Overdriven! 69

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:

Will we ever see the end of these airborne rats carrying swords? These puffed up pigeons with sticks? Blarg. Every time I see a deck featuring Squadron Hawk with Swords, I get the jitters from memories of the Summer of Jace. But that’s my problem, not yours.

Here we see a buncha blade bearing birdies jammed into an Esper disruption/control shell with Elspeth, Knight-Errant to seal the deal.

Inquisition of Kozilek lets you tear apart your opponent’s opening plays, and Mana Leak will stop what early plays you leave him.

Spreading Seas is an excellent color denial/card draw engine that one normally only sees play in Merfolk decks but seems to do the trick here pretty smoothly.

Dismember, Supreme Verdict, and Detention Sphere take care of troublesome board presences, and Lingering Souls provides another steady stream of Sword-bearers.

I hate this deck.

 

Meta Madness

Over the past few years, I’ve pretty much been a recluse. You may have read me joking about living under a rock, but it’s true. I was literally living in a refurbished cave, in a tiny fly speck of a town. I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. We all know the outcome of that. You’re reading some of that outcome now, and have probably played in some of my tournaments.

Since moving back to the big city, I am discovering the outside world once again, and have started socializing. Being the semi-gregareous slug I am, and this being the 21st century, naturally this was an online outreach program. But I like to think I know words, and how to use them to some effect, so it has been quite the adventure. In the past few weeks I have been… busy. I’ll leave it at that.

Now I’m sitting here trying to think of something coherent to say about the whole Modern situation. I thought I had at least a basic grasp of what’s what.

My village called. Their idiot is missing.

A month of not paying close attention, then scrutininzing with fresh eyes, made me rethink some portions of the meta. The first thing I noticed is that it’s getting increasing difficult to tell the difference between UWR Control and UWR Midrange. A little bit of chewing gum,  some bailing wire, a hot glue gun, some glitter, and presto! A new combined archetype designation that makes a wonderful piece of Modern art bric-a-brac

The criteria I use to determine whether a deck is UWR Midrange or Control is simply the creature base. If there are three or four Snapcaster Mages, and nothing else, it becomes Control. Or three Snappies and a Vendillion Clique. If there’s five or more creatures, it’s Midrange.

Some of you might think this is a low count, that a UWR deck with six or seven creatures should still be classed as Control. I say mitigatedly nay. The basis of the whole archetype is UWR Control. Once you start moving away from control, and start adding creatures, you are taking away control elements to do so, and making the deck more midrangy. To me, this is simple logic.

To be fair, if a UWR deck has six creatures, but no Batterskull,  Ajani Venageant, or Gideon Jura, I’ll pop it under Control rather than Midrange. A lot of decks are borderline between the two.

It’s interesting to note that while UWR Control is the more often-played deck, UWR Midrange has a better performance record. What you see here is the percentage of times these decks end up as 4-0 (12 points) as opposed to 3-1 (9 points) in the MTGO Dailies. The higher the number, the more often it shows up as 4-0.

When the two get combined, it puts UWR right at the top of the pops.

Or does it?

There is some craziness going on in the meta, Bubu! In a previous article, I had speculated that Jund, Junk, and GB Midrange are all essentially the same “little black dress” – that dress being Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Liliana of the Veil, Tarmogoyf, and Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoughtseize – with different accessories. If we were to combine Jund, GB Midrange, and Junk into a hypothetical combined group, call it GB/x Midrange or something, we would end up with something that looks like this….

This looks rather innocent when you look at it by itself. Just another group of decks with a very vigorous submeta. But when you factor that group as a whole into the meta, it suddenly looms like Godzilla rising from the waves and stomping towards Tokyo.

Looks a little different, donnit?

It looks almost like the “old days”, when Jund was the dominant boogieman of the format.

Rock was originaIy a GB Midrangy type deck. I still believe that if Jund weren’t called Jund, it’d be called something like “Red Rock”. It seems to me that all of these decks play very much alike, in a very “Jundian” style. The Junk’d deck could be Spirit Jund w/Loxodon Smiter, or GBW Midrange splashing R for Lightning Bolt and Ajani Vengeant. I would argue that these three archetypes (Jund, GB Midrange, and GB/W Midrange (Junk)) are all branches of the same tree; the Tree of Woe.

