As I said, I was massively tilted at the time. Still not sure if it was right or not, but I do know that the shells I’ve tried were bad at making it work.
]]>I think this is great, and I’ve been thinking about a single copy mainboard for a while in a jund-style deck. (With more in the side.) I think somewhere between 1-4 is right, but I don’t see the reason to commit to the whole set right away.
One thought on terminology:
It seems like your definition is really looking at what I would call “worst-case fail state” – the vulnerability to the strongest type of disruption the deck can come up against. For Death’s Shadow, that’s an extraction (backed by removal and a clock); for traditional Tron, that’s land destruction. For different decks, it’s going to look different.
Your article then focuses on vulnerability to extractions, which is totally reasonable. That’s your whole goal – to explore SE as a mainboard option and it’s potency in the current meta. I dig it. This leaves out some other possible ways decks fail, but the real claim is that extraction effects are very strong right now against a swath of decks due to the linearity of threats presented. Seems on point. You could do (and did) a similar analysis of ghost quarter, but it’s less devastating or useless so it’s less of a controversial deckbuilding choice.
Idk why I’m doing this analysis. Mostly, people were getting up in arms about “you not being right about the meta” and it felt silly. You’ve got a good breakdown.
]]>Seth, I disagree on several points.
1. I don’t think this article is “bashing” the meta or anything. David is simply observing the decrease in robustness as of late, which is not necessarily a problem.
2. Gitaxian Probe added a lot to Infect’s robustness, because the info allowed them to play around answers and the decreased deck size made it more likely for them to find a new threat when one did get answered.
3. Ad Nauseum is different than Infect because Infect has more ways to win the game, like normal damage with Hierarch or a variety of Infect creatures, whereas Ad Nauseum can’t win without resolving its namesake spell. Also, the decks operate of a totally different axis, with Infect much easier to interact with.
4. Modern will certainly get more powerful over time, but I think it will always be significantly different than Legacy, due to the presence of extremely degenerate cards that won’t be reprinted.
5. Modern can certainly become robust again.
Overall, especially considering your comment on Modern becoming like Legacy, your comment comes across as an advertisement for Frontier, which doesn’t seem attractive right now because of how diverse and fun Modern is and how small the Frontier card pool is.
]]>Totally agree, this is a great article!
]]>Surgical extraction can really cripple a deck provided your opponent somehow get an important card into the graveyard.
The two downsides to the card is that it demands that you memorize what to remove from every single decklist in use, otherwise your damage will be to random.
Second, when there tend to be a lot of rogue decks you won’t be able to figure out what to hit before game 1 is over, and then their sideboard may be your downfall.
]]>Play RW prison with blood moon, to punish non robust decks
]]>Against dredge the greatest priority are threats, specifically Prized Amalgam followed by Bloodghast. The deck is built around overwhelmingly fast starts with those cards and the rest of the deck is uninspiring at best.
If you are against a robust fair deck then Extraction is not very good, try to remove something that would wreck you. Against the land centric decks you want to hit either Valakut or a Tron piece. Combo decks require you to answer then extract their critical piece.
]]>Also if the “non-robust” decks are so fragile, why are the “robust” decks not adapting answers for these decks? (this answers your question)
As time goes on modern will more and more resemble legacy due to more cards being added to the pool.
EX: storm gaining baral to become relevant again.
EX: Eldrazi being printed allowing for a plethora of decks to be brewed.
Wizards doesn’t have the time or money to fine tune modern to bring it back to the “robust” state you are referring to (as much as I wish they did). For this reason and many others is why frontier was created.
Best wishes on your grand prix trials, Seth
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