Pete writes this column weekly and does an outstanding job, sometimes it is dry, I mean prices and stuff. We used to move Jace, the Mindsculptor from Worldwake to other sets in those price lists.
The problem with that line of thinking is that Delver *is* a huge part of the meta, I don't remember the last time it wasn't one of the top 2 most played decks in the format.
Thank you all for reading and for the positive ratings! I'll address everybody in one reply so I don't flood the "Recent Comments" on the front page.
@CalmLittleBuddy - You're rant was fine, and obviously what you needed. I enjoyed the Clue homage and the idea that Cruise won the war off the battlefield. I might not agree with the idea completely, but I like when people can give me another way to view a situation. I think every writer on Pure gave well thought out opinions and explained their feelings; we've got a pretty good crew. It was on message boards and other sites that it really grated. Direct quoting I did from here was because it was the most succinct phrasing of things I saw elsewhere.
There were topics in your article that I do want to discuss in the future that fell under the "too complex/too soon" heading. I was busy solidifying this article in my mind and I think the comments would have come off as harsh and in the end nothing useful would have come out of it. After people have had time to cool, I'll probably come back to it.
@Rerepete - It probably isn't apparent from the article, but I completely understand why people "Didn't see it coming". Wizards hadn't banned Pod up to this point and even if the ban would come ONE day, there was no certainty that it would be THIS day. I was giving it a 50/50 chance, and that is coming from somebody who pays a LOT of attention to this format.
Take the average player, who probably isn't looking at every message board and site for results, reading ban discussions, constantly studying builds of decks and meta-adjustments, all of the things some of us take for granted. Heck, most players are too busy splitting their attention between Draft/Standard/EDH and barely break the surface of Modern. This announcement could have been a total blindside to them.
I'm sympathetic to the people this completely surprised, but I wanted to show that emotions aside, Pod wasn't blameless.
@guitarweeps - There were a variety of Pod builds, but as Rerepete pointed out, decks can be rapidly honed these days, and the Abzan build was becoming the best version hands down. Keep working on the homebrew though!
I saw the banning of Treasure Cruise coming when I saw it spoilered the first time. I am not sure how that slipped through but I knew right away that it was way too good.
Pod caught me off guard; in fact I just bought my Pod playset a few days before on MTGO. It seemed that there was very easy answers to Pod that were also good answers to other decks. Sideboard options for Pod also can be used against other Tier 1 decks. Also, I thought the coolest thing about Pod was that it had variety in itself. I have seen all color combinations used. You can build control, beatdown, or combo builds. I think Pod was one of the coolest things in modern so I am sad to see it go. I understand however and I think it is likely on the list of cards that might come back. Until then I have an old homebrew idea that works similar that I will be trying out.
There are some who would argue that it's not a good idea to invest sideboard slots for your worst matchup if those SB slots don't turn the match around. So even if you reserve 10 slots in your SB for delver you will maybe bring it from 10-90 to 20-80? It's just not worth it when the alternative is to have sideboard cards that change 40-60 matchups to 60-40 which is a way bigger difference. So as long as delver is not a HUGE part of the meta I'd just build my SB around the matches you can actually win postboard. Counter in the SB are a general answer to many things while Scattershot Archer and Hidden Spider seem quite limited in their use. You should give it a try and test it for sure. It just seems these SB slots are going to be useless against all other decks and not enough to matter against Delver.
We can agree that Delver its the thougher match we have, so why not invest some slots of our sideboard on it. After a lot of thinking, i was wondering to add a few copies of Scattershot Archer of Hidden Spider instead of counters.
I know it sound a bit odd, but we never gonna win the counter war, delver simply has more counter than us, maybe adding specific cards can we face delver in a better way. We can kill theirs Spelltutter or Cloud of Faeries (i like this option) or chumblock theirs flyes with the spider.
I think its almost impossible win a match against delver with the current list.
It seems to me that given the prominence of pod in the event results, that everyone should have seen this ban coming as much as with Treasure Cruise.
WotC's thoughts are the same as for shortening the block structure and rotations....in this age of information, formats get solved too rapidly, and constant iterations just hone the decks more into killing machines.
IMHO, this will continue to happen until a good control option happens and we are back to the rock-paper-scissors meta of control-combo-aggro.
I wrote a little rant about the Pod ban, and some of my sentiments look a lot like the ones you bring up. I did not read any other rants about the Pod ban, so I know at least I didn't regurgitate something someone else said (I liked Stealth Rotation better than Forced Rotation, because all rotations are forced. We don't choose them).
I think it's okay to get tired of folks complaining and to feel that they may be overstating the issue. The anger may be unproductive for you and for Wizards, but these are real people who are really angry. It will die down in a few weeks. Let disgruntled Pod players have their catharsis. As annoying as it is for folks to have to read the same crap over and over again, its way more annoying for the players who got hit on the chin by it. You can at least soothe your nerves in the firm knowledge that those angry people are causing their own mini-hell for themselves.
I was angry. Very angry. I wrote a rant and then promptly got over it.
