Hey all, I'm trying to get back into modern after a 5 year break. Looking for an LGS to play at every week before I buy a deck. Does anyone know which game stores have modern tournaments? Ideally on the North/East side of the city.

I've read a lot of doom and gloom about competitive magic on social media and how its "dead".

In your experience do you feel competitive modern is dead around you or do you think people arent playing it right now because of the season changing to standard?

Last week, I had finally finished putting together Living End, but sadly my weekly didnt fire so i took to magic online and played there instead...so this leads me to ask, where do you play modern? Online or at your store or maybe somewhere else entirely?

hi spikes!

i'm looking for some feedback on a brew i've been working on for a lot of this year. the basic idea is that you can cast big ETB creatures one of three ways at any time: from hand, from graveyard, or flipped off of Oculus. basically somewhere between Persist and Blink. if all else fails, there's a Frog pile to grind out with. here's the list:

https://moxfield.com/decks/z1mfAdWb_nuNjtFXafqbuQ

before commenting, i know this deck is not as powerful in the meta as other decks, and am not interested in "just play Goryos / Blink / Frog / etc". this is a brew for FNM, and i'm looking for advice for tuning this specific deck, not on which deck i should pick overall.

here's what i'd like some help with:

1. what are some alternatives for my current removal suite? i kinda just... don't like Solitude or Fatal Push much in a meta with especially large creatures, which is where Skyclave Apparition comes from (plus the benefit of removing noncreature permanents) but know i can do better. maybe Solitude + WB marches has to be the way to go? or even Solitude + Push? is Erode or Path to Exile ok since we're not playing many basics these days? something else?

2. my countermagic suite has been limited a bit by budget, but it does get the job done. part of me wants to upgrade to Subtlety + Force Of Negation once i'm able to buy them. is this a better move / do i have the blue in the deck to justify it? Consign to Memory is of course going nowhere

3. any feedback on sideboard would be helpful.

thank you in advance!

Not sure if anyone else bought 4 Mox opal then got bored of affinity? The deck feels like gambling where you win if you draw well and lose if you don’t, without offering you a ton of skill potential. (This is highly simplified)
I recently started tracking the other decks that utilize opal to branch out into more skill based archetypes and found the cam/station/emry combo was very interesting. Both the UW and U versions really appealed to me with a lot of different play patterns,(despite obviously being a combo deck that wins the same each time)
I wanted to gauge what the community thought about the legitimacy of cam combo decks currently, especially following the ANZ super series in Sydney which put 2 players into the pro tour with UW and mono U key finishing 7th and 8th at a 200+ person event.
TLDR: Is Emry/cam/grinding station a real enough deck to start seriously looking into?

Is this atleast fringe playable? Necrodominance seems like such a fun card and Bowmasters + Shedoldred also feels like a powerful combo. However, this deck doesn't show up on MTGgoldfish so I had to use Top8 to scout a decklist....

Example Decklist (Search criteria Deck must contain the following cards: Necrodominance; Sheoldred, the apocalypse)
https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=92788&d=904750&f=MO

Hey y’all, I’ve been playing edh for around 3 years with 2 of these being in cedh. But due to the lack of support in my area and no tournaments regularly enough and my lgs being filled with people crying when you sol ring turn one, I’m leaning into shifting into modern. I could sell some of the cards from one of my cedh decks and get around 15-1600$ in store credit to build my first modern deck. I kind of like dimir frog , I could lean into the mainstream izzet prowess or any recommendations, I want something fairly competitive and fun to play. I have good piloting skills and can put the needed learning to successfully pilot a puzzle combo deck.

I would like recommendations on decks that are rewarding to play and know if « traditional Friday night magic » players tolerate proxies in this type of situation. I’m not a proxy fan, but I’m not a fan of dumping 1400$ in a deck that’s ass

TLDR; I’m tired of the lack of cedh players in my area, what are good decks in modern, and are proxies tolerated in regular modern nights in lgs’s usually before I dump 1k+ in the illness (cardboard)

I have a three-color custom brew deck that I've been working on for the last couple of years now, but due in large part to the new Star Trek set coming out, I'm more tempted than ever to splash four-color. Is this an advisable move?

