He should not have fetched yet! Land play yes: fetch: no You could draw and discard a Bloodghast with the burning Inquiry and trigger it from the grave.
Sorry, but I don't understand your answer. He should have casted the exact same cards that he did in the example. Use the mountain to play the burning inquiry . He should just have not fetched yet.
Not letting him get Flamewake Pheonix back from graveyard, which is another body and more power on board to hit opponent with. Mallwan is right, best play is play the fetch, burning inquiry, drop 3 random cards, one of which is statistically likely to be something of value going to grave (be it bloodghast or pheonix). If you have a pheonix in the graveyard, you need to pay 1 red to revive it at start of combat. Casting both yes, you now have a 6/2 adept, but no way to bring pheonix back, which would be 8 power hitting them instead of 6, because the pheonix has haste, however you wasted mana on an irrelevant-at-the-moment Faithless Looting when you had all but guaranteed something good was going to be in the graveyard with just the burning inquiry. If you managed to pitch a bloodghast, you would crack the fetch to get the landfall trigger to bring back bloodghast. If you pitched the pheonix, you need the 1 extra mana to bring it back.
Lantern Control exemplifies Magic to me. There is only a finite amount of fun to be had in any given game of Magic, and by harnessing the power of jank uncommons, you can monopolize that fun. Foil out the deck and triple sleeve in waifu sleeves to ensure maximum tear collection.
ccggenius12 I could only agree more if you also mentioned how lantern control perfectly represents the unexpected results that can come from so many unique and interesting cards
I can make a deck that destroys lantern control. makes artifacts obsolete,and I would mill them. just like how I beat mill decks in standard with my 200 card anti mill -mill deck.
@@thoticcusprime9309 If you've built a deck specifically to counter Lantern Control, then the Lantern Control player has already achieved his objective.
God, i remember my friend playing this deck. "what if i discard all my lands" was never an issue for him. it was, however, an issue for me when he turn 1'd a burning inquiry just because he could to try for hollow ones and took all three lands out of my opening hand. never did draw that fourth before i died, was so upsetting
For me, Lantern Control represents want Magic can be. We all have boxes and boxes of jank commons and uncommons, with weird effects on them that we all think will never see the light of day. Lantern Control proves that thought process wrong. It takes a few jank uncommons, a few weird rares, and puts them together in a way that doesn't quite make sense, but still manages to win games. Combine that with needing an amazing knowledge of the Modern meta to properly pilot the deck and you have the perfect representation of what skill and cardboard can do.
A few rare? Nearly half the deck is rare, the rest appears to be half uncommon or common. Only the shredder and the bell are low value uncommon and common. How is that representative?
I like how after many years of printed Magic cards, there appeared a deck that defied much of Magic's intended principles. This deck is dredge, whether it's the Vintage, Legacy, or Modern version. Feels very Golgari that such a pile can come together from across Magic's history and be tied together to make such a powerful aggro (?) combo (?) deck. Seems very Magical to me
Any deck you can't explain how it works to a new player in a short enough amount of time to allow them to borrow the deck at FNM is the epitome of not just Magic, but TCGs in general. Why? Because it's your deck. You built it, you know it inside and out, you've spent time tuning it for the meta you play in. You love that deck. It's an extension of yourself, the ultimate self expression.
I think that KCI Eggs is one of the best examples of how to build a self-sustaining deck with low fail probability from basically a scrap and couple enablers, which represents, at least for me, endless possibilities in deckbuilding whilst using cards at their most efficient way possible, turning even wasted pieces of engine into new sources of profit and advancement.
Affinity represents magic pretty well. It was the first modern deck I learned of and the synergy and how good all the weird activated abilities were that seemed bad by themselves blew me away.
It's one of the few 'good stuff' decks left in modern, in my opinion. A deck that holds up on it's own merit by having a great mix of good cards. Most other 'top' decks in modern are decks built to exploit a single mechanic or single weakness of the current metagame and rely on two or three nut cards. Hollow one... is great in a vacuum don't get me wrong, but it's made unstoppable in the modern format where all those turn 1 or 2 plays (especially a turn one burning inquiry, talk about messing with your opponent's nut draw.) Then you get something like lantern control, not quite at the top any more but the whole idea of just fatesealing your opponent into oblivion is such a Johnny deck, something so out of left field that, when thrown at the wall, just stuck. In short, I guess Jund feels like the essence of a 'Spike' deck, where Hollow One ends up feeling more like a Johnny deck that Spike is borrowing for the Pro Tour.
It even fits the part where Magic players will give decks names that have nothing to do with the contents of the deck, given that Jund hasn’t played anything actually from the plane of Jund since... well, around the time Alara was in Standard.
@@jakemcc8760 Bloodbraid almost certainly originated from Naya given that she is an elf, Maelstrom Pulse is from the combined plane of Alara, and Terminate was a card from Planeshift referencing Darigaaz so iunno what you're on about there.
Again! Jon Hitting the ball out of the park into another stadium 3 towns over! Maaan, I love these videos! Quick, snappy, straight to the point, informative, AND fun to watch with the added bonus of some Magic jokes spicing up the video! As far as which deck defines Magic to me... it has to be the very first competitive deck I ever tried... Black/White Tokens in Standard. You know the one. Anointed Procession, Hidden Stockpile, Anointer Priest to gain a billion life, swing wide and swing hard. I love the deck to bits! It's what I feel magic is all about. Again, LOVED the Video, Jon! Keep up the FANTASTIC work! :D
The fact that inquiry type cards don't require you to pitch as a part of the cost is what makes this so powerful. If they did then this deck would be horrible as while your scenario is far fetched remanding or worse straight up countering would make it a huge risk. As is the number of leovold effects in modern that see even sideboard play are negligible for this deck mostly because it just goes off before they have w chance to come down.
