This card, combined with inquisition of kozilek, make the metagame lean toward decks that are combinations of powerful cards, rather than powerful combinations of cards. True or false? Is this good or bad?
EDIT: to be more clear, the first class of decks are collections of individually powerful cards, the second class is collections of cards that are powerful because of the synergy between them.
A deck like zoo or UW control would fall into the first category and any deck that requires 1-2 cards to work correctly falls into the second. Birthing pod, storm, splintertwin, and even elves, merfolk, and other tribal decks fall into the second.
Personally, I (playing online) audibly sigh whenever I get hit with one. They keep me from trying to build or play decks with "themes" or loose (but necessary) synergies. I was wondering what other people think.
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
It's a soft counter to combo decks. Lots of combos have redundancy - Twin can win with any 1 of 8 copies of a blue creature and 1 of 8 copies of a red permanent. Storm has 12 rituals and two engines (Pyromancer Ascension and Past in Flames). Pod has Chord of Calling as a secondary tutor. Tribal decks? They play 8+ lords.
If you want to play discard spells to beat combo, you need to be able to apply pressure on them, or they'll have enough time to draw their way out of it.
Thoughtseize just got better in the Modern meta because Valakut got unbanned. Inquisition of Kozilek can't hit anything worthwhile in UGr Scapeshift Combo and RG Valakut Ramp.
I'm now meta-ing against what I anticipate the top decks will be by changing my IoK-Seize split in my Jund deck from 4-2 to 3-3 (hey, I still predict Delver's going to be great).
I've found that Pod actually tends to fall more into benbuzz's 1st category than you'd think. It keeps slamming down threat after threat and lures disruption fairly well. Pod decks tend to combo off through removal multiple times, and even if Twin Pod's combo gets disrupted, I often get a pretty large alpha strike in the same turn. (Sadly, Melira Pod can't do the same, as it typically loses one guy and has the second one be unable to swing the turn it combos off and gets disrupted.)
decks that are combinations of powerful cards, rather than powerful combinations of cards.
:Psyduck:...wut...
...am I misunderstanding this phrase or something?
Edit: okay, I think I get what you're trying to say now. Sorry, it's late and I'm tired.
Agh. Well anyway, I know being thoughtseized isn't very fun, but it does have a significant draw back. The loss of life is pretty critical, especially in Jund since it's paired with dark confidant. Unfortunately, the use of such cards is not so much hate against interesting and new deck ideas so much as it hate against degenerate combo. But in all fairness, if your deck strategy crumples to a couple of hand disruption spells, your deck's strategy is probably too fragile for competitive play seeing that spot removal and hand disruption is quite common. That being said, I know it feels bad to get hit by an inopportune hand disruption spell, but they are fair. It's a card for a card.
I think what he's saying is that some decks just put a bunch of powerful cards together to make a deck (sort of like EDH), versus a deck that has synergy with a good combination of cards working together (sort of like Storm).
The Modern metagame is diversified in a way that allows both to be good at the same time. Storm and Pod are both like the latter, and they're both solid decks in the format at all times. People have to put numerous cards in the board to stop Storm and Pod, like Cage. At the same time, decks like Jund and Delver exist which are like the former, where they use powerful spells that loosely work together with good interactions. That said, none of this has to do with Inquisition or Thoughtseize. Jund/Loam are always going to be part of the format, and combo is still fine right now. I can't really say that those cards cause combo to be bad.
When I play Tron, getting hit by either is a pain. In early testing, I absolutely cried getting hit by one cause I always lost to getting my Signet hit, or to losing Gifts. I haven't been so sad about them lately though, they're not nearly the nuts. I still don't think either of them ruin any plan in the format. Decks evolve to a point where they can play through meta cards. For example, Storm has Past In Flames and Faithless Looting, so when they happen to hit cards in your hand, there's flashback available. If a deck you build happens to fold when they hit you with one Inquisition, the deck probably isn't going to be consistent. Requiring a specific set of cards to go off isn't what you want, because there's always counters that will stop you. It's the reason why Storm started playing Pyromancer Ascension.
