[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[Valdarith]

I can honestly say there's an 80%+ chance that I won't be playing a red aggro deck come rotation. I'm too attached to the green cards from Theros block and M15. I've been playing a Courser deck ever since he was printed and I don't want to stop until he rotates.

Soon you'll be yearning for survival of the fittest and rage at the edh community for finding sylvan primordial too good but necro and Yawgmoths will perfectly acceptable

I already do that with my Savra deck. It was a sad day when I had to take out my Sylvan Primordial. But I get by with Terastadon and
Woodfall Primus.

[Valdarith]

It's not even about budget. I WANT to play the red deck. A true scrumper.

Now legacy? If ever I plAy burn there, pure budjcaj reasons. Id normally not play, but burn looks to be about tier one now, so I wouldnt feel that bad.

I already have Burn together for Legacy, but I'm building toward UR Delver. No one here plays Legacy anyway so it's not like I'm in a hurry to get a playset of Volcanic Islands.

[Alex]

Spreaking of Legacy, I have access to Cradles, is Elves still actually good? I need to pick a deck for the invitational so I can start putting it together. :\

[Tyrael]

From what I've seen it's still a top tier contender

[Alex]

I don't get to play legacy that much unless it's at an open or an invitational so I'm kind of out of touch, I don't watch coverage.

[Dechs Kaison]

It got a little better with the legend rule change. Now you don't need a Crop Rotation to get a second Cradle in a turn, and your Cradles in hand aren't dead cards.

[Mcdonalds]

Yes if you want to practice it, although the miracles mu is deplorable

[Alex]

Any deck I would play is going to have a bad miracles matchup so I think I am OK with that actually.

[Mcdonalds]

Than yeah go for it

[Purp]

Elves is very hard to pilot at the Invitational(Very skill intensive deck, plus one of the most competitive environments with skilled players). Honestly, your better off grinding with Sneak and Show, or playing burn. I went 6-2 standard, 4-4 legacy at Charlotte. Could have easily 6-2 legacy if I was playing with the current burn lists (I lost twice to elves).

[LP, of the Fires]

Elves is a great deck. The difficultness is overrated. It's still a hard deck to play optimally, but that's basically just evaluating whether or not you can combo kill in a turn.

If you don't have problems remembering triggers, it's not that hard though.

[zemanjaski]

There are decks in legacy that don't play Jace and Liliana?

Blerrrggghh

[zemanjaski]

I really need to find a deck to play come m15, burn is getting boring. It really suffers from having to deal with unbeatable draws from too many decks.

It's no secret that the deck is incredibly underpowered; it's strength is in consistency.

You should try mono black; it's very consistent and has a lot of free win draws.

[Mcdonalds]

There are decks in legacy that don't play Jace and Liliana?

Blerrrggghh

Legends speak of a deck that plays jace but no brainstorm

[Alex]

Elves is very hard to pilot at the Invitational(Very skill intensive deck, plus one of the most competitive environments with skilled players). Honestly, your better off grinding with Sneak and Show, or playing burn. I went 6-2 standard, 4-4 legacy at Charlotte. Could have easily 6-2 legacy if I was playing with the current burn lists (I lost twice to elves).

I've played Show and Tell in the past. It's pretty meh. It loses really hard to a lot of really silly things.

[Alex]

Plus all I would need for elves is Natural Orders and the sideboard. :O

[Second Harkius]

there's a mountain of scrumps up in this dump

[LP, of the Fires]

No idea what I should play in modern.

RDW, Jund, Junk, Angel, Pod, Affinity, and kiki control are all on my list and they're all so good.

I'm leaning towards Jund because Anger of the gods means never losing to pod or random aggressive decks, but I keep losing to affinity for whatever fucking reason and People are remembering that Junk trumps Jund with lingering souls, but if I play Junk my pod matchup gets WAY worse.

Red deck wins is appealing since it's the type of deck taht you just spike a tourney with by running hot(which is exactly what you want in a PTQ deck) but the UWR matchup is pretty gay if not exactly bad.