Darth Bernstein yeah, if you keep the fetch open until the last possible minute, you do increase your chances of landfall being relevant, but you also slightly increase your chances of drawing/discarding lands. I think the chance for bloodghast is worth it though.
I run the deck on stream all the time since it's my go to for tournaments since late last year (before Goblin Lore was even in the list) your line I like to think is right. That cracked fetch bothered me since exactly that there's a chance you drop up to 3 Ghasts on that. Unlikely but I like to think the value there is worth it for the added pressure on board to deal with.
The Rock, the tap-out Black Green control deck played in Canadian Highlander is one of my favourite decks in Magic. You have outs to everything, you have game against everything, and you always get to make decisions that matter every single game.
I luv this deck. I have always been into graveyard shenanigans but with the random aspect and the ability to draw so much just puts it over the top. this version and the budget red version are the best deck to come along in forever.
Progenitus Cascade EDH with Possibility Storm and Mindmoil. Cast all the things at random all the time and no one knows what's happening, not even you.
Back when I was first staring to really learn themes and combos while graduating from 60 card table top to edh I built a life-gain defender deck that wad essentially a pillow fort with a voltronned Charging Badger and Scute Mob as my primary attacker. It was slow and janky and required a lot of math to calculate per turn damage and lifegain but it was also a lot of fun and captured the beauty of silliness that I feel magic is at it's best.
Midrange decks represent magic to me. They have a lot of fun interactions with the opponent and the games are always fun for both players (in most cases).
I really loved Pod, mainly for the deckbuilding aspect and I grew up building the deck with a community. I still have a casual pod deck that is tuned down for modern. I think as a deck builder I always loved toolbox and in Pod you could fit in pretty muuch anything in any of the 5 colors and it was a big selling point, the infinite was simply a win con.
I know I'm a little late, but I have an answer sooo... I'ma post it lol. The decks that best represent what Magic is to me are either a control deck using Mystical Teachings as the engine, or Next Level Blue (a control/kinda-aggro deck from the old Extended format, before Wizards killed it for Modern...ugh). The Teachings decks give you so many options, in that you can build it as a tool-box deck (running a ton of singletons with a wide-array of effects/applications to deal w/ any scenario) or a more pure control build, that instead of running singletons as the tool-box, instead you run 4 copies of just all the good counters, kill spells, and bounce spells around. The single copies version is more difficult to pilot, due to needing to choose the exact right silver bullet at the exact right moment to maximize your card advantage. It rewards players for knowing their deck AND the meta inside n' out. And the more pure-control version cuts down a bit on having to make multiple, possibly game-altering choices, in favor of trusting in your abilities to drag the opponent into the deep rounds where you can then take control of the board-state and lock the opponent out of resources bit by bit. Both variations of Teachings reward studying the meta, and tight and precise play to last until the end-game. Next Level Blue represents what Magic is all about (again, just in my opinion) in that, like Teachings before, it rewards tight-play and decision making, and can swap back and forth between control (where it usually starts the game) and aggro, depending on "Who's the beatdown?" (Get it? Hahaha). Also, it used Sensei's Top, which I consider to be one of the most deep and skill-intensive cards ever made. So, in closing, I guess what Magic means to me is knowing your deck inside-out, top-to-bottom, and taking the correct line out of multiple lines of play, to make better use of your resources and maximize every opportunity that comes your way.
I love mono black recursive aggro. It's just kind of cool and flavorful (in my opinion some aggro decks lose some color-related strategy by just playing good fast creature tribal.) UG flash/tempo is also great
I don’t have a specific deck in mind but I feel that Midrange decks best encapsulate the spirit of the game. They are IMO the Swiss Army knives of mtg, rather than throwing your deck at a wall and seeing if it sticks depending on the matchup - Midrange feels pretty okay regardless of most matchups. And even better it’s the most sideboard empowered deck type which to me makes it a skill and judgment reflective deck type as well.
I was playing this deck back in its RG style with Vengevine, I spiced my version with deathshadow, prefering the life-loss risk over the card advantage risk.
Part of what i think is missing from this analysis is also the fact that playing that card that draws three then discard three at random, also brings your opponent for a ride as well.
Back when I played BR Hollow One as a mid level player you don't feel like you're doing all these calculations in your head or doing all these risk assessments; you feel like you're just playing Burning Inquiry when it seems right. But in reality you, the player, and I were actually doing this the whole time! Instinctively!
Eldrazi are my favorite thing and for me are the manifestation of how cool and creative this game can be. They are basically a faithful rapresentation of Lovecraftian horror and i love it. I still need to figure how to make a good deck with both old and new eldrazi, not for competitive reasons, just for personal fun.
for me, the very essence of magic is UW Emeria Titan control, you're playing creatures, casting instants and sorceries, and have to decide turn by turn which cards help you out the most in the exact situation you're in, for me, a long time white wheenie player and creature lover, this deck represents the perfect compromise between playing alot of creature, windmillslamming sun titans and controling the overall state of the game, while trying to stay alive to get emeria online for absolute madness
I made this deck right when hour of devastation came out, I originally made a b/r version with vengevines and cathartic reunions instead of goblin lore. I made it to shit on all the deaths shadow decks running around. Going wide and casting 0 mana 4/4s that dodge fatal push and bolt. I played memnites to trigger the vengevines, and goblin bushwhackers because they recur the vengevines before the bushwhackers enter. 3 fatal pushes in the main and 2 liliana of the veil in the board gave me a 100% wr against deaths shadow decks. my version plays really aggressive towards the turn 2 kills.