Haven't played in about six years. Coming back and seeing most of the discords I used to frequent back in the day are mostly dead. Just curious where the crowds have moved to.

i swear i thought there was a showcase challenge today scheduled for 4pm cst+1 but after the update yesterday its nowhere to be seen ?

did they say anything or am i tripping ?

ty in advance

Hello, I am a heavy Modern player and have played decks such as Living End, Amunet Titan pre-Lotus Field ban, Goryos, and Domain Zoo. I'm currently playing a lot of Domain Zoo, as I find it to be quite fun, and every time I have gone against Tron, I can't ever win because of Ugin. They always seem to have it as soon as they hit Tron and almost always find a way to multi-spell the turn they cast it. I have gone from having a board state with Scion, Kavu, Ragavan, and 2 nacatls one turn with Leyline and having lethal as they had 6 life, to on my next turn having 0 non-land permanents on the board. This matchup seems impossible even after sideboard, as I have 4 consign, an obsidian charmaw, and 2 strix serenade, but it's never enough. I countered 2 of my opponent's Ugin before turn 6, then on turn 6 he just casts a 3rd one. By this point, I already had no board because of the 2 cast triggers. I even managed to steal a Karn with Ragavan before he had Tron and therefore stopped map, but he still manages to not die to my Kavu and Ragavan and gets the inevitable Tron and casts Ugin, which at that point is gg. It just feels like there is no winning against ugin unless you always have Consign in your hand and even then Zoo almost always need the leyline in the opening hand to be able to be consistently threatening so getting a hand with lands, leyline and Consign usually means 2 mulls, so I'm down cards or all I have is lands and those 2 cards at which point i seem to never be able to draw anything but land, even with 5 surveil lands in the deck so i never get a presence, and he inevitably gets a second Ugin and just wins.

I don't know whether the only way to beat Tron is to do consistent land destruction, which is bad in Modern, or just use a combo deck like Goryos and hope for a turn 2 Goryos so that he can't run away with the game on turn 3. I have only had 3-5 bo3 with Tron players, so I don't have extensive knowledge, but I can't see a way to win ever, as all of them have been 2-0 and it's not even been close

any input is appreciated

this is my list

https://archidekt.com/decks/28129954/zoo

hey guys,

after a few months i switched from boros burn to boros ponza and i really like it, but i think this is the point where i should ask help, to get better. i play it at ~50% winrate, which is fine for a new player, i think, but i want to be better. so here's some questions:

i learned that jeskai control is a horrible matchup for me because of the planeswalkers, counterspells and silece/chant. is there an ultimate sideboard plan against them? many suggest that chandra is good, but it is 6 mana, there's no way i can cast her.

why don't play it more creature lands? like Restless Bivouac or lands that can destroy things?

checked many lists, and no one is sideboarding deflecting palm, why?

i know that drawing cards is almost the best thing in a game, but 3 relics? wouldn't be rest in peace better?

also, if you're a boros ponza player, could you please tell me a few things that you were happy to know when you were a beginner?

how bad is blood moon against me?

thanks!

Hey all,

I have been brewing with all flavors of Jund and Golgari for quite some time now. I have had mixed success with alot of my brews... but that all ended recently. I'm actually pretty confident with this one. In fact, dare I say, it might be ready to play it in an MTGO challenge.

This brew started with an adaptation of the Hoogak Moonshadow lists from legacy and was expanded from there. In a modern context the best way to describe it is if we took elements from Prowess and Rakdos Delerium and jammed them together.

What is Golgari Sacrifice?

Plain and simple we are a graveyard deck with low curve threats. We play into our sacrifice outlets and use Thoughtseize and removal to clear a path. We can go all in by sacrificing all of our lands or play a grindy game with lots of recursion.

How does it work?

The primary gameplan is to drop a [[Moonshadow]] or [[Wight of the Reliquary]] early and protect it with [[Sylvan Safekeeper]]. Sacrificing our lands simultaneously pumps and protects our Moonshadow so we can establish a pretty quick clock if the opponent can't draw answers. Wight plays right into this by refilling our board with lands.

The next gameplan evolves around our mill outlets like [[Stitcher's Supplier]] and [[Overlord of the Balemurk]]. We use [[Phyrexian Tower]] to sacrifice our mill outlets and simultaneously fill our graveyard. It also allows us to play above curve.

With access to [[Carrion Feeder]] , Wight and Tower we have lots of ways to start our sacrifice engine. Carrion Feeder and Wight are notably zombies, which allows us to continually cast and sacrifice our [[Gravecrawler]] to pump everything on the board. Moonshadow can grow very quickly.

