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In today's video, I'm playing another Azorius Control deck in Pioneer. This time it's Lotus Control a flavor of Azorius Control that Patrick Wu took to a second-place finish at the Toronto Regional Championship. This version uses Lotus Field in combination with either Strict Proctor or Discontinuity. This effectively ramps two mana and gives Azorius Control a much-needed power spike that it has been lacking in recent months.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Lotus Field
The deck still plays Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and powerful wrath effects like Doomskar and Farewell. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is actually immensely important in the deck, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's first delve into how to set up the "combo" and we'll go from there.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Doomskar
Leveling the Playing Field
One of Azorius Control's biggest downsides historically in Pioneer has always been that it is trying to be too fair in a format full of unfair decks. Lotus Control looks to shift that paradigm. Having access to Lotus Field gives the deck a way to keep up with all the shenanigans that most of the other decks in the format are trying to do.
The way we set up our Lotus Field turns is as follows: on turn three we play Strict Proctor then play our Lotus Field. The Lotus Field trigger goes on the stack and then Strict Proctor's ability goes on the stack we can simply decline to pay the two mana for Strict Proctor's ability. From there, we ramp two mana going into our fourth turn. This means that assuming we hit our fourth land drop we'll have access to six mana on turn four. That unlocks basically every haymaker in our deck.
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Aside from Playing Strict Proctor on turn three we can also just cast Discontinuity in response to Lotus Field's trigger which ends our turn on the spot. This means the stack is cleared, effectively "countering" the "sacrifice two lands" trigger from Lotus Field. Let me stress that we would much rather have a Strict Proctor on turn three rather than a Discontinuity for several reasons but one of the biggest is that Strict Proctor is actually quite good in the early game versus many decks. On the flip side of that coin Discontinuity is absolutely cracked late game. We'd love to have them at the ready to cast late game on an opponent's critical turn.
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On Strict Proctor
Aside from just the "combo" with Lotus Field, Strict Proctor completely shuts down a ton of cards in the early game. Vs Greasegang Combo it stops Raffine's Informant, Saytr Wayfinder (if they're playing it), and even Esika's Chariot. Vs. Rakdos Midrange Strict Proctor disrupts Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton and Bloodtithe Harvester. However, we need to be wary if we suspect them having a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger because they will just get a two-mana 6/6.
There are plenty of other cards in many of the top-tier decks that Strict Proctor disrupts. Just know it has a ton of flexibility outside of its interaction with Lotus Field.
Discontinuity is an insanely important and versatile card in this deck. Not only does it enable turn three Lotus Fields. It also is the best Counterspell/Time Stop ever because if you have two Lotus Fields on the battlefield with a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria you can just cast it off of two lands which is extremely powerful.
One discussion I've seen online has been whether we should cast Discontinuity in our opponent's upkeep or wait until they make a game action, such as moving to combat and attacking or casting a spell. In my opinion, it's extremely contextual much like almost everything in Magic. Generally, though I like to wait. We should let our opponent go to cast a spell or attack and then we can shut their entire turn down with Discontinuity.
On the Lack of Early Game Interaction
This deck has a laughably limited amount of early-game interaction. Aside from Strict Proctor, Jwari Disruption // Jwari Ruins, and a Foretold Doomskar or Behold the Multiverse there aren't any spells that cost less than four mana. Which seems like a huge liability, which it certainly can be but think of the opposite side of the spectrum. The fact that every card in this deck is a haymaker and an excellent top deck gives this deck an extra layer of power that a more traditional version of Azorius Control just simply doesn't have access to in its current configuration.
Rather than relying on Absorb's, Temporary Lockdown's, and a much more fair approach to the game Lotus Control leverages its powerful spells to make the opponent actually kill us fast because we have an overwhelming late game.
If you're wanting to play an extremely powerful and fresh version of Azorius Control look no further than this deck. It has game against every deck in the format and definitely has a gear that a traditional Azorius Control deck wouldn't have. Also if you want to listen to Patrick Wu talk all about his magnificent creation I implore you to go listen to The Control Freak Episode titled "Lotus Control a Deep Dive with Patrick Wu."
Now go watch the gameplay video and don't forget to Like and Subscribe to the Quiet Speculation YouTube Channel!
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Ok, that’s not entirely true. Technically, when sports betting became legal in Ohio, I promptly signed up for a half-dozen apps to redeem promotional freebies and bonus bets. I only did this because it yielded (and still occasionally yields) free money! Perhaps the more accurate statement would be, “I love gambling, so long as I’m using other people’s money to do it.”
The opportunity to win something of value while putting little-to-no resources of my own at risk sounds like the optimal risk-reward proposition.
Magic: the Gambling?
Magic has always had an unofficial gambling component to it. I vividly remember cracking open a booster pack of Stronghold back when I was around 14 years old and finding a beautiful Mox Diamond inside.
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I had paid $3 for that booster pack, and immediately upon opening the card another kid in the hobby shop proffered $20 for the rare artifact. I accepted, thereby increasing my net worth by fivefold in all of thirty seconds. Do you know where else you can do that kind of thing? A casino.
There’s a very important distinction when it comes to Magic, however, that I need to emphasize. Rather than re-hash it, I’m going to quote an important synopsis I found on cardboardkeeper.com:
“Magic The Gathering [SIC] is not gambling. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t assign a monetary value to individual cards and sells what is advertised on card packs. Magic doesn’t advertise potential monetary gain decided mainly by chance, but some governments still choose to apply gambling laws to MTG.”
The rest of the article is a fascinating read, and I recommend folks check it out. I intend not to rehash all points made in that article—I’m not a lawyer and am far from qualified to make commentary in this space. I merely present the information as background.
I can buy a booster pack for an amount of money, open the booster pack, and sell the contents for a different amount of money. Sometimes it’s more, but most of the time it’s less, as dictated by the secondary market.
Increasing Values and Rarities
For many years, the range of card values one could open from a booster pack of a new set was fairly fixed. I remember when I first started playing Magic in 1997, cards that were still in print would almost never exceed about $25 in value. In addition, finding card values was nontrivial—I remember using the same InQuest Magazine for months because it was the only resource I had. My stepbrother and I used to call the local hobby shop and inquire about card values just to facilitate a trade.
If you didn’t know what your cards were worth, you simply guessed based on how attached you were to them. Most of the time that meant commons were $0.25, uncommons $0.50 to $1, and rares $1 to $3. Basically, the math worked out to be worth about the price of a booster pack—you got what you paid for.
That changed with the advent of the mythic rare. Suddenly, these ultra-rare cards could be worth $30-$50 if they were powerful enough in Standard. Jace, the Mind Sculptor broke that mold even further, notching around $100 of value for a single, in-print card! I’ll always remember the time Ben Bleiweiss, general manager of sales at Star City Games, advertised that a set of Jaces could be traded to Star City Games for a heavily played UnlimitedTime Walk ($349.99 at the time).
There was an error retrieving a chart for Time Walk
The Masterpiece series, first introduced in Battle for Zendikar block, made things even more interesting. Suddenly, a $4 booster pack could yield a $150 card, albeit at a much lower frequency. Rewards for cracking sealed product became juicier and juicier.
Enter The One Ring
The ante was upped even further when Wizards of the Coast introduced Set Boosters and Collector Boosters. These packs contained a more concentrated amount of desirable, rarer cards, and thus commanded a premium price. You have to pay up to crack open a collector booster pack, but the rewards are there to be reaped.
To make things even more interesting, Wizards of the Coast has started introducing special cards that can only be found in collector booster packs. For example, collector boosters of Dominaria United could contain a random card from the original Legends set. Deemed “Lost Legends,” their inclusion meant a player could open a near mint The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale from a booster pack, valued somewhere in the $3000 range.
Newer collector booster packs began introducing the occasional serialized card, introducing a new rarity and new monetary incentive to crack open the premium packs. Nothing, however, compares to the hype and value driven by the serialized 001/001 The One Ring.
A couple of people have already boasted about opening this one-of-a-kind card, creating skepticism in the community around authenticity. All that aside, this card is so rare that a €2 million bounty has been publicly placed on the card for anyone who opens it.
Two. Million. Euros. From a single booster pack of new Magic: the Gathering cards. A booster pack that sells for around $45. That’s a return of over 4,000,000%. Suddenly, opening a booster pack of Magic cards can be just as lucrative as winning the lottery.
Let’s Talk About the Odds
Let’s compare the odds to the lottery for just a moment here. The odds of opening a two million euro card from a Tales of Middle Earth collector booster is <.00003%--this comes from the product description. That means the odds are worse than 1 in 3,333,333.
Here are some other odds I found on Google that can offer up an interesting comparison:
Odds of getting in a car accident per 1,000 miles driven: 1 in 366 Odds of navigating an asteroid field: 1 in 3,720 Odds of getting struck by lightning: 1 in 15,300 Odds of flopping a royal flush in poker: 1 in 19,600 Odds of becoming a movie star: 1 in 1,190,000 Odds of dying in a shark attack: 1 in 3,700,000 Odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery: 1 in 302,000,000 Odds of a perfect NCAA basketball bracket: 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808
This really helps put the odds of opening the The One Ring in perspective. According to Google, you’re more likely to become a movie star and about as likely to die from a shark attack.
Therefore, when we talk about opening a million-dollar card from a pack of Magic, we really need to consider the most likely outcomes.
The One Ring Tempts Me
Han Solo famously responded, “Never tell me the odds” when C-3PO advises that the odds of successfully navigating through an asteroid field were 3,720 to 1. There’s something to be said about the thrill of the hunt and that sliver of hope.
In the same vein, despite what math tells me, I sit at my computer and look at the image of The One Ring and think to myself, “Why not me?” I have the same odds as everybody else, and surely someone has to open the card and make bank. It’s the same reason I play the lottery once in a blue moon when the jackpot exceeds some crazy-high threshold: it gives you a license to fantasize about winning.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what gambling on long shots is about?
The sage words of Wayne Gretzky come to mind here. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” If I don’t purchase any boosters, I am guaranteed not to win. The only way to open a seven-figure Magic card is to crack open some packs, and I plan on doing just that, despite what logic and mathematics dictate.
Wrapping It Up
Wizards of the Coast has finally done it. They’ve elevated Magic to a new threshold of gambling without actually calling it such. The concept of inserting a card that will sell for seven figures on the secondary market into a booster pack is a brilliant way to sell record levels of product. Players are sure to purchase more collector boosters for the same reason I will: for that chance at the million.
Of course, more than 99.999% of us will fail to open the card. Luckily, there are enough “consolation prizes” in these packs to make the endeavor fun and exciting. It’s akin to matching five numbers on your pick-six lottery; not enough to win the jackpot, but enough to fund a fun night out on the town.
If these parallels to the lottery aren’t designed, they should be. I don’t care about the legalese and the tightrope walk that Wizards walks. If this isn’t akin to playing the lottery, I don’t know what is. One thing is certain: the psychological aspect of gambling is there, and that’s what counts when it comes to selling product. Just be sure you know the numbers before giving in to emotions.
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Magic: the Gathering's newest offering is the first full set from its Universes Beyond series. Magic has hopped into the Intellectual Property of JRR Tolkein's Middle-Earth, for a non-Standard, straight-to-Modern expansion set.
This new landscape is home to orcs, goblins, wizardry, halflings, timeless legends and of course, the magical artifact known as The Ring. So let's jump right in and begin examining this new Draft environment.
New Mechanic: The Ring
The Ring enters the world of Magic through a new mechanic. As The Ring "tempts" us, we unlock powerful effects on its titular emblem.
Make no mistake, this is an aggressive mechanic. It incentivizes attacking, provides evasion, and boosts damage. To get the most out of this mechanic, we want creatures, especially small creatures. With The Ring, smaller creatures are more evasive and more punishing to block, though there is some inherent tension between those two lines of text.
The way the text is layered creates a snowballing dynamic, especially for aggressive decks. Evasion helps keep our little creatures alive, but once we unlock the looting ability, we can start to seek out other cards featuring "The Ring tempts you" rules text (hereafter, tempt) as well as backup Ring-bearers.
Bling The Ring
In simplest terms, The Ring plays like an equipment. It grows in power over the game, enhancing our Ring-bearer, but we can only reequip it when we have a card with tempt. While it can grow in power without a Ring-bearer, it can only affect the game when we have one.
Returning Mechanic: Amass
The amass mechanic from War of the Spark (WAR) returns with a slight change. The mechanic creates a 0/0 Army token with a designated number of +1/+1 counters. If we already have an Army token, then we don't get a new body; rather, the counters are placed on the existing Army token. Essentially, amass makes a new Army, or grows the one we already have. We don't get a choice here. If we can grow an Army, then we do. If we don't have an Army token, then we create one.
Amassive attack
The only update to the amass mechanic has to do with creature typing. Amass made Zombie Army tokens. Amass Orcs makes, you guessed it, Orc Army tokens. Orcs have support in this format, often paired with Goblin support. As a result, these tokens benefit and trigger certain applicable effects.
Orc-Goblin payoffs
As far as this format goes, Orcs and Goblins are essentially one tribe. They share all the same payoffs. The Orc distinction was made for reasons of flavor, not gameplay.
Color Pairs and Overarching Synergies
LOTR has signpost uncommons to help navigate towards some of the scripted archetypes seeded in the format. In fact, this format has two for each color pair. This is similar to March of the Machine's second signpost slot, which was used to support the new battle mechanic. The result of the second signpost uncommon will have a few impacts on the format. It incentivizes us, even more so, to get into the open color pair. Secondly, it creates a little more variation as to the way each color pair might develop throughout the draft.
While each pair guides us toward specific incentives, there are some overlapping synergies that stretch across the format. The biggest amongst these is The Ring. This mechanic will dictate the tempo of the format, as well as being a centerpiece that allows for many archetypes to thrive. Additionally, tokens are all over the place, and many abilities trigger in response to any token. This versatility allows a card to play well with Food, Humans, and Armies alike. This liberal wording allows for ambitious deck-building.