Death and Taxes in Legacy and Humans in modern is my personal pinnacle of magic. They are creature based decks that rely on match-up information and small incremental denials of value to skate your way past the strongest cards in magic. But my pet deck is a Modern deck called "RUGrats". Its a temur colored prowess deck that has some INSANE blowout turns, kinda like infect but not anywhere near as consistent.
I feel like the best opening hand would either be: 1 Hollow One, 2 Flamewake Phoenix, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Faithless Looting, and 2 Blackcleave Cliffs Or 4 Hollow Ones, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Faithless Looting, and 1 land that taps for red
My favorite deck was the one from a WOTC blog post a freaking decade+ ago involving Haunted Angel. When it triggers, it grinds the game to a halt and everyone hates you. Light of Day + Darkest Hour = Nothing happens. And by favorite, I mean "hilariously unfun to actually play with or against (but still somehow works)."
For me, it's mono blue tempo. Magic has a few tenants that make it so enduring, like economy, speed and sequencing. Mono blue tempo is a deck were you need to think about all these things to pull it off well
I personally think decks like Jund that are just all around good represent Magic well. Jund requires a good amount of planning and thought it seems although my understanding of Modern is limited. What threats should I bolt, when is it best to play Goif, etc.
I tend to enjoy leveraging assets in ccg's above and beyond what is required of the game. So I'm a big fan of black sacrifice decks in magic, where your leveraging your life total and your creature count for big risky plays. If you've ever flipped a blood fast, pulled a torgaar out of your graveyard putting your life back to 10, sacrificed a bontu for another 6 life, and attacked with a demon token all during the same turn, then you too know the joy of playing a horrendously inefficient deck.
A black/red goblin deck full of wacky goblins and tons of sacrifice abilities.I think that's the closest you can get to a comedy deck, because things just keep dying for seemingly no reason
ahh this deck reminds me of the good old days, once i rebuilt a crazy similar deck. looters and random shenanigans, ill update with link once rebuilt if any intrest.
Gruul Aggro isn't my favorite deck but it's always gonna be the one I think of first. My first magic tournament like 4 out of 10 people there were playing nearly identical aggro decks.
Burning inquiry is each player.. So your opponent suffers these risks and odds too.. So it's a great play either way as it forces your foe to change their strategy on a whim too.. Especially if they don't benefit from discards
Personally, Modern Merfolk, or Morningtide Standard Faeries. Tempo decks, and for much the same reason as the B/R Hollow One deck; Tempo exploits the most core concepts of magic into a winning strategy. It teaches players to respect the notion of beats, card advantage, and blends aggro and control philosophy in to one. I'm somewhat biased, because I also like Tribal decks, as they hearken back to formative games of kitchen-table magic, where simple synergy is the first thing most players glomp on to. The difference with tempo tribes like Folk/Faeries is that they also teach more advanced strategy than just "go wide, turn sideways." They're thematic decks because of the tribal component, but also very technical decks which focus on core MTG game-theory. It's a win/win!
I believe the deck which next represents Magic is Prosbloom from Visions standard. The deck requires many complicated decisions every turn and breaks inherent times of the game to do flashy powerful tricks for the win. All bow to the power of Magic's first broken combo deck and Mike Long who could pilot it like no other in his time.
What's the point of playing lands that add one or another type of mana but start tapped if you can only make use of one of those types? Why not just replace Stomping Ground with a fourth Blood Crypt (which does use both mana types) or a Mountain? Isn't either state it could enter the field in, either tapped, or with two less life, objectively worse than having a Mountain instead? Some of the other lands the deck plays fetches Mountains as well and the deck only has 2, which might be drawn before the fetch land, rendering at least some of them useless if the game lasts long enough for it to matter. Wouldn't having an additional Mountain let you make the chance of that happening even less likely? Yes, I know as far as game effects go, sacrificing life is a relatively cheap price to pay for what it often gives you since it never affects the advantage state of the board until you are in kill range. But still, why pay it uselessly when you literally gain nothing for it?
I'm gonna go with Izzet Aggro as the most representative deck....it has control in the form of counters and burn (plus arti hate in SB), aggressively costed creatures which can have strong individual board value (Young Pyromancer, Snapcaster, etc.), and big late-game plays because of recursion.
When Prosper was released I thought back to this and knew it would become my commander staple. Even before Wizards went fucking nuts with the treasure, I loved it. As long as cards keep moving, we're in business. Which cards specifically? Barely relevant.
Many people - probably most - are fairly risk averse, and it can really cut off opportunities. Magic is one case, of course - sometimes, you just have to play to your outs. Had a recent game where the opponent had gone all in on going wide in the board. I had a fairly full hand and about 12 mana available - but it didn't matter how good a turn I could have; if I couldn't deal with the majority of the horde (ie. all of it) I was dead. My only out was to play either one or two of the three Key to the Archives I had in hand (4 mana, artifact that enters tapped, can tap for 2 mana, lets you draft a powerful card upon ETB, and you discard a card). The first one went down - nothing useful (had a Time Warp been offered I could have taken it to have more options on the second attempt, but no dice). Second Key down - no Wrath of God which is what I was searching for, so GG. Incidentally, the third one also didn't offer it just to rub it in. I'm pretty sure the odds were against me actually seeing it, but I had to play to the out. I'm a semi-pro sports bettor and you spend a lot of time looking at EV (expected value). In my case, my winrate is just over 55% for odds of 2.00 / +100 / 1:1. Just under half the time I'll lose, but that 55% with those odds means I'll always make that bet, if I believe the probability to be accurate. In a similar vein, I'll never place a bet on a market of 1.01 if the probability I've calculated for it is 99% or less - even something as likely as 99% would put it as negative value in the long run. And on the flip side - if someone gave you a wager, that they would roll a dice, and you need a 1 to hit - and they'll pay you 10.00 odds if it does - that's actually a really good bet, because in the long run you'd be making a killing. This is where being risk averse comes in though - I don't go for sub-50% probability bets, because, unsurprisingly, most of the time they lose. In the case of the dice roll, given that I'm not estimating probability - if the die is fair, I know it's 1 in 6 - I would still avoid it if I only had one roll, as the likelihood is that one roll will be a loser. If they let me have at least 4 attempt though? I'm down. At that point it's slightly above 50% that I'll win at least one roll.