In terms of Thoughtseize vs other disruption spells, I think Inquisition is great in this format as it stands. When Scapeshift decks start showing up, then Thoughtseize will likely become better, but until that time, Inquisition is fine. It's a matter of knowing the decks in the format and knowing how many of them play relevant cards over 3 mana. If people are playing Melira Pod, then Inquisition is fine, but if people are playing Kiki Pod, the Thoughtseize gains a lot of value. The thing is, decks playing Thoughtseize like to go crack, fetch, take 2, which means 2 from Thoughtseize puts them to 15 on turn 1. That's a lot of damage, so they really would prefer Inquisition in most circumstances. I think the ideal number is 3 and 3 right now, combined with at least 3 Lilianas.
simply put, its arguably the best discard spell they've ever printed (vying with hymn for 1st). the 2 life is relevant, but when you're playing in a tempo oriented deck, but taking their turn 2 play (can be done with inquisition as well) as well as being able to take way their turn 4 or 5 play is a huge deal.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
Thoughtseize is relevant for hitting Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, Restoration Angel, Scapeshift, and any other targets that IoK can't hit. It's generally better against combo decks that are going to win regardless of your life total. If you are playing black, it's good to have on hand. Whether it's main deck or in the board is dependent on the build you are playing with.
I think that decks that are just collections of powerful cards are bad for the format -- eventually the decks filter out anything but the most powerful cards which then become multi-deck staples. Decks without these cards simply can't compete. Once that happens, the prices of those few cards increases until there is a significant cost barrier to entering the format. Vendillion clique is a good example of a card like this.
What I'm implying is that thoughtseize and inquisition cause the metagame to favor decks that cost more.
I'm not saying they're the only cause, but that they are certainly a factor. You can't play a deck in modern that loses to Inquisition of Kozilek. That means having a lot of cards that don't depend on each other to be good.
If wizards could create cards that favor the opposite -- decks whose power comes from synergy between cards rather than individually powerful cards -- the average price of a tier 1 deck would be much lower.
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Playing a deck in Modern that loses to a single Inquisition is a terrible idea. You can't really expect to win with a deck that fragile. That said, Storm is actually quite good against Jund. Jund has only the discard available, and Storm has enough in terms of flashback to go off past it. Having access to solid discard in the format causes fragile decks not to show up, so I don't see a lot of decks like Glass Cannon, since it's very fragile.
Storm is also a good example of decks where the synergy of cards creates a powerful deck. Ritual cards don't do much until you cast 20 spells and play Grapeshot. It is also a fairly cheap deck in the format. To go with that though, they have to build the deck for you, and Magic doesn't like doing that. In Yugioh, decks are all about synergy, but then you always need to buy new cards. Magic could certainly create cards that work together, but you can fall into a trap and it's a bad idea from a design standpoint. They could always just reprint Storm, but they've actually stated they plan not to do so (via Gaven Verhey), so that's out of the question.
To further elaborate on 'they have to build the deck for you', Magic is all about people coming up with decks. They like to provide cards and basic ideas for decks and strategies, but they like to let people come up with them. It creates a much larger design space when they do so. In Yugioh, they come up with new cards that need new cards to do so, and it invalidates a lot of older cards, which is a power creep issue. It also gives people less flexibility in design, since many of the cards reference other cards in order to do things. By virtue of that statement, monetary issues come into play, since it's difficult to build budget versions of these decks. Magic's idea of synergy in cards are lords, who give you benefits for playing certain other cards. This translates into a deck like Merfolk. Another big problem with playing synergy based decks is that individual cards need to be powerful enough. Considering I can play Jund, which is basically a deck of all sweet spells, the synergy based decks need to be powerful enough. They need to print cards like Drogskol Captain or Gravecrawler, which can get out of hand quite quickly. As good as the two are in Standard, they're not powerful enough for Modern. They're going to need to be even better than this, but the design space for being better than this is very small, to a point where there will be complications in doing so. When formats start getting bigger, the decks get more powerful and have all sorts of issues with building synergy.
People, including me, were sketchy about Liliana of the Veil's power when she first came out. Remember all the Smallpox decks that tried to abuse her? Remember that the first Jund decks to use her fed her Punishing Fire as discard fodder? Remember my bad attempts to use her in Standard? (Okay, probably not, but without a plethora of targeted discard and fast, bad mana like Legacy's Chrome Mox, Liliana is stuck dumping either lands or powerful cards. This is why I feel she is significantly worse in Scars-ISD Standard than in Modern.)
