Interesting Metagame Breakdown
Modern forum
Posted on July 5, 2014, 5:24 a.m. by ChiefBell
Let's have a quick look at the metagame!
See below for full article:
From the article: "For this analysis, I am defining top-finishing deck as finishing in the top 5% of tournaments with 129+ players (8 rounds or more)"
Here are some nice pictures:
I for one welcome our golgari overlords. Do you?
aeonstoremyliver says... #3
This is cool. I like the triad of Junk over straight Golgari, personally. More options. I'm also glad to see Big Zoo and Burn/RDW on the list.
July 5, 2014 8:27 a.m.
Junk is great. I like all G/B/x variants, but I like Golgari the most because it's a) cheap and b) effective.
I've recently become quite poor so I don't have quite the investment in magic that I used to have. That said, I no longer purchase vast quantities of fetches and therefore can't afford a strong manabase for a tricolour deck whereas I can for bicolour decks.
July 5, 2014 9:26 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #5
I'm glad that UR Tempo has seen a rise in play lately. It's a deck that is cheap and effective to assemble and runs well even without fetches.
July 5, 2014 10:22 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #7
Twin plays fetches, and is actually quite expensive.
I'm a fan of GBx decks in modern, in part because they have a hard time beating U Tron. Also, though, because they're not just the same linear strategy, they take a lot of skill to get the win.
I'm also very excited to see two copies of Goryo's Vengeance on this list. It's always nice to see that Reanimator can pull out some wins with as much hate as there is for it.
July 5, 2014 10:29 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #8
@ ChiefBell eh... yes. Same difference really, unless there is something called UR Tempo. Then it isn't at all.
July 5, 2014 11:09 a.m.
Can someone identify a Darkshift decklist somewhere? This looks like a very good metagame.
July 5, 2014 12:15 p.m.
I have no idea what this deck is. Something to do with Dark Depths and Scapeshift ? No because Dark Depths is banned. I don't know.
July 5, 2014 12:29 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #12
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=518244
Dark Shift
July 5, 2014 12:47 p.m.
thispersonisagenius - this is an analysis of the actual meta based on recent, prevalent, winning decks
July 5, 2014 3:33 p.m.
I for one am very happy to see Jund and Golgari get top 8 (even though I don't play either of those decks). But im very surprised to see UWR Control only getting 5.4%. I imagined it being in the 13-15% range. I personally think its the best deck in modern. Am I crazy for thinking this?
July 7, 2014 12:04 p.m.
And unfortunately for me, I was trying to make Mono Green Stompy to work, only to find out it has a % of 0.7. goes to cry in a hole
July 7, 2014 12:06 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #17
This is just what decks have been doing well recently.
UWR is definitely still a contender, it's just not doing as hot right now.
As for mono green, that's again only from the top lists as of recently. you can still make it work.
July 7, 2014 12:19 p.m.
UWR is pretty good - it suffers to a lot of manlands though because they can't be countered and burn etc is sort of wasted on them.
July 7, 2014 12:26 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #19
UWR, biggest weak point (IMO) is that it's a "best of" deck. Which borrows all it's elements from other decks so it's easily dealt with. Hella fun to play though.
shameless self plug...
Fatboy Control Playtest
Modern*
SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 157 VIEWSJuly 7, 2014 1:27 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #20
I believe the real reason for UWR Control's decline over the last little while is that Melira Pod is pretty good at beating it, and that deck alongside Splinter Twin (which is also generally a so-so to poor matchup) rose in popularity. Tron is also becoming more of a deck, which is a somewhat bad matchup for UWR as well.
I'm seeing a lot more aggro on things like Cockatrice as PTQ season starts. Merfolk, Delver variants are getting more popular while Twin is decling. At least, that's what I'm noticing. Not sure why.
July 7, 2014 8:21 p.m.
I'm seeing more aggro too. I never knew what the hype about UWR actually was. I've played a few variants now against my budget rock deck and it just loses every single time. It might be the combination of Abrupt Decay and manlands that does it for me? The point is - I've never understood what the fuss was about.
July 8, 2014 6:19 a.m.
I dislike the current surge of B/G. Because I love B/G and if many people play it we will start to see more Tron again. I hate Tron.
July 8, 2014 8:11 a.m.
BG/x can run 4 tec edge, 4 fulminator, and maelstrom pulse.
I quite like playing against ton because they spend a while placing loads of lands that you promptly blow up or place a karn...... That you just blow up.
Also thoughtseize and iok can leave them with hands that are literally like 4 lands and a wurmcoil which us always fun for them.
July 8, 2014 9:03 a.m.
VampireArmy says... #24
There will come a day when black red white midrange makes it to this list... ;-;
July 8, 2014 9:27 a.m.
Tec Edge can only hit from 4 lands upwards (tron is 3 lands) - they can drop T3 Wurmcoil Engine or Karn Liberated w/o much trouble. Now tell me please, how does B/G Tec-Edge win against T3 Wurmcoil Engine ? That's right, it doesn't.
July 8, 2014 9:31 a.m.
