Manual data collection and entry from a lot of sites. Get those googling and internet sleuthing skills in gear and you should find a trove of data.

http://manadeprived.com/winning-gp-pittsburgh-with-jeskai-twin/

“If Burn decks were trending upwards, Grixis was not really where I wanted to be. Jeskai, on the other hand, can be built to crush these decks, utilizing cards like Wall of Omens, Lightning Helix, and Timely Reinforcements.”

My play with Tidebinder is to Vial it in when my Bloom opponent enters combat and neuter their Titan strategy altogether, or to play it the turn after the first swing if I don’t have Vial (while I still have some life left). It allows me to turn the corner pretty much on the spot, because I dealt with the Titan and got a body. That said, I think you’re spot-on regarding Merfolk being a bit tougher to play than it looks – that may be driving the decline, and hopefully it foreshadows a coming correction that nudges us back up to Tier 1 (since we’re a rounding error away anyway).

In my experience, a lot of local players picked up Merfolk when Harbinger was printed thanks to the hype surrounding the card and then have since fallen off thanks to A) Harbinger not being as useful as advertised B) Twin’s decline removing a good matchup and C) Merfolk is a lot harder to play than it looks. I saw several other Merfolk decks at the PIQ so there may already be an uptick in progress. Also, Tidebinder Mage is alright against Bloom but in my experience if Primeval Titan is tapping so Harbinger is live then you’re winning anyway.

You and I continue to raise our eyebrows at Merfolk’s middling performance. Maybe people just don’t think the deck is “sexy” enough and would rather play around with Nacatl and company? Or maybe the deck has been around so long that people don’t know when its well-positioned and when it’s weaker? Definitely an interesting thing to keep tracking: as you said, Bloom’s rise could also have something to do with it.

Agreed that it’s important to talk about them both collectively and individually. I’ll be doing this as much as possible in all future metagame articles too. The Grixis and Knightfall issues will eventually sort themselves out, but for now, I think we’re being smart by staying inclusive.

I’m with you in that URx Twin is easier to lump together than BGx Midrange (let alone RGx Zoo), but I applaud your decision to speak of them together as well as separately. It adds depth to the report. I also think that until a consensus list emerges for Grixis Midrange (last I checked, there was still some variation), it’s probably best to lump them all into the same category for counting purposes, as it is reflective of the meta’s interest in the deck. Same goes for Knightfall, though I’m personally partial to the Bant Company build. Do you have any predictions as to which of these variants will eventually win out?

Glad you enjoyed it!

Poor Grixis Delver. I really liked that deck and was excited to see a Delver variant succeed after the TC ban. It was also a very grassroots deck, arising in a time when pros weren’t paying much attention to Modern. It will probably come back, but it has a lot of bad matchups in the top tiers right now. As Jordan talks about a lot, I also think Disrupting Shoal is criminally underplayed in Modern and wouldn’t be surprised if some Delver build (probably not Grixis) uses the Shoal to push back into tier 2.

That’s a good interpretation, although in fairness to my missing on this prediction, I based it in no small part on the metagame policing the deck. That didn’t happen, so I’m happy to admit my misplaced faith. I do think it’s possible we see an Amulet Bloom downtick this month, but there also aren’t a lot of big events to give players innovation opportunities like this. So it seems more likely that Bloom stays right where it is through December.

Thanks! I also look forward to writing them, and I’m glad they’re proving useful!

On another note, Grixis Delver has finally fallen out of Tier 2. Not that this should surprise anyone, but I think it’s worth noting. Will we ever see it as a top contender again?