So no, I do not think everyone knew Liliana OTV was the real deal when she was first printed. There was similar doubt about Delver, even in Legacy, where there's a deck that Delver just slides into instead of needing to be built around (Tempo Thresh).
On the other hand, everyone knew that Tiago was a good card as soon as he came out. (No! I don't mean Tiago Chan!)
Powerful card for sure, but the lifeloss can add up when you have shocks and fetches and limits how many I want to run. Right now I start my disruption suite with 4 IoK, 2 TS, and 2 Duress in the sideboard.
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Also, consider that Liliana counts as occasional mana denial, and it starts to become a significant portion of our strategy.
It's the first card I consider when I put together a deck and think about playing Black in it. Bob is usually after Liliana, which is the second card I consider. Edict effects are pretty important in this format, and discard, even if it's their choice of discard is usually better than me killing myself with Bob.
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Legacy Decks
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Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
I can see what you're trying to argue, but I think thoughtseize and IoK have very little affect to that fact right now.
All of these goodcards.dec's is more so pretty self explainitory. There's a lot of parts of this format that are undiscovered, despite what it seems, so decks like RUG/WUR tempo, Jund, and Zoo were really just decks that players threw together because they knew the cards in it are strong. In Legacy, new decks pop up all the time because there's so much there to play with, despite wasteland defining the format, and there are few goodcards.dec's outside dedicated tempo and control decks. The majority of Legacy's best decks are not just good cards thrown together in a deck.
Secondly, goodcards.dec's do not make up the entire format. There are many other decks that are, as you say, powerful combinations of cards as opposed to goodcards.dec. Affinity is a pretty great example. Sure, most of the cards are 'good', but it still has a central strategy based on it's cards, unlike Jund, Delver, etc.
I can agree somewhat that goodcards.dec's are more popular than they should be, but that has little to do with Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. If I were to blame any card for this sort of issue, it would be path to exile or remand. Both cards are very efficient answers to almost all of the format's possible threats.
but it still has a central strategy based on it's cards, unlike Jund, Delver, etc.
Uhh... What?
You're saying Jund and Delver decks do not have a central strategy? Jund is efficient creatures with a lot of hand disruption. Delver is play a Delver, flip said Delver and stop your opponent from ever establishing any sort of serious board position.
I'd say those are pretty centralized strong strategies. Every card in both deck fill's what their main strategy is.
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Legacy Decks
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Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
Well, Jund is a Rock deck and RUG Delver is a Tempo deck, but Junk is also easily a Rock deck and UWR can easily be turned into a Tempo deck.
Stuff like Affinity tends to have more unique, distinguishing central strategies. Affinity's is "Make loads of artifacts, swing with them, turn Cranial Plating into something disgusting". UGr Scapeshift Combo's is "Ramp, disrupt opponent along the way, resolve Scapeshift and OHKO, preferably with protection".
You can distill every Rock deck's strategy into "Disrupt first, play midrange beats, make card advantage" and every Tempo deck's strategy into "Play very efficient early beaters, protect them, disrupt after, have a low curve". Admittedly, you can also turn every Zoo-like deck's strategy into "Play lots of efficient early beaters, turn them sideways, kick out everything that dares block them or tries to take over the game, use burn as reach". This includes Zoo and UWR Delver.
Decks with such generalized strategies cannot be called unique enough to have truly central strategies.
Well, Jund is a Rock deck and RUG Delver is a Tempo deck, but Junk is also easily a Rock deck and UWR can easily be turned into a Tempo deck.
Stuff like Affinity tends to have more unique, distinguishing central strategies. Affinity's is "Make loads of artifacts, swing with them, turn Cranial Plating into something disgusting". UGr Scapeshift Combo's is "Ramp, disrupt opponent along the way, resolve Scapeshift and OHKO, preferably with protection".
You can distill every Rock deck's strategy into "Disrupt first, play midrange beats, make card advantage" and every Tempo deck's strategy into "Play very efficient early beaters, protect them, disrupt after, have a low curve". Admittedly, you can also turn every Zoo-like deck's strategy into "Play lots of efficient early beaters, turn them sideways, kick out everything that dares block them or tries to take over the game, use burn as reach". This includes Zoo and UWR Delver.
Decks with such generalized strategies cannot be called unique enough to have truly central strategies.
