Moving to Modern: A Limited and Standard player's quandary.
Modern forum
Posted on Oct. 29, 2016, 6:18 a.m. by Cyberpunk_Eevee
I'm moving over to modern for a number of reasons(increased budget and altered work schedule being the two main drivers).
What and how should I begin? Fetches and shocks? A particular deck?
Should I trade back to modern from my standard cards? Plop down some cash and grab a deck?
Burn? Dredge? Jund? Tron? List your pet deck and reasons why it's a better choice for coming in to modern.
I want a lot of info, opinions, and thoughts. I'm trying to make a solid switch across to Modern.
I am leaving standard. I have chosen Modern. No format wars, please.
my best advice honestly is build a cheap aggro deck to learn the format and see what deck you like then build the deck you will like the best. each player is different I personally play a sultai brew which is a weird in between of jund and grixis control
October 29, 2016 7:23 a.m.
I'm partial to Tron, personally. It's a relatively thoughtful deck, that rewards taking your time early on to absolutely devastate in the mid game, and inevitably win in the late game.
It does well enough against most aggro decks, it's got a bit of pull against combo decks, particularly post-sideboard, and control decks tend to be irrelevant, though the game takes a bit longer.
It's primary weaknesses are very fast decks, such as infect. It's an auto lose unless they get a bad hand/mulligan to < 5. So investigate your local meta game and take that into account before deciding. That advice is true of any deck.
If you do go with Tron, you've got some options. RG Tron is the superior variant, but naturally is more expensive (not sure how much your budget has grown). If you're not partial to that Tron style, or want to ease your way into it monetarily, mono-U or UW have their niches. U tends to win via Mindslaver lock, but can still play some Eldrazi. UW usually wins with either thopter-sword combo, or Gifts Ungiven to facilitate Unburial Rites into various bombs like Iona, Shield of Emeria. Both however lack Ancient Stirrings, so lose a bit of consistency in achieving Tron.
October 29, 2016 8:33 a.m.
Im a control player, and not a big fan of nahiri so i went with esper draw go. And 8 rack/mono black infect to build towards jund and infect.
Esper is fun, you definitely wont win all the games playing control but you definitely learn alot as time goes on about the meta and resiliency f different decks in the format.
October 29, 2016 9:02 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #6
THE Modern Format Primer
Modern
SCORE: 421 | 662 COMMENTS | 38641 VIEWS | IN 194 FOLDERS
Pro Tip, read this whole thing.
October 29, 2016 9:52 a.m.
Pheardemons says... #7
Some things to take into account. What kind of deck do you want to get into? Modern has become an extremely aggressive meta with Burn and Zoo (both slowly blending together), Death's Shadow, infect, eldrazi, Affinity, ect. I am partial to "different" decks that kind of throw people off. I am playing U-Tron right now, played other decks like Skred Red, and it still amazes me how many people don't recognize what I play.
Decks that have lasted throughout the years and changing metas are Jund, Affinity, R/G tron, Esper Control, and infect. There are definitely a lot of people that may want to argue against this, but I believe these are the staples of modern. They've stayed consistent, haven't changed drastically, and have lasted through each shift in the meta. If you're worried about buying a deck that will be good and last, those are probably the way to go. Now, being that they are good, they're somewhat expensive. To go into a budget version, infect is probably the best to start with, then buy all of the cards. A friend of mine dominated FNM with a $40 mono green budget infect until he saved enough money to buy the rest of the deck.
Someone said fetches are the most expensive parts of the deck, and mostly that is true (unless you go Jund). Meta's are different so definitely take that into account, and the modern scene itself plays much differently than standard. Usually a much faster format, and knowledge of your opponent's decks and how they play is a must to even last. Now I'm sure standard has that too, but the rotation makes that a less effective measure as you're not going to know EVERY brew that people come up with. Modern is a format that is relatively stable in the fact of what decks stay powerful.
I'd recommend maybe borrowing a friend's deck or two and taking them to your local FNM. Trying out the scene before truly delving into any major purchases.
October 29, 2016 10:06 a.m.
Cross deck staples. Always cross deck staples. Fetches and shocks too are always good.
October 29, 2016 10:45 a.m.
The Khans fetchlands are all quite affordable right now. I've seen most in the range of $9-12, with Wooded Foothills hovering a bit higher. Unless you have a single deck you know you want and no other, I'd do what LeaPlath suggested and pick up cards that are played in many decks. So:
- Those Khans fetchlands. At least 2 of each, working toward full playsets. You can work around not having the Zendikar fetchlands even in decks that play wedge colors (e.g. Khans faction color triples) but the Zendikar fetches are strict upgrades though at 4-8 times the price.
- 1-2 of each shockland. Few decks play more than 2 of the same shockland. Most are in the range of $6-11 each
- Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Abrupt Decay
- Mana Leak, Spell Snare, Spell Pierce
There's a lot more variety in creatures and the staples tend to all be in the range of $25 on up, so they're harder to casually pick up. While it's strictly worse, there are ways to build around not having Tarmogoyf if you want to play with Green. Depending on your deck you can fake it with Hooting Mandrills, Tasigur, and Gurmag Angler. It's a bigger hit to not have Snapcaster Mage in a Blue deck because there aren't any even halfway replacements for the card. So if you want to play some Blue I'd start looking for good trades or prices on Snappy now.
