Modern Meta Shift
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 21, 2015, 10:31 p.m. by Dk_Donuts1
With the banning of Birthing Pod, and the unbanning of Golgari Grave-Troll, how do you think the meta will change? Will the Twin decks fall off a bit with the banning of both Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, and the fair deck will come back a little bit? Will DredgeVine become a big player? Tell me your thoughts.
The big decks will probably be twin, abzan, UWR, Affinity and zoo
January 21, 2015 10:49 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #4
Aggro decks (especially Affinity) will resurface for at least a little while, but they will eventually die down and we will see Abzan, Twin, Scapeshift and Jeskai Control be the top decks, while Affinity will stick around a little bit.
January 21, 2015 10:52 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #5
This will be the meta: anything that was Tier 1 before KTK will be Tier 1 again. Except this time there won't be Pod, so it'll be Tier one minus a deck. The meta will be stale, boring and lacking a dynamic quality.
Unbanning GGT was like unbanning Bitterblossom. Neat, but ultimately pointless. Modern does not possess the tools to make dredge viable enough. There is nothing left to discuss.
January 21, 2015 10:54 p.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #6
Twin won't fall off, it was good before Cruise and Dig.
B/Gx will see a resurgence, Jeskai Control will aswell. Affinity will always be present. Tron may see a slight uptick.
Nevertheless the Meta will develop again.
January 21, 2015 10:57 p.m.
This whole thing has caused the whole meta to undergo a major Reality Shift.
January 21, 2015 11:12 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #8
No TheHroth it's just going to revert to something it was before. It's not a reality shift, just a step back. Well... a few steps back if I'm being honest.
January 21, 2015 11:16 p.m.
I was trying to be funny by utilizing the name of a card in a coherent sentence.
Oh well.
Yeah, I know not too much will change.
Sucks though, my friend played Pod and my brother was slowly building his list as well.
January 21, 2015 11:19 p.m.
We hold an FNM level Modern tourney every Monday at my lgs, and everyone seems to be shifting towards how the meta was about 8 months ago, more midrange, and classic combo, with a few brews here or there. Tron only showed out once, no Bogles have showed up yet, and the pod players are moving to a more stable Junk deck. I already see three people moving to GGT dredge and Vengevine decks, which will be interesting, and I've seen more tribal in the last few days than I've seen in ages.
January 21, 2015 11:31 p.m.
Scapeshift has taken a hit with the removal of Dig, so I think they go back to Telling Time, which isn't as good obviously, but most of the Scapeshift players in my meta have been not nearly as excited here this last few days
January 21, 2015 11:33 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #12
I think the Modern community in general is rather unimpressed. Modern was fun and exciting with the introduction of KTK. Now, we're back to what we had before. And honestly there's nothing really fun about that. We all know that meta, the nice thing about pre ban was that the meta was still finding its footing in some ways.
January 21, 2015 11:38 p.m.
I'm not exactly mad about that though, mainly because that's the meta that my favorite deck performs the most admirably in and I "grew up" in with Modern after I came back.
I'm all for a slower meta that has time to actually play spells, and work shenanigans, instead of just dying turn 3. I love a midrange meta!
January 21, 2015 11:43 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #14
@-MisterJ- I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed for the time being. I liked Dig Through Time for brewing up 
Control and other strange combo decks. I really think Wizards overreacted with DTT.
January 21, 2015 11:54 p.m.
I don't think its an over reaction per se, I think its the reasonable conclusion ro bring us back to a midrange/slow combo meta. They let us keep Dig and all of a sudden Delver just changes gears to Dig, Twin keeps it because why wouldn't it, Scapeshift keeps it because why wouldn't it, actually... just combo gets Dig... thats why.
Sure, its a fantastic card for brews, but the combo decks that can abuse it, would. And there is no reason for 1/3 -1/4 of the overall meta to be Delver which doesn't really care which it has, since they are dumping 7-10 cards in the grave before turn 5 when they start to lose gas.