Also, referring to the OP, Pod would be in the first catagory of decks: Combinations of Powerful Cards. That IS what a Pod deck is. A bunch of efficient, good creatures and/or hatebears, with a potential for combo win (either with Kiki or Melira) EDIT: and with the most powerful tutor engine in the format giving the deck untold consistency.
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Not sure about Thoughtseize. IOK is often more than enough. Thoughtseize is a good card don't get me wrong but I'm not sure it's worth 40$. And I feel this type of card is really good early game but not so good later on. That's why I'm unsure about playing more than 4.
You're saying Jund and Delver decks do not have a central strategy? Jund is efficient creatures with a lot of hand disruption. Delver is play a Delver, flip said Delver and stop your opponent from ever establishing any sort of serious board position.
I'd say those are pretty centralized strong strategies. Every card in both deck fill's what their main strategy is.
Playing strong efficient cards is a pretty open strategy.
In Jund, you could win with a tarmogoyf, a treetop village, a lightning bolt, almost any card in the deck. Same with any delver variant.
In tron, you either kill them with a wurmcoil engine, a Karn ultimate, or an eldrazi. That's it.
Jund and WUR/RUG tempo do have strategies, but they are very open ended compared to other decks. Honestly, those decks are essentially just good cards in those colors that just so happen to work pretty well together. This is what the OP is trying to argue. Thoughtseize makes the format lean towards those decks because they are just a bunch of powerful cards, not combinations of powerful cards.
When you thoughtseize a Jund player, their hand is something like: bob, goyf, bloodbraid elf, and some land. What on earth are you supposed to take from their hand at that point? Either way, they're going to have a pretty serious threat on the board.
When you thoughtseize a Tron player, their hand consists of some ramp spells, maybe a counterspell, depending on what colors they're playing, and a single wurmcoil engine or karn. Obviously, you're going to take the high cost threat out of their hand.
When you thoughtseize an affinity player, you'll see maybe a signal pest, some land, an etched champion, and a cranial plating. Etched champion and cranial plating is an extremely powerful combination, so you're going to take one of the two.
Now look back at the Jund example. All three of the relevant cards are equally as threatening. In the other examples, a thoughtseize would have significantly slowed those decks down where as Jund is still left with something relevant. This is what the OP is trying to argue.
I disagree that hand disruption is the reason why good cards shoved into a 3-color decks is the one of the best deck strategies right now, but those decks strategies' aren't really as simple as 'play delver, protect said delver' or 'play tarmogoyf, protect said tarmogoyf'.
In Jund, you could win with a tarmogoyf, a treetop village, a lightning bolt, almost any card in the deck. Same with any delver variant.
In tron, you either kill them with a wurmcoil engine, a Karn ultimate, or an eldrazi. That's it.
When you thoughtseize a Jund player, their hand is something like: bob, goyf, bloodbraid elf, and some land.
When you thoughtseize an affinity player, you'll see maybe a signal pest, some land, an etched champion, and a cranial plating. Etched champion and cranial plating is an extremely powerful combination, so you're going to take one of the two.
Now look back at the Jund example. All three of the relevant cards are equally as threatening. In the other examples, a thoughtseize would have significantly slowed those decks down where as Jund is still left with something relevant.
I'm glad someone else understands what I'm saying. Maybe you're right -- the real reason the meta leans toward "goodcards.dec" is because of the array of very cheap answers, not just inquisition and thoughtseize. Those two might be a little better though, because they can stop something before it starts.
To be honest, I was really, really frustrated when I made this post. I was trying to play decks like merfolk, magnivore LD, Eggs, pyromancer ascension, All-in red... and I was getting destroyed by thoughtseize and inquisition. It's just impossible for a lot of good decks to compete with those two cards around.
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Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Since when is Jund a Rock Deck? Rock was just hard to kill dudes.
Jund is Disruption with CA. It has an actual strategy, and if it uses the best cards in the colors to do it, so what? Would you play Cancel instead of Remand or Dissipate? I've played the original rock deck, and Jund may use two of the same colors, but a Rock deck it is not. Jund is better.
This tendency to call everything with Green and Black a Rock deck is annoying. Rock had an actually strategy, that is not viable anymore. Same with calling every B/W deck Junk, at least people have finally stopped doing that. This whole let's call new archetypes by old deck names is just silly and doesn't do anything other than aggravate and confuse everyone that doesn't know what those decks actually were.
