Comments on: Afterthoughts and Amalgams: An RPTQ Cautionary Tale

By: Jordan Boisvert

Jordan Boisvert — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 02:15:14 +0000

Great results but anxiety over not having Serum Visions. That’s a 2,000-word lesson learned now though. Here’s my current list, which hasn’t changed in weeks:

Creatures (25)
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Endless One
1 Matter Reshaper

Artifacts (8)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Serum Powder

Instants (4)
4 Dismember

Lands (23)
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Mutavault
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wastes

Sideboard (15)
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Gut Shot
2 Pithing Needle

Matchups I thought were terrible before (RG Valakut, Spirits) are a lot better. Just needed to figure out my role and plan in each (and load up on removal in the SB). I feel great about this deck right now!

By: Aaron Elias Newbom

Aaron Elias Newbom — Sun, 18 Dec 2016 03:01:50 +0000

So I gotta ask. How has eldrazi stomps been treating you? You’ve been played my it almost nonstop.

Middling results? Great results but anxiety over brews? Poor results?
Very curious

By: Jordan Boisvert

Jordan Boisvert — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 19:09:16 +0000

In reply to ben coley. Guess as long as you can avoid a losing streak, you're in the clear. I think the best approach is probably to fall back on the deck you're most familiar with in a given metagame, or to make sure you get the reps with the deck you want to play against the updated suite of decks you expect to face.

By: Jordan Boisvert

Jordan Boisvert — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 19:07:13 +0000

In reply to Taylor Goodland. Wow, sounds like my dream meta! Thanks for the news.

By: ben coley

ben coley — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 10:20:15 +0000

Great story, Jordan.

I often have the issue of “augh, I regularly play three decks and know them very well, which one do I play” and often enough, I pick the wrong one for a specific metagame.
This happened regularly enough (i’d pick A and B would have been better, i’d pick C and A would have been better) that I just started running the probability by playing one single deck at tournaments, no matter what. It’s been working out OK. I’ve had win-streaks and breaking even ones, but never had a losing streak (at least, not yet)

By: Taylor Goodland

Taylor Goodland — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 23:42:04 +0000

So Jordan, Montreal was VERY different. No dredge at all out of 46-47 players (nice, small numbers) but everyone played dredge hate! Top 4 included Affinity and 3 Eldrazi decks (including colorless). Lots of infect! I went 4-2 in my first RPTQ but I was playing burn (only 1 of 2 and is was not expected by most) so pretty easy to pilot. Even so, I totally punted my g2 v. Jund when opponent was at 1 life… too embarrassing to tell. That was the game that put me out of it. I also lost to Grishoalbrand t3 in game 1, then, with no expectation of this, my opponent brought in Chalice of the Voids g2! Chalice on 1 his turn 2, and Chalice on two with help of simian spirit guide the next turn. I never thought to bring in Destructive revelry. To be fair, that loss pitted me against two easy matchups: Lantern and Tron.

By: Alex Bonin

Alex Bonin — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 21:55:07 +0000

I also like what’s going on in Modern right now. Modern is starting to remind me more of early 2000s Extended or pre-Emrakul Legacy, except rather than old school staples, power most often comes from redundancy and powercreep creatures/creature-based strategies.

Dredge will continue to be a deck that will do well periodically, like it did in Legacy for a while; relying on insufficient hate for graveyard strategies. It will be more degenerate in Modern though for its lack of graveyard strategies worth committing 4+ slots to. Whenever it seems like control strategies are poorly-positioned in Modern, it never seems to last long.

Your commitment to ugx decks in Modern is commendable- I sold my goyfs to pay bills a while ago, so I get a bit of vicarious enjoyment out of your articles, as I am locked out of playing goyf decks…people also copy your decks, so it’s handy to know what they know too…let’s be real haha.

Cheers.