Comments on: General Archetypes and Developing a Cohesive Game Plan

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Tue, 31 May 2016 21:33:30 +0000

In reply to Jacob Kellogg. That just doesn't sound anywhere near as profound.

By: Jacob Kellogg

Jacob Kellogg — Tue, 31 May 2016 20:57:15 +0000

In reply to Ryan Overturf.

Then shouldn’t that be “Moderation in *some* things”? 😉

But yes, I agree. My self-inflicted rule is temporary.

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Tue, 31 May 2016 20:28:23 +0000

In reply to Jacob Kellogg. The only hard and fast rule that I follow is to be wary of hard and fast rules. Restrictions breed creativity, though be mindful of when you want to break that rule. Moderation in all things- even moderation.

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Tue, 31 May 2016 20:26:30 +0000

In reply to Angus Mackenzie. If your sideboard is well constructed and you're bringing dead cards out, then yes, you are correct. The act of bringing RIP in itself is not great, though there are parameters where it is correct.

By: Angus Mackenzie

Angus Mackenzie — Tue, 31 May 2016 18:29:17 +0000

“Just be careful not to do something foolish like bring in Rest in Peace against a deck just because it has Snapcaster Mage”

A lot of Snap decks don’t have any traditional card advantage or even 2-for-1’s outside of Snappy himself. If you’re playing aggro against Jeskai it makes sense to board out your own dead removal for some grave hate to keep from getting snap-helixed or electrolyzed out of the game. I don’t mind taking a mulligan if it means cutting down an opponent’s removal and main source of card advantage.

By: bamzing

bamzing — Tue, 31 May 2016 16:51:54 +0000

Good article. The Modern definition of control is different from the definition of control in other formats, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I personally really like Jund and Jeskai in Modern.

Glad to see you contributing to this website, Ryan Overturf. I like your work.

By: Jacob Kellogg

Jacob Kellogg — Tue, 31 May 2016 16:19:46 +0000

Nice article! The vast number of decks in Modern has been rather daunting for me as a relative newbie to the format. I’m also not very good at sideboarding in general, so as an exercise to force me to both develop my skills and deal with Modern’s diversity, I gave myself a rule: no more than two copies of any given card in my sideboard. That means I can’t just jam four Crumble to Dust against Tron and then have 11 slots left to deal with everyone else, or otherwise count on a playset of a single “silver bullet” for any given deck. That forced me to think of additional cards to board in against any given deck (since “Plan A” would at most be two cards and therefore couldn’t be relied on in isolation), which required looking past the obvious choices at other things that can make an opposing deck stumble.

For example, instead of my Tron plan being to bring in the Crumbles and pray, I might bring in a mix of Stony Silence, Pithing Needle, Fulminator Mage, and Surgical Extraction. Now I can get an edge from lots of different angles depending on which card(s) I draw, and I actually have a better chance of getting at least one sideboard card than I did with the Crumble plan. Meanwhile, every one of those cards has applications elsewhere: Stony Silence against Affinity (and others), Needle against Nahiri or Merfolk, and so forth.

I’ve been really happy with the results so far. 😀

By: Roland F. Rivera Santiago

Roland F. Rivera Santiago — Tue, 31 May 2016 15:41:55 +0000

You know, classifying “big mana” as its own archetype makes a lot of sense. Most of those decks do play pretty similarly to each other, and are vulnerable to similar pieces of hate. Everything else I mostly found myself nodding along with. Keep up the good work!

By: Mikefon

Mikefon — Tue, 31 May 2016 07:08:54 +0000

I’m glad to see that finally someone understands the real nature of Jund. Not only the aggressive, but the control-reactive one. Too many people can’t see it because the absence of counterspell.
Great article in general in any case. Keep it up.