The deck that best embodies MTG to me? UR Delver. Counter-spells, Card draw, burn, interaction between zones, and a ticking threat. Anyone who has ever played hearthstone can instantly wrap their mind around the driver deck and it’s also something you would never ever see in hearthstone because it doesn’t have instant speed anything. It’s a deck that could exist in lots of TCG games but only exists in Magic.
Probably not a popular opinion, but I'd have to say the deck that best represents Magic for me is either Storm or Prospbloom (which was basically a storm deck before the storm mechanic). The key is that they're creatureless decks (tho I guess modern storm decks are running a few creatures like Baral or Electromancer now) which won by casting a bunch of spells instead of summoning up an army - that, to me, is Magic.
Idk, I think the sheer idiocy I can play with a mono blue Fblthp the Lost commander that has lots of milling and a jace effect that helps me win when library is empty exemplifies magic pretty well. You can have a legitimate, thought out strategy hidden directly behind a false front
I would say the deck I think best represents Magic is Griselbrand, I can't really explain it, it just embodies the entire combo aspect of TCGs such as Magic and Hearthstone and Yugi-Oh!
Personally, I think Simic is the best representation of Magic the Gathering. It has a lot of card draw - very important for a card game - and it plays large creatures. Those creatures, because they are generally wacky science experiments, have a lot of ability to do cool stuff. On top of that, since creatures are generally how players beat one another, big smashy means big win. You could make the same argument with Gruul by saying that "burn spells are more representative of how the game is meant to be played because you reduce life total more," but I think a better competitor would be Temur for just having all those things. However, since it does all sorts of things, I think the more stable dual-color decks are a better representation of Magic. Hence, I say Simic is cool and you should like it because I play blue, so I am always right. Except when I'm not.
Great quality for the making of the video, but again you are proposing a "best scenery", what if the 3 cards I draw it's goblin lore another fish and faithless looting? I get what you mean...but I rather leave risks at minimum with chance if glory
In my opinion it would be faeries. Somewhat an underdog nowadays and can do immense work with a good pilot. Learning to play your deck better than your opponent can. That’s what I believe magic is about
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
40 bolts and 20 mountains
id go 12mountaine 48 bolt
49 counterspells 1 baral and 10 islands
I'll do you one better--40 ancestral recall, 20 black lotus. Literally cannot lose if it gets a turn.
39 bolts, 1 Rolling Thunder, 20 mountains
40 black lotus so aproach of the second sun
He should not have fetched yet! Land play yes: fetch: no You could draw and discard a Bloodghast with the burning Inquiry and trigger it from the grave.
i also think the looting shouldve been played before inquiry to guarantee the flamewake discard
If he had played looting instead Flameblade Adept would be a 3/2 instead of a 4/2, thus not triggering the Pheonix's Ferocious.
Sorry, but I don't understand your answer. He should have casted the exact same cards that he did in the example. Use the mountain to play the burning inquiry . He should just have not fetched yet.
he has 2 open mana, he can cast burning inquiry after faithless looting....
Not letting him get Flamewake Pheonix back from graveyard, which is another body and more power on board to hit opponent with. Mallwan is right, best play is play the fetch, burning inquiry, drop 3 random cards, one of which is statistically likely to be something of value going to grave (be it bloodghast or pheonix). If you have a pheonix in the graveyard, you need to pay 1 red to revive it at start of combat. Casting both yes, you now have a 6/2 adept, but no way to bring pheonix back, which would be 8 power hitting them instead of 6, because the pheonix has haste, however you wasted mana on an irrelevant-at-the-moment Faithless Looting when you had all but guaranteed something good was going to be in the graveyard with just the burning inquiry. If you managed to pitch a bloodghast, you would crack the fetch to get the landfall trigger to bring back bloodghast. If you pitched the pheonix, you need the 1 extra mana to bring it back.
Lantern Control exemplifies Magic to me. There is only a finite amount of fun to be had in any given game of Magic, and by harnessing the power of jank uncommons, you can monopolize that fun. Foil out the deck and triple sleeve in waifu sleeves to ensure maximum tear collection.
ccggenius12 I could only agree more if you also mentioned how lantern control perfectly represents the unexpected results that can come from so many unique and interesting cards
Lantern really proves that fun is a zero-sum game
I can make a deck that destroys lantern control. makes artifacts obsolete,and I would mill them. just like how I beat mill decks in standard with my 200 card anti mill -mill deck.
@@thoticcusprime9309 If you've built a deck specifically to counter Lantern Control, then the Lantern Control player has already achieved his objective.
Reprint Meltdown into modern.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, this deck basically plays like you'd play Texas Hold-em? That's super cool!
Tibalt is the best random card! #TeamTibalt
Affinity For Commander Seriously, why isn’t this deck running it?
Tibalt would be hilarious in this thing.
I know a guy who plays tibalt in his hollow one deck. One in the main one in the board and he cuts a push and goes to 17 lands. The man is a savage.
Im all for the Tibalt Team
In all the time I've played with him myself, he has never given me a bad discard. I'm behind this. Team Tibalt.
I think the most representative deck in mtg is the one you throw together on the sidewalk without sleeves.