Still, these archetypes are valuable tools for navigating the draft in its early stages.
Finally, this format includes quite a few legends. While the Ring-bearer is an honorary legendary permanent, each color is heavily seeded with unique legends. Additionally, there are a number of cards that benefit from a player controlling a legend. If we can collect a reasonable number of extra legends, we might be able to leverage additional value from later picks.
UB: Core Set Control
This is a control deck that happens to have a high quantity of cards with tempt. However, it's hard to imagine that control decks will maximize this ability. That being said, Ring-bearers are almost all upside, and this deck will get some value out of them. Amass also plays a role in these colors and should be more valuable to its general strategy. Those tokens represent value, whereas The Ring is more a tempo game piece. These colors will prioritize the value.
The two uncommon gold cards don't seem to be perfectly in line. The Mouth of Sauron is clearly more of a graveyard and spell-based card. It's a decent amount of stats for five mana, but there is no double-Raise Dead in the format, which is the natural pairing for a card like this. Ringsight seems unplayable, depending on the speed of the format, but only time will tell. It's a three-mana tutor that requires setup, although The Ring facilitates it nicely. Regardless, this card looks like a bust to me. The control angle should still play out fine, even if the signposts don't support a particularly linear approach.
UW: Draw Two
UW is labeled as the Draw Two deck, or D2. While that might sound controlling, this deck wants to draw cards as it pushes damage. Birthday Escape is not just an easy way to trigger the "draw two" effects, but it also helps us turn our Ring-bearer into a looter, which will help us trigger payoffs repeatedly and without a mana investment. We want cheap evasive creatures, tempo-driven interaction, and cards that tempt.
Prince Imrahil the Fair is a strong payoff, and matches perfectly with Gwaihir the Windlord, creating a really clear vision of an aggressive D2 strategy. Additionally, with both cards being legendary, this unlocks some other cards that might play nicely in the deck. Esquire of the King and Errand-Rider of Gondor will already be supported by the Ring-bearer's honorary legendary status. The signposts give us two extra hits.
This deck is going to make great use of The Ring with its draw payoffs and many small creatures. This is my early pick for best archetype, and these types of decks will dictate the speed of the format.
GW: Food
Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper is the posterboy of this archetype. I'm just not sure what he wants to do. Many of the cards in GW have "create a Food" as trinket text to create archetype synergies on evergreen effects. Second Breakfast is a pump spell that makes a Food. Many Partings is a Land Grant that makes a Food. We players are humans, not hobbits, so the trick with this deck will be finding reasons to want Food. There are certainly cards like Rosie Cotton of South Lane, which helps generate value, and Peregrin Took, which can serve as the world's lowest-impact Doubling Season. Still, there are pieces to an engine here.
The best common payoffs seem to support an aggressive gameplan. Mushroom Watchdogs reminds me of Wild Mongrel as a two-mana creature that represents a lot of damage. Obviously, two decades of power creep helped these dogs evolve. It's a growing threat, and the vigilance lets them play both ways. Pippin's Bravery also seems like a huge beating for risky blocks and will probably end a lot of games in the first week of the format. Eastfarthing Farmer also looks like a perfect inclusion, but mileage will vary based on how much bread is coming out of the oven.
Conversely, life gain prepares us for a long game. When we're building this deck, we need to consider whether we're on a linear GW Food beatdown plan, or a slower deck that creeps into the late game with life gain, perhaps splashing off-color bombs and a powerful top end. Quickbeam, Upstart Ent and a Treefolk package could be a powerful way to end games in a deck looking for one.
The best versions of this deck look to be explosive and aggressive, using Food to stave off the evasion of aggressive blue decks.
UG: Scry
Speaking of trinket text, Scry is in the building. This archetype gives added bonuses each time we scry, aiming to set up a powerful engine of effects that waterfalls into more scry effects, eventually overpowering our opponents. Arwen Undómiel is a two-mana 2/2 that puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature whenever we scry. It also has a pricy activation for the late game, letting us scry 2 for six mana.
Cards like Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, Council's Deliberation, and Legolas, Counter of Kills all seem a little small-ball to me. I can envsion this archetype coming together on the strength of its uncommons, but I would not want to fight over this color pair. Nimrodel Watcher is clearly aggressive, but many of the cards look to set up a longer game.
This deck might need to prioritize Wose Pathfinder to jump start its plan. However, Galadhrim Guide seems like a baby Imperial Oath. If we set up the scry to trigger additional value than it becomes extremely potent, to the point where each Guide just wants to find the next one.
RW: Human Tribal
Unsurprisingly, RW looks to be aggressive. The Humans-matter bonuses should help create some potent synergies. Théoden, King of Rohan is a great reason to look for evasion, and if we can include enough tempts, that will help. Giving a Ring-bearer double strike and getting double triggers of the life-losing clause is game-ending. But even giving double strike to a flier should be plenty powerful.
Dúnedain Blade is going to play like a signpost uncommon in this deck. For those who missed Ixalan, Pirate's Cutlass was the best common in the entire set, and this card looks awfully similar. With all of the cards that make 1/1 Human tokens, having access to cheap 3/2s is big game, and if we end up with multiple blades, we should move those token generators to the top of our pick order. On the other side of the coin, there are quite a few legendary synergies that leak into this color combination. It may make sense to select legends early on to improve the power level of cards like Gimli's Fury.
BR: Amass and Goblins/Orcs
Both signposts are legendary Orcs with very similar abilities. Uglúk of the White Hand and Mauhúr, Uruk-hai Captain bring the +1/+1 counter archetype across the color pie to Rakdos. They synergize particularly well with the amass effects. Additionally, there are a number of strong legends in this color pair that further support this archetype.
Black is specifically pretty grindy, and generally looks strong. Red does a nice job creating tokens, and I could see those being used as sacrifice fodder. I think this deck will look to push damage early, and then try to bleed out opponents with various sacrifice attacks.
Army tokens will be a growing threat, and this color combination adds counters to those cards effortlessly. This deck looks to be a little more midrange. We'll play the cheap cards in red for curve consideration, but I don't think this deck is going out of its way to be aggressive.
RG: Ferocious, Landfall, Legendary
Red-green seems a little off theme, but completely on plan. The signpost uncommons point to a legends-matter theme with Friendly Rivalry and Strider, Ranger of the North. The Ranger plays with landfall and ferocious, both of which have some evidence of support in the color pair, though neither have a major presence. Bag End Porter is a card that checks both boxes, and as a result could be a sneaky overperformer. Holistically, this is a pure beatdown deck. It plays creatures and wants those creatures to attack.
And it's moderately well-positioned. This format has some mechanics that will overpower this deck in the late game. However, there's not a ton of removal to deal with this many large creatures. This is definitely a deck that wants Wose Pathfinder, and it might also want Swarming of Moria, just because getting ahead on mana will help us outclass our opponent. While our uncommons and rares give us more direction than that general overview, the general plan is to be a stompy aggro deck and beat opponents down with large creatures.
UR: Spells Tempo
The Ring has a place here, and I think this archetype wants to keep a low casting cost, whereas UB will use its spell count to play a more controlling game. I imagine the two decks will have a similar dynamic to UB and UR in Dominaria United (DOM). Bilbo, Retired Burglar makes a very efficient bearer.
UR's most clear synergies fall under the spell slinger archetype, headlined by the signpost uncommon Gandalf's Sanction. Sanction is a scalable burn spell that essentially has trample. This makes me think the color can play a powerful tempo game, leveraging evasion from The Ring, cheap creatures, burn spells, and efficient interaction as we try to finish off the game with a massive Sanction. Treason of Isengard is a nice way to set up a two-turn kill, rebuying Sanction's effect.
Fiery Inscription looks like a UR build-around and could be a powerful clock. In these types of decks we want as many copies of Smite the Deathless, Glorious Gale, and Ranger's Firebrand as we can get. These cards will likely be high picks, so we shouldn't hesitate to grab them when we can. Soothing of Sméagol, however, is a card that we will want more than our neighbors. If we see this late, we can take it as a sign the archetype is open.
BG: Sacrifice Tokens
Old Man Willow is a beating. It grows with our land count and can turn extra Foods into copies of Disfigure. Opponents will need to answer this card, or they will lose to it. Black and green both create a lot of tokens, and this might be the best way to use them. Mirkwood Bats and Mushroom Watchdogs look like strong payoffs. Revive the Shire will probably be an important piece of the puzzle for a deck that is looking to replay its important pieces, but one that can still get value from a random piece of cardboard.
This deck will take its time getting to the late game and cards like Gollum's Bite, Mirkwood Spider and Morgul-Knife Wound will prove essential tools in that slog.
BW: Aristocrats
There will definitely be some Abzan overlap in Middle Earth. Both BG and BW want to generate and sacrifice lesser game pieces to build an advantage. While BG leans towards a more controlling and value-oriented route, BW leans more aggressive and looks to attack our opponents more directly.
Denethor, Ruling Steward is a fuelling sacrifice engine, but the effect is slow and less effective when it has to generate chump-blockers. It wants us to attack and sacrifice a chump-attacker to ensure that it gets to create a token on our end step. Shadow Summoning is very exciting. While it doesn't immediately give us two blockers like Lingering Souls, these tokens are ready to attack with evasion as soon as we untap.
This color is supported by white's flurry of small creatures and black's ability to generate tokens. I think this will be a great spot for cards like The Torment of Gollum, Nasty End, and Protector of Gondor. Gríma Wormtongue, Faramir, Field Commander, and Bitter Downfall all look to be all-stars in the archetype.
1/1 flier and amass 2 is a solid amount of game pieces for a three-mana common.
9. Mirkwood Bats
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Liberal wording gives the Bats a lot of play. I'm wary of paying four mana for a common creature, especially on the heels of MOM, but this thing triggers on the creation and sacrifice of any token. I think Abzan Food might be a thing, and if it is, thank the Bats.
I wanted to give a slot to either this or Wizard's Rockets, but drawing a card on ETB is way better than drawing one on the way out. These cards tend to overperform, and scry, draw two, Food, and tokens in general all have value in the format.
The Gust Walker committee has its eye on this one. A 2/1 that dies into support for most on-color archetypes is pretty exciting. Whether we're doing sacrifice-aristocrats things, trying to amass an Army, or just being aggressive, this card will play well in all the black decks.
Between all the legends and The Ring, this card will often draw a card in the late game. In the early game it helps us shape our hand. This might end up being the best common in the set.
Too high? I'm not sure. It's a one-mana, card-neutral tempt. This will be really strong in both UW and UR. When our bearer gets destroyed, The Ring essentially dies with it, until it tempts us again. This card basically does that for free.
1. Dúnedain Blade
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There are enough Humans and Human tokens to make this card play like a rare. In the early days of the format, this is a card that is going to go way too late. As a result, I plan on forcing RW Humans until the meta catches on.
Scourge Alert?
The Nazgûl is an absolute bomb in the disguise of a meme card. We're never going to draft the full nine, but let's take a look at what the first copy represents.
For three mana, we get tempted and get a 2/3 growing deathtoucher. Admittedly, deathtouch is typically more valuable on small creatures. However, having a lower power than toughness makes for a better Ring-bearer. The deathtouch makes double blocks a nightmare.
With the second copy of Nazgûl, we're looking at a 3/4 beside the 2/3, both ready to grow every time we're tempted. With the way tempt is printed in this format, I'm willing to label this uncommon a first-pickable card. This horseman will be huge, and it's going to run rampant over the format.
While it can't be tutored up like Wingmantle Chaplain or hit with maximum velocity like Zenith Flare, I envision a similar feeling when we see this card resolve. The second one will be horrifying. More than that, may Gandalf have mercy on your soul. Stern Scolding and Ranger's Firebrand are both one-mana answers that hose the horseman. I expect both will perform well in the format, as they'll play well against the tempo-oriented decks, and I expect those to be the best archetypes.
Just Like MOM Used to Make: Land-Cyclers Return
This format doesn't offer a ton of fixing. The land-cyclers, however, provide us one way to tutor up basics. While these cards underperformed in MOM, this cycle offers a major advantage. In MOM, these cards cycled for two mana. As a result, they oftentimes felt clunky and underperformed.
Half-priced real estate
Cycling these on turn one is a really efficient way to use our mana. It's also easier to find time in our curve where we have an unused mana, whereas two can be awkward. Additionally, all of the creatures only require a single color, making them better splashes. The blue one, Lórien Revealed, is the only non-creature, and it also requires double blue.
This format looks less hospitable to splashes, but these cards can help us cut that 17th land, which I think could be a valuable edge for certain decks.
Big Picture: Thoughts on the format
When writing about the double-team mechanic in Alchemy Horizon: Baldurs Gate, I made a claim that might be relevant here. If attacking nets value, then it becomes nearly impossible to play control. When our opponent can pressure our life total while maintaining a stream of value, it's hard to stabilize and take over. I believe tempt generates a similar, though less potent, effect.
As a result, the two-color decks in the Jeskai wedge strike me as being the most powerful decks. The evasion offered by The Ring, compounded by its looting, will bury opponents before they can stabilize. These three colors appear to be the best-suited for that gameplay.
GW looks like it can be an explosive counter, with Food helping to extend the game. GR looks like it can play an aggro game that might be strong enough to race, but in general both of these plans seem easily disrupted, specifically by the blue interaction.
Black is also a powerful color, but I wonder if the format is going to slide under it. It appears to be the most controlling color, and that could struggle in the tempo-driven environment I predict.
The Summer Set with a Premium Price
This is an aside from the Limited coverage, but a thought that I felt compelled to share. Fifteen dollars for a draft is a great deal. And while I'm mostly playing on Arena these days, this has been one of those timeless exchanges that seemed to boldly withstand the fluctuating economy of the world.
Arizona Iced Tea has impossibly remained ninety-nine cents through hell or high water, and Magic has done an impressive job maintaining a similar consistency. Slamming a premium price tag on the summer draft set, however, signals to me that Wizards of the Coast is testing a new price point on their booster packs.
