So I went to the paper PTQ this Saturday in Seattle, and, after starting the tournament 5-0 with a brew I called ‘U Mad Boros?', I faced a bad matchup in round six, flooded in round seven, and ran out of gas round eight to claim a trivial prize with an ignominious 5-3 record. Then I watched a match of soccer, as that is what one does in Seattle, and I was struck by the similarities between the two games. They are intermittently cerebral; like a Wagner opera, there are ‘sublime moments and terrible quarter-hours.' And yet the mere possibility of being moved, of achieving something extraordinary, or witnessing someone else do so, keeps me enthralled with these hobbies.
On Sunday I sleeved up U Mad Boros? on Modo and piloted it, incompetently, to a 4-2 record, losing to Melira Pod twice. This is making me think Mirran Crusader and Flames of the Blood Hand are both well-positioned right now, but let me not get ahead of myself. I have today two top-ten lists, one of the most overrated Modern cards, and one of the most underrated. Like the NCAA tournament - which I was probably the only person in the paper PTQ to care about - the analysts have no idea what's going to happen; that's why they play the game. But, even at this PTQ-season eleventh hour, if I can divine a few patterns and predict even one result with accuracy, then the entire last few months, during which I came up empty-handed, will not have been wasted. Let's get to it.
Modern is extremely fast right now, and Figure is always the slowest card in a fast deck, the recruited athlete in an Ivy League seminar. Like the athlete, Figure demands that inordinate resources be poured into it to achieve a mediocre result, and, should it reach the pros as an 8/8 flying first-striker, its life will be about as long as Jeremy Lin's stardom, mana and money wasted. At any point, you end up wishing you'd played a better creature instead, one whose cost is fully paid (cf. under-the-table scholarships) before it enters the battlefield.
With the speed of the format, Squadron Hawk - a 1/1 for 2 - can only fit in a dedicated control shell with lots of counterspells, lots of discard, or lots of both (I exclude Martyr decks because they are god-awful right now). Esper-Blade is probably the way to go, but the mana-base is either painful or shaky, both of which are unacceptable for a control deck; the style of game amenable to grinding out isn't terribly likely, so Feast and Famine, costing a total of five to play and equip, isn't good either.
Who these days is playing a deck with 4+ colors? No one -- and, though you can maybe slow down Tron a little bit, the fact is that they just play an Azorius Signet and go about their noisome business. Three mana is a large investment for something that may do nothing, even against the decks it's supposed to house - to the point where I recommend cutting this from your board in any sort of metagame.
This is not a good creature. As a two-drop it is vulnerable to every weenie-punishing removal effect in the format, from Pyroclasm to Flame Jab. As a later play you simply risk not having the landfall to fuel the insect, or having a Kitchen Finks step in, block for a couple of turns, and gain four life. Steppe Lynx gets in for four; Plated Geopede is easily outclassed by the better two-drops in the format: Thalia, Keldon Marauders, Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster, and even Hellspark Elemental.
This is not a good creature. With the wane of combo and the rise of Spirit tokens, a 3/1 flying for 1UU is seeming more and more underwhelming. I understand that it is (was?) a Legacy all-star, but its stats and ability are far less relevant than people give them credit for.
This was a tough one to put on here, because Cryptic Command is a ludicrously powerful and flexible spell. But with more things happening in the first few turns, some of them at instant speed, a four-mana Counterspell, however potent, may not be what you're looking for in your control deck.
I dithered about whether to include these, since American Delver is a strong and resilient deck, but I loathe combo so much that I couldn't resist an opportunity to take a dump on it. With a preponderance of decks that can either race them or disrupt them (or both!), Storm and Twin have never seemed worse; it's unsurprising that, in a solidified metagame, simple and obvious game-plans are easily beaten. The transformative board (from Storm to Twin, and perhaps back again) seems to be the last refuge of the dishonorable, but with UR making up a disproportionate amount of the field with respect to its paltry amount of PTQ wins, you can bet Wizards is congratulating themselves on eluding the fallacy of goldfishing - again.
When I saw this card, I immediately declared it by far the best card in Dark Ascension; as you will see later in this article, I'm no longer sure about that. It is unfashionable to talk down Souls after Tom Martell dominated a Legacy tournament running four copies, but until I see a good aggro-control deck that can fully exploit its insane card advantage (not BW Tokens), I'm relegating it to this list -- my objection is that it gets jammed into any deck playing B/W, and I'm sure that isn't right.