So, if this in any way applies to what I wrote, it helped me get past it and learn to 'love the ban.'
That being said, Modern is dead to me and Wizards is teh debil. TA! But seriously, don't have time for Modern right now, but looking forward to exploring it again once I'm bounced from Providence GP and can take a break from Standard.
i tried to allude to that fact. I've heard Adrian Sullivan refer to D&T as a prison deck.
There really isn't a deck that's pure aggro, but some decks have an aggressive side to them.
I stuck it in the aggro section, because something needed to go there. I haven't seen a goblins list on mtggoldfish that I could use, so white weenies it was.
As time goes on, and I get more accustomed to the format, I'll write from a more advanced perspective. I didn't think it was appropriate to start writing like I knew everything.
Good intro to the format Joe. Though as a death and taxes player I would never call it aggro :). Week by week I am working on building a second legacy deck so I don't always have to play burn. When it is done you will be the first I seek out to test against.
Nice job Gio, whether or not we as players like or agree with the bannings does not mean they weren't needed. Chances are if there was no modern pro tour Pod and co. might still be around. This was done to change competitive magic and it did. All that is left now is to brew something else up and play it to win. I for one will most likely never buy Goyf on MTGO so I will not be able to play the "best deck". That is why I am always searching for a brew or rogue deck that can pull it's weight in a new meta full of heavy hitters.
Hey great Article and a cool deck. I would look at Boom // Bust for the sideboard. Since you run 4 flagstones it might be a really good matchup card against scapeshift and Tron. The only problem I see is that dark confidant reveals it you take a massive 8 damage. It might be worth the risk for that kind of effect against tron though. It might just be worth testing out.
In this list, Return to the Ranks is strictly better. My creatures vary in CMC but they are all under 2. The convoke aspect of Return makes it amazing with tokens or even just a few creatures out.
If you mean my list...yes. RTTR is strictly better to get back a particular guy or a set of guys with mixed costs. Say a Blood Artist and 2 Soul Wardens. Immortal Servitude is absolutely awesome if you are just dumping all the same cmc to your graveyard. Not as much in this case.
Pete writes this column weekly and does an outstanding job, sometimes it is dry, I mean prices and stuff. We used to move Jace, the Mindsculptor from Worldwake to other sets in those price lists.
We have fun sometimes!
an "on the take" proofreader....what was the promised price Grima?
What Penguin? *shifty eyed glances*
.
The problem with that line of thinking is that Delver *is* a huge part of the meta, I don't remember the last time it wasn't one of the top 2 most played decks in the format.
Nobody mention it? We all just read 3,788 words on the state of the penguin, what else is there to say?
Thank you all for reading and for the positive ratings! I'll address everybody in one reply so I don't flood the "Recent Comments" on the front page.
@CalmLittleBuddy - You're rant was fine, and obviously what you needed. I enjoyed the Clue homage and the idea that Cruise won the war off the battlefield. I might not agree with the idea completely, but I like when people can give me another way to view a situation. I think every writer on Pure gave well thought out opinions and explained their feelings; we've got a pretty good crew. It was on message boards and other sites that it really grated. Direct quoting I did from here was because it was the most succinct phrasing of things I saw elsewhere.
There were topics in your article that I do want to discuss in the future that fell under the "too complex/too soon" heading. I was busy solidifying this article in my mind and I think the comments would have come off as harsh and in the end nothing useful would have come out of it. After people have had time to cool, I'll probably come back to it.
@Rerepete - It probably isn't apparent from the article, but I completely understand why people "Didn't see it coming". Wizards hadn't banned Pod up to this point and even if the ban would come ONE day, there was no certainty that it would be THIS day. I was giving it a 50/50 chance, and that is coming from somebody who pays a LOT of attention to this format.
Take the average player, who probably isn't looking at every message board and site for results, reading ban discussions, constantly studying builds of decks and meta-adjustments, all of the things some of us take for granted. Heck, most players are too busy splitting their attention between Draft/Standard/EDH and barely break the surface of Modern. This announcement could have been a total blindside to them.
I'm sympathetic to the people this completely surprised, but I wanted to show that emotions aside, Pod wasn't blameless.
@guitarweeps - There were a variety of Pod builds, but as Rerepete pointed out, decks can be rapidly honed these days, and the Abzan build was becoming the best version hands down. Keep working on the homebrew though!
- Gio
I saw the banning of Treasure Cruise coming when I saw it spoilered the first time. I am not sure how that slipped through but I knew right away that it was way too good.
Pod caught me off guard; in fact I just bought my Pod playset a few days before on MTGO. It seemed that there was very easy answers to Pod that were also good answers to other decks. Sideboard options for Pod also can be used against other Tier 1 decks. Also, I thought the coolest thing about Pod was that it had variety in itself. I have seen all color combinations used. You can build control, beatdown, or combo builds. I think Pod was one of the coolest things in modern so I am sad to see it go. I understand however and I think it is likely on the list of cards that might come back. Until then I have an old homebrew idea that works similar that I will be trying out.