I'm sorry for them to go because I wanted them in my Fish deck, but hey, it does excellent keeping its own gas
January 22, 2015 12:01 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #16
I really dislike the logic of Delver + Dig = Same thing.
It isn't. It really isn't. Dig is not interchangeable with Cruise for Delver. For one thing Delver requires the most efficient use of its mana. While (at Dig's best) seems insignificant, it can drastically change the way the deck performs in response to a variety of scenarios. Furthermore, providing support for combo decks is not inherently bad, especially something like Scapeshift. It is in no way what I would consider abusive. I have yet to see a logical reason for why Dig was banned. What I see is Wizards overreacting based upon various assumptions without enough data to support them.
January 22, 2015 1:10 a.m.
I'm by no means saying its equivelant. Obviously its not. For very obvious reasons. I'm just pointint out that it is the closest thing, and for two mana, they get two cards of the players choice. Obviously not the best use of two mana, but it still triggers Swiftspear on the defense which isn't bad, while giving them a bit of gas.
I don't think Dig should have been banned, personally I didn't think Cruise was THAT big of a problem, other than the fact that Delver was just so much of the meta. The deck was far from stable (in my opinion) and far from beatable.
I bet one day we will get Dig back, to fuel the combo decks, because like you said, giving them a solid Dig (HAHA) card is awesome. But that will be after several meta changes, and a long ways down the line.
January 22, 2015 1:16 a.m.
Look at the modern meta from around 8 to 10 months ago. It'll be largely like that.
January 22, 2015 3:33 a.m.
UnknownPhate says... #19
I see the jund players eyes light up again at my LGS. Also, twin was really overshadowed by delver, but twin with dig was even more disgusting. You were never goldfishing, you nearly got perfect turn 5 combo every game.
January 22, 2015 3:55 a.m.
I mean, Yeah I guess Jund has a way to come back, but I must point out that the unbanning of GGT doesn't help Jund, DRS is still very very banned, and while Jund is a fantastic Midrange deck, there is a reason the deck has seen NO play for the last several months.
Personally I think without DRS as a back up, Jund is to suicidal in the land base unless they play Dirty Jund for the Rhino and Ajani V
January 22, 2015 3:59 a.m.
Bgwr is usually referred to as ajundi. I agree, I don't see jund coming back in a big way. It needed the fixing that drs provided and has an insanely suicidal mana base. It's just not well suited to the meta at all.
January 22, 2015 5:30 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #22
Hmmmm. There are a lot of good points here.
With Jund, I think it will come back in to the picture for a little bit. The DRS ban was a heavy blow to the deck, but it was still amazing. The mana base was not that bad, so as long as the pilot played smart and fetched correctly. With that said, I never had an issue playing Jund until TC came into the picture. Thats when things got shaky. The best thing about the allied fetches coming into modern is that Jund now has a opportunity to make their mana work better.
Now the reason why Jund, in my humble opinion, hasn't shown up for the last several months is that Tron (arguably Jund's WORST matchup) took the helm for a little bit along side of pod (another jund problem). Then KTK came out and made things more difficult.
Now as far as Dredgevine goes... I played the deck on several occasions and still plan to. I feel like the deck does not really need Golgari Grave-Troll to function properly. I mean, it will only take the spot of cards like Stinkweed Imp or Golgari Thug, which I feel provide more utility for the deck in general. Imp gives you a deathtouch body that you can bring back to the field and Thug lets you place some of your Vengevine enablers back on top so you can chain them if necessary. Grave troll is just a really big body, in a deck that has no real way to bring him out for cheap. I do not see the point in placing him in the deck at all.
With that said, dredgevine won't be a thing. It is a good deck to an unsuspecting local meta, (thats usually when i play it the most) and thats when I can put up the numbers with it. In conclusion, GGT is a dumb card to just arbitrarily throw into that particular deck.
January 22, 2015 7:01 a.m.