A theme of this article is the vulnerability of weenies, specifically one-toughness creatures, and these are just about the most vulnerable dudes you can play. Why kill the threat a Hierarch powers out, when you could just Time Walk your opponent by frying his dork? What is tapping out for a turn-two Cobra going to accomplish, but having it answered efficiently, and getting no value? A three-drop on turn two is great, but I don't think that plan is realistic right now, not with the ascendancy of creature-kill and the necessity of fetching and shocking yourself to do it with any consistency. Which brings us to …
When Bob is good, he's really good. When Bob is bad, he's just about as bad - and using your life total as a resource is a cliché that is very hollow when applied to Modern. Only one tier-one deck (however boring, Jund is strong) is running Bob, and he is far and away that deck's worst card. As a source of card advantage / value, he is unreliable in comparison to Kitchen Finks and Bloodbraid Elf. As a body, he is a hundred-pound weakling. At the paper PTQ, I had a Jund fellow pass on his second turn, rather than playing Bob. I think his winning the game can be attributed at least in part to this decision, but just imagine if he had been playing something else on two (say, Rise // Fall or, um, I don't know, Gobhobbler Rats?) I would have died with a whimper, and there is no other way to describe the feeling of being hoist by your own petard when Bob domes you for lethal during your own upkeep.
Tron's threat-lightness is its inconsistency, so what better way to fix this than by running a card that costs half an Eldrazi, and that half the decks in the format immediately scoop to? Wurmcoil always struck me as the strongest of the Titans, and in Modern there is no question he is the best. Even Ancient Grudge, which isn't always in versus Tron, will leave a crippling token behind.
The consensus best three-drop of all time, unmatched in size and utility, I'm looking for Knight to make a comeback should Big Zoo or Bant become viable. The name of the game right now is big, efficient creatures, and though everybody knows Tarmogoyf is the mortal nuts, running Knight is a terrific way to outclass it.
Particularly strong with a glut of hexproof creatures, a bevy of fatties, or a horde of Tokens, Worship has always been a good way of getting people to scoop. Sure, white borders are a little cheesy, but what else is not to like?
Decks that thrive on synergy are popular (if not good) right now, and the recursive discard of Raven's Crime is the best way to drain your opponent of these resources, disrupting their synergy. Flame Jab is the nuts against the aforementioned one-toughness creatures that lately have been seeing play.
This is the best card in Dark Ascension, and has been popping up as a 4-of (generally unheard of for Legends) in every (real) constructed format - GW Maverick in Legacy, Boros and Zoo in Modern, and Humans in Standard. Against ‘fair' decks she is frequently a Time Walk, and against something underhanded like Storm she is nigh unbeatable. I hate losing to Storm, so packing four at the PTQ was a very easy decision; lo and behold, my fifth-round opponent missed an Ascension trigger, shook his head, and scooped before my army of angry hate-bears.
By any metric, this could be the most efficient burn spell ever printed; what's better than killing a threat or a dork and doming them for three, at the same time, for the price of a mere two mana?
Lavamancer is a bit of an odd case, being good against weenies, but being himself also a weenie. At the PTQ most of my activations went to the face, and, though somewhat slower than a Lightning Bolt, the Lavaman also ends up doing more damage in spite of his fragile body. I'm not sure about the Twin lists I've lately seen running several, but he seems like a great fit in the great majority of other red decks.
Another way of alleviating the lack of threats in ramp decks, Through the Breach pairs conveniently with otherwise dead Eldrazi to just win the game. A nice thing you can do with this card is to cast it on their end step, draw out their counter, and then resolve a fatty on your own turn. Or you can just cast it right away, since who's running Counterspells these days? So much for the proliferation of control decks after Nacatl was banned. Pfffft.
Burn is very good right now, and the Guide is the best burn spell ever printed (much like Dismember is the best green removal spell, and Goyf is the best blue creature). Run four!
All original content herein is Copyright 2000-2013 Ascension Gaming Network,
Inc.
TCGplayer and MaxPoint are trademarks of Ascension Gaming Network, Inc.
No portion of this web site may be used in any way without expressed written consent.
All rights reserved. Magic the Gathering and it's respective properties are copyright Wizards of the Coast. Privacy Policy
.gif)
.gif)
Voice of Resurgence - as low as $33.52
Return to Ravnica
RSS Feed
Facebook
Twitter