There are some who would argue that it's not a good idea to invest sideboard slots for your worst matchup if those SB slots don't turn the match around. So even if you reserve 10 slots in your SB for delver you will maybe bring it from 10-90 to 20-80? It's just not worth it when the alternative is to have sideboard cards that change 40-60 matchups to 60-40 which is a way bigger difference. So as long as delver is not a HUGE part of the meta I'd just build my SB around the matches you can actually win postboard. Counter in the SB are a general answer to many things while Scattershot Archer and Hidden Spider seem quite limited in their use. You should give it a try and test it for sure. It just seems these SB slots are going to be useless against all other decks and not enough to matter against Delver.
No one is gonna mention the "Penguin"....hmmm...guess I will then.
We can agree that Delver its the thougher match we have, so why not invest some slots of our sideboard on it. After a lot of thinking, i was wondering to add a few copies of Scattershot Archer of Hidden Spider instead of counters.
I know it sound a bit odd, but we never gonna win the counter war, delver simply has more counter than us, maybe adding specific cards can we face delver in a better way. We can kill theirs Spelltutter or Cloud of Faeries (i like this option) or chumblock theirs flyes with the spider.
I think its almost impossible win a match against delver with the current list.
Opinions?
It seems to me that given the prominence of pod in the event results, that everyone should have seen this ban coming as much as with Treasure Cruise.
WotC's thoughts are the same as for shortening the block structure and rotations....in this age of information, formats get solved too rapidly, and constant iterations just hone the decks more into killing machines.
IMHO, this will continue to happen until a good control option happens and we are back to the rock-paper-scissors meta of control-combo-aggro.
The missing image:
I wrote a little rant about the Pod ban, and some of my sentiments look a lot like the ones you bring up. I did not read any other rants about the Pod ban, so I know at least I didn't regurgitate something someone else said (I liked Stealth Rotation better than Forced Rotation, because all rotations are forced. We don't choose them).
I think it's okay to get tired of folks complaining and to feel that they may be overstating the issue. The anger may be unproductive for you and for Wizards, but these are real people who are really angry. It will die down in a few weeks. Let disgruntled Pod players have their catharsis. As annoying as it is for folks to have to read the same crap over and over again, its way more annoying for the players who got hit on the chin by it. You can at least soothe your nerves in the firm knowledge that those angry people are causing their own mini-hell for themselves.
I was angry. Very angry. I wrote a rant and then promptly got over it.
So, if this in any way applies to what I wrote, it helped me get past it and learn to 'love the ban.'
That being said, Modern is dead to me and Wizards is teh debil. TA! But seriously, don't have time for Modern right now, but looking forward to exploring it again once I'm bounced from Providence GP and can take a break from Standard.
I'd normally just post through Facebook because lazy.
But for this I had to give the Rating.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I really have been enjoying legacy, which is good, because it's the only format I have decks for anymore.
I'm hoping that I can provide content that's useful to people that have been playing the format for a long time, as well as those who have not.
The point I want non-legacy players to know is that they can enjoy this format, on magic online if nowhere else.
i tried to allude to that fact. I've heard Adrian Sullivan refer to D&T as a prison deck.
There really isn't a deck that's pure aggro, but some decks have an aggressive side to them.
I stuck it in the aggro section, because something needed to go there. I haven't seen a goblins list on mtggoldfish that I could use, so white weenies it was.
As time goes on, and I get more accustomed to the format, I'll write from a more advanced perspective. I didn't think it was appropriate to start writing like I knew everything.
Hey, thanks for the comment.
Boom/Bust isn't a card I had considered for the deck. Seems like a nice idea, particularly against Tron. I might give it a go!
Good intro to the format Joe. Though as a death and taxes player I would never call it aggro :). Week by week I am working on building a second legacy deck so I don't always have to play burn. When it is done you will be the first I seek out to test against.
Nice job Gio, whether or not we as players like or agree with the bannings does not mean they weren't needed. Chances are if there was no modern pro tour Pod and co. might still be around. This was done to change competitive magic and it did. All that is left now is to brew something else up and play it to win. I for one will most likely never buy Goyf on MTGO so I will not be able to play the "best deck". That is why I am always searching for a brew or rogue deck that can pull it's weight in a new meta full of heavy hitters.
Hey great Article and a cool deck. I would look at Boom // Bust for the sideboard. Since you run 4 flagstones it might be a really good matchup card against scapeshift and Tron. The only problem I see is that dark confidant reveals it you take a massive 8 damage. It might be worth the risk for that kind of effect against tron though. It might just be worth testing out.
In this list, Return to the Ranks is strictly better. My creatures vary in CMC but they are all under 2. The convoke aspect of Return makes it amazing with tokens or even just a few creatures out.
this is the idea, each land is a shock!
If you mean my list...yes. RTTR is strictly better to get back a particular guy or a set of guys with mixed costs. Say a Blood Artist and 2 Soul Wardens. Immortal Servitude is absolutely awesome if you are just dumping all the same cmc to your graveyard. Not as much in this case.