While this set is supposedly Modern-level in terms of power, it looks weaker than the Standard set we just played in MOM. They say it's a premium set, but it has all the makings of a regular Draft format, including its presumed role as "the summer set." There are many great Magic finance articles on our website, and I do not pretend to be an expert in this field. However, the card quality in this set doesn't strike me as justifying the price tag. Do with that what you will.
For the Shire!
This format looks to be a major shake-up from MOM. We should anticipate more aggressive gameplay, and in The Ring, a meaningful new game piece. I'm excited to learn, analyze, and dissect a brand-new format. What mechanics, archetypes, and cards are you excited for? Let me know in the comments, and good luck at the prerelease!
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This raises the immediate question of "Does Standard even need saving?" Let's assume, as Wizards does, that yes the format needs saving. If that's the case, what are the underlying problems with Standard?
What's the Problem With Standard?
Are Bannings The Issue?
I found it humorous when Wizards stated that part of the reason behind making changes to their banning policy was specifically to help Standard. Their argument was that players were never sure if the cards they were playing were going to get banned as they could make an announcement basically any week. Their chosen solution is a single yearly announcement for all formats with a three-week emergency ban announcement window after every set release.
While I have certainly stepped back from the competitive Standard scene, I have rarely heard anyone mention that the uncertainty behind continued legality was one's biggest concern behind the format. In fact, for those unaware, the old B&R announcements were scheduled 4 times a year, and emergency bans were implemented when necessary. It was only a few years ago that Wizards changed the cadence of announcements to be more flexible due to numerous Standard bannings. The most recent change walks back that flexible policy, to something akin to their older system.
The Decline of In-Person Standard
This problem feels like a red herring, but it is undeniable that there has been a significant decline in in-person Standard play. There is not a lot of solid data for us to look at to compare Standard event turnouts over a period of time to prove this, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. Just try to find an upcoming Standard event within 10-25 miles of where you live using Wizards' own Event Locator. How many stores are running Standard events? One? Two? None?
While I don't like relying on anecdotal evidence, I ran a loose poll in the Quiet Speculation Discord asking whose local game stores (LGSs) were still running Standard Friday Night Magic (FNM) events. Few people knew of any. I currently have five LGSs within a 25-mile radius of where I live. None of them currently run Standard events for FNM, whereas, pre-Covid all of them did. Standard was arguably in decline even before the pandemic, but the months-long pause in in-person play of any kind only exacerbated the decline.
What is really Killing Standard Demand?
So what actually is the reason for the decline of in-person Standard? I'd say the short answer is Magic: Arena. The long answer is also Arena. I remember back when Magic: the Gathering Online (MTGO) was first announced, people feared it would kill off paper Magic. Obviously, that didn't happen. The reason why it didn't is actually pretty logical. Players still had to pay to play on MTGO. If you enjoyed playing in paper and online you might have to acquire two playsets of your cards, paper versions, and digital versions. This cost was, and still is, very real for MTGO players. While diehard players had the chance to play whenever they wanted more casual players were less likely to jump in. The same cannot be said for Arena.
Why Pay to Play?
Magic: Arena is a great way to play a lot of Magic for free, and therin lies the current problem with Standard. When Standard is free to play on Arena, why would someone want to pay for physical cards and then pay a store to play in an event? This is the critical question Wizards of the Coast needs to resolve in order to get Standard back to its glory days.
Potential Solutions
Incentives
One Potential Solution is to provide players with an incentive to play in a store.
Years ago, There was just such a system, called the Players Rewards Program, wherein players built up points by playing in different events. After accruing a set amount of points, Wizards of the Coast mailed players special promos. One of the most desirable was the foil textless Cryptic Command.
While that was arguably one of the poorest choices to make textless, it is a beautiful card and I remember many people wanting copies back in the day. Sadly, Wizards of the Coast ended the Player Rewards program, in part thanks to a few unscrupulous stores finding ways to abuse the system. I don't doubt that the cost of mailing promos to so many players' homes was also a factor in the decision.
Even if Wizards didn't want to go back down the rabbit hole of managing a program like Player Rewards, at the very least they could return to making highly desirable Friday Night Magic (FNM) promos again.
Back when Path to Exile and Fatal Push were FNM promos, they were easily worth more than the typical $5 FNM entry fee, and the chance to win one was a strong incentive to encourage players to turn out. Obviously, the challenge here is identifying good candidates to make promo cards out of. More often than not, the more valuable promo cards are tied to eternal formats rather than to Standard. Winning non-Standard legal cards at a Standard event can sometimes be at odds with the goal of growing Standard attendance, but hey, they can always be good trade fodder.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Path to Exile
Tournament Byes
Another option Wizards has used in the past was allowing players to earn byes for larger regional tournaments by accruing points won at smaller local events. This mainly affects those who enjoy competing in large events, but these competitors are often the customers who also buy more cards from their LGSs and thus keep the gaming economy going. This particular solution has very little cost to Wizards themselves and marginal cost to tournament organizers, though I suspect it would have the least overall benefit to increasing Standard play mentioned so far.
Random Giveaways
While I often consider random giveaways to be a bit gimmicky, Wizards has already started moving in this direction. They've given out serialized Shivan Dragons and Giant Growths at a few large events. While these types of giveaways may cause some people who were on the fence about attending the next big event to go, they don't do anything to encourage small local event growth.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Giant Growth
One way to do this could be to randomly reward participants via the event registration system. For example, if they mailed special promos to one out of every 5,000 FNM participants, I could see more people wanting to play just for a shot at the Golden ticket. Ideally, winners would be notified immediately so that the store itself could celebrate and everyone could get to feed off that excitement.
Make Standard Fun Again!
I understand that "fun" is a subjective term so this solution is a bit more nuanced, but I think today's "perfect mana" Standards are a problem. When players have access to lots of mana-fixing lands, the focus of decks shifts towards "good stuff piles" rather than focused decks built on a specific theme or synergy. These "good stuff piles" tend to meld together into only a few archetypes, resulting in a stale format as players tire of mirror matches or repeat matches. It is also a lot harder to metagame around these types of decks as they inherently have few if any real weaknesses.
I remember Standards of yesteryear where metagames were far more diverse than they are now. In older Standard formats the big weakness of multi-color decks was their mana fixing. The lack of reliability for a multi-color deck to cast all its spells on time allowed more streamlined decks to go under them. I would argue that any format where you can reliably cast three-or-more colored spells on time after the third turn, is a format that will inevitably get stale.
The problem with this strategy is that people have come to expect nearly perfect mana in Standard. I don't doubt that many would bemoan their inability to play four and five-color good stuff piles, but for the overall health of the format mana restrictions are a necessity.
Final Thoughts
This article began as a conversation over on the QS Discord server. If you're not yet a member, I suggest checking it out. I feel that if Wizards really wants to bring people back to what once was their flagship format changing B&R announcements and increasing the time between rotations is not enough. While I don't doubt that there are some ideas I have missed, the above ideas are all ones I have discussed with fellow QS members, and friends who are all heavily invested in the game. What do you think is needed to save Standard? What do you think of my proposed solutions? Let me know in the comments below.
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My name is Michael but most people just use my last name, Mapson. Some of you may already know me as the guy who came in second at a 1300-person Modern Grand Prix with Amulet Titan. Some of you may know me for my Legacy success with various Marit Lage decks. Some of you may not know me at all. Perhaps most importantly though, I'm the guy who once drove three hours to go 0-6 in an event.
I've been playing Magic: the Gathering for about 17 years now, which is horrifying to think about. My friend Adam got me into the game so he would have somebody to play with other than his brothers. That summer I went to my summer camp and found out a lot of the boys in my unit played. That's where I got hooked.
In college, My campus was very near a game store. As I spent more time there my love of Magic only grew. During this time I switched from casual formats to competitive play. I started with Modern and later picked up other constructed formats and became a judge. Magic has become a huge part of my life and my biggest hobby. Like everyone else, I've certainly had my highs and lows with the game.
I’m really excited to join the Quiet Speculation crew. My focus here each week is going to be on Modern and Legacy. I might also drop an article or two about Standard or Pioneer before Regional Championships and Pro Tours. With that in mind, I’m going to talk a bit about what makes Modern and Legacy my favorite formats and what I would play this weekend.
What Makes Modern Great
Modern and Legacy are both fairly open formats. I love that they give people the ability to express themselves in their deck and card choices. It’s neat that people get to express themselves so much in this game. This sentiment is a large part of what makes Commander so popular, I just happen to prefer sixty-card formats.
I love that the top decks have fairly even matchups against one another. In a lot of matchups, it feels like your individual card choices and play decisions matter much more than your archetype. Even though every deck has bad matchups, you can often construct your deck to combat them. Modern rewards you for knowing the metagame and how to beat the hate. However, metagame prediction is challenging because the format is usually pretty open and diverse.
It feels like those two are opposing ideas, but in the end, it really just means you get rewarded for following the format. I really appreciate that Modern readers the fans rather than those who only play occasionally. The complaint I hear the most about Modern is the prevalence of Modern Horizons cards. Most commonly, people call out Fury, Solitude, Urza's Saga, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and especially, Wrenn and Six.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Wrenn and Six
The manner in which the cards entered the format doesn't matter to me personally. All that matters to me is their effect on the games. Are these cards too strong? Maybe, I don't really think so though. They're also great answers to many complaints people used to have about Modern. I agree that there are a lot of cards in common between the archetypes. However, the decks play out differently enough to be interesting. Jund Saga and 4c are both decks with Wrenn and Six, Fury, and sometimes Ragavan, but they don't feel at all similar. Consider how Wrenn and Six functions in Scapeshift and compare it to Temur Grinding Breach, 4c Omnath, or Creativity. The same card fills different roles in the deck and feels unique in all of them.
The last common complaint I hear is that games of Modern are too short. People say they aren’t able to make meaningful decisions. While you make fewer decisions than in formats such as Legacy or Commander, you are still making them. In many ways, your decisions actually matter more since the games are so compressed. Questions such as, should you play a turn-one Ragavan on the draw against an opponent's possible Wrenn and Six make for exciting points of tension. One wrong choice can end the game! I'll end with this, Modern is the most popular 60-card format for a reason.
What Makes Legacy Great
That’s enough about Modern. Time for Legacy. People say all the time that the format is dead but that's just not true. Yes, I understand that it is no longer very relevant to paper Premier Play and it hurts. Thankfully, Legacy is still contributing to online Premier Play. It made sense to remove it from paper due to the rising financial barrier. Online, prices are much more manageable, especially with rental services. Also, Magic is first and foremost a game. Many of us have Pro Tour aspirations, but Legacy doesn't need to get there to be a fun experience.
Legacy is one of the most misunderstood formats in the game. People operate under the assumption you have to play blue to be successful and that's simply not true. It can certainly help, but players like John Ryan Hamilton, Newton Hwang, Julian Knab, and Albert Lindblom have made names for themselves among Legacy greats without casting Brainstorm.
Legacy games involve a lot of decisions. This really rewards you for having a good understanding of how games should play out. The decisions on a whole are less impactful than in a lot of other formats but you make many more of them over the course of a single game. You have a lot of agency over how the games play out because of the vast amount of card advantage and tutors in the format. It really feels like you have more opportunities to trap your opponent and craft these elaborate stories. There are definitely matchups that are lopsided such as Naya Depths vs Doomsday Combo, or Elves vs The Epic Storm, but they aren't the norm. It's possible to overcome a lot of bad matchups by understanding what the game is about better than your opponent.
What To Play This Weekend
Legacy
I've got a Legacy 5k and 10k to win this weekend so I thought I'd share where my head is currently at. Legacy has been fairly open since the last round of bannings. The two biggest winners seem to be Tundra decks and Artifact decks.
The Boogeymen
I expect Painter and 8cast to be among the most popular decks this weekend. Especially in paper as 8cast is one of the cheapest competitive decks in the format. I would highly recommend showing up with artifact hate in your sideboard this weekend. Cards like Serenity, Meltdown, Collector Ouphe, and Seeds of Innocence, all do wonders here but even cards such as Wear // Tear or Force of Vigor that aren’t exactly hammers can still be part of the plan.
As I mentioned, the Tundra decks are also looking really nice to me. Marcus Ewaldh aka iwouldliketorespond on Magic the Gathering: Online has been consistently putting up results with his UW Saga Deck, and Cephalid Breakfast also remains a strong choice.
At the end of the day it seems like maybe just having Urza's Saga in your deck is the best thing to be doing. If you don't want to play Saga I would also look at the 4c Zenith decks that have been tearing it up. Three copies in the top 8 of the Showcase Challenge is insane, not to mention Stefan Schutz aka MentalMisstep winning the Legacy Super Qualifier with it two weeks ago. The deck has the tools to out-grind the UW mages while also having some really hard-hitting bullets to tutor up vs artifacts, putting it in a great spot.
To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm playing, I will likely register Naya Depths. The matchup spread is similar to the Zenith decks and it is also just my favorite deck. I think Zenith is a better choice but my proficiency with Depths should make up the last few percentage points.
In Modern, Creativity and Rhinos have been everywhere lately. Jeskai Fair Breach has also been putting up some impressive results. It's pretty hard to go wrong with any of those decks. Between the three I would go with Creativity or Breach. Having access to Teferi, TIme Raveler and Spell Pierce seems really good right now. I would also look into playing Living End. Living End historically beats up on Rhinos and Creativity. If those are going to remain popular, it seems like a solid choice. I would make sure my Living End deck had copies of Subtlety to help combat the prominence of Teferi.
Anyway, I think it's time for me to go. Hopefully, you enjoyed this introductory article. Good luck if you're playing any Magic this weekend. I assume a lot of you will be at Prereleases so I hope you pull some sweet The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth cards. Maybe you'll even open The One Ring. I'll see you next week to discuss how my events went and the impact Tales of Middle-earth is having on our two favorite formats.