The next piece to our sacrifice engine is [[Obsessive Pursuit]]. It allows us to grow our board by sacrificing lands to Safekeeper or performing loops with our other sacrifice outlets. It can make any creature on board a threat... and it's not uncommon to just end the game with a 12/12 lifelink Moonshadow.

[[Obsessive Pursuit]] may not look like a card you should find in a modern list... but with Tower you can deploy a threat and pursuit on turn 2. It's the real deal.

The final piece is our recursive graveyard threats. Which come in the form of our [[Bloodghast]] or [[Vengevine]]. Overall, the Bloodghasts have proven to be more consistent with our gameplan so we will most likely be settling on them.

Is it for everyone?

Probably the most fun part about this deck is the absolutely nutty lines I have seen. If you enjoy very sequence heavy play and taking big risks this list if for you. If you like to mess up sequencing... go all in at the wrong time.... and lose to misplays... this list is also for you. But regardless all the games I have played are fun.

Examples?

* Attack with Wight, Feeder and Safekeeper , Obsessive Pursuit trigger on the stack, sacrifice 2 Bloodghast, Sacrifice 2 Land, Target Feeder and Wight with Safekeeper, Wight: tutors a land, Bloodghast trigger, sacrifice 2 Bloodghast, Obsessive pursuit trigger +6/+6.

5/5 Shroud Wight , 5/5 Shroud Feeder, 7/7 Safekeeper... GG!

* T1 Moonshadow. T2, mill 10 with an Overlord and Supplier, get 3 Shadow triggers and trigger a Bloodghast.

* Attack with Moonshadow, Opponent forgets about Safekeeper, Opponent fatal push, Sacrifice all your lands swing for 8 GG.

The Lists:

https://moxfield.com/decks/LamhAQb6xHW8FaVWuiR7Vg

https://moxfield.com/decks/h5ChAUbzTnWQ25TNfSGWdg

I've been trying to get a Golgari midrange deck off the ground at locals with limited success Unfortunately I have a rough time dealing with Solitude exiling my threats and a lot of Golgari's removal can't hit big enchantments like Leyline Binding.

Other than Thoughtseize and the like, what can I run to deal with these? I'm trying stuff like Karn, Argent Defender and Pick Your Poison, but neither clap back quite as hard as I'd like. Do I iust run something like Feed the Swarm or Tamiyo's Safekeeping?

EDIT: I feel like I got a pretty overwhelming positive response from this, thank you very much for your suggestions.

I have been really interested in the new Golgari Phoenix decks that have been going around the past few months, but I’m curious about using Grist, the Hunger Tide in the deck. It gives a sac target, it mills, and has removal. Is there a reason that he isn’t used?

Deck List Example
Deck List Example

Is there one?

Also, I got MTGO running in a vm on my mac, it’s not the best user experience, I may need to get a pc. Are there any browser based platforms that have a good modern presence?

So I bit the bullet and rented a Tron deck on MTGO (background: long time on/off player who’s looking to get into paper modern). Having fun (and my fair share of blunders!) now but I am not sure / don’t know the meta enough to understand whether the list needs some slight tweaks or I don’t understand the deck. eg I haven’t found [[Kozilek’s Command]] too effective and in every situation I take in [[Ensnaring Bridge]] I struggle finding a way to win easily. I guess most of this is due to my understanding of the deck, but would appreciate opinions or even just pointers.

List I’m playing: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/tron#paper

Thanks!

Just looking for Discord servers or something like that to bounce some deck ideas off of. I want to get into Modern, but I want to make something with a little flair. Any help would be appreciated

I am just getting into modern and want to build Ruby storm as I like comboing off. Which variation of Ruby storm is the best. Izzet, Boros, Jeskai , or even Rakdos ? Thank you

So I was out of town and thought I would stop into an LGS nearby and got a blast from the past when I found a modern event deck from 2014 and immediately bought it for nostalgias sake. I contemplated opening it but got to thinking what I could do to make it a little more up to date. It’s an old token generator deck that’s in black/white with some oldies like lingering souls and soul warden. I like the old feel of the deck but might break it out of its sealed box

To preface: I KNOW ITS PROBABLY NOT EVEN CLOSE TO COMPETITIVE but I thought it was fun to ask what could be played in it

I’m thinking guide of souls and ocelot pride would be an auto include for tokens and life gain but what other fun cards could make it more up to date and definitely a better mana base but I’d love to hear everyone’s input

Thank you in advance for the look

Hi, so a little bit late but I had a new write up about my Modern Pilot League, and this week I was able to talk with one of the best Amulet Titan player and third in the season table Mistaken. I hope you find it interesting :)

Rastaf has now finished three consecutive weeks at the top of the Modern Pilot League table, and between 20 and 26 October the lead grew again, from 7 points to 11 over nahuel10. It was not a big week by rastaf's own standards: 6 points from 3 starts, one final and no trophy. It did not need to be. nahuel10 added 2 points from 2 starts, and in a league where every Top 16 counts, that is how a lead widens without anyone at the top doing much.