I've never seen someone land each urza land in a row from T1 to T3. In fact the chances of that happening are so ridiculously low it's unbelievable. There's a 50% chance of having one in your opening hand (4 cards in a deck of 60 = 1 in 15). To have all 3 in your opening hand it would be 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 (actually a bit less) - giving 1 in 8. That's a liberal estimation - not conservative. It's probablt more around 1 in 10. Its slightly more likely if they use Expedition Map because then you only need to assume that they have 2 of the lands. But still, were talking around 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 for that to happen.
So if we assume that this does actually happen and were now in a mystical land where maths no longer matters, we can assume that the GB player has a Thoughtseize . Thats quite likely to happen actually, so we dont have to imagine an unlikely scenario (it's around 50% of the time). So you get your T1 or T2 thoughtseize and you see whats about to happen. The trons two options T3 are a Karn Liberated or a Wurmcoil Engine . Given that they run 4 of each theyre very likely to have 1 in hand. Maybe two if theyre lucky. Youve just played Thoughtseize and they reveal one of the two possibilities. If they only have one threat at that point its problem averted, until they draw another. If we imagine they have 2 then were going back to our mystical improbability land again; and you are screwed. As likely as they are to have both in hand youre likely to have both Maelstrom Pulse AND Thoughtseize .
Actually, its as statistically likely that the rock player will have the answers in hand as it is for the tron player to have the threats in hand, if we assume 4 discard spells and 4 killspells. Some rock decks even run more than 4 - making them MORE likely to have answers. This is a hard matchup for rock, but as soon as you sit back and start playing the control role, theres really not much you have to do.
I dont know. 1). Ive never, ever had a T3 threat from them but have had a T4. 2). Ive never not had an answer in hand for what theyve played.
July 8, 2014 9:55 a.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #28
@ChiefBell The way you arrived at your result is highly mathematically flawed, but your point still stands. I would like to point out that the cards you use to answer Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine are not real answers, as they already got a land exile or two 3/3s out of the deal. The point of Tron is to have threats that are as grindy and objectively powerful as possible.
Next, a couple of things. No self-respecting BG/x player will maindeck any Fulminator Mage , and the sideboard slots for it probably are less than 4. Maelstrom Pulse is not played as a set in many of the Rock style decks I see, but your particular build may choose to do so. Having your Maelstrom Pulse is great, but that is one of the very few cards that actually answer Karn or Wurmcoil, and not completely at that. Tron is solid because it's resilient and does powerful things. Don't try to shoot it down.
July 8, 2014 7:37 p.m.
Well I wasn't exactly going to work out all the different combinations of successes out of 7-9 attempts. I know how I should have done it but felt that it was probably useful enough to get a rough figure. Besides I'm not going to pretend that I'm a mathematician foremost. Interestingly the figure I arrived at is a rough estimation of having the 3 lands: but doesn't even include having 3 lands AND a threat in hand, which would be even less likely.
I mean there are various complexities aren't there? Thoughtseize is a perfect response. Maelstrom is to karn but not to wurm. Are we scared of 3/3 tokens? Sometimes, but not always. Courser is a 4 toughness thing, tarmogoyf can be 3/4 easily by t3. Does the tron player minus karn? That's sometimes considered the wrong play (according to the players themselves but I'm not one so don't understand how to play karn well). There are layers and layers of 'what if' and all you can do is try to figure out how likely something is to happen.
Regarding fulminator mage. I've seen lists top 8 with 1 or 2 main board and 1 or 2 in sb. I've seen lists top 8 with 3 or 4 in sb. The point is at least 3 are present most of the time. Can I also point out that when the tron player misses their perfect T3 drop (which is likely) tectonic edge comes online in T4, ready to destroy whatever you need.
Minusing karn is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. I'm not a tron player so I don't know when they should but I've heard many say that minusing on first turn isn't the best play all the time. I can't claim to understand but it's clear that there is a lot of 'what if' going on. And no, maelstrom isn't a perfect answer to either but it's good enough to point out that it's there. Thoughtseize is a perfect answer and is used. The 3/3 tokens produced by wurmcoil aren't that scary but I recognise that often they will get a 2-for-1 because death touch token.
I think my conclusion is this - tron is a really scary deck to play against but rock does have answers. For others to say (or to suggest) that rock versus tron is a blowout in trons favour is to misunderstand how tron usually (I mean not in super exceptional cases) works and how rock usually works. Ifor tron reliably landed karn T3 even in say.... half their games. I'm sure it would be among the most popular decks.
I'm not trying to be a smart ass. What I aimed to do was demonstrate that the legendary T3 karn is highly unlikely, and that it can be answered in an emergency. I realise my maths was a broad stroke rather than a refined calculation, but for the purposes of this I considered it enough.
I'm not saying tron is bad, I was trying to address this hysterical 'but tron beats rock so bad' sentiment.
July 9, 2014 5:27 a.m.
No mono black control makes me wonder how my build is going to work out. I have a bad track record of deviating from the top decks and getting spanked for it. Time will tell I guess.
ChiefBell says... #2
Tagging APPLE01DOJ, as another individual who welomes the golgari overlords.
July 5, 2014 5:35 a.m.