Especially when (idk if I'm speaking for everyone else) we still run at least 4 GY hate cards in my side at all times. Mainly because of Living End and Snapcaster, but now I just have one more thing to run Grafdigger's Cage against when my deck really needs it.
I played against a Dedgevine deck actually this last Monday at my local tourney, and had it not been for Cage and Relic, I probably would have lost.
January 22, 2015 7:08 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #24
For real, when I start to not see any real use of Gravehate, I play dredgevine. The way I build it, its sort of a glass cannon blitz on turn 2 or 3. For a while, I didnt even run a sideboard! When I play it, at worst I will be in the top 4. At best, it takes home a playmat and a bunch of packs. People at my shop hate it.
It's an extremely unfair deck in some cases.
January 22, 2015 7:19 a.m.
TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!
Last Monday he was playing BUG Vine, so turn 1 Hedron Crab turn 2 play a fetch trigger, fetch trigger, mill three Vines and a Bloodghast during, turn 3 land trigger trigger, cast Hedron Crab and Renegade Doppelganger trigger doppleganger and he is now a Vine and swing for like 18-19?
Thats just not fair. Granted he got the nut mill, but still. Game two and three he just lost because I landed a turn 1 Cage...
January 22, 2015 7:32 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #26
See, I ran a Jund color version. With cards like Burning Inquiry and Goblin Lore. They really made it disruptive for the other players while at the same time, settign up my big plan.
Now I am going to have to post my decklist on my page sometime soon to show you guys.
Its subtle and effective.
January 22, 2015 7:44 a.m.
Can UR storm make a comeback? A Treasure Cruise banning doesn't help it but with Jeskai Ascendacy pretty much gone, can storm once again prevail? (I really just want to play storm)
January 22, 2015 7:51 a.m.
Nigeltastic says... #28
gnarlicide - any thought to Flamewake Phoenix and Dark Deal? I think they make reasonable options for that sort of deck.
January 22, 2015 8:14 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #29
I like Phoenox, I feel like there is already better effects like Lotleth Troll and Faithless Looting that actually discard the cards you want to instead of discarding lands.
January 22, 2015 8:24 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #30
Yeah, Phoenix and dark deal are not great choices. The problem that I see with them is that the Phoenix is too slow for the version that I run... Lotleth Troll is my homeboy for that game, the red is just splashed for the discard/draw effects. Which are many. the Dark Deal idea also feels like it could be too slow. On turn three, I am aiming to start chaining off the vines. so to speak.
January 22, 2015 8:50 a.m.
Nigeltastic says... #31
You only need 
for Phoenix though assuming you have a big troll or a vine. My suggestion comes because it seems like a super cheap cost for a 2/2 flyer that you can get out of the yard. I wouldn't think hard casting Phoenix is great though.
January 22, 2015 9:07 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #32
Here is the one that I play. I have not added any of the new or unbanned cards to it, since it still works great and still fucks people up.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/22-01-15-wait-what/
January 22, 2015 9:27 a.m.
Nigeltastic says... #33
January 22, 2015 10:09 a.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #34
Everyone forgets about Burn...oh well. Burn owns BGx, which will be a chunk of the meta. Also, the new Zoo variants look very good. I just built a Phyrexian Zoo list that I think will end up being pretty good. The Phyrexian Zoo list run more like a burn deck, which is bad for the BGx decks. It's also fast enough to go under combo and control, I have good expectations for that list.
January 22, 2015 4:20 p.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #35
Phyrexian Zoo? I like Craig Wescoe's 5 Colour Zoo a lot and it has the potential to see play.
Burn isn't good without T Cruise.
January 22, 2015 7:23 p.m.
Ultimaodin says... #36
Jeskai Slowburn is a deck I encountered this week. It cares little about burning the player, but uses the two new white girls from FRF Soulfire Grand Master Monastery Mentor to just gain advantage off all the burn and used a combination with Pyromancer it resembles some kind of control tempo deck. Was pretty neat but I'd say it's tier 2/3 at best. Against the Jeskai Control deck it could not handle Supreme Verdict.