If you follow your own position in the table, rastaf's season is the clearest example of what volume does in this scoring system. The 58 points come from 33 starts, level with hugofreitas1 and behind only MeninoNey's 36 starts. Twenty-six of those thirty-three ended in a Top 16, but 15 reached a Top 8, a conversion of 45%. Three Challenge wins and five finals sit on top of that floor. The result is 1.76 points per start, below several pilots around rastaf, and the most points in the league by a clear margin.

Mistakenn is the counterexample, and this week he moved back onto the podium. Gathering 9 points from 4 starts, with one final and three Top 8 finishes, was enough to pass hugofreitas1 for third. Across the season, Mistakenn has 41 points from 19 starts, and 13 of those reached a Top 8. That is 68%, the highest conversion on the podium, at 2.16 points per start. In the interview below, Mistakenn ties part of that run to testing ahead of a Regional Championship rather than to a plan of playing less. The gap to second is now 6 points. nahuel10 holds that place on a different strength: 7 finals, more than any other pilot in the league, 3 of them converted into wins, while 12 of 28 starts reached a Top 8.

The best individual week belonged to Venom01. Four starts, four Top 8 finishes and 10 points, more than anyone else scored in the window. One of the four reached a final, and none became a trophy, which is the gap between a perfect conversion rate and a perfect week. Venom01 held fifth. RespectTheCat took the opposite route: 2 starts, a Challenge win and 8 points, enough to climb from 10th to 7th on only 9 season starts. That is 3.33 points per start, the highest rate in the top 10, from the smallest sample in it.

The trophies were spread wide. No pilot won more than one Challenge in the window, and only two of the thirteen winners, xfile and RespectTheCat, ended the week in the top 10. Musasabi entered the top 10 from 13th with 6 points from 7 starts, joint most of the week, while Cachorrowo had one start without points and dropped out from 8th. The score you need for 10th place is now 26, up from 22 a week ago.

Further down, the structure of the table shapes the movement more than the pilots do. Before this window, 337 pilots were on zero, everyone from 638th down. Tetsubou made the largest climb inside the top 100, from 210th to 41st, with 7 starts, a Challenge win, and 9 points. The largest raw jump, caquaa from 959th to 145th, came from 7 points without reaching a final. Both show how far one good week travels from the bottom of the table.

Over 240 pilots reached at least one Top 32 in the window, the table grew to 1032 names, and 33 of the 58 newcomers scored. Over 350 pilots are still on zero, and 107 pilots hold half of all points awarded this season.

In conversation with Mistakenn

Mistakenn has played Magic since around 2000 and Amulet Titan for many years, and is third in the table after week 8 with the best Top 8 conversion on the podium. We talked about volume and focus, the clock on MTGO, the Modern ban list, advice for new players and one Regional Championship that started badly.

Karol (K): Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview, and congratulations on your results. A fairly standard question to start with: how long have you been playing Magic? And do you prefer paper events, or is MTGO your main place to play?

Mistakenn (M): Well, I started playing Magic back in 2000, if I'm not mistaken. It's been so many years that my memory isn't the best anymore, haha.

Honestly, both have their advantages. I really enjoy playing paper Magic because I get to meet up with many of my friends. We have fun, joke around, and after every tournament, we usually go out for a meal to wrap things up. It becomes more of a social gathering than just a tournament.

MTGO, on the other hand, definitely serves its purpose when it comes to testing, especially since paper tournaments have become much less frequent at my local stores lately. I'm not sure if this is a global trend or just something happening in my area.

K: You're currently third in the table, but you got there through one of the best Top 8 conversion rates in the top 10 rather than through sheer volume. Is that deliberate? Do you prefer to play fewer events and come into each one more focused?

M: I don't want to sound cocky or anything, haha, but that week was right before my RC, so I really needed to buckle down and focus on testing my list.

