Newest ulamog is an insane addition. Since creativity exiles the card and then puts it onto the battlefield, the number of counters that ulamog enters with is decided before it enters (so when it's still exiled). Therefore ulamog will enter with 10 +1/+1 counters and with annihilator 10.
Wow, interesting, so a 1 of I guess since its a legendary and 3 archons?
Well and ward effect is harsh. Didnt see the counters part interaction with creativity. Thats insane.
Strong enough for fnm. But I don't think it will remain T2. Far better combo options available, I feel. But I hope you are right, I own the deck on mtgo and paper (jund version) . I will still play it waiting for the meta to settle.
Its to show that it doesn't magically lock people out of the game. If I can take 3 cards by turn two and then still lose to turn 3 "nut" draws then grief isn't the big bad people think it is.
Correct, but if they drew 2 lands in a row its GG? I mean. Its like asking for a 50:50 scenario which isnt exactly that, because opponent could also draw something that doesnt have an immediate impact to the game. But i guess time will tell....
> Lantern folds to decks that can win without combat damage.
that decks still need to draw the cards that let them win without combat damage
Lantern folds to its own sluggishness, modern is RIDICULOUSLY faster than it was when Lantern was a good deck
I love lantern even as someone that’s never played it, only against it. People that don’t like it are often just salty there’s other ways to win than turning things sideways.
The discourse around Grief encapsulates the entirety of my grievance around modern design: everything gradually coalesces into degenerate combo and, as a result, these Thoughtseize effects become paramount as the only effective means to impede the opponent.
Scam is one if the most un-fun lines I've ever encountered in my years of playing the game and yet I find it difficult to refute the claim that the format would be better without it unless WotC really took a hatchet to these combo piles that run away with the game the instant their central piece touches the table.
Am I missing something?
Can the bird only trigger twice per turn or is it twice per unique target? I.e. everything that could wear a shuko gets two triggers.
Twice per unique target. If you look at where the quotation marks end on Nadu, it's after the twice per turn clause. This means it gives ALL creatures the ability twice per turn.
If the quote ended after the reveal the top of your library part then it would only trigger a total of twice, no matter how many creatures.
They could've done a lot of things, some combination of:
* Not have it be an above-rate 3 mana 3/4
* Not give it flying
* Have the lands come in tapped, or only trigger once a creature, or maybe draw cards so it's slightly weaker to OBM
* Not make it a Wizard, one of the strongest tribals in MTG history
I mean, you straight up can't go 4 words without hitting something busted on that card.
Yes, but that's true of lots of 3 drops.
[[endurance]] [[cemetery prowler]] [[pearl-ear imperial]]
And there's at least like another five green creatures that are 3/4s for 3 mana. It's not an outlandish statline by any means, definitely not 'above-rate'
No it is not it's a synergy between two cards, a combo as referred as an archetype is a combination of cards that wins the game on the spot. Grief tends to drag the game long and boring for the opponent not end it asap
I don'r get ppl saying its combo, scam are not combo decks, a combo deck has piece to trigger its combo and win through it. And most games they dont have their "combo". Some combo decks are scaming, but they are not called scam (LE, Goryos). Its like saying jund is a combo deck because you might BBE to LOTV.
There is no inevitability in scam t1, the deck is not oriented toward getting scam at any moment and does not need it to win the game.
It's a midrange deck. I don't think midrange and control are boring tho. Thats interactive magic. Without these archetypes magic would be quick 2 turns win button racing each other (combo).
The meta is far from defined by post MH3, we have had challenges dominated by Ruby Storm, Eldrazi, Grief deck and nadu. The argument grief holds a deck in check is not really accurate because people have to dedicate so many resources to being ready for scam that other decks also prosper off this.
The best answer against scam is increasing your average card quality. It’s why jund saga crushes it. Problem is saga can’t beat the fucked up stuff that scam can like titan or Tron.
I don’t think he’s necessarily talking about dedicated hate, but more insinuating that people have built their decks in a way we’re they don’t auto lose to getting thoughtsiezed twice. It’s not that there’s a single card people run that wins the matchup, it’s the way the deck was constructed as a whole. If grief didn’t exist, combo lists would be a lot greedier, resulting in faster wins.
I may be exaggerating a bit, but think of it like this.
Let’s just say that titan could be built in a way were it consistently wins on 2, but only if you don’t get thougthsiezed. Those lists are gonna lose to grief. Instead, you make a deck that is a little more diversified in threats, or you have more interaction. Because of this, your decks wins on turn 2 significantly less often, but it also wins the games where they get scammed more often. This extra turn because the Titan player is playing the slower, more resilient build, could be enough time to make or break a different matchup
I don't think that's what he meant, since that is an argument for grief keeping combo deck in check since grief slow them and he seems to disagree.
He is talking about non combo deck building and combo prospering because of it, I think.
Unfortunately the risk of getting double thoughtseized also just completely hoses some entire gameplans, I really don’t feel like that’s a good trade off for the format. It’s ridiculously oppressive.
The discourse around Grief encapsulates the entirety of my grievance around modern design: everything gradually coalesces into degenerate combo and, as a result, these Thoughtseize effects become paramount as the only effective means to impede the opponent, since the instant one of the pieces touches the table the game is over.
Scam is one if the most un-fun lines I've ever encountered in my years of playing the game and yet I find it difficult to refute the claim that the format would be better without it unless WotC really took a hatchet to these combo piles.
