Modern Tiered List Bi-Weekly Update for 7/31/17

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EverythingIsK

1 August 2017

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Hello, Zac is back with the newly overhauled bi-weekly Modern Tiered List. I say overhauled because starting this week, until any change to WotC's policy about releasing its MTGO data (which I addressed in the last update here), I will not be including any results from MTGO competitive leagues. As pointed out by several Reddit users, having curated data be part of the Tiered list analysis is worse than being incomplete – it’s actively misrepresenting what’s out there. Dropping those results and moving to a bi-monthly schedule has a few effects. Firstly, many decks that were seeing a ton of play and success online before the change in data policy have seen large drops in metagame share. Secondly, the daily results gave us some of the spiciest brews the format has to offer, and we won't be tracking their success anymore. However, based on the results of the poll I put out in my last update, these lists will be the main resource for the deck features I will provide later on this article. Thirdly, the data is now going to be strongly skewed by the results of large paper tournaments, since online results will only come from the MTGO Modern Challenges or the MOCS. It's hard to tell how much this will the change the data’s profile, but we will keep a close eye on that in the coming months. With all that out of the way, here's the spreadsheet. Remember, all decks included in the update can be found on Mtggoldfish's Modern Metagame page.

As many can tell, UBx Death's Shadow is still the most represented deck. However, many decks have moved up in the tier standings. Storm, GWx Company, Abzan, Jeskai Control, Mardu Control/Midrange, and BG Rock all had the most notable gains this update. The uptick in combo isn't surprising – while options to hate them out exist, you have to find them in time. Storm and Company decks are capable of fast finishes and feature enough consistency in terms of finding their combo pieces to meet the criteria of a top-shelf combo deck. The combo decks in the format that aren’t doing as well (such as control-oriented variants of Scapeshift) are failing on either the speed or the consistency axis.

In terms of the fair decks, there's not much to say other than what was old is new again. Abzan and The Rock are Goyf-centric attrition decks that really only differ in Lingering Souls and Path to Exile. As for Mardu Control/ Midrange, I say it's about time that “removal.dec” has finally found a place in the modern metagame. Jeskai Control has continued its success by doubling down on the “CounterBurn” strategy, with Spell Queller as an amazing tempo swing. Looking at those who saw quite the downturn, UW Control took a bit of a drop. As I've said in past updates, UW Control thrives when it is given time to adapt to the meta changes. I don't think the deck will fall too far, as with time, the deck always finds its way to be a threat to a lot of the top decks in the format. Gx Tron is sliding a little as well, which is somewhat surprising given the uptick in BGx, but is likely due to its poor matchup against the combo crowd. However, it's similar to UW Control, it's only a matter of time until the pendulum swings its way again. BGx Death's Shadow, on the other hand, has been steadily dropping as more and more players have settled on the UBx version of the deck, and I expect it to trend toward the fringes of the metagame in the coming months. Lastly, Dredge and Living End have both taken some serious splash damage from the graveyard hate being aimed in the direction of Shadow and (to a lesser extent) Storm, and their metagame share has plunged as a result.

I mentioned in the intro that good number of decks took hard dives because most of their results mainly came from MTGO leagues. The list includes Humans, Smallpox, BW Eldrazi, and RG Breach. While I don't necessarily believe these some of these decks are poorly positioned, it’s apparent that the decks were being propped up by their online results. A few other notable decks that also have dropped from the data range include Scapeshift, the spicy MartyrProc deck that I featured about a month ago, and Blue Steel, which we may discuss in a different context in the future (stay tuned!).

I would also like to talk about a few fringe decks that put up some notable results. Ponza found its way to have success in a Modern Challenge and in a Classic. Mardu Control/ Midrange is in such a wide variety, between superfriends, attrition, or even abusing Madness featuring Squee, Goblin Nabob, the color combination is finding many different ways to grind out tons of value for wins. It even had success in a reanimator list with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Iona, Shield of Emeria. A few other decks really caught my eye, and I go further into the deck features below.

One of the things these metagame updates used to contain were predictions about how decks were going to trend in the future. As the title of this section implies, I'll start with the decks I feel will be going down. The main candidates in my opinion are GWx Company and UW Control. In the case of GWx Company, it's been a hot-and-cold deck ever since the widespread adoption of the Druid-Vizier combo. When that combo does well, the deck is great; when it doesn't, the deck struggles. While picking UW Control might seem contradictory with my prediction that it will adapt to the new metagame, in reality the flux in meta share is part of the adaptation process; the deck does poorly for a while, its dedicated pilots innovate, and then it springs back up again.