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For the first time, one of these Commander-centric special sets will be legal in Modern. Legacy players have enjoyed that perk since Wizards started releasing them, but younger formats had been immune. Companies like money, and Modern is far more popular than Legacy, so Wizards is clearly hoping to drive sales with this legality change. Not that they needed the help thanks to The OneOf One Ring promotion. That said, Wizards is hoping that these cards see Modern play. Will they?
Not Modern Horizons 3
The first thing to address is that contrary to some fears, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth is not Modern Horizons 3. It's not even close. There are a lot of interesting cards that aren't powerful enough for Modern, a few that are quite good, and at least one that will have an effect on Legacy. Otherwise, it's an incredibly flavorful set aimed at Commander. It's closer in power to a hypothetical Pioneer Horizons.
The Headline Mechanic
On that note, the headline mechanic is The Ring. This is perfectly on-theme, and I will say that the entire set is a massive flavor win for those like me who've read the books multiple times. The Ring is similar to both "venture into the dungeon" from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and the initiative mechanic from Battle for Baldur's Gate in that it creates an outside-of-the-game marker to keep track of.
The difference is that the previous mechanics happened independently of anything else, whereas The Ring is tied to creatures. (For the details on the mechanic, check out the Wizards article.) The fact that The Ring does nothing unless players have a Ring-bearer means that it is significantly weaker than initiative, which led to bannings in Legacy and Pauper. The question then becomes how it stands up to venture.
Middle (Earth) Mechanic
I noted in my article on dungeons years ago that incremental advantage is playable, and the rewards for moving through the dungeons are quite solid. The problem was how long it took to move through each dungeon, and that ultimately the enablers were too weak for constructed. Outside of Standard, the only venture card to see play is Acererak the Archlich as a finisher in Legacy Aluren.
The Ring is worse than venture in that getting any value out of the mechanic requires either attacking with the Ring-bearer or having a card that cares about temptation. So creature removal shuts down The Ring, unlike venture. However, the bonuses of The Ring are permanent and build over time, so all it takes is one bearer to survive to attack. The abilities are decent, with the third being best since it bypasses protection and indestructible.
I'd put both mechanics as decidedly mid, with The Ring being ahead of venture on useability and behind on flexibility. They're not terrible, but are a little clunky, and require jumping through hoops to pay off. It will come down to whether there are playable enablers. The Ring beats venture on that metric, so it's ahead though still really mid.
Repeatability Key
The biggest plus for The Ring is that there is a dedicated enabler whose only purpose is tempting Ring-bearers. Venture has nothing remotely close to Call of the Ring.
If a deck exists that wants to make sure it always has a bearer, Call will absolutely do the job. If venture had this, it'd be much closer to initiative. The issue is that Call does nothing on its own. Even when it does something, it's only on upkeep. That's a really big ask for Modern, especially for a mid mechanic like The Ring.
There are other ways to repeatedly trigger temptation with one card, but they're aimed at Commander. The only exception is our dear friend, Frodo Baggins, but there's an asterisk there, too.
In a legendaries-matters deck, Frodo would stand out were the intention to make the other legends Ring-bearer. Making Frodo carry the horrible thing is unlikely to end well. I have doubts as to the viability of such a deck, but if it is in fact viable, Frodo would be among friends.
The other cards require considerable hoops being jumped to get additional temptations. That said, I actually think that Sauron, the Dark Lord has a chance in Modern. Here temptation is rather incidental to the overall card, but when it all comes together, there's a big a payoff that never stops rolling. However, that's not the actual reason Sauron might see play.
No, the reason that Grixis decks might play Sauron is that ward condition. There are very few lengendaries that see regular play. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is the most common, and then it's Omnath, Locus of Creation and The Ozolith, both versions. Most decks won't be able to kill Sauron at all if it lands, and even then, the legendary sacrifice can be killed in response to the trigger.
The Incidentals
That said, temptation is treated similarly to cantrips and appear on a lot of cards, apparently randomly. Most of them aren't remotely playable, but one that will definitely see some play is Samwise the Stouthearted.
I've heard a lot of chatter about Samwise as a Project X-style combo piece like Saffi Eriksdotter. I don't know how it's going to work, but I'm certain that there will be plenty of players trying this combo and consequently Samwise will tempt plenty of players. Whether they'll actually need it is another matter. A combo deck normally doesn't attack.
Of all the other incidentals, I think that two might see play not on their merits but thanks to Izzet Prowess. Birthday Escape and Ranger's Firebrand could make it in Prowess, with Birthday far more likely than Firebrand.
Being one mana spells is a good start, but Prowess might actually want The Ring. The prowess creatures would like to be harder to block, and the whole deck does nothing but attack. There is the issue that creature removal is already good against Prowess. Escape and Firebrand are only playable if Prowess really wants to be tempted, so this does seem precarious. Escape being a cantrip makes it more likely since it can find better cards, but I'm skeptical.
Do Legends Matter?
The other big theme of LoTR is legendary matters. There are a ton of legendary creatures and even more cards that are improved by having a legendary creature. While this slant is, again, clearly targeted at Commander, there will be players trying to make legendary matters work in Modern. After all, we alltried back when Mox Amber was printed.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Mox Amber
The issue is that Amber has never really facilitated any kind of legends matter deck. Amber's seen plenty of play, but near exclusively as a function of Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Urza, Lord High Artificer. LoTR wants us to play legends in a beatdown role. I'm certain that many players will try to wield all the characters alongside Amber, but I'm skeptical it will work.
The problem is that it is necessary to play multiples to actually see the cards. However, duplicate legends are useless unless the opponent is killing them. Thus, legends matter decks have problems actually casting spells. Rona, Herald of Invasion could be employed to help, but she's not aggressive, which is what the LoTR legends are pushing towards.
The Last Hope
If there is anything to these hypothetical legendary matters decks in Modern, it will be thanks to one card from LoTR, Flowering of the White Tree. The extra point of power for legends is nothing compared to giving all of them ward.
Being legendary itself is surprisingly irrelevant, as all the cards that care about legends are looking for legendary creatures or artifacts in Sauron's case. That's probably a good thing since multiple Trees could quickly overwhelm any opponent. As it is, this will simply give the deck a push toward viability. It is certainly the card that caused the chattering about legends matters in the first place.
The secondary possibility is that legends matter pushes toward a value deck rather than beatdown. If that's the case, then the legends matter lands will be a critical piece.
Rivendell in particular provides desperately needed deck smoothing in what would otherwise be a fairly clunky deck. Great Hall of the Citadel is likely unnecessary in Modern, but I've been surprised by cards like this before.
Build Me a Worthy Army
The final major mechanic in LoTR is amass. This isn't a new mechanic and debuted in War of the Spark. There, it made Zombie armies, but this time it makes Orc armies. The mechanic is otherwise identical. Amass didn't do much in any format last time around, though that could be that it was simply overshadowed by planeswalkers then Throne of Eldraine. That isn't really the case this time.
That said, I wouldn't expect much from amass this time around either. Similarly to tempt, amass is often used like a cantrip add-on to otherwise underpowered spells. That's great for Limited but not usually good enough for constructed. For the most part, each instance of amass only makes a 1/1 Orc, which isn't a supported tribe and so the value is limited.
Shoot to Kill
The exception is Orcish Bowmasters. The actual card itself is quite desirable; amassing orcs is just gravy.
The dream with this card is to land it in response to Brainstorm, decimate the opponent's board, and be left with the Bowmasters and a 4/4 Orc Army. It's such an appealing thought that I suspect Bowmasters will upend Legacy for at least a few weeks. I doubt Legacy players will let this completely redefine the format, though.
Bowmasters faces a tougher road in Modern. Card drawing and cantrips are sparse here. Bowmasters is best against UR Murktide where it can snipe Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and trigger off Mishra's Bauble, Consider, and Ledger Shredder. No other deck has that kind of card drawing density, so I think Bowmasters is a niche sideboard card. Two 1/1s and a ping for two mana isn't worth a whole slot in most matchups.
An Upgrade
Finally, I'd be remiss to snub the one card in this set I'm definitely going to play. Reprieve is almost a strict upgrade on Goremand, a card that still sees play in Modern occasionally.
Unlike Goremand, Reprieve doesn't counter, so it gets around all those "can't be countered" clauses. The only reason I can't call it strictly better is that it's in a different color. Goremand has been said to be the closest thing in Modern to Time Walk, and I expect Reprieve to be no different. I will be testing this as an anti-control sideboard card in Humans. In the right metagame, it'd be mained.
Outside of that use, it is unclear how much play Reprieve will see. Were this legal in Pioneer, it'd be a maindeck all-star in a lot of decks I play. It's certainly no slouch in Modern, but leaving up mana is much riskier in this metagame than in Pioneer. Modern is and has always been tempo-centric, and falling behind is dangerous. Reprieve might end up being a good card in the wrong format.
Concluding the Tale
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth is an interesting and flavorful set that has a lot of cards that will shine in not-Modern. The actual pickups for Modern are fairly narrow and rely on other cards being played to be relevant. There are a lot of borderline cards in this set, and you never know what might actually make it. But first, there's plenty of metagame inertia to overcome.
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In today’s video, I’m stepping a bit out of my comfort zone to play an awesome new version of an established powerhouse in Pioneer: Lotus Combo. So far I've played one league with this deck on Magic: Online (finishing 3-2), and a four-round weekly at my local game store (LGS). I lost in the finals in a mirror match where my opponent outplayed me thanks to their better familiarity with the deck.
I'm still learning the deck and working to finish building it in paper, but I'm having a ton of fun playing. If you like heart-pounding games and piloting decks with a ton of decisions and a high ceiling this may be an amazing choice for you at your next RCQ.
Chandra, You're Our Only Hope
Chandra, Hope's Beacon is the new hotness for this deck. She allows you to play as few win conditions as possible, which as an Azorius Control player at heart I really appreciate. You may be looking at the deck and asking yourself "How in the world does this deck actually win?" The answer: looping Chandra, Hope's Beacons with Bala Ged Recoverys over and over until your opponent's life hits zero.
Let's assume that we already have two Lotus Fields in play. To combo off, we need at least two Bala Ged Recoverys and a Chandra, Hope's Beacon in our hand and/or graveyard.
Let's say we have all three in our hand. First, we play Chandra, Hope's Beacon followed by a Bala Ged Recovery. This triggers Chandra, Hope's Beacon's passive ability, which copies the first instant or sorcery we cast with her on the battlefield. It is important to note that it's the first instant or sorcery that we cast with her on the battlefield, not the first of the turn. If it only copied the first of the turn the combo wouldn't work.
With the first Bala Ged Recovery, we want to return something in our graveyard that untaps lands, typically a Hidden Strings or a Pore Over the Pages. That way we can untap our Lotus Field and continue our combo.
Ok, once we have a card that can untap our Lotus Fields, we can grab literally anything with our second copy. Next, we minus X for five on Chandra, Hope's Beacon's ultimate ability, targeting our opponent. Then we can cast the other Bala Ged Recovery in our hand to return Chandra, Hope's Beacon to hand.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Lotus Field
From there we just repeat the process until our opponent is dead and we win the game. Easy peasy, right? Maybe not, but I promise that once you see it in action you will get the idea quickly. The combo becomes even less convoluted when we get to cast Emergent Ultimatum.
Emergent Piles
The easiest path to victory is by having multiple Lotus Field's in play untapping them and casting Emergent Ultimatum. That's the simple part. The question then becomes what cards do we get after it resolves?
My Favorite Emergent Pile
The answer can be nuanced and contextual, but generally, the best pile is Chandra, Hope's Beacon, Behold the Beyond, and Omniscience. The reason is that no matter what they give us, we can typically win with only one untap effect. Say they give us Chandra, Hope's Beacon and Behold the Beyond—which is typical when you present these three cards, because who wants to make their opponent's spells free? Assuming they give us these two, we can put Behold the Beyond on the stack after Chandra, Hope's Beacon that way Chandra resolves last. Trust me, we don't want to copy Behold the Beyond.
From there we can get Hidden Strings, Pore Over the Pages, and Dark Petition. We Strings the Lotus Fields, cast Pore Over the Pages, and then depending on what we draw off of Pour, go get Bala Ged Recovery. Sometimes we can just grab Omniscience from the Dark Petition because we have so much mana. From there all our spells from hand are free.
Another Pile we can get is Chandra, Hope's Beacon, Behold the Beyond and Lier, Disciple of the Drowned. This is best when we have a graveyard stacked full of untap spells. It allows us to resolve Chandra, Hope's Beacon and Lier, Disciple of the Drowned and from there go off with all the Pore Over the Pages and/or Hidden Strings in our graveyard. Otherwise, we just go get our three best cards with Behold the Beyond and win from there.
Something to keep in mind is that if we play Lier and Omniscience, the cards we cast from the graveyard via Lier aren’t free. We must be mindful of that when making decisions based on Omniscience and Lier.
The amazing thing about this deck is that there are seemingly countless piles we can grab depending on the situation. The deck is extremely flexible on how it sets up wins. Even if the main board win condition is always looping Chandra, Hope's Beacon over and over again with Bala Ged Recovery.
Now that you know some of the lines and why I like this version of Lotus Combo it's time to go and watch the video! If you are anticipating a midrange meta full of Rakdos Mid and Fires at your next RCQ this is a great option that has game in many different scenarios! Go check out the gameplay video and don't forget to Like and Subscribe to the Quiet Speculation YouTube Channel!
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Last weekend something amazing happened: my son and I met up with a new friend and his brother, and the four of us enjoyed a couple of games of Commander! Not only that, but we also seemed to strike the perfect balance across our four decks in terms of power level—not one of our decks ran away with the game. It was beautiful, and I hope to meet up again soon to play some more.
This is important to me because I enjoy playing the format only when I can sleeve up some older, oddball cards for the kicks without getting run over in early turns. Some competitive Commander players tend to do this, but I was fortunate in that my friends were patient and played for fun as well.