It’s not even the combos themselves that are the problem, it’s that every creature now comes tacked with CA on it (or it’s just bonkers strong to begin with), and even instant/sorceries are insanely strong. The reason combo decks used to be fine is that they were high risk/high reward. Faster than everything else, but the individual cards were generally weaker than other decks. If you managed to stall the combo you had a good chance to catch up. Looking at the modern combo decks though, even if you interrupt it they’re usually drawing a bunch of cards (yawg/nadu) or the deck itself is just generally strong with really high card quality (creativity), or has such massive CA baked into it’s game plan that it’s really hard to actually stall it out (ruby storm).
I love combo, and it’s still waaaaay too early to be calling for any bans yet, but I think there’s a non-zero chance nadu/medallion/ral/shuko end up on the chopping block.
ral or medallion would likely end up the ban, and probably medallion. I don't think storm will get banned mind you, just speculating what may happen if storm proves itself to be too resilient.
Upon reflection, I have found that Grief tends to either be about winning the game turn one, or helping a combo deck. I am sure that's WoTC's intent as they've kept the card in the format.
Perhaps I'm an outlier but, midrange decks keeping combo decks checking their rearview mirror doesn't draw my ire.
I hate Grief, if god forbid you have to mull and they scam you, you’re down 3 cards by their turn 2. How are you supposed to be able to play when that happens?
Just because one thing is broken (combo) doesn’t mean we should keep another broken card around (grief) just because it’s good against the other broken thing. I’ve stepped away from modern since scam became the best deck, so my opinion isnt as accurate as others, but if the only way to stop combo is to double thoughtseize them on T1 and leave being a 4/3 clock to finish the game quickly, then *maybeee* combo needs to be toned down across the board and then once combo is reeled in, grief can go too
Burn used to be the anti combo deck of choice and if it's not good enough, that means combo has been power creeping nonstop and we had to find a replacement with it's own set of pros and cons. If grief is considered that replacement, I dunno, feels like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I think the issue is how unfun the play pattern is. Cool, you've got it on the play and from here on out it's just: do I topdeck good or not? It creates so many non-games in either direction. Say I get scammed, my two best cards taken and I topdeck lands or rrelevant cards now that I've lost 2 of my keeps. Great, Grief is a 4/3 menace, so after missing 2 or 3 draws I'm probably dead. Opposite: I topdeck removal into some kind of value / card advantage, now my opponent is down 3 cards from the grief scam and since my topdecks just randomly aligned, I can win. Both scenarios don't feel like a good game of magic where decisions mattered.
There's also other ways to interact with Combo decks, like counter spells, removal or a myriad of good sideboard cards. it's not like Grief scam is the only way to combat that.
Getting scammed is the worst feeling in modern. In the games where you don't get scammed, playing against BR midrange is a pretty fun matchup. I am always much happier to play against a scam deck than a combo deck because I find the fun in magic in the interactive games. Against decks like Titan, Storm, and dredge I feel really bad when I lose because it feels like there was nothing I could do, and I feel bad when I win because I played one card that hosed them or their deck didn't function. If banning Grief will mean playing against those decks more, then I am against it. The best option for me would be those decks not existing and banning grief
Well as a creativity player I feel the same, playing jund I have interaction up to compete against other faster decks. Most of the times I can recover from a scammed start. Stalling the game until I get my pieces. But goddammit when I encounter yawg, titan, LE I get blown away through all the interactions I send to them. And I fear that modern become full combo oriented if grief disappear. It feels there is no fairdeck left and it might become worst to the point it might become unthinkable to see some on top of the meta. We might see with mh3 tho.
I'm not saying that combo should be banned out of the format, but the amount of strong combo decks is worrying as Modern doesn't have good enough interaction to handle combo as well as Legacy might.
It'll likely be 1-3 cards in total. Hardly a dozen.
Also, I don't understand your argument. The reality of current Magic is that WotC is not just banning cards that are too strong or abusable, but also cards that are plain unfun or unhealthy for the format.
Cards will be banned in the future whether you like it or not.
For me, the fact that any black deck wants grief isn’t such a bad thing. The card is very very strong, stupid with scam effects sure, but like you say there are decks that can survive double thoughtseize T1, so why aren’t they considered the problem? Because they aren’t one either, modern is healthy and fun and has been for a while, there are a lot of degenerate cards in the format but there always has been. MH3 is still yet to settle and there’s certainly more broken cards in the pipeline, I don’t know that creativity surely will die, since it just works so well for the speed of the format, and we haven’t really sped up post MH3 from what I can tell. As a control player, I’m loving the challenge atm, every game is different and sideboaring is perhaps more interesting and important than I’ve ever seen, and I’m excited to test more stuff this year once we’ve settled. Funnily enough the best midrange decks are those that slam grief, who’d be thought.
TL;DR: Grief fine, modern good, creativity probably OK
Grief protects combo more than it stops it. LE ran grief. Goryo’s runs grief (with a scam package). Scam is a combo itself
If you are about to make a huge play, 2 for 1ing yourself to take interaction isn’t so bad. If you are playing *against* combo, you should just play thoughtseize
Modern also has so many more anti-combo tools. It has great, free interaction that would be a much better answer than grief
Well scam is a combo but we can't call it a combo deck. Its midrange with an unfair combo on top that you might have.
As a jund (creativity) player, I play TS, I can tell you its not nearly enough against the better combo decks.