The next-most-likely candidates for a dip in my opinion are Affinity and Bant Eldrazi. Affinity is always on a roller-coaster ride, dependent in large part on how much artifact hate is sitting in people's sideboards, and (in more recent metagames) how much Dredge is running around. Both of those factors are at a relative low, so the Robots are riding high, but the target is now on their back, and history dictates that they'll go down as a result. In the case of Bant Eldrazi, I suspect that an uptick in Blood Moon decks is incoming (as I'll explain in more detail below), and that's bad news for a deck with such a complicated manabase.

As alluded to above, the main class of deck that I think will continue its upward trajectory are the maindeck Blood Moon types (mainly Sun and Moon, Skred Red, and RG Ponza). There are lots of greedy manabases for them to punish thanks to the uptick in BGx, Eldrazi decks, and Tron, and all of them have access to stellar sideboard cards against Affinity. As a consequence of this uptick, we might also see a modest bump in Vial decks (which mostly ignore Blood Moon) in Death & Taxes and Merfolk.

One thing the community has taken a liking to are the decks I feature at the end of each update. These are usually decks that make me do double takes and verbally exclaim, "How the heck did this 5-0?!". A quintessential example of one of those decks was the Madness deck featured on Mtggoldfish by SaffronOlive a few days ago. So without repeating information you can find in his video, I'll cover a few other decks that I found interesting in the last week of results.

First on the list, from IvanRoars we have the love child of Dredge and Mill, which also managed a 5-0. This list is so odd, my brain sounded the jank alarm on sight. Check it out here:

My preliminary impression of the deck harkens back to the days when Dredge ran Hedron Crab as part of its self-mill engine. The deck uses Narcomoebas and Bloodghasts to help cheat out any Prized Amalgams you happen to mill in the same way as any Dredge deck,but it can also can cash in its graveyard for everyone's favourite Zombie Fish, Gurmag Angler. Either of these approaches seems to be plan A. The backup plan seems to be to point all of those mill effects at your opponent instead. I can see how that sort of transformational sideboard can catch opponents with their pants down, as I used to run a similar plan with Skred Red. My version of the deck went from classic Skred preboard into Mono-Red Burn postboard.

Our next feature is another spicy meatball: while most of us got off the Eldrazi Mimic train at the end of Eldrazi Winter, a few diehards (most notably Jordan Boisvert) have kept the faith in the aggressive version of Eldrazi that took the Modern world by storm. Here’s a list that Bicyclops piloted to some success in a Modern challenge:

As mentioned before, this list is reminiscent of the ones that dominated at Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch. However, it has made some adjustments to make up for the loss of speed that resulted from the banning of Eye of Ugin. The first is the mulligan plan – Serum Powder makes it much more likely that you’ll open with an Eldrazi Temple, which keeps the deck more or less consistent. The second is the value plan – Eternal Scourge can combine with Gemstone Caverns or Serum Powder to give you a bit of extra value from their effects, or simply be a creature that’s very hard to get rid of with Relic of Progenitus. Overall, the deck has some interesting synergies going on, and while the jury’s still out on whether its aggressive bent is the optimal way to take mono-colorless Eldrazi, it certainly seems playable.

The last deck I'd like to present to you all is a deck that will make anyone trying to win with creatures want to flip the table. WG Worship is quite possibly one of the most frustrating decks to face I've seen in a while..

This deck realistically only has one win condition in Westvale Abbey  ^Flip. This is a fine strategy when your optimal curve Leyline of Sanctity plus Noble Hierarch into Sylvan Caryatid, into Worship, followed up by a Privileged Position for good measure. At that point, you can wait all day for that one land to show up. Imagine the frustration a Burn pilot must feel when sitting across the table from this deck. All that said, it does sound like a hoot to take this deck to an FNM and see if the players at your local game store can find a way to deal with it.

The final thing I wanted to show you is, in my opinion, one of the best written guides on a Magic topic I've seen to date. Reddit user mpaw975 wrote a 4000+ word Master’s thesis on how to use Karn and Ugin in Gx Tron. It thoroughly covers some of the hardest decisions a Tron player will face, and is thus is a very useful resource for Tron and non-Tron players alike. You can find the link to this right here.

And this is the end of what I have to offer this week. Thanks for reading this far, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my editor, rothgar13. Please be sure to leave a comment here or on reddit. Stay tuned for next week, in which I'll have a much shorter article for an in between update piece that I hope you'll enjoy just as much as our delicious data.