Which oddball cards am I referring to? I thought you’d never ask! I currently have three Commander decks built, and this week I’ll share a few fun, lesser-known pet cards I include in them in order to spice up my games without doubling down on power level. Who knows? You may find something quirky enough to try yourself!
Deck 1: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir (mono blue) Deck 2: Judith, the Scourge Diva (black-red) Deck 3: Saheeli, the Gifted (blue red precon with some modifications)
Pet Commander Cards – Teferi
When I first discovered Commander, sometime around 2008, it was still referred to as Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH). My first build was a goofy one that championed Johan as general—it was more for the sake of having a Commander deck built than anything I took all that seriously.
The second deck I built was a mono-red deck that I didn’t really enjoy playing. It has since been taken apart, leaving my third Commander deck ever, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, as my oldest intact deck.
One-colored decks can lose their luster and replay value at times because they tend to be fairly one-dimensional. In order to keep things interesting, I’ve decided to keep some quirky cards sprinkled throughout the deck to create interesting (or, at least bizarre) in-game situations.
On top of the list is one of my favorites, Psychic Battle. Have you ever seen this card in play before? Before there was a battle card type, there was the OG battle! Personally, I think it’s criminally underplayed.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Psychic Battle
If you really wanted to exploit this card to the fullest, you could play cards like Soothsaying to manipulate the top of your library at instant speed. If you just want to insert a random mini-game into your Commander games, though, I wouldn’t bother. Just slam the card on the table and enjoy reminding your friends repeatedly about the card’s trigger. You’d be surprised how many times something is targeted in a single game!
While I’m on the theme of enchantments, I’ll throw in Precognition, Sunken Hope, and Shimmer as honorable mentions—all three are in my deck. Precognition gives you some control over what your opponents draw, Sunken Hope creates some interesting interactions with creatures that have "enters the battlefield" (ETB) effects, and Shimmer can really slow down one- or two-colored decks. It's also on the Reserved List and is worth a little bit as a result.
None of them help you much with winning, mind you, but I smile each time I cast them.
Shifting gears, I have two fun artifacts worth considering: Portcullis and Booby Trap. I include Portcullis in multiple Commander decks, and I still think it’s criminally underplayed. In multiplayer games especially, the card creates an interesting tension as players debate destroying the gate or leaving it there to earn more time stabilizing their game plan.
Booby Trap has never been a particularly good card, but it’s a card I remember trying to break in my childhood. Including it is a nod to that memory, but it also combos very well with Precognition!
Legerdemain is another worthwhile inclusion that lets you interfere with opponents’ game plans. Lastly, if you want a way of dealing with other players’ generals without obnoxiously countering them over and over again, you could try playing Ixidron, another one of my favorites.
I laugh each time my opponents inevitably ask, “How do I flip them back over?” I will answer sarcastically, “You pay their morph cost.” Until then, enjoy those 2/2 creatures!
Pet Commander Cards – Judith
This is my most recently built deck, and it’s the first and only deck I’ve ever built with a unified, synergistic strategy in mind. This is a sacrifice-themed deck, modeled after my favorite deck to play in Explorer on Arena. Witch's Oven, Cauldron Familiar, and Mayhem Devil all on the battlefield at once creates my “happy place”.
Because it’s more finely tuned, I don’t have as many pet cards within. Rest assured, however, that the couple I do have in the deck are really strange!
First, I’ll mention one of the strangest enchant worlds I’ve ever seen (and arguably one of the strangest accompanying arts to boot): Elkin Lair.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Elkin Lair
Have you ever seen this card before? It’s a red enchant world from Visions, and believe it or not, it is on the Reserved List! That’s right. We’ll never see this card reprinted again. A real tragedy.
I like this card because it forces action. Players have to play a random card from their hand each turn, or else that card is discarded. The card is particularly adept at neutralizing counterspells, and I always find its effect offbeat and interesting.
The other pet card I play in this deck is the sorcery Illicit Auction.
This card has exactly two printings: Mirage and Sixth Edition; it remains obscure and underappreciated. In a one-on-one match, I’m less excited about the card. Creating a bidding war amongst a pod of four players, however, can make for a fun subgame.
Pet Commander Cards – Saheeli
I acquired the Exquisite Invention Commander deck from a friend last year and decided to make it my third deck. As built, the list didn’t have any personal touches—this is one of my issues with preconstructed Commander decks. Without throwing in some quirky cards, they just don’t sufficiently reflect me as a player.
To save a few bucks, I ended up selling the most expensive cards from this precon and replaced them with less powerful, but (in my opinion) more interesting cards.
Right off the bat, I added Portcullis—it remains one of my favorites. After that, I went through my anemic trade binder and pulled out red and blue cards that looked at least remotely interesting.
For example, Jhoira, Ageless Innovator seems playable in a deck themed around artifacts, so why not give it a shot? I also had a copy of Chaos Dragon sitting in my binder, seeing no play whatsoever. The requirement to attack combined with the d20 roll to identify who can be attacked strikes a chord with my style. It’s akin to another mini-subgame dynamic within a broader match of Commander.
I opened a copy of Fire // Ice recently from a pack of Modern Horizons 2. Rather than wallow in frustration for opening a bulk rare in my $6 booster pack, I decided to make use of the card—what better place than a blue-red Commander deck? The same goes for Kairi, the Swirling Sky. I opened this mythic rare from a pack of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and decided to give it a shuffle in the deck. It’s basically a bulk mythic, so I might as well try playing it!
Last, but not least, I have one throwback card from when I was a casual player through and through. I remember reading about this card back in 2007 and getting really excited about it. My two closest friends (at the time) and I each cracked open a booster box of Planar Chaos the weekend the set came out, and when we each opened our copy of this card we considered it a win!
The card I refer to is none other than Torchling.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Torchling
It turned out this card was not in the same galaxy as its predecessor, Morphling, but that didn’t matter to us. The throwback of the card, the familiar artwork, and the iconic nature of the card all contributed to what we loved so much about Planar Chaos.
For the past few years, the card had been sitting in my trade binder—no one wants the card, it has no real value anymore, and it’s not good enough to see competitive play. I’m excited to give it a home again.
Wrapping It Up
If your number one goal is to win a game of Commander when you play, we probably won’t be evenly matched. My decks do things, and they can win, but they aren’t optimized to do so. Instead, I love to leverage Commander as the format that allows me to play quirky, off-the-beaten-path cards that resonate with me as a player. These usually aren’t great cards, but they're the ones I have the most fun playing with.
In all honesty, this is what attracted me to Magic as a game over 25 years ago. The fact that each player can find the style of gameplay that mirrors their personality most, and then build decks tailored to experience that style of gameplay, is one of the best characteristics of this game. It’s what got me excited about playing Magic back in 1997, and it is what continues to excite me about the Commander format in 2023.
Many Commander players take things to the next level and play a finely tuned deck geared to win quickly and definitively. Fortunately, this doesn’t define every Commander player, and I’m blessed to have found a new friend who is willing to play games for fun’s sake. Hopefully, we can battle again soon, because this could inspire me to build new quirky decks, giving me a reason to remain engaged in this hobby for years to come.
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The hobby gaming industry, and the greater collectibles world at large, have been eagerly awaiting the release of Ravensburger's Disney Lorcana, the first TCG making extensive use of Disney's characters and IP. But now, a surprise lawsuit threatens to hold up the game's release, carrying potential ramifications for the entire hobby gaming industry.
The Lawsuit
Attorneys for The Upper Deck Company (UDC) filed suit on Wednesday against Ravensburger North America, Inc. and designer Ryan Miller over the design of their forthcoming TCG, Disney Lorcana. In the suit, UDC alleges multiple charges, among them premeditated theft of the game's design on Miller's part—they claim Lorcana bears "uncanny similarities" to work Miller did as a freelance game designer on Upper Deck's previously unannounced game Rush of Ikorr. UDC also alleges that:
"Miller’s acts in pilfering the game design Upper Deck paid him to create and using those designs to develop a competing trading card game for a competitor were aided and encouraged by Ravensburger, who now seeks to profit from the stolen intellectual property."
What Is Lorcana?
Revealed at Disney's D23 fan convention in 2022 and slated for a September 1st, 2023 release, Disney Lorcana is one of the most anticipated game releases of 2023. The use of Disney characters and other brand IP gives Disney Lorcana broad, mass appeal, with the potential to disrupt the status quo of the trading card game market. Limited edition six-card collectors sets of Disney Lorcana cards sold out on release at D23 and now have secondary market prices on sites like eBay in the tens of thousands of dollars.
What Upper Deck Wants
In its prayer for relief, the lawsuit by UDC seeks general, special, and punitive damages, legal fees, and other relief including those as seen fit by the courts. The most important among these requests for relief, from a market perspective, is the request for "injunctive relief enjoining Ravensburger from publicly releasing Lorcana."
Why It Matters
Such an injunction, if granted, could cause disruptions up and down the market supply chain, especially for any retailers or distributors who may have already submitted preorders for product in anticipation of an August 18th soft release in hobby stores. Tying up money that could be spent on other products is not what any retailer on a narrow budget wants to find themselves doing.
It's also important to consider the potential business lost not just by Ravensburger, but by the gaming hobby industry as a whole. Disney Lorcana has the potential to draw swaths of new collectors and players into the hobby gaming market on the strength of their connection to the Disney IP alone: the recognizability of Disney names and characters could provide the kind of pull Magic, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! can't even dream of having. That's potentially thousands of new customers who might not have ever set foot in a hobby gaming store before.
A Developing Story
This is a developing story, and we will update it as new info becomes available in the coming days. Quiet Speculation has reached out to Ravensburger for comment but has yet to hear a reply.
In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the lawsuit? Are you excited about Disney Lorcana? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.
Updates
On June 9th Ravensburger North America's Twitter account had the following responses:
In the meantime our focus continues to be on developing and launching a fantastic game in August.
— Ravensburger North America (@RavensburgerNA) June 9, 2023
A full PDF of the Upper Deck court filing is below.
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As Draft formats go, March of the Machine (MOM) is considered by some to be the GOAT. Despite being labeled a Prince Format, it offers depth and gameplay. Initially, this format was defined by its bombs, but evolved into a complex and deep environment with plenty of niche decks and new archetypes that seemed to emerge on a weekly basis.
Because of the Multiverse Legend and Battle slots, each pack was loaded with power. The fears about power levels, however, eventually dissipated. With so many build-arounds, drafters tinkered to their heart's content.
This week, we'll put a bow on our MOM coverage in traditional manner, and review the format with rankings and awards.
Archetype Power Rankings
UB Value - The format's most potent combination held a smorgasbord of value plays. The blue commons are exceptionally deep. Both Halo Forager and Invasion of Amonkhet // Lazotep Convert play like rares. Card draw and removal is a timeless combination, but it gets a leg-up in a slower format dominated by additional rares and uncommons from the Battle and Multiverse Legends slots in each pack. When games go long, players amass lands and find their bombs.
UW Tempo - While UW Knights was probably the best version of this deck, Hopper Aggro was also a force to be reckoned with. These decks leveraged aggressive starts and discounts on convoke cards to out-tempo the slower, multi-colored decks in the format.
RB Sacrifice - MOM offered one of the most interesting versions of this archetype in recent memory. It certainly could play a more aggressive gameplan, but it also lent itself well to a slower, more value-oriented approach. This made drafting the deck a more nuanced experience, but also provided options like splashing a third color off of treasure, or even just leaning into powerful three-color options.
Blighted Burgeoning Green - The impact of extra rares and softened aggro was felt most prominently in the success of this archetype. This format offered a cycle of common dual lands, land cyclers, and both green and colorless fixing. If we are able to collect those pieces and enough powerful payoffs to make it worthwhile, then this deck had the potential to drag opponents through the mud.
GW and RW Aggro - Both of these decks were dependent on their signpost uncommons, but when able to get multiple copies of Botanical Brawler or Mirror-Shield Hoplite, their power was insurmountable. GW had a little more depth in the form of uncommon payoffs, while RW leveraged aggression better.
Brews - This format provided opportunities to brew. Whether combining Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart and Tiller of Flesh to grind out opponents with removal or pairing backup creatures and Trailblazing Historian with Horobi, Death's Wail, players could approach the format with creativity. While these decks didn't come together often, they were plenty powerful.
Abzan Phyrexians - The Abzan colors had powerful cards, but struggled to generate potent engines. Still, with strong one-for-one removal and the right threats, these decks could get there.
Color Rankings
Blue - Blue felt similar to red in Phyrexia: All Will Be One (ONE). It wasn't as aggressive, but it was just as deep. Any deck that was mostly comprised of blue cards was fine. Blue's flexibility was a defining characteristic. It played an aggressive tempo-based game, as well as being a dominant card advantage color.
Black - Removal, removal, removal. This color answered the rares in the format better than any other. Deadly Derision and Final Flourish were two of the formats best answers. Unseal the Necropolis provided a great way to grind out games.
White - There's a steep drop off after black. I have white ranked slightly higher than green on personal preference. It was the most aggressive color, and cards like Aerial Boost and Bola Slinger proved easy-to-get, potent role players in aggressive strategies.
Green - My least favorite color in the format still deserves some credit for being the best splash enabler.
Red - There was a lot of play to red in this format. Volcanic Spite is universally strong, but many of the commons shift in value in different archetypes. Ral's Reinforcements can range from excellent role-player to sub-par two drop in the wrong deck. Beamtown Beatstick and Wrenn's Resolve have a similar tension to them. Either way, red had some cards that truly did flop. Thrashing Frontliner, Searing Barb, and Pyretic Prankster // Glistening Goremonger in particular did not live up to expectations.
Preening Champion is a silly card. We start off with a Wind Drake, throw in a 1/1 that can actually fix our mana through convoke, and slot it into the most supported creature type: Knights. Because of cards like Artistic Refusal and Halo Hopper, the bird was even better than presumed.
This card was probably the only common in the format I was genuinely happy to first-pick. While many commons performed well, and the overall card quality in the set is high, Preening Champion stood alone at the top of the mountain.