Don't think I have the stones to play affinity, don't think I have a build of Kiki-control that I'm confident enough to play. Like, I saw a deck that won a 200+ person PTQ that was running double jaces ingenuity which actually just seems WAY better then Sphinx's revelation, but at the same
time, I wasn't really happy with other elements of the deck.

There's also zero chance of my playing Tempo Twin or any of it's variants. I've played the deck for the past year or longer and like it, but I'm burnt out on it now and as someone who's played a lot of magic, I know it's fairly critical to like the deck you play(assuming there's no caw-blade in the format).

Angel pod is also imo the best deck in the format and on my short list. I think there are a couple changes I'd make though such as putting orzhov pontiff and maybe shriekmaw in the board for other utility creatures instead(3rd finks, maybe mainboard dismember).

[Alex]

I play Affinity once a decade and it always performs. Deck is stone-cold nuts.

[Purp]

LP I think you might be over thinking it. Modern seems like a format that over metagaming will cause more harm than good. I think you should just pick a deck you enjoy playing, and grind it all season. I like that jund has a very solid core, and gives you room to tweak it based on what you think will be popular in the room.

[zemanjaski]

Mmmmmm Jund and Angel Pod are good decks. Affinity is a terrible choice right now with Twin the most popular deck, UWR Control and UR Delver on the rise. You're at best even with Pod, which is another ~11% of the American meta. The deck is fine, but poorly positioned right now.

Kiki Control is just worse than normal UWR control with angels. Don't play a worse version of the deck.

Junk is fine only if you're expecting a lot if Jund, which would be weird right now.

So yeah, play Jund I guess. It's consistent and powerful.

[NerdBoyWonder]

LP I think you might be over thinking it. Modern seems like a format that over metagaming will cause more harm than good. I think you should just pick a deck you enjoy playing, and grind it all season. I like that jund has a very solid core, and gives you room to tweak it based on what you think will be popular in the room.

What purp said. Just find something you can enjoy playing and grind it out. I've bounced between a lot of Modern decks trying to find the one I want to stick with. Started off with Storm pre-seething song ban. Moved onto Twin then Affinity. Jumped on Zoo with Nacatl unbanning but it isn't something I would take to a PTQ. Kiki-Pod was fun and skill intensive but the mana base turned me off. On Kiki Control now and loving the
deck.

I will say Kiki Control needs more refinement though and I am finding issues with having Sphinx in the board as I never want to use it when I have it. Ever.

Angel Pod is a solid choice forgoing the Melira Combo and focusing on the beat down plan or Angel of Thune + Spike Feeder combo. Buddy of mine is bouncing between that or Jund but believe is favoring Angel Pod even though Jund is more of his style of deck.

[BlakLanner]

Elves is a lot like High Tide where you really need to practice with the deck to get the iterations down. Viridian Emissary and Abrupt Decay give you at least some game against miracles post board, although Terminus still ruins your day. If you are going to take it to this Invi, I suggest starting to practice now or you won't be ready in time.

[zemanjaski]

Jace's Ingenuity sounds much more reasonable tha Rev in modern, so that's worth trying.

The problem with the Kiki version is how much Kiki contorts the rest if the deck to justify running it. Wall of Omens is not where you want to be against most decks multiple kiki in hand is also heinous

[LP, of the Fires]

I think Kiki-control is maybe one of the 4 best decks fwiw. Resto's an absurd creature by itself and kiki synergizes with all the creatures in the deck. Even when it's not killing them, just drawing a million cards with wall of omens or having a snappy activation every turn in long games is nuts.

I've failed to see anyone present a good reason why kiki-control is worse then UWR. I wasn't a big fan of the costa flash deck and straight UWR control suffers from having to play bullshit like think twice and sphinx's rev and mediocre walkers.

Junk is yeah, great against the mirror, but it's also much better vs. the big mana decks(shift/tron) with tec edges and whatnot and it's better vs. affinity cause souls is excellent vs. them.