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Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
I've read that the original Rock used Phyrexian Plaguelord and Deranged Hermit to create nice card advantage. If that deck didn't play disruption with CA, I don't know what does. NidStyles, you say Jund is disruption with CA; I wholly agree, but Rock is, too.
In the meantime, from when I was first exposed to Junk, I call all GBW decks Junk. To me, that name slightly but not wholly implies a Rock-like strategy. If it does, it's anywhere from aggressive Doran Rock to slow Junk Death Cloud.
I don't call a GB deck Rock if it doesn't intend to win with creatures and/or it has no disruptive elements. The typically BG Legacy Spanish Inquisition is 100% not a Rock deck. I also wouldn't call a GB deck consisting entirely of lands and vanilla creatures Rock.
The Rock is historically a GB board control deck. I have played them a lot throughout the years. It started with Plaguelord and Hermit giving a good way to kill creatures in play.
The Apocalypse set is what really turned the Rock into a powerhouse deck. It employed the same strategy of controlling the board, but did it better by just gumming up the board with value creatures like wall of blossoms and yavimaya elder. Opponents had to over commit to the board and then pernicious deed would just sweep them.
The Rock generally wins with card advantage and attrition like a traditional blue control deck would. The end game usually ends with recursion of threats with genesis, and volrath's stronghold. Back then, graveyard hate wasn't common and this was a very powerful way to trump even blue's "all counterspell" type control decks.
This kind of deck simply does not exist anymore. Threats are generally more powerful so most decks are better off having some sort of proactive strategy. Even traditional UW control decks these days have some sort of light threat like stoneforge.
Calling a deck like Jund "Rock" is simply wrong. Jund is a proactive strategy that actively plays threats. Rock shouldn't be used to call all GB decks either because it just adds to the confusion of what it is.
The Rock tended to play like a fusion of tempo and midrange, it would play cards that generated card and mana parity, then end games with the rock, Phyrexian Plaguelord, then clear the board by playing Deranged Hermit and use his squirrels and body as fuel. The more succesful and famous Ice Age/Apocolypse version did the same thing, use immediate value creatures to gain an advantage, feign stalling out and when the opponant overextended, cast a large Pernicious Deed, followed by an almost undestroyable Spiritmonger. The opponant would never recover.
As for target discard, I think that it only hits hard when you are banking on a single card, discounting on the advantage of your opponent knowing your every move.
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Since when is Jund a Rock Deck? Rock was just hard to kill dudes.
Jund is Disruption with CA. It has an actual strategy, and if it uses the best cards in the colors to do it, so what? Would you play Cancel instead of Remand or Dissipate? I've played the original rock deck, and Jund may use two of the same colors, but a Rock deck it is not. Jund is better.
This tendency to call everything with Green and Black a Rock deck is annoying. Rock had an actually strategy, that is not viable anymore. Same with calling every B/W deck Junk, at least people have finally stopped doing that. This whole let's call new archetypes by old deck names is just silly and doesn't do anything other than aggravate and confuse everyone that doesn't know what those decks actually were.
I think people still called "Metalcraft/Robots" decks "Affinity" where the only "affinity" card is Ravager and some dont' even run it lol. And I see no one objects to that.
I think a format where life is a premium, I would be inclined to use Inqusition over Thoughtseize and SB thoughtseize against combo decks to stop higher CMC pieces like Scaepshift, Gift, Empty the Warrans, etc.
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EDIT: to be more clear, the first class of decks are collections of individually powerful cards, the second class is collections of cards that are powerful because of the synergy between them.
A deck like zoo or UW control would fall into the first category and any deck that requires 1-2 cards to work correctly falls into the second. Birthing pod, storm, splintertwin, and even elves, merfolk, and other tribal decks fall into the second.
Personally, I (playing online) audibly sigh whenever I get hit with one. They keep me from trying to build or play decks with "themes" or loose (but necessary) synergies. I was wondering what other people think.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
If you want to play discard spells to beat combo, you need to be able to apply pressure on them, or they'll have enough time to draw their way out of it.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I'm now meta-ing against what I anticipate the top decks will be by changing my IoK-Seize split in my Jund deck from 4-2 to 3-3 (hey, I still predict Delver's going to be great).