The Gust Walker Trophy
Awarded each set to the format's best common two-drop, I personally consider The Gustwalker Trophy our most prestigious award. Yet MOM had no obvious taker. My first consideration were the three flip creatures. I predicted they would be top commons in their colors, but all three of them fell flat.
Swordsworn Cavalier is the most threatening two-drop in the format. When supported with knights, it can seem unblockable in the early game. Paired with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, it actually is. And it's the only card in the format that synergizes with Kwende, Pride of Femeref. However, its nomination was denounced, as its credentials are a little too narrow. Similarly, Ral's Reinforcements is very strong in some decks. Again, though, its overall power level was a little too low, and in many decks it felt out of place.
The truth is, gameplay in MOM is not really about the common two-drops. In fact, the best two-drops are cards that trade with more relavant cards. Saiba Cryptomancer boasts the highest GIH WR%, while Nezumi Informant has the format's best IWD. This basically tells us that it's more important that a two-drop trades with a card (via discard or countering a removal spell). Emotionally speaking, I feel as though this fails to live up to the spirit of the award. However, I would not be honoring the legacy of Gust Walker by ignoring the results.
Ultimately, the award goes to Saiba Cryptomancer. While it's a little bit more finicky than Nezumi Informant, its versatility as blue's best combat trick and a counterspell that leaves behind material makes it one of the more frustrating cards to play against.
The Scourge of the Format
Most of the groan-inducing cards in this format are rare. I'm not sure this format had a true scourge. Rares like Boon-Bringer Valkyrie, Chrome Host Seedshark and Sunfall might be more deserving of this award. But complaining about rares? What are we, the internet?
So the winner of the award goes to one of UB's premium uncommons. It's one of the best battles, and it's in the best colors.
Sometimes you get got by the discard. Sometimes the card advantage swing is gamebreaking. And sometimes the feel of searching through both players' graveyards and finding multiple targets you can't beat is what hurts us most. When opponents flip this card, it's either bad or really bad. There are so many targets that get even scarier as 4/4s.
This card doesn't play like a Hazardous Blast which just wrecks games. But this format didn't really have cards like that. In MOM, games played out as slugfests, and this card, which might just be the best uncommon, was one of the strongest punches.
Common Removal Power Rankings
Deadly Derision - Kill anything and make a treasure. Instant-speed Grim Bounty is a great way to deal with the format's biggest threats and the treasure could help ramp or splash. Answers don't usually put you ahead, but this one could.
Volcanic Spite - Basically a better Fire Prophecy. I thought hitting battles would be a bigger deal. Still, it's a great piece of interaction that helps develop our hand.
Final Flourish - Cheap interaction that can scale to hit bigger threats. Sacrificing a real card is a cost, though. We want to build with this card in mind to get full value, but for decks that did, this might be the best card on the list.
Temporal Cleansing - Bounce may not be removal, but Time Ebb certainly is. The convoke cards overperformed, and being able to double spell with this card was exactly how the tempo decks wanted to close out games.
Cosmic Hunger - Instant-speed two-mana fight spell is a good way to leverage a big board.
Realmbreaker's Grasp - While this format had plenty of ways to punish Pacifism effects, this was still the better white removal spell because of how good it is against blockers. White was the format's most aggressive color. Grasp capitalized on that.
Cut Short - White has the flexibility to play defensively. When it does, this is a great option.
Vanquish the Weak - I've won way too many games by casting Zhalfirin Shapecraft in response to Vanquish. This card frequently trades down on mana and can be clunky to hold up. Not a huge fan, but I play it more often than I'd like to admit.
Shatter the Source - I really want to like this card, but at six mana, even with convoke, it was often awkward. It plays well with Aegar, the Freezing Flame, but why bother?
Stasis Field - This card overperformed in the closing weeks of the format. As blue value decks became contested, this was a decent late pick that did most of the job.
The Myron Larabee Award
Named after Jingle All the Way's iconic antagonist, played by the incomparable Sinbad, this award goes to the card that makes us feel smarter than we actually are. Typically this card looks great in good situations, but more often than not ends up disappointing. The winner of this award was a card that demanded way too much work, despite promising an incredible upside.
I love a good Bone Splinters, and this card promised to be that and more. Putting counters on a team of Phyrexians seems like a worthy pay off as well, and when it works, this card really can dominate a game. But more often than not, this card is a removal spell that's too expensive, and a bull's eye attacks never quite hit. Sacrificing a resource to get value off of it entering the battle, and then sacrificing more resources to attack it down to zero, left very little material to "go wide" with.
However, in games where you can sacrifice Ichor Drinker to destroy a bomb, and then attack it down with an Attentive Skywarden, you will feel like a complete genius. You get the best tan flying a bit too close to the sun.
Final Words and Format Rating
This format was praised from all corners of the internet. It certainly had some great qualities. MOM had a depth of archetypes and a number of powerful build-arounds. It led to some complicated game states and between convoke and flip cards, players often had a ton of options. Building around uncommons properly made them feel like rares.
Power was the calling card of the format. Many decks would boast five or six rares as they stormed the trophy room. For me, however, that was a knock against MOM. Often times our curves would start, in earnest, at three. I found the biggest problem to be the lack of a consistent aggressive presence, primarily in red, which ended up the weakest color. Without aggression, the bomb-ing felt a little out of control. This led to more controlling, card-advantage-based games, which in Limited can be a litmus test of a deck's power level.
Now, by no means do I think these criticisms erase all the excitement. I enjoyed playing the format quite a bit. Personally, I prefer more aggressive gameplay. Trying to calculate lethal over multiple turns was one aspect of the format, but felt relegated to a second-tier strategy.
Overall, I'd give the format a B-. MOM's strengths come in the form of interesting archetypes and unique deck-building. The gameplay was impressive, though I prefer formats that lean a little more aggressive. Still, this is no doubt an excellent format with a ton of replay value. I enjoyed playing it, but am looking forward to switching gears as we enter the Shire in Magic's next set.
The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle Earth Early Access
Next week, I'll be previewing the new set, The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle Earth (LOTR). For the first time ever, the good people at Wizards of the Coast have granted me entry to the early access event. To get a jump on the competition and an early glimpse of the format, join me on Twitch at merman_munster to see what this new set has in store. The event starts Thursday, 6/15 at 1:00 EST. Thanks for the support from all my readers, who have helped to push me through this exciting milestone. See you then!
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May's data overall looks fairly similar to April's, continuing the trend from March. There's been no major shakeup in Modern's metagame's composition, though many decks have exchanged places on the list. That is a worrying cherry atop a pile of worrying data. Modern is trending towards concentration, perhaps even stagnation.
The Pattern Repeats
As in April, Murktide has fallen from the top position it occupied for over a year. However, once again, that doesn't tell the full story. Murktide steadily rose up the charts after being down at the end of week one to almost reclaim the top position. I don't know why it fell off, but the past two months have aptly demonstrated the comeback power that propelled Murktide to the top in the first place.
Of course, Murktide didn't actually completely come back in May, though the paper gap is so narrow as to be statistically meaningless. This was entirely thanks to late-month explosions by the top-placed decks. As I mentioned in the data article, Rhinos beat Murktide in paper thanks to a single event. Rakdos Scam winning Magic Online(MTGO) was the result of an entire weekend of Challenge dominance.
This kind of fluctuation is very common, so there's nothing to read into here. What it happened to is interesting. Scam is the most volatile (consistently) Tier 1 deck on MTGO, regularly seeing swings of 3% or more each month. There may be nothing to this latest surge, but it could also point to a change of fortune. Rhinos has been on a strong upward trend since January in paper, so this is just a culmination.
Impressive Result
I'd be remiss at this point not to specifically mention Murktide's position on the average power tiers. For most of its run as Modern's top deck, Murktide placed near Baseline. Not usually right on it, but a bit above or below was typical. It helped feed the narrative that Murktide wasn't that impressive of a deck, but was just really popular.
However, the drop in popularity coupled with improved average stats undermines that narrative. It suggests that the weaker players have finally moved on from Murktide and are no longer dragging down its stats. Popular decks will necessarily have a worse win/loss record than they "should" have due to weak players picking up the "best deck" for easy wins.
Now that they're gone, the stats will be more reflective of the good Murktide players. Murktide is therefore unlikely to be the top deck by the same margins but should instead have a better win/loss record. The next month's data will prove or disprove this hypothesis.
The Wider Picture
On that note, the overall picture of the metagame is changing. As I noted back in March, Modern's metagame has been getting concentrated around a small number of effects. In April, I noted that Modern is concentrating around a small number of decks in a way that it hadn't done since the early days. This continues to be the case, but the waters are muddier.
Thanks (I suspect) to Living End's huge push on MTGO and Amulet Titan always putting up numbers in paper, the 5-Deck Concentration ratios fell in May. MTGO had a concentration of 49.63% in April which fell to 39.08 in May.
Overall concentration fell, but all the decks a coalescing.
Paper's ratio also fell, but not dramatically. In purely statistical terms, it really didn't fall thanks to error margins. April's ratio was 38.85 and May's was 38.37.
Statistically, with no change in concentration, the losses balance the gains.
On that basis, one might conclude that Modern is moving away from concentration toward a more competitive field. One might be right, but one could also be wrong. There's more to the situation than these numbers indicate.
Uneven Distribution
The way competitive Magic data works, Tier 1 will always represent more of the results percentagewise than the other tiers. The data is always going to be extremely skewed, with most of the results concentrated on the high end. The distribution looks like a smashed raindrop with a long tail. Somewhere between 25%-60% of all the unique decks are singletons every month. The tiers are drawn from only the top quartile of decks.
Thus, when I note how large a percent of the results Tier 1 takes up, that's not really news. It's like that for every format and across time. The concern is whether there's still room for Tiers 2 and 3 to survive, compete and thrive. When the format is less concentrated, results are more evenly distributed and the format is more competitive, which is good and healthy. Highly concentrated formats are solved and stagnated.
A Worrying Trend
My April article on Murktide noted that Modern's concentration looks more like pre-2016 Modern than recent years. This was done on the basis of concentration ratios because I don't have a way to compare the tier composition over the years. I wasn't doing the data for most of those years and therefore can't assign tier-rankings. The statistical method I'm using doesn't work for just percentage numbers.
However, when we look at what's happening in the data I have collected about Tier 1's concentration, a worrying trend is emerging.
The black line is the most important one.
Since Yorion, Sky Nomad was banned and our current metagame was initialized, there's been a steady and strong upward trend for Tier 1's metagame percentage. I'm focusing on population because it's the important one in this discussion, but power's metagame has the same trend. This overall increase in Tier 1's representation is primarily at the expense of Tier 2.
The metagame is zero-sum; as Tier 1 takes up more space, there's necessarily less room for anything else. This indicates that the ability of other decks to win is decreasing. Decreasing diversity means the metagame is solved, and players generally hate solved metagames and stop playing. Modern isn't there yet, but the trend is worrying.
Confounding Variable
One thing to note about the fall off from March is that the size of the data set is a factor. March was the largest dataset I've ever worked with, and was also when concentration was highest. The fall off in April's population was accompanied by the fall in concentration. The two events may or may not be linked. That May was smaller than April and more concentrated is a point for not, but there's no way to be certain. There's too much that goes into tournament participation and event reporting to be definitive.
Elsewhere in Modern
In other news, after spending most of the past few years in Modern's basement, Tron has made it back to Tier 1 on MTGO and Tier 2 in paper. It's been through some tweaks to help its competitiveness, but overall Tron remains Tron. Arguably the least-changed deck in Modern's history is still alive and kicking. Time to remember this and be prepared.
Tron is back this month largely thanks to 4-Color Creativity. While it has all the trappings of a Aeronaut Tinkerer-style combo deck, Creativity mostly plays like a midrange deck. Tron has always been the deck for eating midrange, and Creativity is no exception. Creativity doesn't play many counters and fewer still that Tron cares about, and can't reliably disrupt Tron's lands. That's a great way to lose.
Whether this will continue remains to be seen. There's plenty of Tron hate available to all decks these days, so there's no excuse for just losing to Tron anymore. The question is whether or not players will adjust and plan for this problem.
The Classic Foil
This also might explain why Counter-Cat has seen a resurgence in May after falling in April. Big, chunky threats backed up by counters has always been a great strategy against Tinker decks and also Tron. The fact that Territorial Kavu resists the most common removal and can ensure Unholy Heat can't kill it is gravy. Again, this might be a blip or an actual metagame shift. Time will tell.
Financial Corner
As per tradition, it's time to gaze into the crystal ball to see if any of these shifts will impact the card sale market. As the metagame is remaining relatively stable and the competitive focus is on Pioneer, I would expect the Modern market to be in a downward trend. Non-Pioneer staples are in less demand right now and show slight price decreases. Pioneer staples have some upward pressure, but it doesn't seem strong.
Thus, I continue to forecast a buyers' market. Players are looking for the best deals in a colder market and stocking up ahead of the Modern RCQ season later this year. I'd look to Pioneer for making a quick buck and investing in Modern for the longer haul.
New Set Bounce
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth will be releasing in the next few weeks, which will be the first time a set like this is coming to Modern as well as Legacy. While there is potential for some cards to find homes in Modern, I'm not convinced that there's anything metagame-shaking. I'll be going into this more next week, but the set's power level is more appropriate for Pioneer than Modern.
For those looking to sell sealed product, there should be huge demand initially. If the allure of finding the one The One Ring isn't enough to drive sales, the flavor and art of the set will. Never mind how powerful the pull of The Lord of the Rings is in general. The new cards should sell well initially, but I wouldn't expect them to drive sales of existing cards.
Stability Reigns
There's nothing wrong with a more stable metagame. Modern spent years constantly and violently churning, so it's nice to have a breather. However, the concern I have is that Modern is moving towards high concentration, and that sounds suspiciously like it's been solved. That's a poor omen, and we'll be watching.
