Kudos. This is a great article.

Deep, but don't worry, rogue decks can be new and confusing. Also did you not play a game 2? You might have gotten to play a better game 2&3 with side boarding and hopefully could win.

Whether I won or lost the game was somewhat irrelevant. In terms of lessons learned.

Interesting.. I never thought about someone applying mild Aristotelian logic to mtg (and then refuting it), but here we are.. lol

But all kidding aside, the message is clear & relatively universal. I've actually heard a somewhat similar story a few years ago, only the context was about martial arts rather than a card game..

+1 again Chief-y..

I know its a little off topic, and for that I apologize. But do you maybe have the decklist for your artifact deck? I have been looking for a solid esper artifact modern deck for a while now.

Well evidently the deck wasn't very solid! Haha.

It was something like:

4x Renowned Weaponsmith
4x Vedalken Engineer
3x Batterskull
2x Ethersworn Adjudicator
3x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Sharuum the Hegemon
2x Spell Pierce
2x Spell Snare
1x Dispel
4x Serum Visions

That's similar to what it was

Cool words, though I mostly skimmed after first section. Just wanted to share a couple of other instances of cross-format victories:

Modern decks can often be quite bad in multiplayer formats - played a Splinter Twin vs RDW vs Theros Sultai good stuff. RDW (awful in multiplayer) held Twin off combo and Theros had the best long-game with Whip of Erebos and Doomwake Giants.

Also, it's always possible to just get lucky. That's especially the great thing about aggro - a good RDW (from any format) can have game against any other deck because of its clock. I won 3 games in a row playing RB minotaurs against bad legacy Reanimator due to opponent getting mana screwed/not drawing all of their combo pieces

Ah man, the second and third parts are the best bits.

I expect this is happens more often than you would expect because of the nature of modern.

As the format expands and evolves, more and more "broken" linear and/or combo decks surface, making it necessary for people that want to play a fair game to counter those decks with powerful answers. This is a problem that Legacy has had since its inception, but with one important change.

Legacy has Force of Will.

Because legacy has access to Force of Will (and, to a lesser extent, Counterspell) they don't need to pack hyperspecific answers. Whatever the unfair thing your oponent is doing is, Force of Will can probably stop it while still allowing you to develop your own game plan. On the other hand, in modern the playable answers other require that you stop executing your gameplan because of how expensive they are (Cryptic Command) or are situational (Spell Snare Spell Pierce, Lightning Bolt).

The threats that people play adapt to the specific answers too. Batterskull is good because Lightning Bolt doesn't kill it, and 4/4 is usually bigger than the other creatures that are out, but if your opponent's deck is chock full of Utter Ends and Siege Rhinos the value proposition of spending for a creature that your opponent can still attack into becomes much less appealing.

Modern is a format of powerful but narrow answers and threats designed to dodge those answers. The suit of answers that a standard deck plays is usually much more diverse so they might have no problem consistently hitting even threats that you selected because of their resilience, and their threats are different, making your narrow answers worthless. If the game becomes a "real" game and doesn't end in a flash on turn three, I would expect this to happen some amount of the time.

Nice article Chief. When I was in my late teens to early twenties I found my beliefs, thoughts, and experiences were often conflicting. A "truth" I had established earlier would be at odds with a new truth I was subscribing to. In sorting through things I came across a person on the internet who had an approach that suited me. It was essientially: I believe X to be true at this time and with the information currently available to me. I do not know everything and will constantly be learning and experiencing new things. Therefore I can stand for a "truth" with confidence and act upon it while constantly reassessing that "truth" moving forward. I like how you were able to draw an analogy to mtg, definitely one of the best articles I've read on this tappedout.

That white enchantments deck sounds cool though ;)

"It does not pass the lightning bolt test."

I know similar story from my own experience, few weeks ago I've won with my enchant deck against my friend's T1 Jund and he couldn't believe that even after several next defeats. Things like this can always happen. A week ago I've just lost with my legacy T1 BUG Delver to a deck made only of vanilla bears 2/2 with few enchant or artifact boosts, without any combo or anything that could blow your head of.

In my opion, that's what happens when the game becomes too schematic for you. You know that playing format X you can play ONLY against Y number of decks you know from the very bottom to the top. You know what your opponent can and will do turn Z, with creature V, because THAT'S THE ONLY THING HE IS SUPPOSED TO DO (or one of 3-4 possible scenarios you know perfectly and the matter of wining or loosing = situational choice + one's ability to prepare for one of those scenarios - random amount of luck).