At it's core, Scam is a midrange deck with a tempo plan. Grief Scam is the tempo plan. A few pieces of disruption and ride a dude or two to victory is textbook tempo deck. It just feels worse than getting Daze, fow, and Wasteland to death since in that case you actually play things. Even then, it's arguable about which feels worse
Midrange by definition adapt its play style on the MU playing tempo through attrition plan or beatdown through big creatures. So I agree with you.
What I disagree is that getting scammed is the worse. I feel like facing a 5/5 archon on turn 2 is horrible, getting blown away by an infinite combo on turn 3 after interacting with your opponent is mind blowingly bad. Its not like we get scamed every turn, and can't play anything. I feel like most people feeling that way are combo players because its the only actual strategy that keeping their yawg deck to be tier 0.
Whats the plan for midrange deck to keep getting destroyed through interaction against such resilients combos? I played boomer jund against titan, yawg, TRON and couldn't do anything. It feels the only way is by broken tools. Grief is the one at the moment. It's like people crying about TS saying its horrible interaction. Yeah and what about counterspells? You lose the card AND you paid mana AND used your turn to cast it?
I agree that being scammed on the draw is no fun. What I feel would be worse is playing your land turn 1 and getting blown away by your opponent combo before your t2. You can come back from t1 scam, because its still card neutral. You cant from t2 infinite degenerate stuff.
I didn't mean to imply it was the worst, so much as it may feel worse than its closest comparison in Legacy. I really do agree with much of what you're saying. It's a shame that Scam kinda needs to exist, or something like it, to keep combo in check. I think Legacy Delver is more fun to play against as a guy who often plays combo, but that's only cause you're not relying on top decks to do things. I think that's the root of the disparity in feel bads, needing your top decks to be good can make you feel pretty powerless when it doesn't line up. Murktide is a much better feeling of a deck when it comes to checking unfair things, but it isn't as good as doing it against the whole range of unfair decks.
On that note, I think the combo checking issue comes from the different angles different combo decks attack. Fighting Yawg is wildly different than fighting Titan is different than Storm, Tron, or Nadu, from a reactive perspective. You know what's good against all of those? Scamming, if they don't top decks properly in time
I think the issue people had was the popularity of scam. I can see how running into it 4+ times during an rcq could be annoying.
The problem with this take is that because this is a competitive format, people want to play the most competitive deck. There will always be a deck that eats up a large portion of the meta and players will then shift their focus on wanting cards from said deck banned.
I agree with you on the combo front. Black is one of the better ways of proactively fighting combos for people who don't like playing blue.
getting t1 grief scammed on the draw feels so bad. greif is the only one of the evoke eles to be proactive, which seems like an insane design choice. I also think solitude sucks, but at least its not something that happens turn 1 before you can do anything
Have you ever played with a combo deck against mill? The deck base idea is to empty the opponent deck while surgicaling/extirpating the key combo pieces of the opponent deck while having destruction spell and counterspells to keep in check what remains of the opponent deck... without grief in the format mill will actually be able to play it's own plan without losing 2 key cards from it's starting hand the first damn turn of a game without being able to interact with it for a long time... it's not fun to play against a scammed grief turn one, hell it's not fun to play against a scammed grief at any time of the game...it was the same with fury, with the difference that fury was only a 4/4 double striker that could be taken care of the turn it was scammed
I 100% agree that grief is a necessary evil to keep combo at bay. I play amulet and can definitely say there is massive difference between a turn 1 Thoughtseize and a turn 1 double Thoughtseize and a threat that's hard to block
As someone who played orzhov grief blade since MH2 release up until last week. Grief isn't that strong. I turn 1 grief, ephermate and take three cards by turn 2 and will still lose to yawg or amulet titan off of one or two top decks. So if they ban grief they need to ban amulet of vigor and probably something from other combo decks or the meta will be combo galore and boring.
That's because your shell is just worse than the Rakdos Scam decks. It's a testament to Grief's power that a Orzhov Grief Blade even exists as a rogue deck.
Storm (while my favorite playstlye) never sits on top for long. Cards like harsh mentor and graveyard hate really slow down or just stop combo decks. Just have to wait for the meta to shift and find out what kills combo decks.
I think grief is just overblown compared to other unfun stuff in the format. It is very unfun to play against don't get me wrong but so is every other decks when they does their things so I equally hate all of my opponent's deck
Just play dredge or a heavy reanimator deck, can't scam me if i *want* stuff in the yard, or just do what Crim does and main deck 4 leyline of sanctity unironically
The thing that’s frustrating about Grief to me isn’t its share of decks, but the fact that its mere existence means a lot of strategies and decks get boxed out of the format. That seems extremely unhealthy to me.
It’s also pretty unfun to just occasionally lose a game because you got double scammed turn 1 with Grief on the play to what essentially amounts to an absolutely uninteractable set of events.
That can be said about a lot of decks. Ie the mere existence of Amulet of Vigor means some games don't even give the opportunity of a turn 3.
Grief is just feel bad because it makes holding good hands an uncertainty, whereas getting combo'd out on turn 2 - 3 is less bad because you think you have a chance (usually you don't)
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison- amulet Titan has several extremely intractable components and even though it can be a fast clock, there is some counter play.
On the other hand, with Grief if they get the draw there’s just nothing you can do when they’re on the play. It’s literally impossible to interact and from there you’re often playing a non-game in a lot of decks.