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Stern Scolding, from the upcoming expansion The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, is primed to become Modern's next Fatal Push. No, it won't outright replace one-mana removal spells, but it may have a lasting effect on which creatures are favored by deckbuilders. That's what Push did, for the reason that when it was printed, the card lined up so well against most of the format's top threats (then hitting 86% of the format's top 50 creatures according to MTGGoldfish, compared with the gold standard Lightning Bolt's 78%).
Scolding boasts a similarly impressive "matchup" against the current top 50, a list that has by now long since warped around Push. Going forward, either the top 50 list will adjust around Scolding as players prioritize creatures that skirt its condition, or Scolding will immediately become and then remain a very solid pick in the format for the decks that want it.
We're likely to see a combination of these outcomes, but things will definitely lean in the latter direction. Modern is just too efficient for players to swear off "creature spells with power or toughness 2 or less," just as it couldn't up and start favoring five-drops when Push was announced.
Today, we'll consider the removal-counterspell conundrum, weigh the question of tempo, and assess the top 50 to measure just how good Stern Scolding looks to be in Modern.
Wherever, Whenever: The Joy of Removal
We can't really compare Push and Scolding without first unpacking the differences between removal and counterspells. While the two can fill similar roles in Limited decks, they tend to perform distinct functions in Constructed, where players can pick the best cards for each task. That's why Push isn't at risk of being replaced by Scolding.
Removal's chief benefit is that it enjoys a wide casting window. You can tap out for a threat, and opponents can tap out for theirs, and you can untap and Push whatever they've cast. Or you can topdeck Push for that nefarious, growing Ledger Shredder and claw your way right back into a game. That's many situations, and turns, where removal can be cast to deal with a given threat. By contrast, any blue mage can tell you how useless Counterspell feels while behind on the board; it does nothing to a resolved permanent.
But the most devastating use for this wide window is disrupting on-board combinations of game pieces. Pushing at the right time yields a two-for-one, as opponents lose both their creature and the pump spell that targets it. It can also blow out double blocks. The prevalence of removal in competitive Magic is the reason "auras are bad."
No Means No: Don't Count Out Counters
While black was imagined as the color that "kills" creatures, blue prefers to stop them from materializing altogether. Indeed, while red can damage creatures to death, green fights them, and white also gets destroy in addition to exile effects, only blue consistently "counters" threats. Doing so has its pros and cons.
Compared with removal, counterspells suffer from a narrow casting window. Players must cast their counterspell while the target spell is being cast. Once it's left the stack, the window has closed. This strike against permission is the main reason removal will always have a place in Magic.
It's mostly upside from there. Preventing a creature from resolving means the entire spell is undone. The creature in question doesn't get a chance to activate its abilities before priority is passed, nor does it trigger any enters-the-battlefield abilities.
Involving Tempo
Black wasn't doomed from the get-go to toil and moan in the face of enters-the-battlefield triggers. Targeted discard like Thoughtseize lets the color snipe threats before they resolve and "cast their spells." But discard has its own problem: it comes with a baked-in tempo loss.
You spend one mana to trade your Thoughtseize for their Stoneforge Mystic. A totally reasonable trade, and one you're likely happy about. But the exchange still cost you something, and your opponent nothing. Or you could Counterspell the Mystic instead. Now it's a tempo wash; your two mana for theirs.
Believe it or not, there used to be a popular way to come out ahead on tempo in this sort of exchange:
All my old heads remember the great feeling of Snaring the Mystic, or an Arcbound Ravager (once upon a time), or of course Tarmogoyf. Now imagine Snaring the Grief, or a Risen Reef, or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. Imagine Super-Snare. I've long fantasized about a "Spell Pierce for creatures" to experience just that.
Snare fell out of favor pretty much the moment Push was printed. The black spell offers the same tempo-positive trade without the strict window or stringent requirement. We'll see now that Scolding is much more flexible, interacting with a huge swath of Modern's top creatures. Like Snare, it does so in a decisive way removal spells cannot hope to. But the tempo gains possible often trump Snare's +1, leaning more in the direction of Pierce's +2-3.
Well, since Fatal Push redefined Modern, the format's top creatures have warped to account for every part of the card: its restrictions, but also its limitations as a piece of removal. To wit, today's best creatures are expecting removal, but not permission.
We'll start the list by omitting a few special cases.
Weirdos (7): The six Living End creatures, which are not to be cast nor interacted with through conventional means, are Street Wraith, Foundation Breaker, Curator of Mysteries, Striped Riverwinder, Architects of Will, and Waker of Waves. And then there's Orvar, the All-Form, which is not meant to be cast or put onto the battlefield.
Immunity (9): Here are the nine exceptional creatures who completely sidestep both Push and Scolding: cost-reducers Fury and Murktide Regent; Indomitable Creativity combo payoffs Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Archon of Cruelty; Tron payoffs Sundering Titan, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Kozilek, Butcher of Truths; five-drop fatties Jegantha, the Wellspring, a freebie companion, and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, which as far as I can tell is largely played because it's a floodgate immune to pretty much every played removal spell.
That's 16 creatures more or less disqualified from our exercise, leaving 34. Why so many out? My take is that in the wake of efficient removal spells like Push, Prismatic Ending, and Leyline Binding, the format has become more spell-centric in general. (Spell Pierce, a card barely playable back when Push was printed, is now the 5th-most popular card in the format, with the creature-inclusive Counterspell scraping by at number 50 on the days it even makes the list; big bro was notably absent when I checked yesterday).
Creatures, too, have become more like spells, a shift that allows them to beat all that great removal by leaving value behind when they're sniped. This transition makes Scolding uniquely positioned to exploit the Push-aware environment it's arriving in. Let's assess how today's top creatures line up against Fatal Push and other removal spells.
Clean trades (7/34): Of the remaining 34 creatures, only seven of them trade cleanly with Fatal Push (or any other removal spell).
They are Giver of Runes, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Dauthi Voidwalker, Soulless Jailer, Drannith Magistrate, Ornithopter, and Memnite. Giver, Ragavan, and Dauthi are must-answers for most interactive decks; the other two-drops are sideboard bullets, and not part of any specific strategy. The artifacts are throwaway bodies you'd hope to never Push, in part because they cost less than one mana and thus render the instant a parity loss. All seven can be Scolded.
Semi-clean trades (7/34): These more or less trade cleanly with Push, but extracting a bit of value from each before opponents get priority is possible. It's therefore better to counter them, but not necessarily by much.
Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ledger Shredder (who can lock in surveils or loots before being targeted)
Bad trades (18/34): Here's where things get interesting. Most remaining creatures will die to Fatal Push, but leave something behind in their wake. Often, the body is just a formality; most of the card's value lies in its "front half."
While coughing up Doom Blade money to murder Sentinel is worlds less painful than being Hymned by Tourach, a bad trade is just that all the same. Scolding shares bad trades with Push for two creatures, Borrower (which casts its front half through either interactive spell) and Agent (who gets the cascade regardless what happens to its 2/2 body). Any Modern dabbler will be quick to assert that the rest are best countered.
However, Scolding trades cleanly with all but five of the 32 creatures mentioned so far: Endurance, Subtlety, Sheoldred, Kroxa, and Omnath. Its "2 or less" condition is thus not much more limiting than Push's "4 or less." Nor is it strictly worse in terms of coverage, as Scolding itself trades cleanly with a couple of staples who boast total immunity to Fatal Push (numbers 33 and 34): Solitude and Sanctifier en-Vec.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Solitude
Again, though, coverage is but one of two questions, the other being effectiveness. The bulk of Modern's playable creatures owe that status to the value they provide through removal. The one-mana Scolding, being a counter and not removal, ignores this consideration and stops them in their tracks.
Coverage
Push (revolt) hits 64% of the top 50
Scolding hits 56% of the top 50
Takeaway: Scolding's range among the top 50 is 88% that of Push's (56/64)
Effectiveness
Push (revolt) trades cleanly with 14% of the top 50 (14/64 = 22% of its range)
Scolding trades cleanly with 52% of the top 50 (52/56 = 93% of its range)
Takeaway: Scolding is fully effective over four times as often as Push (trading cleanly with 93% vs. 22%)
Naturally, both spells have their pros and cons. But establishing effectiveness within the range of a removal spell, or how completely it answers what it hits, is key to understanding Scolding's power relative to that of existing interactive options. To reiterate each above takeaway, Push interacts in some capacity with 12% more of the top 50, while Scolding provides a fully effective answer over four times as often.
Bonus: Unholy Heat
I chose Push for this comparison for two reasons. First, I'd call Push's arrival to Modern the biggest-ever upheaval in terms of benchmark creature playability, and feel the card represents the format's shift towards normalized efficient kill spells and creatures that somewhat withstand them. It's exactly this shift that positions Scolding so well against today's top creatures.
Second, I felt Push was the least conditional one-mana removal spell in the format; it can be cast as of the first turn, and revolt remains easily accessible throughout the game thanks to fetch lands. In this way, it's similar to Scolding, which asks nothing of the caster and costs just one mana. The same cannot be said of other one-mana options like Binding, which requires domain, and Unholy Heat, which needs delirium; both conditions demand additional setup.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Unholy Heat
I'll still grant that Heat would also be a fine contender for the comparison. It too asks one mana to conditionally interact with many Modern creatures, all while promising tempo swings under the right circumstances. The difference? Assuming delirium, Heat removes four more creatures than Push at the "bad trade" rate: Fury, Jegantha, the Wellspring, Archon of Cruelty, and Solitude. Do keep in mind that its higher hit rate is tied to delirium, which is a good deal harder to achieve than revolt.
Heat (delirium) hits 72% of the top 50
Heat (delirium) trades cleanly with 14% of the top 50 (14/72 = 19% of its range)
These minor differences don't diffuse the reality that Modern's creatures possess a built-in resilience to removal that Scolding happily ignores.
Return of the King
We've lived with that understanding of premier creatures for long enough that it's become second nature; we are used to an opponent's kicked Tourach, Dread Cantor having a huge effect we can't stop for one mana, and taking a minor L in Pushing its 4/3 frame after it rips our cards. This isn't Legacy, where reigning king blue has access to tempo-positive powerhouses like Daze. Until now, breaking even on cards and going up on tempo against creatures like Tourach has always been a lot less achievable in Modern.
I pity the fools...
As such, while I expect Scolding to make a splash results-wise, I bet it will also wow players anecdotally. We take the card for granted now, but Fatal Push wowed us, too: I still remember that sinking feeling I got the first time my 3/4 was executed for a single black mana. Back then, Goyf was public enemy #1. Which filthy hobbitses are you most excited to Scold?
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As regular as the inexorable advance of time, the Modern Metagame Update is here. Modern is on a bit of a downswing in May, thanks to the RCQ season being Pioneer. Again. Hopefully this fall's Modern RCQ season will see more interest and with that more data.
Here We Are Again
As has become normal in these Updates, we have statistical outliers in both datasets. However, as April established, they've changed in both scale and form from the previous normal. It used to be that UR Murktide outstripped everything else by such a wide margin that outliers were obvious, but the metagame has coalesced, and more decks are in the running.
Magic Online (MTGO) has three outliers in May: Rakdos Scam, 4-Color Creativity, and UR Murktide. As in April, the tests didn't agree with each other, but it wasn't as bad as last time. All the tests agreed that Scam was an outlier and Creativity and Murktide were right at the line. Some put only Creativity over, some had both. I have both as outliers so I can put more decks on the tier list, which is now my policy.
As for the paper results, Temur Rhinos and Murktide are the outliers this time. Both were firmly placed as oultiers by the Interquartile Range (IQR) tests, but the z-Score tests only had Rhinos, and not by much. Again, as long as one test puts a deck as an outlier, I'll count it, but even if they had to agree, the difference between the decks is so small I'd have included Murktide anyway.
As always, outliers are removed from the tier calculations, resulting in adjusted averages and standard deviations (STDevs). The decks remain in their correct place on the tier list.
May Population Metagame
To make the tier list, a given deck has to beat the overall average population for the month. The average is my estimate for how many results a given deck "should” produce in a given month. Being a tiered deck requires being better than “good enough.” Every deck that posts at least the average number of results is "good enough" and makes the tier list.
Then we go one standard deviation (STdev) above average to set the limit of Tier 3 and the cutoff for Tier 2. This mathematically defines Tier 3 as those decks clustered near the average. Tier 2 goes from the cutoff to the next standard deviation. These are decks that perform well above average. Tier 1 consists of those decks at least two standard deviations above the mean result, encompassing the truly exceptional performing decks.
The MTGO data nearly exclusively comes from official Preliminary and Challenge results. Leagues are excluded, as they are curated lists and thus invalid. The paper data comes from any sourceI can find, with all reported events being counted.
The MTGO Population Data
In May, the adjusted average population for MTGO was 7.19, setting the Tier 3 cutoff at seven decks. I always round down if the decimal is less than .20. Tier 3, therefore, begins with decks posting seven results. The adjusted STdev was 11.20, so add 12 and that means Tier 3 runs to 19 results. Again, it's the starting point to the cutoff, then the next whole number for the next Tier. Therefore Tier 2 starts with 20 results and runs to 32. Subsequently, to make Tier 1, 33 decks are required.
May continues the population trend from April, and was in fact far worse. January 2023 had 840 decks, February had 876, and March had a staggering 1,003 decks, April fell to 949 decks and May has plummeted to 770 decks, the lowest point of 2023. There weren't many big Preliminaries and no extra events in May thanks to the competitive focus being on Pioneer.
That said, diversity hasn't suffered. January had 74 unique decks, February had 84, and March mustered 88. April hit 82, and so did May. When the focus is away, the rogue decks come out to play, it would seem. They couldn't sustain that diversity into the tier list, though. Of the 82 decks, only 22 made the population tier, down from April's 29 and even March's 25.
