Have you done testing on the mirror match and how did it go?

Just some small thoughts (and a little bit critique):

As some guys mentioned it earlier, you missed Mana dorks, which are increasing the curve cap by 1. That’s why decks like value/Angle Pod could exist (beside that Pod costed only 3), they could play the same game as the classic Midrange decks (BGx) when they didn’t had Pod in game, simply because they were able to cast their threads on time (and most of the times 1 turn earlier than BGx, because of the ramp). Pod and Township were just two ways to use the Manadorks beside the ramp (that’s why DRS was so good in the deck (but DRS is just broken overall)).

Compared the old Pod decks with the CoCo decks, they share the same thought, being able to go bigger than the BGx decks earlier in the game with the manadorks. And as you said, going slightly bigger in a fair match-up increases your win chance by a large margin.

This part would have been awesome (so, the relevance of Mana Dorks in different decks) in your article.

The second point is manlands. Some small thoughts/words on those cards would have been fitting, because they are something like a 1 drop (because they come into play tapped), while providing a finisher in the mid to late game (so basically are a 4 drop in that case).

In the end, a really really well written article, easy to read, easy to understand and gives you an important insight of maybe the most important thing in magic, your manacurve :D. Furthermore, the article reminded me, why the original Sligh deck was so good, cause people never know how good it was to be able to use your mana to 100% every turn.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: PLS MOAR 😀

Also, while clearly not as ubiquitous as the other 4 cards, could we consider Nature’s Claim the Green 1 mana answer card?

I think the answer to this is that in the Midrange mirror – the guy that goes bigger has the advantage (I recall someone running a Grave Titan in the sideboard for just such an occasion – Sigarda is an option for Junk). Having a turn 4 play like Siege Rhino is Abzan’s trump in the mirror.

But that’s for one match-up, and midrange mirrors are definitely not the norm in Modern. If we look across the entire field, Junk’s inability to profitably interact on turn 1 (specifically in light of all the Collect Call decks) is probably the main reason it’s fallen out of favour (that and KolCom). Trading a spell to turn a mana dork into a land is a really bad turn 1 play.

Overall I think we agree – my intention was never to disagree but rather to highlight an alternative way of looking at the same thing – and there will always be exceptions (as an example the Rule of 9 for deck building – it’s a great start, but eventually you realise when and why you should break that rule). Twin breaks the turn 2 and even turn 3 rule proposed, in exchange it gets a turn 4 win, Boggles and Infect spend their turn 1 deploying a threat, etc

I have a certain draw to these cards since they “change the rules” and lean the resource battle heavily in your favor. But I understand why they aren’t mainstream in the the current meta.

Glad you are enjoying the site! We are very happy with the initial response to Trevor’s article, so let us know if this is content you would continue wanting to see in the future.

You make some good points, the natural “curving out” draws in Modern that we normally talk about in Limited follow the mana tiers I presented; Answer into Threat into Advantage. I would agree that based on your analysis Jund has a much better curve than Abzan, the difference being that Jund has a tough time answering particularly Lingering Souls. Abzan works to overcome the “clunkier” curve by playing slightly farther up the curve and focusing on individual card quality. Where Jund goes Bolt/Discard into Goyf into Liliana, Abzan goes Goyf into Souls into Rhino. When you look at what each deck is doing I would rather be on the Abzan side of that matchup, even though the deck seems to violate some of the guidelines we talked about. Definitely interesting!

Interesting point, I did speak to how Collected Company in particular is a four-mana value card that is only playable alongside mana creatures. Possibly I could talk more about this in a future article. Thanks for pointing that out!

BGx – Turn 1; Discard/Bolt, Turn 2; Goyf/Bob, Turn 3; Liliana
Or, Answer, Threat, Advantage
After that you just ride home your board state with removal/discard and Liliana activations.

