Discussion Forum

How the hell do you beat Zoo with this deck? I always concider Zoo to be the most popular deck in the format, it's a proven deck, it's fast, most people have the required cards to play it, its easy to play....

Looks to me like you can't beat their burn package.

PS: I moved your post to the new Modern board, hope you don't mind

Modern seems really boring to me, but eh, I'll post what I've made for it...Was much better before Bitterblossom and Stoneforge got the banhammer =/

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=218875

I agree with Seth, Zoo, especially Zoo with a handful of Goyfs, is going to murder the format.

[QUOTE=surewhynot]Modern seems really boring to me, but eh, I'll post what I've made for it...Was much better before Bitterblossom and Stoneforge got the banhammer =/[/QUOTE]

At first I shared your opinion, all the good strategies banned and lacking a lot of the really good cards legacy has access to. But if you look past that there is actually a lot of potential here, it's a rich cardpool and the ban lists makes you look past the know killer decks and makes room for inovation.
It also doesn't hurt that I own every good card in the format and that it looks like a baby format to me, something I can cook up a homebrew and just go have fun. Legacy has become to competitive for untested homebrews.

Bitterblossom ban is good, It makes fearies defeatable which is a good thing. I just put bitterblossom in my Cube which is full of sick cards and I thought it was going to be fearly weak as a one off in a draft deck but man, even in draft it totally dominates the board.

I have an upcomming Modern friendly tournament soon and I'm going to make me a nice reveillark combo deck pimped with the new Grand Abolisher and Æther Vial, sick!!! Just say no and combo out, yummie!

That and I have high hopes for Gifts Ungiven, Life from the Loam, Seismic Swans, blightning etc... fun brewing times man, you of all people should appreciate that!

[QUOTE=Seth]At first I shared your opinion, all the good strategies banned and lacking a lot of the really good cards legacy has access to. But if you look past that there is actually a lot of potential here, it's a rich cardpool and the ban lists makes you look past the know killer decks and makes room for inovation.
It also doesn't hurt that I own every good card in the format and that it looks like a baby format to me, something I can cook up a homebrew and just go have fun. Legacy has become to competitive for untested homebrews.

Bitterblossom ban is good, It makes fearies defeatable which is a good thing. I just put bitterblossom in my Cube which is full of sick cards and I thought it was going to be fearly weak as a one off in a draft deck but man, even in draft it totally dominates the board.

I have an upcomming Modern friendly tournament soon and I'm going to make me a nice reveillark combo deck pimped with the new Grand Abolisher and Æther Vial, sick!!! Just say no and combo out, yummie!

That and I have high hopes for Gifts Ungiven, Life from the Loam, Seismic Swans, blightning etc... fun brewing times man, you of all people should appreciate that![/QUOTE]

Oh holy crap, it totally escaped me that Seimic Swans is still viable in Modern! :eek: Man, that deck just cracks me up. "So I'm going to beat the living hell out of these swans...and uhm...burn you for 20?"

I might loosen up to the format over time. I think most of my current hostility is due to a combination of being stuck in my curmudgeonly ways as a Legacy veteran (I WANT POX BACK! :(), Extraction being damn near impossible to play in the format (it's weird, but seriously, try it...) and the banning of Bitterblossom. I get that banning the blossom was, in hindsight, a good idea...but damn it I wanted to play Fae Tempo! :mad:

Mayhaps I'll make a Dirt Zoo...I have some ideas mulling about for that which might be pretty effective :D

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=223940

It's pretty much centered around Torpor Orb. I love that card because it really slows down you opponent, and it gives you a lot of cool stuff if you use it right. Basically, this is big, cheap creatures that usually come into play with negative consequences. It has a few fail-safes built into it, such as Trickbind (to counter it's ETB effect) and Sundial of the Infinite (To end the turn, after the creature resolves, while it's ETB effect is on the stack). Æther Vial is there to help in situations where your mana not real stable (I usually try to get it set to 4, since most of my drops are there). It also makes an excellent decoy, because most people would rather use a removal on the vial instead of the orb. The mana base is pretty stable, sometimes requires a decent amount of cutting yourself though, which is partially made up for with the 8 post. Sideboard is pretty much all control, which makes a good swap in for the vial or sundial. World at War is there for those overly aggressive games where swinging twice a turn with Eater of Days just makes sense.