[LP, of the Fires]

That's more reasonable of an argument. Thing is, I think all the cards are reasonable. Wall of omens is basically 2 mana cycle, gain x life/tidebinder a creature that potentially draws more.

Multiple kiki's is indeed atrocious, but it's not much different then multiple splinter twins and doesn't result in you getting 2-for-1'd ever or being just dead assuming you can cast it so that's not a big deal.

The more I think about it, the more I want to cast a Jace's ingenuity...

[zemanjaski]

The cards in the deck can be reasonable, but that doesn't mean that they're actively good ~ sorcery speed two mana cycle is horrendous in many matchups basically. Yes, when it's good, it's absurd.

Splinter Twin is the worst card in Splinter Twin, so been compared to that isn't good

From testing and talking to people who play the archetypes, most are saying that UWR flash just performs better than Kiki, and at least from what I'm seeing first hand that's true too; I do think Costa's list is iffy too though.

[LP, of the Fires]

Wall of omens doesn't seem that bad to me in any matchup really. It seems worst against pure combo(doesn't really exist in big numbers) and twin and a blocking cantrip with upside elswhere. It's actively good against jund and pod, and fine vs. affinity. It basically bridges you to your high end and draws you towards your combo. I like it a LOT more then remand for instance.

[zemanjaski]

Again, "not that bad" =/= good.

[LP, of the Fires]

Note the "actively good vs. Jund/pod"

[Purp]

Never losing to Pod sounds awesome, play Jund.

[jsilv]

Wall of omens doesn't seem that bad to me in any matchup really. It seems worst against pure combo(doesn't really exist in big numbers) and twin and a blocking cantrip with upside elswhere. It's actively good against jund and pod, and fine vs. affinity. It basically bridges you to your high end and draws you towards your combo. I like it a LOT more then remand for instance.

It draws a card, it's never going to seem that bad. It's a pretty terrible card in Modern though since it doesn't actively get you anywhere. Blocking cantrip is only relevant against half the fair decks in this format (fine vs. affinity? it never blocks and survives any relevant cards in the deck) and actively bad against the unfair decks.

[zemanjaski]

Yup.

[zemanjaski]

Actively good vs. ~20% of the meta, average against another 20% bad everywhere else is my assessment.

It probably is better than think twice, but Jeff Hoogland's approach of just playing more action is likely the best approach in modern; you want to convert small edges in to wins ASAP in modern where you're often a draw step away from disaster.

[zemanjaski]

Ido think it's worth clarifying that I don't think the card is bad; it's more of a "Sleight of Hand' is fine, Serum Visions is slightly better so it's infinitely more played" type of analysis; there are a lot if cards you can play in modern that aren't below power level for the format, but they're also not giving you any advantage.

[redthirst]

Play Red Aggro to piss people right the fuck off. "Your deck looks really good - too bad you missed a land drop and auto-lost."

Any other reasoning should be secondary to that.

Happy B-day Suga!

[LP, of the Fires]

IDK, I'm a big fan of synergy. We can argue all day about the merits of a card, but it works in the context of a deck. It's not just cantripping and blocking(sometimes), it's also giving value to your angels or your kiki's and digging towards your good cards without being serum visions(worst card ever). I like it vs. affinity because it absorbs single points of damage while digging you towards removal. The affinity matchup is VERY good. It's also essentially for giving you things to do with your mana and power through flood since you're a 26 land deck.

I'm also not a believer in unfair decks since most of them are pretty so I'm generally not worried about those strats. You're less good against them then you'd be with other flash decks do to playing less snapcasters and clicks, but you DO still play those cards which are proven ways to beat combo decks and playing tec edge's makes any scapeshift/tron matchup that
much easier.

[Valdarith]

I just want Preordain in the format. Is that too much to ask?

[Kaitscralt]

Jace's Ingenuity sounds reasonable in modern.

how can you have the gall to post this after calling someone stupid for bringing up delver and young scrumper

[Kaitscralt]

that's not a rhetorical question