accounts a player can have and use at the same time(s) you can never write a sentence like this.
The real number is probably like 1400.
I remain super proud of you for your performance this weekend, and I look forward to showing off the report to everyone else on the site!
But thank you...I think it was successful overall, and I look forward to writing about my experiences this week.
Yeah, which is why I would hate to discard Eye. I'd rather just keep it in hand in case of Wasteland. I will say, I'm more frightened of Wasteland when I play RUG or BUG Delver than with Eldrazi. It's normal to keep a one lander with Delver and if it gets destroyed, it can put you so far behind it actually becomes the thing that kills you. Not nearly as scary when you're playing with 26 lands, 16 of which are sol lands.
There is nothing wrong with being "stuck" with this game after so many years, but I sincerely I hope you are using your time for better things. Something more appropriate to your "intellect" (hey, sounds pretty nice intellect!).
:)
I'm not saying nerfing Tron is bad in itself. It's bad if they do it because they just want to nerf Eldrazi.
And the reason control is unplayable is because there are too many different archetypes doing their own thing, each requiring different answers and all being very fast. Twin was playable because it could play control but it was also capable of winning fast.
As you say luck, but this is why people fear wasteland.
I agree, though it would be just my luck I discard Eye to a Diamond and then get the other Eye Wastelanded the following turn.
The point of the Diamonds may be to mitigate the high number of legendary lands.
I'm surprised Serum Visions barely changed price at all. For many years I've made a few bucks off of money commons and flashback drafts. Cards like Snap and Cloud of Faeries used to go down to .50 during flashback week and then back up to like $2 over time. Serum didn't change price at all. It was $2ish before its flashback week and it's still the same, if not lower. I bought a ton at $2.21-$2.65 right at the end of the flashbacks and currently the best buy price I see is $2.07. Is it because of the change to play points with flashback drafts? Is it coincidentally not getting played as much in the last few months? Did people hoard them all as soon as they came into the system? Is the economics of Modern different and most of my experience with this is with Pauper & Legacy cards?
Less downtime reeks of laziness and I'm sure that there will probably be a card or game breaking bug that will last an even more inordinate amount of time than they currently do because of updates.
Both you and Brent have very good suggestions. I have yet to play against Sneak and Show so it never entered my mind that Endbringer will blank Emrakul. After Brent pointed that out I took out all 3 Ashen Rider. And as you said, I went down to 25 lands. I also added 2 Jittes, along with a Dismember in both the deck and the sideboard. I also want Crucible in the side but I haven't yet. I should probably do a follow up article on Eldrazi because there are a lot of different lists right now and I would love to find the best one.
Also, not sure because I'm just testing it out, but I tossed a Coercive Portal into the sideboard. I figured it could help against the more grindy decks like Miracles and Grixis since they can rip apart my hand with Cabal Therapy.
Having played against the Eldrazi deck quite a bit the past few weeks, I have a couple random suggestions.
- I agree with Brent up there on Reshaper. It seems pretty weak in a world with so many copies of Swords and Terminus. Revoker isn't super exciting, but I'm not sure what else you'd want to play here. Phyrexian Metamorph maybe if you're looking to fill the 3 drop slot.
- If you're overly concerned with Sneak and Show, you could consider replacing some number of City of Traitors, Urborg, or Mishra's Factory with Karakas, freeing up the Ashen Rider slots in the sideboard while giving yourself a better game 1.
- Dropping the Mox Diamonds probably means you can cut a couple lands as well. I would probably add in at least a pair of Jittes or maybe a Batterskull
- Eldrazi are super vulnerable to mana disruption. With Lands on the rise I would pack a couple copies of Pithing Needle since Revoker can't touch Wasteland, Port, Thespian's Stage or Maze of Ith, and it's more reliable against Miracles. I might even go as far as siding a couple Crucible of Worlds as protection from opposing Wastes.
I disagree with point 2. Tron's inevitability is one of the factors that has been keeping control out of Modern. Without Eye, they lose this and maybe we are one step closer to a format with some semblance of balance among the macro-archetypes.
Time cannot be measured. Most especially when people are working hard to achieved something. - Bobby Price
It is nice to also learn a lesson from every journey of life. As not all people are as strong as some. - Bobby Price
I have two problems with the ban of Eye:
1) with just one of the two lands legal, the deck is simply a good deck at most, probably not even tier 1. It doesn't matter if it's one or the other. Eye may lead to more busted draws but it also is worse for the average draw because drawing 2 Temples is good but drawing 2 Eyes is not.
2) nerfing Tron as collateral damage is bad. If they were doing it because they felt Tron was too good, I'd be fine with that, but being just collateral damage, when there is another option, seems like a poor decision.
I'm not opposed to nerfing Tron in itself, but there are other decks that could use a nerf, especially affinity. And seeing other decks getting nerfed or banned (like Twin), while affinity never loses anything is a very good move in my opinion.
Eye would be the more realistic ban if only one is hit and not the other as producing 2 mana on turn one is less of an issue than "producing" up to 12 mana worth of reduction on the play or 14 on the draw in some situations.
Granted seeing that many of your low drops that soon is highly improbable, even at 2-3 playables you are getting 4-6 mana value from a single land.
The collateral damage to tron would likely be something they'd consider desirable as well.
Though I still feel the situation isn't "that bad" since the sort of all-in play leaves you open to a heavy blowout as well.
Certainly that level of aggro warps the format to some extent.
But at the present time it is still an interesting deviation to what we had from my perspective.
Even a simple Bile Blight into Mutilate line would cover a lot of it.
There are a lot of options for stalling into a sweeper as well.
Might we see more fog style decks now?
More control builds?
I'm interested in seeing how the meta shifts around before we see the impending bans..
Good luck at the Grand Prix Carl!
Well, it's a miraculous fire. :) Of course, I would suggest adding 7-8 fetches to avoid the waste of a Harbinger search. I would also add 2-3 (probably 2) Ancient Tombs with the high CC of these cards. That would still leave 10 Forests for Cultivates, more than ample. I might even cut 1 more Forest for a Mirri's Guile for more turn 1-options and to help the Bonfire plan. With 4 Cultivates especially, but also as a good card in general, you might also want to consider a miser's Exploration.
I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but it's well argued, nd I'll leave it at that.
You're right!
No it didn't--it covers that case right after the initial case (which makes it approximately three times more likely.
Looking at the speculation for the future flashback schedule, I'm assuming it'll take a break for Eternal Masters (and that's why they only published the first chunk of the year).
I read the Eldrazi Math article and I'm certain it is wrong as it ignores the hands where you get the 4 T1 cards with 2 of the 3 T2 cards and the other card in your opening 7 being a wastes, then drawing the missing piece on T2.
I thought it was just a typo since Lili is listed in the overall list at 90.12 and in the modern list at 60.12...