I actually kind of like Extraction in this format. It would clearly be better with Blossom, but i still think its somewhat viable. Here's my first go at it.

Hey guys. I'm looking to make a viable Modern Extraction deck. Here's my first attempt. I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Thanks :)

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=226481

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=235111

Here's my build for Pyromancer Ascension in Modern. I actually had this list written up before the Pro Tour, funny enough. Anyways, I fully expect some bannings to hit this format before the next big event with it.

new Ban list came out yesterday, no more ponders for you! :P

happy that Blazing Shoal got nuked, tho i wonder if the format will just degrade into a pattern of having one deck totally dominate the pro-tour for a few weeks, having that deck nerfed by banning a key piece...a week or two as ppl readjust and find the next big thing, and then rinse, repeat.

ok, now I'm officially disappointed. What the fuck is wrong with Green Sun's Zenith?? So they banned evrything that isn't zoo, way to go!

Long live legacy! less broken anyway.

I haven't kept up with the latest meta evolutions, but can someone tell me how Ponder is banworthy and Goyf or Bob aren't? And GSZ is rather upsetting to me too :( It was one of a few cards I own that can keep my decks semi-competitive in Modern. Seems like they're just trying to whittle away my collection. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is just an experiment to get me to play Legacy ;)

[QUOTE=SavajCabbaj]can someone tell me how Ponder is ban worthy and Goyf or Bob aren't?[/QUOTE]

Ponder makes combo decks consistent, wizards doesn't like combo decks so they ban the building blocks, in this case Preordain/Ponder/Rite of Flame all of which fuel storm. The ban list is becomming rediculous, each good strategy is banned and comming up with new ones is punished immediatly by new bannings.


Bob and Goyf aren't broken by far and they never will be, they are just expensive because they are popular.

Why they ban GSZ and Mental Misstep is beyond me, they slow the format down and that's what they want. GSZ isn't combo like Survival was (and even that wasn't ban worthy). GSZ is a tutor that allows toolboxing, toolboxing isn't exactly a fast strategy. Simply unbanning mental misstep would have been enough to fix their problem but instead they ban more.

to be fair, i watched the games from the first modern pro-tour and the games with the combo decks were the most boring magic i've ever seen.

pre-ordain,
ponder,
ponder,
pre-ordain,
ponder,
blazing shoal,
gg,
zzz

that's because there is no interaction. Look at my deck, it could interact with that strategy through 4 mainboard spell pierce and 7 burn. I defeated storm too with Gaddock Teeg and Meddling mage.
You only hear about these turn 1 storm kills but do you know how rare that is, storm decks don't kill turn 1, not even close, not all they long.

What they are doing here is create a field where only aggro is possible and what's the best aggro, zoo. One deck that plays Steppe Lynx, Nacatl, Nacatl, burn burn burn, game.
Is that so interesting?

I think it was more of a reaction to, 'well, we killed most of the top 8, I guess making zoo slightly weaker is something we should consider so that control decks don't absolutely suck'. I think Twin's still going to be playable, albeit in more of a controlling shell, and we should get some kind of teachings/gifts/thirst for knowledge engine control deck out of it. Cloudpost was a big one that they should've banned. Still don't know why they haven't unbanned anything though, there's some cards that raise some questions (Jitte, really? In this day and age? Come on.)

[QUOTE=NightLoki]Still don't know why they haven't unbanned anything though, there's some cards that raise some questions (Jitte, really? In this day and age? Come on.)[/QUOTE]

absolutely! Both Jitte and Ancestral Vision could have been unbanned easily.

I think 12 post was the big one holding control back, it was very hard to fight both that and other decks in the format as 12 post demanded very different answers. Control should have plenty of room now.