A new year… a new quarter… a new meta… Woo hoo! Let’s start it off right! Lots of new decks, and how the pre-Gatecrash tiers are looking for Modern. PTQs away! Woo hoo! The first PTQ results are in, with new decks there, as well! Things are gonna get crazy.
Modern: Huge Tracts of Unexplored Land
It has been said of Modern: “The most important thing about Modern is diversity. It’s by and far the most open format right now, there are huge tracts of land no one has explored. It’s the new frontier of competitive Magic,” and “The nice thing about Modern is that the format is very open. There’s a lot of room to explore and find decks that can work.” And just to hammer that point, here are maps from some recent explorations:
Dragon Control, sai199orz (3-1) Modern Daily #4776090
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URW nastiness! I’ve always liked dragons, and it tickles me to see them in competitive play.
Green Esper, chepa (3-1) Modern Daily #4776090
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A nifty little Esper control deck that splashes G to utilize Deathrite Shaman fully. I like!
Both of these decks are currently categorized as U/x/x Control.
Red Bant, quikidk (3-1) Modern Daily #4776179
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It’s interesting how four-color manabases are becoming almost commonplace! I’m making a lot of these names up off the top of my head. If I misname something, please let me know!
The Tiers Of A Clown
It’s that time again. The start of a new quarter, the start of a new year, and all kinds of cool stuff coming up ahead.
The traditional “tier system” is pretty hard to pin down when it comes to the Modern format. With its wide diversity of archetypes and straying far from “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” it’s a constantly twisting, writhing mass that isn’t easily defined. While “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock” comes closer, even it fails. In any given event, on any given day, any one of these decks could take it.
The only thing that seems to remain constant is the top four or five archetypes, and even this may change as time goes by. See how once mighty Delver has fallen, and Infect taken its place! For now, Jund is king of the heap.
Using that as my starting point, I proceeded to lock myself in a large barn with enough Cheetos and Mountain Dew to choke a small horse (eventually I did have to choke a horse, but that’s another story). I wrote out all the archetypes on individual sheets of paper, made paper airplanes, and decorated them with markers, orange fingerprints (from the Cheetos), and the occasional Dew drop. I put all these paper airplanes in a big box, shook it up, picked out the airplanes randomly, and flew them everywhere.
I then put double-sided tape on the dog’s paws (and my boots) and chased the dog around the barn. I collected the paper airplanes from boots and paws, cleaned off the barn floor gradoo, and here you go. The pre-Gatecrash online Modern meta at the start of 2013:
Tier 1
Jund
Pod
Borderline
Robots
Tron
Tier 1.5
Infect
Splinter Twin
Storm
Borderline
Delver
Hate Bears
Restoration
Tribal Flames
U/x Control
Tier 2
Lifegain Aggro
R(x)DW
Valakut
Fringe
Boom/Bust
Boros
Fae
GB/x
Goblins
Hive Mind
Living End
Merfolk
2nd Breakfast
Tokens
PTQs Away!
It’s here! Woo hoo! The PTQ season for PT Dragon’s Maze is off and running! So let’s quit with the jibber jabber and jump right into the results.
Dortmund, DE – 12/22
1st: Scapeshift
2nd: RUG Twin
T4: RUG Twin, Electrostorm
T8: Electrostorm, Spirit Jund, BG Infect, GRb Tron
MTGO #4775904 – 12/23
1st: UW Control
2nd: Robots
T4: BUG Infect, Spirit Jund
T8: Death & Taxes, Soul Sisters, Esper Teachings, GR Tron
Chesham, GB – 12/23
1st: Spirit Jund
2nd: Blue Naya Pod
T4: Bump, Boom/Bust
T8: Spirit Jund, Tribal Flames, Scapeshift Omen, Jund
Worcester, MA US – 12/29
1st: (Blue?) Naya Pod
2nd: R(x)DW
T8: Unknown?, (???) Pod x2?, Death & Taxes, Titan Ramp Valakut(?), Hate Bears
I do not have a breakdown of how the T8 played out, only the finals. The “unknown” Pod decks are being listed as “Pod” in the Pod sub-meta. The report mentioned Primeval Titan, so Valakut is a (safe?) assumption. “2 or 3 Pod decks” I took to mean 2 “Pod” and 1 “Unknown”. Also, the report only said “Kiki Pod”. Since most “Kiki Pod” lists are Blue Naya (Naya w/a blue mana source), I listed it as such.