I'm far from being competitive player and considering this game a sport alike football or something. If I would, I'd probably get to a point where the game would had to become a duel of schematics, what - from my solitary point of view - is absolutely opposite to the idea of MTG as such. I'm perfect Johny, I know, mine psychiatrist already told me that, so all I'm saying here can be simply ignored by anyone who consider himself professional, serious Spike-sportsman. Still, if you'll get used to thinking that the game made of over 13000 cards can be (should be?) reduced to a duel of Top 8 possible scenarios, one day you may experience a surprise such as the one ChiefBell just described ;)

This just clarifies the lasting brilliance and legacy of this game. And also meta games. I sort of went through something like this. It actually helped improve my understanding of the game in all formats.Good read

I had a similar experience,but from the opposite perspective. I was playing a rather poorly made Red Burn Deck from Ravnica-Theros standard and won against a Twin Deck (when it was still legal). Unexpected cards like Chandra's Phoenix or the white O'Ring type enchantments you mentioned can be quite potent in the modern format, simply for their unexpectedness, and lack of certain removal (such as enchantment and exile removal in certain control archetypes) can cost the game. While ultimately most of these "jank" decks will end up going against decks that have appropriet removal in their sideboards, they teach the valuable lesson of being prepared for the unexpected. I would like to reccomend all you modern players out there to remember stories like these and keep a Maelstrom Pulse or the like in your sideboard for those rare occassions.

IT is lessons like this that need to be universally learned by the people who, when they see new cards in a set being released, immediately dismiss cards based on prior assumptions of playability and power. Or, just troll with dies to doom blade or lightning bolt. And really, we'd have a lot less issues in online discussion of new cards if people did keep this in mind. Also, it might prevent some of the immediate pigeon holing of cards to one format or another merely because of first appearances. Not everything described as EDH is. Not everything denounced as modern unplayable is truly so. What's the context?

I tried bringing a standard deck to a modern event once, so my friend could have somebody to play in the tournament with. I didn't end up doing to well but the look on my opponent's face when my Charging Badger trampled over their Tarmogoyf, priceless. (Built a bloodrush deck)

BTW, I thought it was a really interesting article!

Great article Chief! Not much gets on my nerves more than when a cool new card is spoiled and people start saying how bad the card is. I remember reading an article saying that Secure the Wastes wasn't going to see constructed play. Obviously that's not true. Every cool new card will be played by someone who thinks it's really great or at least good in certain situations. TiTI and Abbey are cards that will see play just because people like the flavor, potential power, or just to tell stories later about how cool it was to make the card work and win from there, etc. Even if they don't see immediate competitive play, magic cards can still be played for fun (and to occasional success), which is why we all started playing this game in the first place.

Truly a good article and aspiring speech. I to have faced a problem like this..I have wanted to win in modern tournaments so bad..for those free boosters..So I blew $50 on a new very cheap burn deck..Like 4x Vexing Devil Goblin Arsonist Ornithopter Lightning Bolt and 4x Shrapnel Blast my deck was like that..I built it for 1 week play-testing and got it perfect bye turn 5 kill..went to my tournament and got my deck handed to my face..I was so mortified and crushed..people kept killing my creatures in the speed of an instant when I wanted to sacrifice them..bowling down back to your point..

From reading your article..You mad me remember again that magic was created for fun with friends..yes it can get out of hand and get very competitive..but we need to pull back and realize that its just a fun game with friends and there is no possible way to make our deck have an answer to every scenario with all those millions of magic cards out there!!Great article and speech. Id +1-up it if you could do that for articals

Fun read! The music was a nice touch.

This article = all the truths.

I don't play main stream decks for this very reason. Good article.

This is exactly why I run a Beastmaster Ascension deck for Modern: It's against the norm and noone really expects it.

This was great. However, I take something a little more whiny from it: the answers in modern are bad. Imagine playing a Daze and Force of Will deck against anything standard and I can't imagine losing. But when you're forced to play mediocre, situational spells like Spell Snare and Dispel as your only "good" forms of interaction, the format becomes much more unstable. People are complaining about not having enough sideboard space to put all the hate cards that only work against 1 or 2 decks, but I think the more important underlying issue is that there are not sufficient general answers and instead we must look to our sideboards to find cards that can do something reactive. By the way, could you link me the decklist? Seems sweet.