 

Minor Leagues

Here we can see how GB Midrange, which currently falls in the GB/W category, has taken that group from fringe player to getting ready to jump into the big leagues. GB Midrange is the new darling of Modern. Before the advent of Magic 2014, and Scavenging Ooze, which is to say last month, GB/W was found way down near the bottom/middle of the chart after this one.

Storm is still a player. The Glass Cannon type decks, like the one Todd Anderson rode to a Top 16 at GP Kansas City, have disappeared.

 

The College Try

Here we start seeing more of the fringe type decks. This group of decks is the proof in the pudding that Modern is by no means solved, and a “cheesy elf deck” can still take down an event as well as a “foiled out romper stomper”. People are playing Delver again. Mill is a thing. So is Gargageddon, and its cousin, Living End. Ad Nauseam. Woo hoo!

When I try to point out the diversity of Modern, this is the area I point at, not the “decks everyone plays because the pros do”.

 

The Sandbox

This group of decks is pretty much self-explanatory. The only real oddball here is Summer Bloom, which has been strangely quiet this quarter.

And that’s how the Modern meta is looking right now.

 

Motor City Madhouse

Our next big paper event is taking place this coming weekend, and will take us to the Motor City for GP Detroit! According to my mother, Detroit is a Mad Maxian post-apocalyptic wasteland, roamed by savage gangs plundering swaths of destruction through the broken wastes of a bygone era. When I searched up images for this article, the majority of the pictures I found seems to support this theory.

I was raised in the suburbs of Detroit, and the family from which I sprang still lives in the area. I went to my first concert at Cobo Hall (as it was called then) to see Kiss in early ’75. So I’m a Detroit boy at heart, despite me being German-Canadian by fate. Pity me, I’m a Lions fan.

I wonder what kind of Motor City Madness we’ll see coming out of this event? I’m sure the pros are actively tweaking and testing their latest additions and brews. I’m pretty sure we’ll see the usual suspects (with some Magic 2014 additions), and probably a breakout performance by the GB Midrange deck that’s tearing up the online world. We may see another attempt at Slivers, but I don’t see Slivers making Day Two.

Since it is Detroit, and Detroit does have a nasty reputation, I don’t know if this GP will get the kind of numbers we’re used to seeing of late.

I’m predicting an attendance in the low 800s, and a Top 8 consisting of UWR x3, GB/x* x3, Pod x2. I’m seeing a lot of Kiki Pod showing up lately, so I’m going to remain vague on which Pods I think will make it into the T8. I hope I’m horribly wrong on the T8.

We may get a horror story, as well. Please take care if you’re going. When I was last there, lone nerdy gamers (or even gaggles of gamers) walking around downtown during nonbusiness hours would be a smorgasbord. During the regular work day, it’s fine. Don’t be a sad statistic. Don’t go wandering around Detroit at 11PM looking for a Starbucks or a Burger King. Stay in your approved areas!

 

Overdrive! is the original Modern format Player-Run Event! In fact, it’s even older than Modern, having started out as an event in the Overextended format. Overdrive! is free to enter, and happens every Monday evening at 8:30PM Eastern time. Eurodrive!, a Euro-time friendly Overdrive! clone, happens every Saturday at noon UTC.

Overdrive! #107 Champion: justcanceled / Through The Breach
Overdrive! #108 Champion: jbl / UWR Midrange
Eurodrive! #88 & 89 Champion:
olioolli / Merlira Pod
Decks from all Overdrive! events can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! events can be found here.

 

 

Where Angels Fear To Tread is a limited-seating Modern format Player-Run Event that follows the same structure as the MTGO Daily Scheduled Events: 4 rounds of Swiss pairings, with prizes going to all 4-0 and 3-1 players. As with all of my events, it is absolutely free to enter! WAFTT happens every Sunday at 1800UTC (2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific).

Where Angels Fear To Tread #68
Players: 24
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: andres_1995, Trickerie, Farfishere, jbl, shuffleorboogie, rittmeyer, Tarmogeek
Where Angels Fear To Tread #69
Players: 18
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: justcanceled, trade21, pk23, olioolli, ChineseNotebook
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.