Flint, MI US – 12/29
Philadelphia, PA US – 12/29
No results for either of these events.
Hanau, DE – 12/30
1st: RUG Twin
2nd: RUG Twin
T4: Robots, Electrostorm
T8: GBW Pod, Jund, RDW, Giftstorm
MTGO #4776138 – 12/31
1st: Jund
2nd: RUG Twin
T4: UW Control, GW Aura Aggro
T8: RUG Scapeshift, Jund, UW Control, GW Aura Aggro
This event brought an interesting new archetype to the table: GW Aura Aggro. This deck wins by dropping a small hexproof creature on Turn 1, then pumping it up with cheap auras. Totem Armor aids as protection from wipes, in addition to pump.
Aura Aggro, Phresh87 (4th Place)
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MTGO #4776139 – 1/1
1st: Spirit Jund
2nd: Blue Naya Pod
T4: Spirit Jund, BUG Infect
T8: Jund, Blue Naya Pod x2, UW Control
Break It Down!
As usual, Jund is staring out at the top of the food chain. Keep in mind that only a few events have been fired off; we’re just starting the season. I imagine this will look a little different in two weeks.
Right now, there’re not enough results for any of the sub-meta information to be there. This may change over the weekend between the time I submit this and the time you’re reading it; there are fourteen events scheduled.
Next week should have a flood of new info as the PTQ Season kicks into high gear. There will be a brief lull at the end of January as the Gatecrash stuff happens, but by mid-February we’ll be back in full swing.
Overdrive! #76 Champion: pk23 / Blue Naya Pod
Overdrive! #77 Champion: Frenzy277 / MBC
Eurodrive! #57 Champion: pk23 / Blue Naya Pod
Eurodrive! #58 Champion: longtimegone / MBC
Decks from all Overdrive! can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! can be found here.
Where Angels Fear To Tread #37
Players: 18
4-0: thewoof2, Nyzzeh ~ 3-1: ellmaris, pk23, SekKuar Deathkeeper
Where Angels Fear To Tread #38
Players: 14
4-0: BlippyTheSlug ~ 3-1: nav_pilot, rickster_, RoccoCiccio, Jeketerri
All WAFTT event decks can be found here.
Friday Night Standard #5
Players: 22
4-0: nav_pilot, Lickitung ~ 3-1: garltik, ccbro2012, Frenzy277, ChrisMH77, Gnarlesbury
Friday Night Standard #6
Players: 12
4-0: garltik ~ 3-1: Frenzy277, _Mage_, cweaver
Decks from all Friday Night Standard events can be found here.
Dark Wars: A Legacy Of Evil
Season 1 Qualifier 5
Players: 13
Players, tables, and results can be found here.
Season 1 Championship: January 30, 2013
11/07/12 Bigwilly5555
11/21/12 Super_Secret_Tech
12/05/12 leprchan
12/19/12 SekKuar Deathkeeper
01/02/13 NecrOmniPotenz
01/16/13 Seat 6
Interesting Tidbits
Gatecrash previews are in full swing. I already see several cards that could see play in Modern. I think this next set will have just as large an impact on Modern as Return To Ravnica did.
Modern attendance has been very nice.
…………… yawn.
The number of four color decks is really surprising. Red Bant, Green Esper, White Jund, Blue Naya Pod, 4c Control, …. maybe this will be the hallmark of Modern? The only format where the best decks are four colors!
Great article, as usual. Thanks for the breakdown, although I have to say I’m getting just a tad tired of “Jund, Jund, Jund”! Oh well, hopefully Gatecrash will do some damage to the pecking order…
One small thing: any chance you could get the folks at mtgoacademy to change the colour scheme on the deck lists? It’s fairly difficult to read now. Cheers!
Yeah, that teal color is really hard to see on that background for the decklist. Maybe a dark blue or orange may stand out better. I had to highlight it to see the card names.
Yes, the color of those deck lists is horrid. Making it difficult to read and ruining the flow. I second that change.