As far as GGT goes a deck that did some work was not a dredgevine deck but a dredge Sultai control shell. It included Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Murderous Cut, Abrupt Decay,Treasured Find, Dark Deal and then counterspells. The troll wasn't a beater, the troll was card advantage. It was baffling the deck worked in modern but it put in some real work. Cage did literally nothing vs him since he never cast spells from the grave itself. Also Spreading Algae was one of the most hilarious sideboards I have ever seen. Turns out Abzan without Pod can get locked out pretty easy by just taking out their black sources one by one.
January 30, 2015 4:27 a.m.
I don't Junds mana base is suicidal. It's a little tough to maintain, but a good player won't have a problem unless they are facing a good living end deck.
I find birthing pod to be the most enjoyable deck to play against, but it really made it impossible to play brews due to its unbelievable attrition that overshadowed any other kind of strategy based on incremental value(aside from Jund-style decks, but those are a little different in their card advantage). I want to see new decks, I want to see things like martyr life and fairies be playable, the metagame has gotten stale and delvers didn't improve that at all.
I don't think it will be the same at all, the metagame is going to undergo some really intense changes. Jund(and other bob-goyf decks), scapeshift, affinity, burn, Jeskai(midrange/control/aggro), storm, and infect are what I expect to be big in this metagame. It's a similar metagame, but I expect the ratios to be much different.
I expect storm to emerge as a huge player yet again, scapeshift/valakut will both be on the high end of tier 1, jeskai aggro will start appearing, twin will get pushed back by bob-goyf decks, and affinity will be stay the same like it always does.
Here are my predictions:
Best combo decks: Scapeshift/Valakut
Best midrange deck: Junk
Best Aggro: affinity
Best Control: Not sure, maybe fairies or esper
January 30, 2015 10:30 a.m.
I've been playing BG/x and variants for over a year......maybe 2? And I can honestly say that your manabase in BGR is, in an average game, going to do 4 to 6 damage to you. That is about 25% of your total. Against aggro decks that's a big deal and certainly something to watch. I think that's why it's seen to be suicidal.
ConBurnMadMan - I usually find burn to be a pretty easy match up. Depends on the variant though. RDW is easy because you get tons of targets for Scavenging Ooze to eat. But against any red deck whether it is burn or creature based Courser of Kruphix does the most work and makes it extremely difficult for the red deck to do anything. As soon as Siege Rhino or Obstinate Baloth are played it's virtually gg. This is all before sideboarding. Post sideboard you can bring in Dragon's Claw, Kitchen Finks and Sanctimony and it becomes super easy.
January 30, 2015 10:45 a.m.
Oh, you mean damage wise. Sorry, I thought you meant in terms of consistency for some reason. Yeah, it's especially suicidal with thoughtseize in the deck, but scooze and courser help a lot with that.
January 30, 2015 11:49 a.m.
@bijschjdbcd
Burn is good, even without treasure cruise. Never under-estimate the versatility and power of that deck, it has one of the largest card bases of any deck in modern and can come jam packed with lots of un-expected things.
Saying burn is bad without treasure cruise is kind of like saying scapeshift is bad without DTT and TC, it was good before and it's good now. But I do see what you are getting at, Burn gained one of the biggest advantages from treasure cruise and was hit pretty hard by the banning.
January 30, 2015 11:58 a.m.
-MisterJ- : just checking - you realise that grafdigger's cage does nothing to living end?