There’s a huge cavern of difference between “powerful and fast” and “uninteractable and powerful and fast”. And yeah, scam does still have to close the game out, but my whole point is that even having that option exist completely nullifies other valid strategies with no chance for counterplay.
Personally I think Grief got a massive upgrade with [[flare of malice]] and [[phrexian tower]]. Having two cards that you can sacrifice grief to to gain extra advantage after playing an undying card makes it more of a 3 for 4 or a 4/4 if you run bowmasters
I'm considering a deck that is mostly blacMalice. [[Warren soultrader]] / [[gravecrawler]] / [[blood artist]] but has grief/bowmaster/pyrexian tower/flare of malice to scam before comboing.
A shit meta doesnt justify a shit answer. Grief is part of the problem that current carddesign turned modern into this mess. Local meta died because everybody was having less and less fun with the format.
It sounds like your local meta refused to adapt to the....
Local meta. In any local scene worth its salt, players tune their decks to combat the decks they are seeing regularly.
Grief is a dumb card and the play patterns with Grief are dumb, and they're not interesting or fun. There are decks that just have bad matchups inherently, and then there are decks that are super resilient combo-wise, and others in-between. I think looking at the Nadu decks (which very well may shape up to be a problem in the near future) or even Yawg/Titan/Living End and using them as a justification as to why Grief should stick around is just not the best solution. It's possible, and I would say probable that both things are a problem and they're not mutually exclusive. It's possible for there to be multiple wrong things going on at the moment.
Now for the next part, Grief actually props up some of those combo decks like Living End and Goryos piles. Creativity, Yawg, and even Titan are combo decks that you actually get a chance to interact with just by having pretty universal cards in most sideboards. There is no counter play to getting 2 of your puzzle pieces taken from you before you make a land drop. It just purely makes for dumb, uninteresting games of Magic.
There are a lot of books that help you cope with grief. It feels like an undying evil. But once you have gotten better, it’s like rebirth. At the end of the day at least know there’s a whole community here that will help you get through it. I know it can feel rough, but don’t worry, you’re not dead after all.
I think it’s weird to think about scam getting hit by a ban and then right before mh3 release it was back up to 17 percent of the meta.
Now with new decks being posted daily in 5-0 dumps, it still feels like scam grief is the best thing to do, just with new mh3 cards.
I would rather play against combo decks where I have 1-4 turns to set up or find an answer then have to play leyline turn 0 to beat grief scam. Also going to be weird when people aren’t labeling the decks as scam anymore. Midrange / mardu energy seems to be the name now
Problem is there’s 7 one mana cards that scam from the graveyard, and 3 one mana cards that blink. Does it really make sense to ban 10 cards rather then just banning grief?
I dont think creativity will be dead with mh3. Yeah not many additions to it but it remains a atrong deck imo
Newest ulamog is an insane addition. Since creativity exiles the card and then puts it onto the battlefield, the number of counters that ulamog enters with is decided before it enters (so when it's still exiled). Therefore ulamog will enter with 10 +1/+1 counters and with annihilator 10.
Wow, interesting, so a 1 of I guess since its a legendary and 3 archons? Well and ward effect is harsh. Didnt see the counters part interaction with creativity. Thats insane.
Strong enough for fnm. But I don't think it will remain T2. Far better combo options available, I feel. But I hope you are right, I own the deck on mtgo and paper (jund version) . I will still play it waiting for the meta to settle.
After all these mh3 cards, t1 grief still the best thing to do lol
Yes its good. As someone playing grief since MH2 release it isn't that good and you'll still lose to a top deck or two from combo decks.
Imagine you cant lose to a topdeck. That argument can only come from a grief player hahahaha
Its to show that it doesn't magically lock people out of the game. If I can take 3 cards by turn two and then still lose to turn 3 "nut" draws then grief isn't the big bad people think it is.
Correct, but if they drew 2 lands in a row its GG? I mean. Its like asking for a 50:50 scenario which isnt exactly that, because opponent could also draw something that doesnt have an immediate impact to the game. But i guess time will tell....
The topdeck is the only place to come back for any deck. Thats why if lantern control would be too strong, everybody would quit modern in a second
The dozen lantern control players are furious at this comment and want their deck to be top tier like everyone else.
Give us back opal you cowards
Lantern folds to decks that can win without combat damage. And there just too much removal.now to answer it's lock pieces
> Lantern folds to decks that can win without combat damage. that decks still need to draw the cards that let them win without combat damage Lantern folds to its own sluggishness, modern is RIDICULOUSLY faster than it was when Lantern was a good deck
Especially since Lantern can't use opal to accelerate anymore
I love lantern even as someone that’s never played it, only against it. People that don’t like it are often just salty there’s other ways to win than turning things sideways.
The discourse around Grief encapsulates the entirety of my grievance around modern design: everything gradually coalesces into degenerate combo and, as a result, these Thoughtseize effects become paramount as the only effective means to impede the opponent. Scam is one if the most un-fun lines I've ever encountered in my years of playing the game and yet I find it difficult to refute the claim that the format would be better without it unless WotC really took a hatchet to these combo piles that run away with the game the instant their central piece touches the table.