Murpy, perhaps people believe themselves to be forced to play the more generally useless, situational answers because of a perception that they simply do not have the luxury of time to get to a level of mana that would permit a more reasonable use of the higher costed but more generally useful answer. And against Affinity, Zoo, and Burn, they're not totally wrong. Even against others, when top tier decks are constantly looking for ways to speed up, ways to counter and deal with low cost threats is a serious point, even if it means your own means of dealing with it might be less desirable in most other circumstances. Decks that take this view will have a good thing and a bad thing going for them. The good thing is that against any deck that does make use of the idea that low cost and speed is the key to winning, they will be ideally suited to have a chance in that matchup. The bad thing is that any off the wall but well-thought-out deck concept will likely completely go around that idea and make several otherwise key cards useless. Your thoughts? In essence, I submit that modern's card choices are a product of speed being the most important aspect of a deck. Inevitability even seems less important.

Sorry that the sentences are rather long... my thoughts get complicated to set down sometimes.

I completely agree. Modern post-twin (unban please)is nothing more than 2 ships passing in the night, unfortunately. Even if we ignore the massive mistake that is the eldrazi, the best decks in the format are affinity, merfolk, infect, burn, and zooicide, at least in my opinion. That's a sign of a deranged format! I love my suicide zoo deck, but playing against nothing but linear aggro or aggro-combo decks is boring and basically gambling. I am a very competitive player when it comes to magic, but he rest of my friends are all very casual. Whenever they come to tournaments with me, they'll bring their UW flyers deck or their RUG khans block deck and still manage to go 2-2 while playing EXTREMELY sub-optimally. But what I think is the worst part of this issue is that it doesn't affect decks equally. A deck like Zooicide doesn't need counters and removal: it kills you on turn 3 almost every time and just thoughtseizes away your removal. Sure, Merfolk plays 2-4 of these situational answers maindeck (I play 2 spell pierce and 2 dismember), infect plays vines, and affinity plays galvanic blast. But these cards aren't about messing with your opponents gameplan but instead they are about furthering your own. Modern's interaction is pact of negation when everyone wants it to be force of will. But what's hilarious is that force of will would make control even worse. It would be best in aggro (delver) or combo (infect). If I were able to put in or take out cards for modern, I think the first step would be to ban Ensnaring Bridge, Eye of Ugin, Mox Opal, and Blood Moon. I'd then reprint Vindicate, Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, Pernicious Deed, and unban Jace and Splinter Twin. Now we have 4 more fantastic answers that can go in decks currently played (BGx) and new decks (Uxx control). Splinter twin was never too oppressive and shouldn't have been banned. While I think it's a little too good for modern, the deck keeps the format in check, like force of will in legacy. Affinity is still very playable. Blood moon is not a fun card and doesn't do anything that positive for the format. neither does ensnaring bridge. Modern would shift towards a highly interactive format as opposed to linear aggro vs free win cards.

I find it interesting that you say modern needs broader answers, and then advocate for the banning of two of the broad answers it does have (Ensnaring Bridge and Blood Moon).

Blood Moon specifically is a card that I think actually does good things for the format - it's not fun to play against obviously, but the threat of being Blood Mooned does force people to be less greedy with their manabases.

It's true that blood moon makes people pay more attention to their manabases, but why is that really good for the format? Also, ensnaring bridge is just awful to play against. That's an opinion I think everyone shares, so we should be asking why are 2 cards that are awful to play against with very little outcry to ban them? I think no one likes playing against bridge or blood moon, but consciously or subconsciously know that the card has to be there to fight the unfair linear decks. however, these cards aren't interacting but are also just gambling that they can play a turn 2-3 unbeatable enchantment/artifact. What I want from this format is not necessarily a ton of answers, but instead more interaction. A card like counterspell or swords to plowshares or pernicious deed, while powerful, are much more interactive than just playing a 3-mana artifact.

Both Blood Moon & Ensnaring Bridge die to Disenchant, Naturalize, Abrupt Decay, Ratchet Bomb, Engineered Explosives, etc.. There's always the proactive approaches too (ie. Thoughtseize)..

Murpy- I for one don't share the opinion that Ensnaring Bridge should leave the format. It's one of the few ways that non-attacking decks have to keep the agro decks in check. For instance, my UBw mill deck and my 8-rack deck would be sooo much worse without Bridge for protection. If I'm playing against Bridge using one of those decks, I politely thank them for freeing up a turn for me to continue to execute my gameplan. :)

Remember what they say about people who assume too much!

Also, the format has path so adding swords seems irrelevant, and if you want to turn Modern into a combo-only format go ahead and add FoW. You'll never see any sort of zoo or fair agro deck again. I'm just glad that people haven't caught on to the fact that Trinisphere is modern-legal, or that Chalice of the Void can be played in more decks than just eldrazi. It could be a lot worse with oppressive cards than just the ones you mentioned.

