When words have a certain established meaning, I’m wary about using them to mean something else. Tier 0 decks boast percentages that outdo those of all Tier 1 decks combined. I see what you mean now though, and I’m pretty anal about word choice, so don’t mind me if you prefer your own definitions!

In the very recent past, over a couple of big tournament weekends, Death Shadow decks had been exactly half of all results. It’s actually been trending steadily downward since then, but I was using Tier 0 just to signify what seemed to be the clear best deck at the moment. If we consider that tier to be “if you don’t have game against this deck, why are you even playing this weekend?”, then that is also quite reasonable.

Either way, it’s a lot of data and I have fun analyzing it all

It seems like your definition of “Tier 0” differs wildly from Nexus’s: http://quietspeculation.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-2516-362016/

In any case, I’m also excited to see how the format shapes up 🙂

Not entirely true. Wizards mentioned in the ban announcement that the fact that Eye hit Tron was unfortunate. And Probe wasn’t even a core Delver card, many players didn’t use it at all.

Speaking toward the question of what deck is the top in the format currently, it’s really interesting to look at where things stand from recent events. I’ve been trying to group events in roughly month long categories recently and my first grouping was from 5/27-7/2. This included the Kobe T32, Copenhagen T36, SCG Charlotte combined meta (T32 Open, T16 Classic), GP Vegas T32, Invitational 7-1 Modern Decks, plus the combined meta of the Open and Classic.

In this Top Tables Metagame, Grixis Death Shadow is absurdly the Tier 0 deck with 31 finishes. Interestingly, Control decks (here a meta-archetype consisting of Jeskai Control, W/R Prison, Lantern Control, U/W Control, Esper Control, Death & Taxes & Control, 4C Control, Skred Red, Madcap Moon) also had a total of 33 finishes in that same time period. Close behind that were CoCo decks w/25 finishes (largely on the back of Devoted Company’s 16 finishes), B/G/x decks w/18, Affinity w/19, as well as Eldrazi Tron and Burn, both with 18.

Shifting into the next period (I looked at the GPs and SCG events for the rest of the year and grouped dates that made the most sense), we have the overlap from the last group of GP Vegas and the Invitational, plus the Modern Classic from Cincinnati.

Affinity actually has 17 finishes in this period, with Control and Grixis Death Shadow tied at 16. Eldrazi Tron has 10 and B/G/x decks have 9. Burn, CoCo, Jeskai Control all have 7; Merfolk and Non-Eldrazi Tron have 6 and Bant Eldrazi has 5.

The format is definitely reflecting that people left their artifact hate at home for awhile now and Death Shadow has certainly been targeted. This weekend’s Atlanta Team Open will be the end of this group of dates, and I’m very curious to see how the format continues to shift.

For anyone curious, here is how I’m grouping events for the rest of the year:

Meta: 7/22-8/13
7/22 SCG Atlanta (Team Constructed)
8/5 SCG Syracuse (Modern)
8/12 SCG Richmond | GP Birmingham | Sao Paulo (Modern)

Meta: 9/16-10/22
9/16 SCG Louisville (Modern)
10/5 Worlds (??)
10/14 SCG Charlotte (Modern)
10/21 SCG Cincinnati (Modern)

Meta: 10/14-11/19
10/14 SCG Charlotte (Modern)
10/21 SCG Cincinnati (Modern)
11/4 SCG Regionals (Modern)
11/18 SCG Baltimore (Team Constructed)

Meta: 11/4-12/9
11/4 SCG Regionals
11/18 SCG Baltimore (Team Constructed)
12/1 SCG Invitational (Modern/Standard)
12/1 World Magic Cup (Team Unified Modern)
12/8 GP OKC (Modern)
12/8 GP Madrid (Team Unified Modern)

Eye also hitting Tron was not an unexpected reverberation, that was viewed as a benefit. Tron had a huge amount of inevitability bc eventually they would bring out Eye and just start fetching up threats each round. The main target was clearly Eldrazi, but I think the fact that it slowed Tron down a bit was viewed as a positive as it was everywhere at the time as well.

Reverberations are not something Wizards seems too bothered with. If they want to target a deck or card, they will take action regardless of ripple effects (like Probe for Delver or Eye for Tron).

Agree ^_^ This Modern rocks!!

I still believe it’s too early to take any steps against GDS, but it seems that if things do reach a tipping point a good hard look at Street Wraith would be in order. I know a ban is never something Wizards takes lightly, and a Wraith ban would certainly have reverberations (i.e. Living End).

Thanks for getting back to us on this.

Ryan Overturf had some brief success with a list that ran Delver over Wraith:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/581699#paper

He got this finish just before Jund Shadow became Grixis. To my knowledge nobody else has tested it. Wraith still has a cost to cycle so I don’t buy the “56 cards” thing. It depends how you’re looking at things, though. I’d argue the velocity and cantrip effect provided by Wraith, not even to mention the life loss, make the card better in Shadow than actually playing 56 cards would be. Other benefits include retrieval with KC and turning Visions into Preordain.

Not sure if this is a serious comment or not, but I’ll bite.

In that case, your goals for the format are not at all in line with those of Wizards (or of most of the community as I understand it). Wizards prioritizes diversity when it comes to Modern; it would be a nightmare if they ran it according to perceptions of “fun” or pet deck biases. If they loved supporting prison that would be great for you, but what if they loved supporting draw-go, instead? Someone would always be left out with that style of format management. Prioritizing diversity, which is objective and measurable, helps include as many types of players as possible—including you! FWIW, prison elements happen to be quite good against Shadow.

The deck is a highly-interactive, complex deck that rewards skill and knowledge with each game. That’s good. It has weaknesses due to its manabase, low threat count and reliance on 1 cmc spells but doesn’t automatically roll over to any hate cards. It has some bad matchups, so far I’ve noticed burn, hatebears and elves (probably 50/50 on that last one or slight elves advantage). As far as I know, it literally has no way to violate the turn 4 rule. The deck is, at worst, “fair” due to the low-costed threats.

Hell, none made top 8 at Vegas. Most people were expecting at least 3 copies. Yes, it was well-represented in the top 32, but clearly it hasn’t just taken over. The Eldrazi Winter set the standard for a tier zero deck, and I think Infect/Dredge pre probe banning is a better example of “cheap” decks being at the top. Something has to be the best, and in this case I think some players are just mad that it isn’t Jund.

That’s the part that I keep laughing about. I’m on other sites, other forums, and players seem to be more upset that the format has changed significantly in the last year than anything else.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep playing storm until it wins a GP and WOTC bans Grapeshot…