January 30, 2015 2:36 p.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #43
@ChiefBell If you cast Siege Rhino and the burn player has Skullcrack or Flames of the Blood Hand it's GG the other way. Burn wins on turn 4, where B/G/x decks start. If you are trying to go lifegain, we just treat it like a match with counterspells. We draw burn and invest in an EoT, Untap win. Except we get full damage instead of trying to bottle neck mana like we do against control decks. Treasure Cruise being banned didn't hurt burn as much as people want to think it did. Grim Lavamancer gives us back some of the card advantage we lost from the banning, and Khans also gave us Monastery Swiftspear. Treasure Cruise wasn't even the card that made Burn tier 1, that would be Eidolon of the Great Revel. For what its worth Burn got better after Khans even with the bannings. If you take a look back at the last GP before Khans you'll see that Burn placed 1st with an additional deck in the top 8. That meta is as close to the current meta for comparison as you're going to find.
Late life gain is not something I worry much about as burn player, what scares me is Bogles. Which is why Deflecting Palm has been some sweet tech in the sideboard.
January 30, 2015 4:28 p.m.
Uhhhh BGx isnt even close to a turn 4 deck. Its a turn 2 deck. Thoughtseize, inquisition, dismember, decay, scooze and dark confidant are all T2 plays. Whilst not all of those are great against burn, it's still wildly inaccurate to suggest that BGx has to play slowly.
Whilst burn has some sweet tech to combat lifegain they don't have near enough to counter scooze, courser, rhino, and baloth in the main board. Post sideboarding even more lifegain comes in. Burn decks don't physically run enough skull cracking or flames of hand to stop it all.
I think to suggest that BGx are prey to aggro is a massively naive statement. It has access to the among the best blockers and lifegain in the entire format.
January 30, 2015 4:40 p.m.
Also Chalice of the Void is a sideboard staple that literally says 'target aggro deck loses'
January 30, 2015 4:43 p.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #46
Not suggesting it is prey for aggro in the slightest, but historically in large competitive metas, it IS prey for Burn decks and RG Tron.
January 30, 2015 4:43 p.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #47
Check out Chalice's price, it is dropping...because it was a Delver SB card, not an aggro SB card.
January 30, 2015 4:50 p.m.
Kirito_swo says... #48
b/g/x does things before turn 4 but it cant start actually winning the game till turn 4. Even if you run all the life gain cards you listed burn still probably has the advantage, if you run all those cards in the main then you must have a really burn heavy meta.
January 30, 2015 4:51 p.m.
Chalice is amazing against zoo, infect, rdw. It is less good against affinity but still pretty great. It is by no means a delver only card. It combats all 1 drop aggro. Against affinity you can go for 0 or 1 mana stuff but stony silence is just better Most of the time. Personal preference comes in.
And again that's incorrect regarding t4. Against slower decks bgx can start beating down with goyf T2. There are some match ups where you can take a really aggressive stance and others where you can't. It's beyond possible, it's likely, that BGx can swing with a 4/5 turn 3, given fetchland, creature removal, and thoughtseize.
Whilst those (all the cards I listed) aren't main board choices there are still plenty of sideboard choices that give BG the win in games 2 and 3. It's sort irrelevant who wins game 1 when one deck has a toolbox sideboard and the other doesn't to the same extent. There are many cards that just generically help you against aggro. Chalice with one counter, timely reinforcements, obstinate baloth, the list goes on.
You can see for yourself that BGW was regularly top 8ing in a meta that was almost entirely aggro in delver and burn. Does that suggest it's a tricky matchup?
January 30, 2015 5:08 p.m.
Ultimaodin says... #50
ChiefBell - Rest in Peace actually did great work vs the aforementioned deck. It basically became a game of Abrupt Decay / Golgari Charm or bust - and the second I'm pretty certain was sideboard vs Soul Sisters (although I may be wrong)
CrazyLittleGuy says... #2
Twin doesn't need Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time... Twin decks were good before those cards were printed, they'll still be good when they're banned... Twin may make up an even larger chunk of the meta now that it doesn't have to compete with Birthing Pod... Can't really say for Dredgevine, it hasn't been great in the past... Golgari Grave-Troll doesn't seem like a gamebreaker for that deck, might make it more efficient, seems a little niche/fringe, but can't say whether it'll even be played at this point...
January 21, 2015 10:39 p.m.