Ensnaring bridge is one of the few ways that decks in modern can fight aggro decks: playing a card that most decks cannot beat without artifact removal. Force of Will is never best in combo decks, so I don't know what you're talking about. The only blue combo deck that would want this card would be a very heavily blue-based goryo's deck, but I don't think that there are enough good blue spells to support it. The deck I'd worry about if it were in the format is force of will. However, I do think that it's a little too powerful for modern and just wanted to see other's thoughts. Trinisphere takes until turn 3 to play and most of the good cards in modern are 2 mana. I would argue that all these cards you're listing aren't promoting interaction but instead stopping people from doin anything. If you're happy to see an ensnaring bridge from the other side of the table playing aggro game 1, are you playing Doran? If not, I don't understand how you can possibly be relieved at the sight of an ensnaring bridge. But you're not playing an aggro deck, you're playing a tier 2-3 brew that wins against the best modern decks because the all-around answers in modern are not good enough. Whether or not your janky mill deck cares about ensnaring bridge is irrelevant, but that fact that the deck is completely unaffected by modern's premier control card does say something. Metroid_Hybrid, those cards certainly kill ensnaring bridge and blood moon, but most of them aren't maindeckable. I'm much more concerned about bridge than moon, and I agree that you can beat it if you build your deck with the card in mind. However, with decks built around ensnaring bridge, you can't just kill items be done. They can use academy ruins, codex shredder, and noxious revival to bring it back every turn. Detention Sphere and O-ring can kill it, but something like EE, abrupt decay, naturalize effects, only buy you a turn, and hand disruption often doesn't buy you any.

Murpy- I love how you called my competitive mill deck 'janky' in the comments of an article that all but states how certain cards and strategies can beat tiered decks when they're not expected.

Affinity is the premier agro deck in Modern, and it doesn't give a darn about Bridge since it has a bunch of 0 power creatures that can grow from under it. Also, as a Sneak & Show player in legacy, I can tell you that FoW is the only thing that makes that deck viable in a format with FoW. It's a great card to have in that combo deck. I'm also thinking Ad Nauseum combo would like FoW in modern if they could have it. People like to moan about the lack of a 'catch-all' answer in Modern, but if there was a true 'catch-all' like FoW, Modern would be completely dominated by that 1 card just like Legacy is. How many good brews never see the light of day in legacy solely because they don't play blue and therefore can't use the catch-all card to stop all the other broken legacy decks? At least there are multiple answers to artifacts/enchants in almost every color (except black, sadly) that gets rid of these 'oppressive' cards.

The point I was making listing out those other prison-esque cards, was that it could be a lot worse than just Bridge and Blood Moon, so if you're only worried about those 2 you can plan your answers accordingly.

I'm not saying that your mI'll deck is bad in the format at all, I've actually played against it before at FNM and it didn't seem terrible. I'm just saying that the deck is definitely not of the expected power level of a format like modern and is instead a metagame call. I'd consider every homebrew I ever take to a tournament to be jankyeven if I do well. I do apologize for that word though: where I live it basically means anything not tier 1 or 2. Affinity is certainly the premier aggro deck in the format (let's just ignore the eldrazi) and it can beat ensnaring bridge, but the fact that it's the only aggro deck in modern that can beat ensnaring bridge limits format diversity, since the best hate card for aggro doesn't fight affinity. As for the force of will argument, I don't really know if you're arguing against me or not. You're saying that in a force of will format, there is a deck that needs force of will to compete with force of will. Again, I am not advocating for force in modern, but I think you're arguing about color diversity in legacy, where cards like brainstorm, daze, ponder, etc exist. Modern doesn't even have very good blue spells, so force could help make up for the relatively low power of blue within the format. You can certainly beat an ensnaring bridge or a blood moon if you plan for it, but there are so many decks you need to have sideboards cards to fight it's often a gamble. You might have space to fight burn and infect, but then you'll get blown out by affinity. Maybe you have artifact removal, enchantment removal, leyline of sanctity, and hibernation in your board and then play grishoalbrand. The point is you probably need 4-5 affinity hate cards, 3 graveyard removal cards, anywhere from 2-5 anti-burn cards, etc. The common argument for people to use is that you have sideboard slots to deal with a deck. I don't though. Sideboard cards are too swingy and maindeckable answers are also too swingy. Sure, modern could be worse, but that doesn't mean it can't be better.