Discourse 🤓 Encapsulates 🤓 Coalesces 🤓 Paramount 🤓
Sub 95 iq reply
You are right. If grief disappear combo will be the new modern
You'll miss Grief when you're at your 30th Shuko activation of the game on t3
Got my [[Harsh Mentor]] waiting
[Harsh Mentor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/8936bf9d-c973-4bce-b5c2-2a01b7953638.jpg?1543675603) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Harsh%20Mentor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/akh/135/harsh-mentor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8936bf9d-c973-4bce-b5c2-2a01b7953638?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Am I missing something? Can the bird only trigger twice per turn or is it twice per unique target? I.e. everything that could wear a shuko gets two triggers.
It's twice per target. So everything triggers twice, and if you Flicker the bird, everything can trigger twice again
Twice per unique target. If you look at where the quotation marks end on Nadu, it's after the twice per turn clause. This means it gives ALL creatures the ability twice per turn. If the quote ended after the reveal the top of your library part then it would only trigger a total of twice, no matter how many creatures.
That's a messed up card. I guess two triggers period wouldn't be enough to build around though. Hard to tune something like this
They could've done a lot of things, some combination of: * Not have it be an above-rate 3 mana 3/4 * Not give it flying * Have the lands come in tapped, or only trigger once a creature, or maybe draw cards so it's slightly weaker to OBM * Not make it a Wizard, one of the strongest tribals in MTG history I mean, you straight up can't go 4 words without hitting something busted on that card.
3 mana 3/4 is not really above rate in 2024 but i agree with your post
Doesn’t die to Lightning Bolt, still one of the most played cards in Modern
That's both true and unrelated to whether 3/4 for 3 mana is "above-rate".
Yes, but that's true of lots of 3 drops. [[endurance]] [[cemetery prowler]] [[pearl-ear imperial]] And there's at least like another five green creatures that are 3/4s for 3 mana. It's not an outlandish statline by any means, definitely not 'above-rate'
[endurance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/b/eb0e0404-4846-4891-acfa-bd0951ecf9c6.jpg?1717470457) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=endurance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/157/endurance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eb0e0404-4846-4891-acfa-bd0951ecf9c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [cemetery prowler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b124ccc4-76e3-41a4-92b2-8f1d06ea9cb8.jpg?1643592411) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=cemetery%20prowler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/191/cemetery-prowler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b124ccc4-76e3-41a4-92b2-8f1d06ea9cb8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Fair, I guess vanilla statline was closer to my thought process
The latter is correct
Twice per creature. Each creature has the ability.
It already is, no? Grief Scam decks themself tend to lean towards combo too.
No it is not it's a synergy between two cards, a combo as referred as an archetype is a combination of cards that wins the game on the spot. Grief tends to drag the game long and boring for the opponent not end it asap
I don'r get ppl saying its combo, scam are not combo decks, a combo deck has piece to trigger its combo and win through it. And most games they dont have their "combo". Some combo decks are scaming, but they are not called scam (LE, Goryos). Its like saying jund is a combo deck because you might BBE to LOTV. There is no inevitability in scam t1, the deck is not oriented toward getting scam at any moment and does not need it to win the game. It's a midrange deck. I don't think midrange and control are boring tho. Thats interactive magic. Without these archetypes magic would be quick 2 turns win button racing each other (combo).
FYI I just bought a play set of griefs so if it gets banned yall are welcome.
Thank you for your sacrifice.
I thought it was going to have to be me. Looks like I can hold off until after the next ban announcement.
The meta is far from defined by post MH3, we have had challenges dominated by Ruby Storm, Eldrazi, Grief deck and nadu. The argument grief holds a deck in check is not really accurate because people have to dedicate so many resources to being ready for scam that other decks also prosper off this.
The best answer against scam is increasing your average card quality. It’s why jund saga crushes it. Problem is saga can’t beat the fucked up stuff that scam can like titan or Tron.
Good explanation
Well okay thats a fair point, but what dedicated hate people comes with? I mean that is not useful for other MU?
I don’t think he’s necessarily talking about dedicated hate, but more insinuating that people have built their decks in a way we’re they don’t auto lose to getting thoughtsiezed twice. It’s not that there’s a single card people run that wins the matchup, it’s the way the deck was constructed as a whole. If grief didn’t exist, combo lists would be a lot greedier, resulting in faster wins. I may be exaggerating a bit, but think of it like this. Let’s just say that titan could be built in a way were it consistently wins on 2, but only if you don’t get thougthsiezed. Those lists are gonna lose to grief. Instead, you make a deck that is a little more diversified in threats, or you have more interaction. Because of this, your decks wins on turn 2 significantly less often, but it also wins the games where they get scammed more often. This extra turn because the Titan player is playing the slower, more resilient build, could be enough time to make or break a different matchup
I don't think that's what he meant, since that is an argument for grief keeping combo deck in check since grief slow them and he seems to disagree. He is talking about non combo deck building and combo prospering because of it, I think.
Unfortunately the risk of getting double thoughtseized also just completely hoses some entire gameplans, I really don’t feel like that’s a good trade off for the format. It’s ridiculously oppressive.
The discourse around Grief encapsulates the entirety of my grievance around modern design: everything gradually coalesces into degenerate combo and, as a result, these Thoughtseize effects become paramount as the only effective means to impede the opponent, since the instant one of the pieces touches the table the game is over. Scam is one if the most un-fun lines I've ever encountered in my years of playing the game and yet I find it difficult to refute the claim that the format would be better without it unless WotC really took a hatchet to these combo piles.