I've found that Pod actually tends to fall more into benbuzz's 1st category than you'd think. It keeps slamming down threat after threat and lures disruption fairly well. Pod decks tend to combo off through removal multiple times, and even if Twin Pod's combo gets disrupted, I often get a pretty large alpha strike in the same turn. (Sadly, Melira Pod can't do the same, as it typically loses one guy and has the second one be unable to swing the turn it combos off and gets disrupted.)
:Psyduck:...wut...
...am I misunderstanding this phrase or something?
Edit: okay, I think I get what you're trying to say now. Sorry, it's late and I'm tired.
Agh. Well anyway, I know being thoughtseized isn't very fun, but it does have a significant draw back. The loss of life is pretty critical, especially in Jund since it's paired with dark confidant. Unfortunately, the use of such cards is not so much hate against interesting and new deck ideas so much as it hate against degenerate combo. But in all fairness, if your deck strategy crumples to a couple of hand disruption spells, your deck's strategy is probably too fragile for competitive play seeing that spot removal and hand disruption is quite common. That being said, I know it feels bad to get hit by an inopportune hand disruption spell, but they are fair. It's a card for a card.
Modern Junk Primer
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L1 Judge
The Modern metagame is diversified in a way that allows both to be good at the same time. Storm and Pod are both like the latter, and they're both solid decks in the format at all times. People have to put numerous cards in the board to stop Storm and Pod, like Cage. At the same time, decks like Jund and Delver exist which are like the former, where they use powerful spells that loosely work together with good interactions. That said, none of this has to do with Inquisition or Thoughtseize. Jund/Loam are always going to be part of the format, and combo is still fine right now. I can't really say that those cards cause combo to be bad.
When I play Tron, getting hit by either is a pain. In early testing, I absolutely cried getting hit by one cause I always lost to getting my Signet hit, or to losing Gifts. I haven't been so sad about them lately though, they're not nearly the nuts. I still don't think either of them ruin any plan in the format. Decks evolve to a point where they can play through meta cards. For example, Storm has Past In Flames and Faithless Looting, so when they happen to hit cards in your hand, there's flashback available. If a deck you build happens to fold when they hit you with one Inquisition, the deck probably isn't going to be consistent. Requiring a specific set of cards to go off isn't what you want, because there's always counters that will stop you. It's the reason why Storm started playing Pyromancer Ascension.
In terms of Thoughtseize vs other disruption spells, I think Inquisition is great in this format as it stands. When Scapeshift decks start showing up, then Thoughtseize will likely become better, but until that time, Inquisition is fine. It's a matter of knowing the decks in the format and knowing how many of them play relevant cards over 3 mana. If people are playing Melira Pod, then Inquisition is fine, but if people are playing Kiki Pod, the Thoughtseize gains a lot of value. The thing is, decks playing Thoughtseize like to go crack, fetch, take 2, which means 2 from Thoughtseize puts them to 15 on turn 1. That's a lot of damage, so they really would prefer Inquisition in most circumstances. I think the ideal number is 3 and 3 right now, combined with at least 3 Lilianas.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
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What I'm implying is that thoughtseize and inquisition cause the metagame to favor decks that cost more.
I'm not saying they're the only cause, but that they are certainly a factor. You can't play a deck in modern that loses to Inquisition of Kozilek. That means having a lot of cards that don't depend on each other to be good.
If wizards could create cards that favor the opposite -- decks whose power comes from synergy between cards rather than individually powerful cards -- the average price of a tier 1 deck would be much lower.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Storm is also a good example of decks where the synergy of cards creates a powerful deck. Ritual cards don't do much until you cast 20 spells and play Grapeshot. It is also a fairly cheap deck in the format. To go with that though, they have to build the deck for you, and Magic doesn't like doing that. In Yugioh, decks are all about synergy, but then you always need to buy new cards. Magic could certainly create cards that work together, but you can fall into a trap and it's a bad idea from a design standpoint. They could always just reprint Storm, but they've actually stated they plan not to do so (via Gaven Verhey), so that's out of the question.