Just as Richard Garfield intended
agreed
God, i remember my friend playing this deck. "what if i discard all my lands" was never an issue for him. it was, however, an issue for me when he turn 1'd a burning inquiry just because he could to try for hollow ones and took all three lands out of my opening hand. never did draw that fourth before i died, was so upsetting
How did he discard the cards from your hand?
@@Dracinard burning inquiry has everyone draw and discard randomly, he got my lands with the random discard
I really like the tempo/delivery in your speech/script. Highly watchable videos
For me, Lantern Control represents want Magic can be. We all have boxes and boxes of jank commons and uncommons, with weird effects on them that we all think will never see the light of day. Lantern Control proves that thought process wrong. It takes a few jank uncommons, a few weird rares, and puts them together in a way that doesn't quite make sense, but still manages to win games. Combine that with needing an amazing knowledge of the Modern meta to properly pilot the deck and you have the perfect representation of what skill and cardboard can do.
A few rare? Nearly half the deck is rare, the rest appears to be half uncommon or common. Only the shredder and the bell are low value uncommon and common. How is that representative?
I like how after many years of printed Magic cards, there appeared a deck that defied much of Magic's intended principles. This deck is dredge, whether it's the Vintage, Legacy, or Modern version. Feels very Golgari that such a pile can come together from across Magic's history and be tied together to make such a powerful aggro (?) combo (?) deck. Seems very Magical to me
This is a great breakdown for a deck I dont have complete knowledge about! I think I understand it a bit more now. Thank you!
Any deck you can't explain how it works to a new player in a short enough amount of time to allow them to borrow the deck at FNM is the epitome of not just Magic, but TCGs in general. Why? Because it's your deck. You built it, you know it inside and out, you've spent time tuning it for the meta you play in. You love that deck. It's an extension of yourself, the ultimate self expression.
The best deck is 5 color good stuff
I prefer five color good pictures
ua-cam.com/video/jw7ajsKmbd4/v-deo.html
"How do you have answers to EVERYTHING?!" - James LRR
*As Richard Gardfiel intended*
**Garfield
Richard Gardfiel may have also intended it...you don't know him ;)
Holy shit you guys nailed this video. Amazing work to everyone involved. More more more of this please.
I think that KCI Eggs is one of the best examples of how to build a self-sustaining deck with low fail probability from basically a scrap and couple enablers, which represents, at least for me, endless possibilities in deckbuilding whilst using cards at their most efficient way possible, turning even wasted pieces of engine into new sources of profit and advancement.
Affinity represents magic pretty well. It was the first modern deck I learned of and the synergy and how good all the weird activated abilities were that seemed bad by themselves blew me away.
The deck that best represents magic has got to be Modern Jund. A deck that interacts with almost all types, zones, and aspects of the game.
It's one of the few 'good stuff' decks left in modern, in my opinion. A deck that holds up on it's own merit by having a great mix of good cards. Most other 'top' decks in modern are decks built to exploit a single mechanic or single weakness of the current metagame and rely on two or three nut cards. Hollow one... is great in a vacuum don't get me wrong, but it's made unstoppable in the modern format where all those turn 1 or 2 plays (especially a turn one burning inquiry, talk about messing with your opponent's nut draw.) Then you get something like lantern control, not quite at the top any more but the whole idea of just fatesealing your opponent into oblivion is such a Johnny deck, something so out of left field that, when thrown at the wall, just stuck.
In short, I guess Jund feels like the essence of a 'Spike' deck, where Hollow One ends up feeling more like a Johnny deck that Spike is borrowing for the Pro Tour.
It even fits the part where Magic players will give decks names that have nothing to do with the contents of the deck, given that Jund hasn’t played anything actually from the plane of Jund since... well, around the time Alara was in Standard.
@@TheShinyFeraligatr well bloodbraid, terminate, maelstrom pulse would like a word with you
@@jakemcc8760 Bloodbraid almost certainly originated from Naya given that she is an elf, Maelstrom Pulse is from the combined plane of Alara, and Terminate was a card from Planeshift referencing Darigaaz so iunno what you're on about there.
I love the fact that you take the time to animate these videos
Again! Jon Hitting the ball out of the park into another stadium 3 towns over! Maaan, I love these videos! Quick, snappy, straight to the point, informative, AND fun to watch with the added bonus of some Magic jokes spicing up the video!
As far as which deck defines Magic to me... it has to be the very first competitive deck I ever tried... Black/White Tokens in Standard. You know the one. Anointed Procession, Hidden Stockpile, Anointer Priest to gain a billion life, swing wide and swing hard. I love the deck to bits! It's what I feel magic is all about.
Again, LOVED the Video, Jon! Keep up the FANTASTIC work! :D
In response to your Goblin Lore
I flash in Spirit of The Labyrinth through my Rattlechains
Draw zero, discard your hand.
YUSSS
That is impossible to do until turn 3 though. All these discard spells are at their best on the 1st 2 turns
Do what I do, and run a minimum 3 of Gemstone Caverns, in a Bant Spirits shell. That will assure a turn 1-2 Spirit of The Labyrinth
Aržang Of the Brothers of Light lmao your trying to come up with the absolute dream scenario
The fact that inquiry type cards don't require you to pitch as a part of the cost is what makes this so powerful. If they did then this deck would be horrible as while your scenario is far fetched remanding or worse straight up countering would make it a huge risk. As is the number of leovold effects in modern that see even sideboard play are negligible for this deck mostly because it just goes off before they have w chance to come down.
Fantastic video. Please make more of those modern decks!
Grixis control is the best deck ever for me, something about those colors all together gets me in my heart every time!