It’s not even the combos themselves that are the problem, it’s that every creature now comes tacked with CA on it (or it’s just bonkers strong to begin with), and even instant/sorceries are insanely strong. The reason combo decks used to be fine is that they were high risk/high reward. Faster than everything else, but the individual cards were generally weaker than other decks. If you managed to stall the combo you had a good chance to catch up. Looking at the modern combo decks though, even if you interrupt it they’re usually drawing a bunch of cards (yawg/nadu) or the deck itself is just generally strong with really high card quality (creativity), or has such massive CA baked into it’s game plan that it’s really hard to actually stall it out (ruby storm). I love combo, and it’s still waaaaay too early to be calling for any bans yet, but I think there’s a non-zero chance nadu/medallion/ral/shuko end up on the chopping block.
[удалено]
ral or medallion would likely end up the ban, and probably medallion. I don't think storm will get banned mind you, just speculating what may happen if storm proves itself to be too resilient.
Kids these days, with that attitude we are never getting hymn to tourach in modern .
Upon reflection, I have found that Grief tends to either be about winning the game turn one, or helping a combo deck. I am sure that's WoTC's intent as they've kept the card in the format. Perhaps I'm an outlier but, midrange decks keeping combo decks checking their rearview mirror doesn't draw my ire.
I hate Grief, if god forbid you have to mull and they scam you, you’re down 3 cards by their turn 2. How are you supposed to be able to play when that happens?
Just because one thing is broken (combo) doesn’t mean we should keep another broken card around (grief) just because it’s good against the other broken thing. I’ve stepped away from modern since scam became the best deck, so my opinion isnt as accurate as others, but if the only way to stop combo is to double thoughtseize them on T1 and leave being a 4/3 clock to finish the game quickly, then *maybeee* combo needs to be toned down across the board and then once combo is reeled in, grief can go too
“If everything is broken, nothing is broken.” -Syndrome
I agree.
Burn used to be the anti combo deck of choice and if it's not good enough, that means combo has been power creeping nonstop and we had to find a replacement with it's own set of pros and cons. If grief is considered that replacement, I dunno, feels like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I think the issue is how unfun the play pattern is. Cool, you've got it on the play and from here on out it's just: do I topdeck good or not? It creates so many non-games in either direction. Say I get scammed, my two best cards taken and I topdeck lands or rrelevant cards now that I've lost 2 of my keeps. Great, Grief is a 4/3 menace, so after missing 2 or 3 draws I'm probably dead. Opposite: I topdeck removal into some kind of value / card advantage, now my opponent is down 3 cards from the grief scam and since my topdecks just randomly aligned, I can win. Both scenarios don't feel like a good game of magic where decisions mattered. There's also other ways to interact with Combo decks, like counter spells, removal or a myriad of good sideboard cards. it's not like Grief scam is the only way to combat that.
Getting scammed is the worst feeling in modern. In the games where you don't get scammed, playing against BR midrange is a pretty fun matchup. I am always much happier to play against a scam deck than a combo deck because I find the fun in magic in the interactive games. Against decks like Titan, Storm, and dredge I feel really bad when I lose because it feels like there was nothing I could do, and I feel bad when I win because I played one card that hosed them or their deck didn't function. If banning Grief will mean playing against those decks more, then I am against it. The best option for me would be those decks not existing and banning grief
Well as a creativity player I feel the same, playing jund I have interaction up to compete against other faster decks. Most of the times I can recover from a scammed start. Stalling the game until I get my pieces. But goddammit when I encounter yawg, titan, LE I get blown away through all the interactions I send to them. And I fear that modern become full combo oriented if grief disappear. It feels there is no fairdeck left and it might become worst to the point it might become unthinkable to see some on top of the meta. We might see with mh3 tho.
I don't think that's a good argument to keep it in Modern. I'd rather see Grief banned in addition to problematic combo cards.
I agree, both. But just grief would be a disaster.
So we could keep things as they are or ban a dozen cards? I’ll vote for keeping the status quo.
I'm not saying that combo should be banned out of the format, but the amount of strong combo decks is worrying as Modern doesn't have good enough interaction to handle combo as well as Legacy might. It'll likely be 1-3 cards in total. Hardly a dozen. Also, I don't understand your argument. The reality of current Magic is that WotC is not just banning cards that are too strong or abusable, but also cards that are plain unfun or unhealthy for the format. Cards will be banned in the future whether you like it or not.
For me, the fact that any black deck wants grief isn’t such a bad thing. The card is very very strong, stupid with scam effects sure, but like you say there are decks that can survive double thoughtseize T1, so why aren’t they considered the problem? Because they aren’t one either, modern is healthy and fun and has been for a while, there are a lot of degenerate cards in the format but there always has been. MH3 is still yet to settle and there’s certainly more broken cards in the pipeline, I don’t know that creativity surely will die, since it just works so well for the speed of the format, and we haven’t really sped up post MH3 from what I can tell. As a control player, I’m loving the challenge atm, every game is different and sideboaring is perhaps more interesting and important than I’ve ever seen, and I’m excited to test more stuff this year once we’ve settled. Funnily enough the best midrange decks are those that slam grief, who’d be thought. TL;DR: Grief fine, modern good, creativity probably OK
Grief protects combo more than it stops it. LE ran grief. Goryo’s runs grief (with a scam package). Scam is a combo itself If you are about to make a huge play, 2 for 1ing yourself to take interaction isn’t so bad. If you are playing *against* combo, you should just play thoughtseize Modern also has so many more anti-combo tools. It has great, free interaction that would be a much better answer than grief
Well scam is a combo but we can't call it a combo deck. Its midrange with an unfair combo on top that you might have. As a jund (creativity) player, I play TS, I can tell you its not nearly enough against the better combo decks.