Deck Name
Total #
Total %
Tier 1
Rakdos Scam
71
9.22
4-Color Creativity
69
8.96
UR Murktide
62
8.05
Hammer Time
50
6.49
Temur Rhinos
49
6.36
Living End
45
5.84
Mono-Green Tron
35
4.54
Burn
33
4.29
Tier 2
Yawgmoth
31
4.03
Hardened Scales
27
3.51
Jeskai Value Breach
26
3.38
Counter Cat
20
2.60
Tier 3
Jund Creativity
17
2.21
Amulet Titan
16
2.08
4-Color Control
13
1.69
UW Control
12
1.56
Temur Creativity
11
1.43
Coffers
11
1.43
Izzet Prowess
11
1.43
Affinity
9
1.17
Mill
7
0.91
4-Color Elementals
7
0.91
Scam sits atop the list for I think the first time ever. Creativity was leading for most of the month, but Scam enjoyed a strong push at the end of the May, sending it over the top. Murktide again had to make up a lot of ground after the first week, and almost did it again, but Scam's push apparently derailed it.
Living End being the 6th-place deck is slightly misleading. It achieved that position thanks primarily to an incredible first week of May, and then steadily lost ground as the month wore on. I suspect that it took advantage of players forgetting their graveyard hate one weekend, and once everyone remembered, it lost its moment.
The Paper Population Data
The paper tiers are calculated the same way as the MTGO tiers, just with different data. In most months there are far more reported paper events than online, but paper also tends to report fewer results per event. It's quite annoying, but paper events rarely report more than the Top 8, and far too often for my purposes, only the Top 4. This makes the paper data far more variable than MTGO.
January saw 667 decks, February is up to 807, March hit 962, April plunged to 551, and May was slightly up to 581. There were about the same number of events as April, but they reported more complete data and it was also uploaded in a timelier manner. Kudos, tournament organizers!
Paper events often report the actual records alongside decklists. Thus, I've decided to change how I record decks when win rates are available. For smaller events, I take any winning record which sometimes means I don't include the full Top 8. For larger events, I'm taking the Top 32 and all the decks with the same record as 32nd place. Tiebreakers are a strange and mysterious alchemy, after all, and may benefit or screw players on a whim.
With more results came a more diverse data set. January had 101 decks, February 108, March just 103, April down to 89, and May was up to 102. 29 decks made the tier list, which is what I expect from paper. The adjusted average population was 4.92, so five decks make Tier 3. The adjusted STDev was 8.22, so the increment is 9. Therefore, Tier 3 runs from 5 to 14, Tier 2 is 15 to 24, and Tier 1 is 25 and over.
Deck Name
Total #
Total %
Tier 1
Temur Rhinos
53
9.12
UR Murktide
51
8.78
4-Color Creativity
47
8.09
Hammer Time
41
7.06
Amulet Titan
32
5.51
Rakdos Scam
31
5.34
Living End
25
4.30
Tier 2
Burn
21
3.61
Mono-Green Tron
16
2.76
Tier 3
Merfolk
13
2.24
Yawgmoth
13
2.24
4-Color Elementals
13
2.24
Hardened Scales
12
2.06
UW Control
10
1.72
Counter Cat
10
1.72
Mill
8
1.38
Jeskai Value Breach
8
1.38
Izzet Prowess
7
1.20
Mono-Blue Tron
7
1.20
Goryo's Kitchen
7
1.20
Affinity
7
1.20
4-Color Blink
7
1.20
Jeskai Combo Breach
6
1.03
Goblins
6
1.03
Coffers
5
0.86
Jund Saga
5
0.86
Tameshi Bloom
5
0.86
4-Color Control
5
0.86
Jeskai Storm Breach
5
0.86
Temur Rhinos is on top thanks to a single event. Rhinos was ridiculously overrepresented at the NRG 5K Trial, with roughly a quarter of the total decks I collected being Rhinos. That shot it up from the middle of the pack to the top where it just barely held off Murktide's consistency to win.
Note: the lack of an appreciable Tier 2 is a bad sign for the metagame's health.
March Power Metagame
Tracking the metagame in terms of population is standard practice. But how do results actually factor in? Better decks should also have better results. In an effort to measure this, I use a power ranking system in addition to the prevalence list. By doing so, I measure the relative strengths of each deck within the metagame.
The population method gives a deck that consistently just squeaks into the Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8's. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects their metagame potential.
The MTGO Power Tiers
For the MTGO data, points are awarded based on the population of the event. Preliminaries award points based on record (1 for 3 wins, 2 for 4 wins, 3 for 5), and Challenges are scored 3 points for the Top 8, 2 for Top 16, and 1 for Top 32. If I can find them, non-Wizards events will be awarded points the same as Challenges or Preliminaries depending on what the event in question reports/behaves like. Super Qualifiers and similar higher-level events get an extra point and so do other events if they’re over 200 players, with a fifth point for going over 400 players. No event awarded more than 3 points in May.
Total points fell just like the population, from 1477 to 1189. The adjusted average points were 10.97, therefore 11 points made Tier 3. The adjusted STDev was 17.79. Add 18 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 29 points. Tier 2 starts with 30 points and runs to 48. Tier 1 requires at least 49 points.
Mill fell off the tier list and was not replaced. The MTGO metagame is a narrow and unforgiving place.
Deck Name
Total Points
Total %
Tier 1
Rakdos Scam
109
9.17
4-Color Creativity
109
9.17
UR Murktide
104
8.75
Temur Rhinos
80
6.73
Hammer Time
72
6.06
Living End
72
6.06
Mono-Green Tron
55
4.63
Burn
51
4.29
Tier 2
Hardened Scales
48
4.04
Yawgmoth
46
3.87
Jeskai Value Breach
43
3.62
Counter Cat
33
2.77
Tier 3
Jund Creativity
28
2.35
Amulet Titan
25
2.10
4-Color Control
24
2.02
Coffers
20
1.68
Temur Creativity
19
1.60
UW Control
15
1.26
Izzet Prowess
15
1.26
Affinity
12
1.01
4-Color Elementals
11
0.92
There's some minor reshuffling within the tiers, but other than that no movement. That's just how MTGO does it.
The Paper Power Tiers
Due to paper reporting being inconsistent compared to MTGO, I have to adapt how the points work. Applying the MTGO point system just doesn't work when I don't know how many points to award and there are data gaps. Thus, I award points based on the size of the tournament rather than placement. That way, I'm being internally consistent with the paper results.
For events with no reported starting population and those up to 32 players, one point is awarded. Events with 33 players up to 128 players gets two points. From 129 players up to 512 players gets three. Above 512 is four points, and five points will be reserved for Modern Pro Tours if they ever happen again.
Thanks to the aforementioned reporting improvement, May's points are up. January had 1178 points, February hit 1316, and March shot to 1890, April fell to 964, and May is up to 1098. The adjusted average points were 9.03, setting the cutoff at 9 decks. The STDev was 16.01, thus adding 16 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 25 points. Tier 2 starts with 26 points and runs to 42. Tier 1 requires at least 43 points. The total decks fell to 26, though a number of decks fell off while Jund Creativity and Humans made it in.
Deck Name
Total Points
Total %
Tier 1
Temur Rhinos
108
9.84
UR Murktide
108
9.84
4-Color Creativity
94
8.56
Hammer Time
76
6.92
Amulet Titan
59
5.37
Rakdos Scam
57
5.19
Living End
56
5.10
Tier 2
Burn
38
3.46
Mono-Green Tron
31
2.82
Yawgmoth
26
2.37
4-Color Elementals
26
2.37
Tier 3
Counter Cat
23
2.09
Merfolk
21
1.91
Hardened Scales
21
1.91
UW Control
20
1.82
4-Color Blink
17
1.55
Jeskai Value Breach
16
1.46
Mill
15
1.37
Izzet Prowess
13
1.18
Goryo's Kitchen
11
1.00
Affinity
11
1.00
Tameshi Bloom
11
1.00
Mono-Blue Tron
10
0.91
Jund Creativity
10
0.91
4-Color Control
9
0.82
Humans
9
0.82
Tier 2 looks a bit better here, but it's still not a great distribution. Murktide and Rhinos are tied for first. I left them in the same position so that I can say that Tier 1 is completely unchanged.
Average Power Rankings
Finally, we come to the average power rankings. These are found by taking the total points earned and dividing them by total decks, to measure points per deck. I use this to measure strength vs. popularity. Measuring deck strength is hard. There is no Wins-Above-Replacement metric for Magic, and I'm not certain that one could be credibly devised. The game is too complex, and even then, power is very contextual.
Using the power rankings certainly helps and serves to show how justified a deck’s popularity is. However, more popular decks will still necessarily earn a lot of points. Therefore, the top tier doesn't move much between population and power, and obscures whether its decks really earned their position.
This is where the averaging comes in. Decks that earn a lot of points because they get a lot of results will do worse than decks that win more events, indicating which deck actually performs better.
A higher average indicates lots of high finishes, whereas low averages result from mediocre performances and a high population. Lower-tier decks typically do very well here, likely due to their pilots being enthusiasts. Bear this in mind and be careful about reading too much into these results. However, as a general rule, decks which place above the baseline average are over-performing, and vice versa.
How far above or below that average a deck sits justifies its position on the power tiers. Decks well above baseline are undervalued, while decks well below baseline are very popular, but aren't necessarily good.
The Real Story
When considering the average points, the key is looking at how far off a deck is from the Baseline stat (the overall average of points/population). The closer a deck’s performance to the Baseline, the more likely it is to be performing close to its “true” potential.
A deck that is exactly average would therefore perform exactly as well as expected. The greater the deviation from the average, the more a deck under or over-performs. On the low end, a deck’s placing was mainly due to population rather than power, which suggests it’s overrated. A high-scoring deck is the opposite of this.
I'll begin with the averages for MTGO:
Deck Name
Average Points
Power Tier
4-Color Control
1.84
3
Coffers
1.82
3
Hardened Scales
1.78
2
Temur Creativity
1.72
3
UR Murktide
1.68
1
Jeskai Value Breach
1.65
2
Counter Cat
1.65
2
Jund Creativity
1.65
3
Temur Rhinos
1.63
1
Living End
1.60
1
4-Color Creativity
1.58
1
Mono-Green Tron
1.57
1
4-Color Elementals
1.57
3
Amulet Titan
1.56
3
Burn
1.55
1
Rakdos Scam
1.53
1
Yawgmoth
1.48
2
Hammer Time
1.44
1
Baseline
1.42
Izzet Prowess
1.36
3
Affinity
1.33
3
UW Control
1.25
3
Congratulation to Murktide. As the highest placing Tier 1 deck, you're May's MTGO Deck of the Month! Apparently, you being an outlier really is correct.
Now the paper averages:
Deck Name
Average Points
Power Tier
Jund Creativity
2.50
3
4-Color Blink
2.43
3
Counter Cat
2.30
3
Humans
2.25
3
Living End
2.24
1
Tameshi Bloom
2.20
3
UR Murktide
2.11
1
Temur Rhinos
2.04
1
4-Color Creativity
2.00
1
Yawgmoth
2.00
2
4-Color Elementals
2.00
2
UW Control
2.00
3
Jeskai Value Breach
2.00
3
Mono-Green Tron
1.94
2
Mill
1.88
3
Izzet Prowess
1.86
3
Hammer Time
1.85
1
Amulet Titan
1.84
1
Rakdos Scam
1.84
1
Burn
1.81
2
4-Color Control
1.80
3
Hardened Scales
1.75
3
Baseline
1.74
Merfolk
1.61
3
Goryo's Kitchen
1.57
3
Affinity
1.57
3
Mono-Blue Tron
1.43
3
Alright, Living End. You seem to be Deck of the Month every time you make Tier 1. Players need to be better about consistently answering you.
Composite Metagame
That's a lot of data, but what does it all mean? When Modern Nexus was first started, we had a statistical method to combine the MTGO and paper data, but the math of that system doesn't work without big paper events. I tried. Instead, I'm using an averaging system to combine the data. I take the MTGO results and average the tier, then separately average the paper results, then average the paper and MTGO results together for final tier placement.
This generates a lot of partial Tiers. That's not a bug, but a feature. The nuance separates the solidly Tiered decks from the more flexible ones and shows the true relative power differences between the decks. Every deck in the paper and MTGO results is on the table, and when they don't appear in a given category, they're marked N/A. This is treated as a 4 for averaging purposes.
Deck Name
MTGO Pop Tier
MTGO Power Tier
MTGO AverageTier
Paper Pop Tier
Paper Power Tier
Paper Average Tier
Composite Tier
Rakdos Scam
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
4-Color Creativity
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
UR Murktide
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Hammer Time
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Temur Rhinos
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Living End
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Mono-Green Tron
1
1
1
2
2
2
1.50
Burn
1
1
1
2
2
2
1.50
Amulet Titan
3
3
3
1
1
1
2.00
Yawgmoth
2
2
2
3
2
2.5
2.25
Hardened Scales
2
2
2
3
3
3
2.50/strong>
Counter Cat
2
2
2
3
3
3
2.50/strong>
Jeskai Value Breach
2
2
2
3
3
3
2.50
4-Color Elementals
3
3
3
3
2
2.5
2.75
4-Color Control
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
UW Control
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Izzet Prowess
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Affinity
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Jund Creativity
3
3
3
N/A
3
3.5
3.25
Coffers
3
3
3
3
N/A
3.5
3.25
Mill
3
N/A
3.5
3
3
3
3.25
Temur Creativity
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Merfolk
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Mono-Blue Tron
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Goryo's Kitchen
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
4-Color Blink
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Tameshi Bloom
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Jeskai Storm Breach
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
N/A
3.5
3.75/strong>
Jeskai Combo Breach
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
N/A
3.5
3.75
Goblins
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
N/A
3.5
3.75
Jund Saga
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
N/A
3.5
3.75
Humans
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3.5
3.75
Overall concentration in Tier 1 is up by almost 4%. I'll have a lot to say about this situation in the analysis article Friday.
Keeping On, Keeping On
As the Lord of the Rings set looks to have a minimal impact on Modern, the status quo will almost certainly sustain itself in June. It's looking like the only chance for a major shakeup will be the August 7 potential ban(s). However, there's always a chance for surprises.
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