Thank you so much, this video is what inspired me to get into modern and I have had a blast slinging hollow ones ever since
isn't it a misplay to crack your fetch before casting the inquary due to the possibility you draw and discard a (or even multiple) bloodghast?
Darth Bernstein yeah, if you keep the fetch open until the last possible minute, you do increase your chances of landfall being relevant, but you also slightly increase your chances of drawing/discarding lands. I think the chance for bloodghast is worth it though.
I run the deck on stream all the time since it's my go to for tournaments since late last year (before Goblin Lore was even in the list) your line I like to think is right. That cracked fetch bothered me since exactly that there's a chance you drop up to 3 Ghasts on that. Unlikely but I like to think the value there is worth it for the added pressure on board to deal with.
my favorite deck has to be abzan midrange, I loved it in standard and love it even more in modern
Pretty sweet vid. The constant calculations you have to make for this deck reminds me a lot of Pokemon which is neat.
The Rock, the tap-out Black Green control deck played in Canadian Highlander is one of my favourite decks in Magic. You have outs to everything, you have game against everything, and you always get to make decisions that matter every single game.
I luv this deck. I have always been into graveyard shenanigans but with the random aspect and the ability to draw so much just puts it over the top. this version and the budget red version are the best deck to come along in forever.
1:47 Maybe it would be right to crack the fetch after resolving Burning Inquiry? Could get back a Bloodghast
Progenitus Cascade EDH with Possibility Storm and Mindmoil.
Cast all the things at random all the time and no one knows what's happening, not even you.
Back when I was first staring to really learn themes and combos while graduating from 60 card table top to edh I built a life-gain defender deck that wad essentially a pillow fort with a voltronned Charging Badger and Scute Mob as my primary attacker.
It was slow and janky and required a lot of math to calculate per turn damage and lifegain but it was also a lot of fun and captured the beauty of silliness that I feel magic is at it's best.
Midrange decks represent magic to me. They have a lot of fun interactions with the opponent and the games are always fun for both players (in most cases).
these vids are so well made. its bonkers. i love it
I really loved Pod, mainly for the deckbuilding aspect and I grew up building the deck with a community. I still have a casual pod deck that is tuned down for modern. I think as a deck builder I always loved toolbox and in Pod you could fit in pretty muuch anything in any of the 5 colors and it was a big selling point, the infinite was simply a win con.
the quality of this video was spot on, noice!
I know I'm a little late, but I have an answer sooo... I'ma post it lol.
The decks that best represent what Magic is to me are either a control deck using Mystical Teachings as the engine, or Next Level Blue (a control/kinda-aggro deck from the old Extended format, before Wizards killed it for Modern...ugh).
The Teachings decks give you so many options, in that you can build it as a tool-box deck (running a ton of singletons with a wide-array of effects/applications to deal w/ any scenario) or a more pure control build, that instead of running singletons as the tool-box, instead you run 4 copies of just all the good counters, kill spells, and bounce spells around. The single copies version is more difficult to pilot, due to needing to choose the exact right silver bullet at the exact right moment to maximize your card advantage. It rewards players for knowing their deck AND the meta inside n' out. And the more pure-control version cuts down a bit on having to make multiple, possibly game-altering choices, in favor of trusting in your abilities to drag the opponent into the deep rounds where you can then take control of the board-state and lock the opponent out of resources bit by bit. Both variations of Teachings reward studying the meta, and tight and precise play to last until the end-game.
Next Level Blue represents what Magic is all about (again, just in my opinion) in that, like Teachings before, it rewards tight-play and decision making, and can swap back and forth between control (where it usually starts the game) and aggro, depending on "Who's the beatdown?" (Get it? Hahaha). Also, it used Sensei's Top, which I consider to be one of the most deep and skill-intensive cards ever made.
So, in closing, I guess what Magic means to me is knowing your deck inside-out, top-to-bottom, and taking the correct line out of multiple lines of play, to make better use of your resources and maximize every opportunity that comes your way.
Pauper tortured existence. Complete with sporefrog and caustic caterpillar.
I love mono black recursive aggro. It's just kind of cool and flavorful (in my opinion some aggro decks lose some color-related strategy by just playing good fast creature tribal.)
UG flash/tempo is also great
I don’t have a specific deck in mind but I feel that Midrange decks best encapsulate the spirit of the game.
They are IMO the Swiss Army knives of mtg, rather than throwing your deck at a wall and seeing if it sticks depending on the matchup - Midrange feels pretty okay regardless of most matchups.
And even better it’s the most sideboard empowered deck type which to me makes it a skill and judgment reflective deck type as well.
This video makes me so nostalgic for Gamble. I want Urza's block back.
I was playing this deck back in its RG style with Vengevine, I spiced my version with deathshadow, prefering the life-loss risk over the card advantage risk.
Part of what i think is missing from this analysis is also the fact that playing that card that draws three then discard three at random, also brings your opponent for a ride as well.
This is why I love Anje. It's basically the commander version of this.
Back when I played BR Hollow One as a mid level player you don't feel like you're doing all these calculations in your head or doing all these risk assessments; you feel like you're just playing Burning Inquiry when it seems right. But in reality you, the player, and I were actually doing this the whole time! Instinctively!
Eldrazi are my favorite thing and for me are the manifestation of how cool and creative this game can be. They are basically a faithful rapresentation of Lovecraftian horror and i love it. I still need to figure how to make a good deck with both old and new eldrazi, not for competitive reasons, just for personal fun.
Does anyone know what the music used in this video is?
Modern Merfolk. It shows what magic is all about: Themes, Power, Synergy, Classic Beatdown, and Blue.