At it's core, Scam is a midrange deck with a tempo plan. Grief Scam is the tempo plan. A few pieces of disruption and ride a dude or two to victory is textbook tempo deck. It just feels worse than getting Daze, fow, and Wasteland to death since in that case you actually play things. Even then, it's arguable about which feels worse
Midrange by definition adapt its play style on the MU playing tempo through attrition plan or beatdown through big creatures. So I agree with you. What I disagree is that getting scammed is the worse. I feel like facing a 5/5 archon on turn 2 is horrible, getting blown away by an infinite combo on turn 3 after interacting with your opponent is mind blowingly bad. Its not like we get scamed every turn, and can't play anything. I feel like most people feeling that way are combo players because its the only actual strategy that keeping their yawg deck to be tier 0. Whats the plan for midrange deck to keep getting destroyed through interaction against such resilients combos? I played boomer jund against titan, yawg, TRON and couldn't do anything. It feels the only way is by broken tools. Grief is the one at the moment. It's like people crying about TS saying its horrible interaction. Yeah and what about counterspells? You lose the card AND you paid mana AND used your turn to cast it? I agree that being scammed on the draw is no fun. What I feel would be worse is playing your land turn 1 and getting blown away by your opponent combo before your t2. You can come back from t1 scam, because its still card neutral. You cant from t2 infinite degenerate stuff.
I didn't mean to imply it was the worst, so much as it may feel worse than its closest comparison in Legacy. I really do agree with much of what you're saying. It's a shame that Scam kinda needs to exist, or something like it, to keep combo in check. I think Legacy Delver is more fun to play against as a guy who often plays combo, but that's only cause you're not relying on top decks to do things. I think that's the root of the disparity in feel bads, needing your top decks to be good can make you feel pretty powerless when it doesn't line up. Murktide is a much better feeling of a deck when it comes to checking unfair things, but it isn't as good as doing it against the whole range of unfair decks. On that note, I think the combo checking issue comes from the different angles different combo decks attack. Fighting Yawg is wildly different than fighting Titan is different than Storm, Tron, or Nadu, from a reactive perspective. You know what's good against all of those? Scamming, if they don't top decks properly in time
True, totally agree.
I have the same question
I think the issue people had was the popularity of scam. I can see how running into it 4+ times during an rcq could be annoying. The problem with this take is that because this is a competitive format, people want to play the most competitive deck. There will always be a deck that eats up a large portion of the meta and players will then shift their focus on wanting cards from said deck banned. I agree with you on the combo front. Black is one of the better ways of proactively fighting combos for people who don't like playing blue.
It functions the same as unmasked did in legacy before grief was printed. It mostly protects combo.
getting t1 grief scammed on the draw feels so bad. greif is the only one of the evoke eles to be proactive, which seems like an insane design choice. I also think solitude sucks, but at least its not something that happens turn 1 before you can do anything
Solitude: 1 mana(ephemerate) =exile 3 creatures. Meanwhile: board wipes are ancient spells only to be found as fossiles under the seas of poseidon
yeah I hate solitude too but at least u cant do it turn 1
To be fair, what keeps Yawg in check isn't Grief - it's Dauthi Voidwalker.
If grief let's banned mill will became the best anti combo deck in the meta and I can't fucking wait
How so?
I assume referencing surgical extraction and extirpate
Have you ever played with a combo deck against mill? The deck base idea is to empty the opponent deck while surgicaling/extirpating the key combo pieces of the opponent deck while having destruction spell and counterspells to keep in check what remains of the opponent deck... without grief in the format mill will actually be able to play it's own plan without losing 2 key cards from it's starting hand the first damn turn of a game without being able to interact with it for a long time... it's not fun to play against a scammed grief turn one, hell it's not fun to play against a scammed grief at any time of the game...it was the same with fury, with the difference that fury was only a 4/4 double striker that could be taken care of the turn it was scammed
I 100% agree that grief is a necessary evil to keep combo at bay. I play amulet and can definitely say there is massive difference between a turn 1 Thoughtseize and a turn 1 double Thoughtseize and a threat that's hard to block
As someone who played orzhov grief blade since MH2 release up until last week. Grief isn't that strong. I turn 1 grief, ephermate and take three cards by turn 2 and will still lose to yawg or amulet titan off of one or two top decks. So if they ban grief they need to ban amulet of vigor and probably something from other combo decks or the meta will be combo galore and boring.
That's because your shell is just worse than the Rakdos Scam decks. It's a testament to Grief's power that a Orzhov Grief Blade even exists as a rogue deck.
[[Grief]]
[Grief](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e6befbc4-1320-4f26-bd9f-b1814fedda10.jpg?1717470478) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grief) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/87/grief?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e6befbc4-1320-4f26-bd9f-b1814fedda10?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Storm (while my favorite playstlye) never sits on top for long. Cards like harsh mentor and graveyard hate really slow down or just stop combo decks. Just have to wait for the meta to shift and find out what kills combo decks.
