What do you mean Amulet Bloom is more dangerous and much weaker at the same time? I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Blood Moon basically kills the deck if it is resolved, but it is also weak to Infect (although not unwinnable) and loses to itself sometimes. However you can never really count it out of any game as long as neither pilot drew a nut hand. But this has always been the case with Bloom.

Couldn’t a different explanation be that there is sense that it is reasonably safe from banning (despite people still clamoring for it) as it has survived a few list updates now? Also there is a perceived skill floor for the deck which may have scared people off.

I think it might be in the same boat as GR Tron; when it’s good it’s very good and T1 but somewhat dependent on meta shifts. That said, people like CVM have been piloting it for a while regardless of meta and had success. Tier 1.5 maybe?

I also hope UW Control rallies and returns to its September spotlight. Given how similar the overall metagames look, I think this is a definite possibility for November.

From what I’ve seen, you are spot-on in identifying a Grixis evolution to a more midrangey, IoK+Lily build. This hybridization process is often what we see in major archetypes that need to evolve to face new metagames. To some extent, the UR Twin/Grixis Twin balance illustrates this principle, as does the many faces of Burn (Naya Burn, Mardu Burn, Jund Burn, Nacatl Burn, etc.).

As for Amulet Bloom, it’s the sort of deck that, if forgotten, will always rise to the top. When it’s remembered and respected, the deck can be checked. To me, this suggests both that the deck is much weaker than its critics will claim (it’s more easily hated than people would have us believe), but also that the deck is more dangerous than its supporters would admit.

In part, I think the perception about Modern being unfavorable for control comes from a very narrow and surprisingly outdated definition of “control”. Many would have us believe that control decks need to be creatureless, comboless, draw-go, countermagic-heavy decks. This is an extremely limited definition of control that neither corresponds to recent Magic formats nor even to the older decks which many people enshrine as part of this viewpoint. For instance, I categorize both Scapeshift and UR Twin as control decks, especially UR Twin which time and time again wins games from the control vantage. When we expand our control definition, we see that control is alive and well in many formats, and that the Modern versions aren’t too different from those elsewhere.

Hey there! I think two of the biggest reasons for Grixis Control’s decline are other decks a) going big and b) going wide. In this case, “going big” doesn’t just mean packing creatures with high toughness that dodge Bolt/Command. It also means playing cards and strategies that go over the top of Grixis’ typical interaction lines. As for going wide, that’s embodied in decks like Gruul Zoo and brethren. The go-wide decks are the biggest problem, because Grixis packs too many one-for-one interaction pieces and no sweepers. These decks also take advantage of the Grixis manabase, punishing players for effectively starting at 17-15 life with gradual damage.

I also think another reason for Grixis’ decline is player perception. People think the deck is ill-positioned and thus move away from it. Although there are legitimate reasons to avoid Grixis decks in the current metagame, there are more players avoiding Grixis than represent its real performance. That is also to say, the deck is better than its current representation suggests. I expect this will reverse if we can get even a few big Grixis wins on the board: Modern players are notoriously change-averse, so they are unlikely to keep playing Grixis if the format narrative suggests it’s a bad deck.

Another thing I’d like to ask is about the decks that were closest to clearing your +0.7% confidence interval (Burn, Grixis Control, and Amulet Bloom). Obviously, you can’t say anything as definitive as what you shared in the article because the data isn’t robust enough, but can you share any hunches with regards to the trends? I think that Grixis Control is going to eventually morph into some hybrid of the current version and Grixis Midrange that can at least fight through either Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sanctity to some degree (as of right now, Control can’t beat Void and Midrange can’t really beat Sanctity). I also think Amulet Bloom’s continued rise is a trend to watch, since innovations like more Tolaria West and Dragonlord Dromoka have smoothed out some of the kinks in the system. And Burn… well, Burn is good in Modern. ‘Nuff said.

What are your thoughts?

It also makes a lot of sense that the format had adapted to grixis being the marquis control stategy—aggressive decks that seem to be doing well are resilient against spot-removal. Threats either get protected or require lots of resources to control.

In general, Modern doesn’t favor control strategies due to the powercreep of other archetype’s cards.