I did use the color diversity in legacy as an example, but I bet legacy wouldn't be as blue-heavy if the best catch-all answer was a black card. I also agree with you that FoW isn't the answer to make Modern more interactive. However I do think that there are enough SB slots for your average agro deck to beat the types of decks it may struggle with. Much of it depends on what colors you're using, but I'm actually primarily an agro player in modern (I have a dozen Modern decks, so I play a little of everything tbh). Most of my agro decks are GW, so I have access to Qasali Pridemage which is good enough to be maindeckable. Elves play Reclamation Sage in the side, etc. Most decks have answers available to them, but it all depends on knowing your meta. If you have a Grishoalbrand player that shows up every week with that deck, maybe taking a turn off to play a Suppression Field or Pithing Needle from your SB is enough to slow him down while beating down. They're also not totally dead in other matches. I rarely feel like I don't have any options when I play a deck like Wilt-Leaf Abzan or Bogles, since I know what it takes to beat my deck and I hopefully draw the SB cards to prevent my opponent from sticking them. If you're thinking of a deck in particular that you want help SBing against, people on this site can help you do so, or at least perhaps suggest some broader answers.

Mostly I'm just against hating on the hate cards since there isn't a modern magic card that can't be beaten by something else in modern, and that's just the nature of the major archtypes. If you want to try and answer most things, BGx midrange is a great option. If you want to play blisteringly-fast agro, you can do so and even win some tournaments! The only archtype that you can't really play in modern is draw-go control, but that's been changing too as I've seen some UW control lists gaining momentum in the eldrazi meta, which is great! I just don't think calling for a ban on specific cards that hurt only certain archtypes is how we want to go in Modern. Eldrazi hurts everything, it needed a ban. Bridge hurts only a few things, I'd rather see more deck innovations than see it banned.

Regarding the above discussion.

What have i unleashed on this poor unsuspecting article comments section?

Haha we've gone pretty off-topic. Let's just drop this conversation, or continue it in a separate thread.

Bridge currently beats 90% of the metagame. If we remove eldrazi from the format entirely, the number scales back to 70%, but I highly doubt modern eldrazi is no longer going to be top deck. I'd estimate that post-ban, bridge is unbeatable in play against 75-80% of the meta, bottoming out at 70%. That's not a small portion of the metagame. While I do think that sword of the meek and ancestral visions will have an impact on modern, I doubt control will become more than 20% of the field, and most combo decks in modern are creature-attack based. As for sideboards slots, I'd disagree, but I don't really know how to argue it more than personal opinon. Are you saying people need to run a white aggro deck to be able to have an okay sideboard.

Love the insight, ChiefBell. Many people forget that Standard's tactics are so different that sometimes the answers in Modern just can't deal with it.

Sometimes they just use different methods of answering things, sometimes their aggro goes wide instead of tall, and sometimes stuff just goes funky.

My friend and I realized that, and took an old, unrefined version of his Standard deck to a Modern tournament. Merfolk got him twice by giving him islands on a budget mana base. Bogles Aura/Hexproof couldn't cope with the speed and underhanded removal, Blue Tron wasn't fast enough, and Grixis Control couldn't hold it down.

All in all, it was a fun day to mess around. Since then, we've made it far more potent, consistent, and efficient.

And here I am sitting with my pure white deck, that plays hate-weenies, o-rings and angels.

Funnily enough it can deal with most things in Modern, while it has not one instant-speed exile and PoE is actually hampering it...

Not saying my deck is best, but its like a big axe; can cut almost everything, but sometimes the aim is so far off you cannot deal with single things.

I really like your analogy LordDerrien. It's hilarious to see friends bring some GW ramp deck that's trying to win by casting Void Winnower win a modern tournament despite being awful

This reminds me of when I beat a modern tron deck with only core set 2010 and 2011 UW cards.

Great piece of writing, thank you for sharing this experience. It makes all too much sense to me and feels like you hit the nail on the head about things are all seen in context and that when context changes, what we see can also change.

Good read Sir.

I've had a few moments like this. My favorite was when my no-rares modern beat the legacy deck 7 out of 10. That guy was so pissed. It wasn't my fault I kept Burst Lightning his Metalworker. :)

I also had a sweet multiplayer deck that used to crush people all the time. When I got Sanguine Bond + Eternity Vessel online it was very difficult to lose. Especially w/ Ruin Ghost.. lol

I had an interesting experience the other way, too. In the days of Delver, I had actually reinvented Turbo-Fog (didn't know it existed beforehand) and it had a great matchup against all the major decks. I went to an FNM ready to take the glory and played two separate people who had just thrown all the decent red cards they'd drafted recently into a deck and they crushed me easily. It was a tough lesson, but it certainly made me take my 'brilliant' ideas less seriously.

Great article Chief.

10/10 would recommend!

I just wanted to say this article was amusing. Thank you for sharing.