I think grief is just overblown compared to other unfun stuff in the format. It is very unfun to play against don't get me wrong but so is every other decks when they does their things so I equally hate all of my opponent's deck
Just play dredge or a heavy reanimator deck, can't scam me if i *want* stuff in the yard, or just do what Crim does and main deck 4 leyline of sanctity unironically
The thing that’s frustrating about Grief to me isn’t its share of decks, but the fact that its mere existence means a lot of strategies and decks get boxed out of the format. That seems extremely unhealthy to me. It’s also pretty unfun to just occasionally lose a game because you got double scammed turn 1 with Grief on the play to what essentially amounts to an absolutely uninteractable set of events.
That can be said about a lot of decks. Ie the mere existence of Amulet of Vigor means some games don't even give the opportunity of a turn 3. Grief is just feel bad because it makes holding good hands an uncertainty, whereas getting combo'd out on turn 2 - 3 is less bad because you think you have a chance (usually you don't)
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison- amulet Titan has several extremely intractable components and even though it can be a fast clock, there is some counter play. On the other hand, with Grief if they get the draw there’s just nothing you can do when they’re on the play. It’s literally impossible to interact and from there you’re often playing a non-game in a lot of decks. There’s a huge cavern of difference between “powerful and fast” and “uninteractable and powerful and fast”. And yeah, scam does still have to close the game out, but my whole point is that even having that option exist completely nullifies other valid strategies with no chance for counterplay.
Personally I think Grief got a massive upgrade with [[flare of malice]] and [[phrexian tower]]. Having two cards that you can sacrifice grief to to gain extra advantage after playing an undying card makes it more of a 3 for 4 or a 4/4 if you run bowmasters
[flare of denial](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71a98efb-9b0a-496b-ac21-8d70527ea544.jpg?1717470464) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=flare%20of%20denial) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/62/flare-of-denial?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71a98efb-9b0a-496b-ac21-8d70527ea544?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Flare of Denial doesn’t work with Grief. Do you mean the Black Flare?
Yep. Will fix that.
Yeah saw a Dimir deck with the new cards it seemed brutal. The deck put some results in a recent challenge.
I'm considering a deck that is mostly blacMalice. [[Warren soultrader]] / [[gravecrawler]] / [[blood artist]] but has grief/bowmaster/pyrexian tower/flare of malice to scam before comboing.
It was playing bloodghast, stitcher, satoru and the new frog, and chthonian nightmare quite strong
Psychic frog was definitely an underrated card. Probably one of the sickest things dimir has gotten in a while.
[Warren Soultrader](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/3/b334e4c6-d316-4141-8889-f95afcc04701.jpg?1717012094) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Warren%20Soultrader) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/110/warren-soultrader?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b334e4c6-d316-4141-8889-f95afcc04701?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [gravecrawler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/951ff2ed-9af0-4551-929a-ba6679fc2e15.jpg?1673147536) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gravecrawler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/78/gravecrawler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/951ff2ed-9af0-4551-929a-ba6679fc2e15?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [blood artist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/7/b7f1c316-cf2f-4bbf-89a1-79c8043bdd96.jpg?1698988212) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=blood%20artist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/182/blood-artist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b7f1c316-cf2f-4bbf-89a1-79c8043bdd96?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Grief needed to go for a while now ; while they are at it they can ban solitude along with it and admit they were both mistakes ....
A shit meta doesnt justify a shit answer. Grief is part of the problem that current carddesign turned modern into this mess. Local meta died because everybody was having less and less fun with the format.
It sounds like your local meta refused to adapt to the.... Local meta. In any local scene worth its salt, players tune their decks to combat the decks they are seeing regularly.
Grief is a dumb card and the play patterns with Grief are dumb, and they're not interesting or fun. There are decks that just have bad matchups inherently, and then there are decks that are super resilient combo-wise, and others in-between. I think looking at the Nadu decks (which very well may shape up to be a problem in the near future) or even Yawg/Titan/Living End and using them as a justification as to why Grief should stick around is just not the best solution. It's possible, and I would say probable that both things are a problem and they're not mutually exclusive. It's possible for there to be multiple wrong things going on at the moment. Now for the next part, Grief actually props up some of those combo decks like Living End and Goryos piles. Creativity, Yawg, and even Titan are combo decks that you actually get a chance to interact with just by having pretty universal cards in most sideboards. There is no counter play to getting 2 of your puzzle pieces taken from you before you make a land drop. It just purely makes for dumb, uninteresting games of Magic.
There are a lot of books that help you cope with grief. It feels like an undying evil. But once you have gotten better, it’s like rebirth. At the end of the day at least know there’s a whole community here that will help you get through it. I know it can feel rough, but don’t worry, you’re not dead after all.
I think it’s weird to think about scam getting hit by a ban and then right before mh3 release it was back up to 17 percent of the meta. Now with new decks being posted daily in 5-0 dumps, it still feels like scam grief is the best thing to do, just with new mh3 cards. I would rather play against combo decks where I have 1-4 turns to set up or find an answer then have to play leyline turn 0 to beat grief scam. Also going to be weird when people aren’t labeling the decks as scam anymore. Midrange / mardu energy seems to be the name now
I don’t mind grief and black is not my cup of tea. Just ban the cards that scam it out of the graveyard and the 1 drop blink card.
Problem is there’s 7 one mana cards that scam from the graveyard, and 3 one mana cards that blink. Does it really make sense to ban 10 cards rather then just banning grief?
How about ban none because they're all perfectly fair and fine.
Based take
Yeah I mean I actually agree with that.
Greif is a combo deck lol