To further elaborate on 'they have to build the deck for you', Magic is all about people coming up with decks. They like to provide cards and basic ideas for decks and strategies, but they like to let people come up with them. It creates a much larger design space when they do so. In Yugioh, they come up with new cards that need new cards to do so, and it invalidates a lot of older cards, which is a power creep issue. It also gives people less flexibility in design, since many of the cards reference other cards in order to do things. By virtue of that statement, monetary issues come into play, since it's difficult to build budget versions of these decks. Magic's idea of synergy in cards are lords, who give you benefits for playing certain other cards. This translates into a deck like Merfolk. Another big problem with playing synergy based decks is that individual cards need to be powerful enough. Considering I can play Jund, which is basically a deck of all sweet spells, the synergy based decks need to be powerful enough. They need to print cards like Drogskol Captain or Gravecrawler, which can get out of hand quite quickly. As good as the two are in Standard, they're not powerful enough for Modern. They're going to need to be even better than this, but the design space for being better than this is very small, to a point where there will be complications in doing so. When formats start getting bigger, the decks get more powerful and have all sorts of issues with building synergy.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
So no, I do not think everyone knew Liliana OTV was the real deal when she was first printed. There was similar doubt about Delver, even in Legacy, where there's a deck that Delver just slides into instead of needing to be built around (Tempo Thresh).
On the other hand, everyone knew that Tiago was a good card as soon as he came out. (No! I don't mean Tiago Chan!)
-MTG Salvation.
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Modern
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Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
All of these goodcards.dec's is more so pretty self explainitory. There's a lot of parts of this format that are undiscovered, despite what it seems, so decks like RUG/WUR tempo, Jund, and Zoo were really just decks that players threw together because they knew the cards in it are strong. In Legacy, new decks pop up all the time because there's so much there to play with, despite wasteland defining the format, and there are few goodcards.dec's outside dedicated tempo and control decks. The majority of Legacy's best decks are not just good cards thrown together in a deck.
Secondly, goodcards.dec's do not make up the entire format. There are many other decks that are, as you say, powerful combinations of cards as opposed to goodcards.dec. Affinity is a pretty great example. Sure, most of the cards are 'good', but it still has a central strategy based on it's cards, unlike Jund, Delver, etc.
I can agree somewhat that goodcards.dec's are more popular than they should be, but that has little to do with Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. If I were to blame any card for this sort of issue, it would be path to exile or remand. Both cards are very efficient answers to almost all of the format's possible threats.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
Uhh... What?
You're saying Jund and Delver decks do not have a central strategy? Jund is efficient creatures with a lot of hand disruption. Delver is play a Delver, flip said Delver and stop your opponent from ever establishing any sort of serious board position.
I'd say those are pretty centralized strong strategies. Every card in both deck fill's what their main strategy is.
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Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
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Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
Stuff like Affinity tends to have more unique, distinguishing central strategies. Affinity's is "Make loads of artifacts, swing with them, turn Cranial Plating into something disgusting". UGr Scapeshift Combo's is "Ramp, disrupt opponent along the way, resolve Scapeshift and OHKO, preferably with protection".
You can distill every Rock deck's strategy into "Disrupt first, play midrange beats, make card advantage" and every Tempo deck's strategy into "Play very efficient early beaters, protect them, disrupt after, have a low curve". Admittedly, you can also turn every Zoo-like deck's strategy into "Play lots of efficient early beaters, turn them sideways, kick out everything that dares block them or tries to take over the game, use burn as reach". This includes Zoo and UWR Delver.
Decks with such generalized strategies cannot be called unique enough to have truly central strategies.
Don't forget Pod: "Tutor, Tutor, Tutor, Tutor, Win." haha
Also, referring to the OP, Pod would be in the first catagory of decks: Combinations of Powerful Cards. That IS what a Pod deck is. A bunch of efficient, good creatures and/or hatebears, with a potential for combo win (either with Kiki or Melira) EDIT: and with the most powerful tutor engine in the format giving the deck untold consistency.
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
Tidehollow sculler & Vendilion Clique are better, IMHO.
Blightning in some decks is also stricly better.
WU Resto Blade
RUG Tron
BUG Infect
WBG Melira Pod
WBRG White Jund
Playing strong efficient cards is a pretty open strategy.
In Jund, you could win with a tarmogoyf, a treetop village, a lightning bolt, almost any card in the deck. Same with any delver variant.
In tron, you either kill them with a wurmcoil engine, a Karn ultimate, or an eldrazi. That's it.