And then you compare it to my preferred deck (Splinter Twin)

Twin – 1; Visions/Bolt, 2; Remand, 3; Exarch, 4; Twin
Answer/Dig, Answer, ???, Win

So let’s look at these in context of certain deck choices.

Jund vs. Junk – Junk gives up Lightning Bolt (and to a lesser extent Kolaghan’s Command) for Siege Rhino and Lingering Souls. What does that mean for Junk – well it’s turn 1 play is diluted. It only has a pre-emptive answer to a Turn 1 dork (sorry if you’re on the draw). It also overloads on the 3-drop space (where Liliana is the preferred play), at times it even runs Kitchen Finks. Jund is clearly the favourite here because it has more to do on turn 1 (and that’s probably even more important than the fact that it’s Lightning Bolt – rather that it’s something).

Twin (and all its variants) – so UR Twin was the dominating version at GP Charlotte (2 decks in top 8). So what is it doing right? It doesn’t have a great Turn 2 play (Remand is great if you Turn 1 Delver, less so when you have no board presence), it’s Turn 3 play is wait and see but on Turn 4 it wins the game (i.e. the best 4 mana spell in Modern).

Which takes me back to my preference – RUG Twin. RUG Twin has a definitive Turn 2 play, Tarmogoyf. Now you have threat on board, now your opponent is on the back foot. For RUG Twin the perfect curve goes:
Turn 1; Visions, Turn 2; Tarmogoyf, Turn 3/4 – beat face with Goyf, and if you think of tapping out to answer the Goyf – I win.

Grixis can do something similar with Thought Scour into Tasigur, and you’ll probably find those are the best hands for the deck.

The Turn 2 play, the looking at my perfect curve, understanding the need/desire to do something early to put pressure on my opponent makes me pick RUG Twin over the other variants. And I think in Bitterblossom, you’re attempting to fill that hole in the Grixis shell (this is an observation not a down-play of the card, I think it’s a good choice).

Just to play devil’s advocate here:

Snapcaster Mage is the most versatile card in Modern, and depending on your deck design on of _your_ most powerful cards.

BUT Tarmogoyf is the outright most powerful card in Modern, oh wait no that’s Emrakul (there’s a reason Tron ramps into Emrakul and not Goyf). In most cases Tasigur is a better card than Goyf (a 4/5 with an activated ability, vs a 4/5)

Tarmogoyf is the most obscene card in Modern though (and I’m not just talking about price). The games were Tarmogoyf lands on turn 2, compared to the ones where he doesn’t are completely different – it’s similar with Delver, if it flips on turn 2.

You can play around Snapcaster Mage a lot more than you can around Tarmogoyf, Tarmogoyf says deal with me or die, Snapcaster Mage is more of a find an answer card. And I value proactivity over reactivity in Modern.

That said there’s a reason Grixis (and to a lesser extent BUG) Control can exist, and it’s because Snapcaster Mage allows for answers while Tasigur (and Tarmogoyf) allow for low mana must deal with threats. Just as Patrick Dickmann about the feel bads when your opponent lands a turn 2 Tasigur…

Thanks! I’m glad you liked the article!

Trevor is currently on our writer onboarding track. Expect to see more of his content every week for a bit, hopefully culminating with an announcement about him being added as a full staff writer!

of course Snapcaster is the most powerful card in Modern! imo that’s a trick question to understand how much does the person you speak to grasps, if he picks Tarmogoyf you know he just picked the most expensive card

also good job on giving Grixis the attention it deserves, it’s such a wonderful color combination, a joy to play both with and against and now for the first time in Modern’s history it seems to pack Tier 1 power level.

Thanks for the answer. I’m thinking I’ll take it out for a spin in my Merfolk deck, and see how it does. I think it’s a good fit because I can keep the mana open for it while still pressuring my opponent, and if it acts as a virtual Sinkhole (or better yet, stuffs a removal spell by disallowing my opponent to fetch the land he needs to cast it), the tempo loss can be backbreaking.