Legacy fish is so fun to pilot lol
for me, the very essence of magic is UW Emeria Titan control, you're playing creatures, casting instants and sorceries, and have to decide turn by turn which cards help you out the most in the exact situation you're in, for me, a long time white wheenie player and creature lover, this deck represents the perfect compromise between playing alot of creature, windmillslamming sun titans and controling the overall state of the game, while trying to stay alive to get emeria online for absolute madness
I made this deck right when hour of devastation came out, I originally made a b/r version with vengevines and cathartic reunions instead of goblin lore. I made it to shit on all the deaths shadow decks running around. Going wide and casting 0 mana 4/4s that dodge fatal push and bolt. I played memnites to trigger the vengevines, and goblin bushwhackers because they recur the vengevines before the bushwhackers enter. 3 fatal pushes in the main and 2 liliana of the veil in the board gave me a 100% wr against deaths shadow decks. my version plays really aggressive towards the turn 2 kills.
Death and Taxes in Legacy and Humans in modern is my personal pinnacle of magic. They are creature based decks that rely on match-up information and small incremental denials of value to skate your way past the strongest cards in magic.
But my pet deck is a Modern deck called "RUGrats". Its a temur colored prowess deck that has some INSANE blowout turns, kinda like infect but not anywhere near as consistent.
For anyone who played standard when it rotated, Cawblade was a legendary deck. As broken as they were, those blocks were awesome to experience.
I feel like the best opening hand would either be:
1 Hollow One, 2 Flamewake Phoenix, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Faithless Looting, and 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
Or
4 Hollow Ones, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Faithless Looting, and 1 land that taps for red
Any deck. Magic is about fun and friends, and anything that gets you around is one that embodies that.
My brother and I designed 2 headed giant infect decks together. We consistently win turn 2-3. People get pissed. I love it!
My favorite deck was the one from a WOTC blog post a freaking decade+ ago involving Haunted Angel. When it triggers, it grinds the game to a halt and everyone hates you. Light of Day + Darkest Hour = Nothing happens.
And by favorite, I mean "hilariously unfun to actually play with or against (but still somehow works)."
As much as I love this deck its far to expensive to actually own, is there any way to make a budget version.
My favorite deck was an Orzhov Weenie deck from Return to Ravnica. Extort was freaking broken. Especially once you knew what you were doing.
Why not first play the 1 mana draw and discard card, dump the phoenix, and then play the random discard card?
That Jace Timesifter deck looks awesome to me!
For me, it's mono blue tempo. Magic has a few tenants that make it so enduring, like economy, speed and sequencing. Mono blue tempo is a deck were you need to think about all these things to pull it off well
God this video is still so good
I personally think decks like Jund that are just all around good represent Magic well. Jund requires a good amount of planning and thought it seems although my understanding of Modern is limited. What threats should I bolt, when is it best to play Goif, etc.
I tend to enjoy leveraging assets in ccg's above and beyond what is required of the game. So I'm a big fan of black sacrifice decks in magic, where your leveraging your life total and your creature count for big risky plays. If you've ever flipped a blood fast, pulled a torgaar out of your graveyard putting your life back to 10, sacrificed a bontu for another 6 life, and attacked with a demon token all during the same turn, then you too know the joy of playing a horrendously inefficient deck.
A black/red goblin deck full of wacky goblins and tons of sacrifice abilities.I think that's the closest you can get to a comedy deck, because things just keep dying for seemingly no reason
ahh this deck reminds me of the good old days, once i rebuilt a crazy similar deck. looters and random shenanigans, ill update with link once rebuilt if any intrest.
Gruul Aggro isn't my favorite deck but it's always gonna be the one I think of first. My first magic tournament like 4 out of 10 people there were playing nearly identical aggro decks.
Burning inquiry is each player.. So your opponent suffers these risks and odds too.. So it's a great play either way as it forces your foe to change their strategy on a whim too.. Especially if they don't benefit from discards
I've got a question: Why is the tourney called Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan when it's Modern?
This..... Is really interesting! I'd love to try it out!
Personally, Modern Merfolk, or Morningtide Standard Faeries. Tempo decks, and for much the same reason as the B/R Hollow One deck; Tempo exploits the most core concepts of magic into a winning strategy. It teaches players to respect the notion of beats, card advantage, and blends aggro and control philosophy in to one.
I'm somewhat biased, because I also like Tribal decks, as they hearken back to formative games of kitchen-table magic, where simple synergy is the first thing most players glomp on to. The difference with tempo tribes like Folk/Faeries is that they also teach more advanced strategy than just "go wide, turn sideways." They're thematic decks because of the tribal component, but also very technical decks which focus on core MTG game-theory. It's a win/win!
It sounds like you would like playing delver in pauper
Except merfolk main board nowadays are all in the aggro plan.. Not sure merfolk counts as tempo
Please, what's the music in background?
u/b control, especially with psychatog and upheaval. u/b control has been winning formats forever, and odyssey was a fun time.
I believe the deck which next represents Magic is Prosbloom from Visions standard. The deck requires many complicated decisions every turn and breaks inherent times of the game to do flashy powerful tricks for the win. All bow to the power of Magic's first broken combo deck and Mike Long who could pilot it like no other in his time.
What's the point of playing lands that add one or another type of mana but start tapped if you can only make use of one of those types? Why not just replace Stomping Ground with a fourth Blood Crypt (which does use both mana types) or a Mountain? Isn't either state it could enter the field in, either tapped, or with two less life, objectively worse than having a Mountain instead? Some of the other lands the deck plays fetches Mountains as well and the deck only has 2, which might be drawn before the fetch land, rendering at least some of them useless if the game lasts long enough for it to matter. Wouldn't having an additional Mountain let you make the chance of that happening even less likely?