October 29, 2016 11:22 a.m.
Harashiohorn says... #10
So for picking up cards, Shocks and fetches are at least usually easy to trade so they are a fine place to start if you are just trying to pick up staples.
As to the deck
The key thing you need to ask yourself is how do you want to win, and what kind of game of magic do you want to play? Modern has a "playable" version of just about every approach to playing magic, be it dredge, prison, attrition, fair control, ramp, all out aggro, etc. If you want to beat your opponent in the blink of an eye play affinity, if you want to beat your opponent by out-valuing them play Jund, if you to make your opponent cry as they watch you mill what would have been their third land drop play Lantern control. Pick the deck that sounds the most fun for you, and equally importantly, try it out on tappedout first. You don't want to drop $900 on Affinity only to find that you don't like how it plays.
October 29, 2016 11:34 a.m.
My first Modern oriented deck was a budget 8-Rack. Only cost a couple hundred dollars but has provided some lasting fun for me. After having slowly gotten rid of everything else as I phase out of semi-competitive magic and go back to the occasional kitchen table game, it's the only deck I have left. It's been my most loved and fun deck the whole time.
It won't win every time, especially if you play it too often, but it provides for some major upsets. I love what Tom Ross was able to do, bringing it back into the spotlight for a minute.
That's my two cents.
October 29, 2016 12:41 p.m.
Cyberpunk_Eevee says... #12
I want to thank all of you for your input, particularly linking me to that primer. I couldn't find it before.
For what it's worth, I get called a Timmy/Johnny player. I like to win with big things and big interactions. I mostly play jank, tribal, and generally weird decks.
LeaPlath Chessy says Hi. Could you recommend me some cross-deck staples?
I'll definitely see about borrowing decks for modern at my LGS.
Any decks to shy away from a a general rule?
Let's assume my collection is mostly picked clean, but I will have the cash to buy one big deck.
October 31, 2016 4:32 a.m.
So decks to shy away from are dead end decks, unless you see yourself wanting to play them long term. For example, Top Control doesn't really transfer into any other deck due to its use of pain lands, artifact mana and similar, or Tron is very much focused and most cards don't transfer.
So, the cross deck staples are: Shocks, fetches. Snapcaster Mage, Serum Visions, Remand, Mana Leak, Dispel, Cryptic Command. Vendillion Clique. Hyrkuls Recall. Tasigur, Kalitas, Gurmog Angler, Liliana of the Veil, Inquistion of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Dismember, Bolt, Goblin Guide, Anger of the Gods, Pyroclasm, Noble Hierarch, Wild Nacalt, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, Beast Within, Birds of Paradise, Collected Company, Path to Exile, Mishras Bauble, Gitaxian Probe, AEther Vial, Inkmoth Nexus, Hooting Mandrils, etc
October 31, 2016 8:03 a.m.
Harashiohorn says... #14
LeaPlath Summed up the staples pretty well. That being said Tron is definitely the most Timmy-Johnny deck in Modern right now, so you might want to take a look at it first, since it does require a lot of different cards from other decks.
October 31, 2016 4:57 p.m.
RG Tron is great for the Timmy-Johnny out there but it really, really, really.... really does not play a lot of cards used in other decks. Spellskite is a sideboard card in several decks and sometimes a one of in the main, and Thought-Knot Seer is in Bant Eldrazi. The rest of the deck is composed of cards that no other deck in Modern plays.
October 31, 2016 6:45 p.m.
If you're going Timmy, check out the blue red prowess deck making waves right now. Can explode for 20+ damage out of no where with kiln fiend, or bounce their team with thin in the ice then hit for 14 (double strike) and bolt to finish.
November 2, 2016 10:08 a.m.
Dredge4life says... #17
I went to Grixis control from mono U Tron, but both are good decks. Grixis has fallen out of favour thanks to Nahiri Jeskai, but I'm confident it will rise again. Now is the best time to get into modern, as the manabases are at rock bottom prices.
November 8, 2016 9:09 p.m.
Overall play what you want modern is a format you can go into at many angles. Personally I love to hombrew as a Johnny-spike my current deck is a BUG control deck that takes elements from decks like grixes jund and Abzan using the colors I love most in an archetype I enjoy. You can take a look at my current pet deck Sultai's Hope .
November 8, 2016 9:46 p.m.
Cyberpunk_Eevee says... #19
Thank you all for your help, I'm looking at the Sultai's Hope.
So far, I'm looking at Dredge and 8-rack. Still looking through decks, but I am moving my collection to modern so far. Thank you.
guessling says... #2
In the case of a standard player switching to modern, trying to use your existing cards can be both cost effective and helpful with the learning curve as you transfer a deck between formats instead of learning a new deck from scratch.
If you have Collected Company or eldrazi that could be a starting point.
To be more competitive you can swap in better lands. Hopefully you have fetches in your deck colors already because those are the most costly.
Your sideboards will probably be completely different.
If you have fetches then your major costs will come from buying Tarmagoyfs if you want to be that competitive. Maybe you could trade the rest of your whole collection that isn't in your modern deck for 1 or 2 copies (possibly more depending on what you have for trade).
October 29, 2016 7:02 a.m.