Jund and WUR/RUG tempo do have strategies, but they are very open ended compared to other decks. Honestly, those decks are essentially just good cards in those colors that just so happen to work pretty well together. This is what the OP is trying to argue. Thoughtseize makes the format lean towards those decks because they are just a bunch of powerful cards, not combinations of powerful cards.
When you thoughtseize a Jund player, their hand is something like: bob, goyf, bloodbraid elf, and some land. What on earth are you supposed to take from their hand at that point? Either way, they're going to have a pretty serious threat on the board.
When you thoughtseize a Tron player, their hand consists of some ramp spells, maybe a counterspell, depending on what colors they're playing, and a single wurmcoil engine or karn. Obviously, you're going to take the high cost threat out of their hand.
When you thoughtseize an affinity player, you'll see maybe a signal pest, some land, an etched champion, and a cranial plating. Etched champion and cranial plating is an extremely powerful combination, so you're going to take one of the two.
Now look back at the Jund example. All three of the relevant cards are equally as threatening. In the other examples, a thoughtseize would have significantly slowed those decks down where as Jund is still left with something relevant. This is what the OP is trying to argue.
I disagree that hand disruption is the reason why good cards shoved into a 3-color decks is the one of the best deck strategies right now, but those decks strategies' aren't really as simple as 'play delver, protect said delver' or 'play tarmogoyf, protect said tarmogoyf'.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
I'm glad someone else understands what I'm saying. Maybe you're right -- the real reason the meta leans toward "goodcards.dec" is because of the array of very cheap answers, not just inquisition and thoughtseize. Those two might be a little better though, because they can stop something before it starts.
To be honest, I was really, really frustrated when I made this post. I was trying to play decks like merfolk, magnivore LD, Eggs, pyromancer ascension, All-in red... and I was getting destroyed by thoughtseize and inquisition. It's just impossible for a lot of good decks to compete with those two cards around.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Jund is Disruption with CA. It has an actual strategy, and if it uses the best cards in the colors to do it, so what? Would you play Cancel instead of Remand or Dissipate? I've played the original rock deck, and Jund may use two of the same colors, but a Rock deck it is not. Jund is better.
This tendency to call everything with Green and Black a Rock deck is annoying. Rock had an actually strategy, that is not viable anymore. Same with calling every B/W deck Junk, at least people have finally stopped doing that. This whole let's call new archetypes by old deck names is just silly and doesn't do anything other than aggravate and confuse everyone that doesn't know what those decks actually were.
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Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
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Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
In the meantime, from when I was first exposed to Junk, I call all GBW decks Junk. To me, that name slightly but not wholly implies a Rock-like strategy. If it does, it's anywhere from aggressive Doran Rock to slow Junk Death Cloud.
I don't call a GB deck Rock if it doesn't intend to win with creatures and/or it has no disruptive elements. The typically BG Legacy Spanish Inquisition is 100% not a Rock deck. I also wouldn't call a GB deck consisting entirely of lands and vanilla creatures Rock.
The Apocalypse set is what really turned the Rock into a powerhouse deck. It employed the same strategy of controlling the board, but did it better by just gumming up the board with value creatures like wall of blossoms and yavimaya elder. Opponents had to over commit to the board and then pernicious deed would just sweep them.
The Rock generally wins with card advantage and attrition like a traditional blue control deck would. The end game usually ends with recursion of threats with genesis, and volrath's stronghold. Back then, graveyard hate wasn't common and this was a very powerful way to trump even blue's "all counterspell" type control decks.
This kind of deck simply does not exist anymore. Threats are generally more powerful so most decks are better off having some sort of proactive strategy. Even traditional UW control decks these days have some sort of light threat like stoneforge.
Calling a deck like Jund "Rock" is simply wrong. Jund is a proactive strategy that actively plays threats. Rock shouldn't be used to call all GB decks either because it just adds to the confusion of what it is.
Sorry for going off topic.
As for target discard, I think that it only hits hard when you are banking on a single card, discounting on the advantage of your opponent knowing your every move.
"I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about."
-H. P. Lovecraft
I think people still called "Metalcraft/Robots" decks "Affinity" where the only "affinity" card is Ravager and some dont' even run it lol. And I see no one objects to that.
I think a format where life is a premium, I would be inclined to use Inqusition over Thoughtseize and SB thoughtseize against combo decks to stop higher CMC pieces like Scaepshift, Gift, Empty the Warrans, etc.