Yes, I know as far as game effects go, sacrificing life is a relatively cheap price to pay for what it often gives you since it never affects the advantage state of the board until you are in kill range. But still, why pay it uselessly when you literally gain nothing for it?
· 0xFFF1 Ancient Grudge out of board shores up their painfully bad Affinity matchup
Great content and video editing!
I legit didn’t feel those 5 minutes at all super entertaining
2:50 how do we get 71%?
I'm gonna go with Izzet Aggro as the most representative deck....it has control in the form of counters and burn (plus arti hate in SB), aggressively costed creatures which can have strong individual board value (Young Pyromancer, Snapcaster, etc.), and big late-game plays because of recursion.
A deck for Tibalt? It is time.
Best representation of magic is any deck that lets you play the card Johan. That’s about it
When Prosper was released I thought back to this and knew it would become my commander staple. Even before Wizards went fucking nuts with the treasure, I loved it. As long as cards keep moving, we're in business. Which cards specifically? Barely relevant.
Feels bad man, Faithless lotting banned for the sins of Izzet Pheonix.
God I miss this series.
Many people - probably most - are fairly risk averse, and it can really cut off opportunities. Magic is one case, of course - sometimes, you just have to play to your outs. Had a recent game where the opponent had gone all in on going wide in the board. I had a fairly full hand and about 12 mana available - but it didn't matter how good a turn I could have; if I couldn't deal with the majority of the horde (ie. all of it) I was dead. My only out was to play either one or two of the three Key to the Archives I had in hand (4 mana, artifact that enters tapped, can tap for 2 mana, lets you draft a powerful card upon ETB, and you discard a card). The first one went down - nothing useful (had a Time Warp been offered I could have taken it to have more options on the second attempt, but no dice). Second Key down - no Wrath of God which is what I was searching for, so GG. Incidentally, the third one also didn't offer it just to rub it in. I'm pretty sure the odds were against me actually seeing it, but I had to play to the out.
I'm a semi-pro sports bettor and you spend a lot of time looking at EV (expected value). In my case, my winrate is just over 55% for odds of 2.00 / +100 / 1:1. Just under half the time I'll lose, but that 55% with those odds means I'll always make that bet, if I believe the probability to be accurate. In a similar vein, I'll never place a bet on a market of 1.01 if the probability I've calculated for it is 99% or less - even something as likely as 99% would put it as negative value in the long run. And on the flip side - if someone gave you a wager, that they would roll a dice, and you need a 1 to hit - and they'll pay you 10.00 odds if it does - that's actually a really good bet, because in the long run you'd be making a killing. This is where being risk averse comes in though - I don't go for sub-50% probability bets, because, unsurprisingly, most of the time they lose. In the case of the dice roll, given that I'm not estimating probability - if the die is fair, I know it's 1 in 6 - I would still avoid it if I only had one roll, as the likelihood is that one roll will be a loser. If they let me have at least 4 attempt though? I'm down. At that point it's slightly above 50% that I'll win at least one roll.
The deck that best embodies MTG to me? UR Delver. Counter-spells, Card draw, burn, interaction between zones, and a ticking threat.
Anyone who has ever played hearthstone can instantly wrap their mind around the driver deck and it’s also something you would never ever see in hearthstone because it doesn’t have instant speed anything.
It’s a deck that could exist in lots of TCG games but only exists in Magic.
HELL YEAH!! Where my hollow bois at in 2021?
Red burn that doesn’t have a spell that costs more than 3 cmc
Probably not a popular opinion, but I'd have to say the deck that best represents Magic for me is either Storm or Prospbloom (which was basically a storm deck before the storm mechanic). The key is that they're creatureless decks (tho I guess modern storm decks are running a few creatures like Baral or Electromancer now) which won by casting a bunch of spells instead of summoning up an army - that, to me, is Magic.
20 black lotuses and 20 plague rats. Now that's real magic.
Idk, I think the sheer idiocy I can play with a mono blue Fblthp the Lost commander that has lots of milling and a jace effect that helps me win when library is empty exemplifies magic pretty well. You can have a legitimate, thought out strategy hidden directly behind a false front
I would say the deck I think best represents Magic is Griselbrand, I can't really explain it, it just embodies the entire combo aspect of TCGs such as Magic and Hearthstone and Yugi-Oh!
Legacy high tide is what i call Magic turn 3 -4 kill by making your opponent draw all their library,Magic at its finnest
So I dipped out of magic for a year, but why not play cathartic reunion instead of one of the randoms?
Amulet bloom. Idk why. But I love that deck
Ayyy
Personally, I think Simic is the best representation of Magic the Gathering. It has a lot of card draw - very important for a card game - and it plays large creatures. Those creatures, because they are generally wacky science experiments, have a lot of ability to do cool stuff. On top of that, since creatures are generally how players beat one another, big smashy means big win. You could make the same argument with Gruul by saying that "burn spells are more representative of how the game is meant to be played because you reduce life total more," but I think a better competitor would be Temur for just having all those things. However, since it does all sorts of things, I think the more stable dual-color decks are a better representation of Magic. Hence, I say Simic is cool and you should like it because I play blue, so I am always right. Except when I'm not.
Is the stomping ground in there literally for Tasigurs ability for just that off chance of it going off?? Just curious
its for ancient grudge? (maybe gnaw to the bone if you wanna try that or ray of revelation) tasigur needs 2 green/blue for active
What is this background music? Its awesome!
Great quality for the making of the video, but again you are proposing a "best scenery", what if the 3 cards I draw it's goblin lore another fish and faithless looting? I get what you mean...but I rather leave risks at minimum with chance if glory
In my opinion it would be faeries. Somewhat an underdog nowadays and can do immense work with a good pilot. Learning to play your deck better than your opponent can. That’s what I believe magic is about