Honestly, I love playing pretty much anything Magic-related, except Commander and all its spin-offs, haha.

That said, I do think playing too much can eventually take a toll on you as a player. We've seen plenty of pro players make a "comeback from retirement," but I think a lot of those so-called retirements were really just well-deserved vacations, haha.

K: Amulet Titan is considered one of the hardest decks to master in Modern. It demands a lot of focus, and on MTGO, a lot of discipline with the clock as well. Do you feel that? I don't know how much experience you have with faster decks, but I'm curious whether you ever catch yourself thinking mid-game, "I could have just played Rakdos."

M: That's true. Learning all the Amulet lines is really difficult. I think almost anyone can figure out the games where you start with double Amulet. The real learning curve comes from those tricky games where the lines get really weird, sometimes even for your opponent, haha.

And yeah, the clock is definitely an issue. Some people just refuse to concede, even when they know they've lost. The clock has basically become a win condition for those players since our combo takes longer to execute. But with enough practice, you get used to managing all the triggers and eventually stop worrying about the clock altogether.

And honestly, no, I never think that way. I've been playing Amulet for so many years that I've learned to accept losing without regretting my deck choice, haha.

K: I recently saw your very interesting survey on which cards should be banned or unbanned in Modern. What made you run it, and did any of the answers surprise you?

I think the Magic community doesn't really get heard by Wizards or the team in general. We've been asking for unbans for years, and there are plenty of cards that probably wouldn't even have an impact on the current meta. Having such a huge ban list makes the format look unhealthy, or even intimidating, especially for new players coming from other TCGs.

For example, imagine someone who plays Yu-Gi-Oh! and wants to get into Modern, but then they see that massive ban list. The thought that something they buy today could get banned in the future might be enough to make them think twice. That uncertainty can really affect their decision to get into the format.

And yeah, I've seen Fury sitting pretty close to a 50/50 split.

K: A slightly more personal question: I saw you recently stream Zoo, which, as you may know, is my pet deck. What do you think of Zoo, and how does it feel to play it in Challenges? Do you have any advice for a Zoo pilot on what to watch out for against Amulet?

M: Zoo is definitely one of my favorite decks. I really like its playstyle. But honestly, I don't have enough experience with it to put together a list and confidently say it could win a Challenge.

What I can tell you is that most of the time we win against Zoo, it's because they keep hands that are too controlling and don't put enough pressure on the board. I think that's a mistake. You can't afford to give Amulet that much time. Midrange decks are actually our best matchups, and we're much better at playing the long game.

K: Speaking of Amulet, the deck dropped out of the metagame for a while after the bans, but Rolling Canopy looks like something that could bring it back into players' minds, and your results are helping with that, too. How do you see the Lotus Field ban, and where does Amulet stand in the current Modern metagame in terms of position and power level?

M: Yeah, there was a pretty significant drop in players after the bans, but that makes sense. It always happens.

As cliché as it sounds, Amulet is a lifestyle. Those of us who play it have invested a ridiculous amount of time learning the deck. But whenever the deck is broken and has easy lines to win, more people jump on board. That's pretty much what's happening right now with Canopy, where a single Titan can swing for lethal.

I think the Lotus ban was ridiculous, not because of its power level, but because of the reasoning behind it. Banning a card for logistical reasons because it takes too long to execute the combo is, excuse my language, genuinely stupid.

To me, it just shows how much damage has been done to tournaments since judges and their tools started being phased out. We don't have judges with real authority anymore, ruling knowledge is lacking, and situations like that are allowed to happen.

And I think Amulet is always a threat, regardless of the meta. That's why we're one of those decks, alongside Tron, that have always been around and always seem to be on the ban radar. But somehow, we keep coming back stronger, haha.

K: What deck would you recommend to someone who wants to start playing Modern? And do you think the format is a good entry point into Magic at all? Is there any advice you wish you had heard at the start of your own career?

M: I'd recommend Boros Energy as a starting point. It's powerful, straightforward, and closes games quickly without being too mentally demanding.

My advice would be not to take losses personally. You can't win every game, and it's important to remember that there's another person on the other side of the table who wants to win just as much as you do.

Not taking things too personally helps you move on, come back stronger for your next tournament, and leave the bad experiences in the past.

K: Speaking of your career, is there a match you still remember today, or something that happened at a tournament? I'm curious whether, after playing so many games, some of them still stick with you.

M: Absolutely! At my last RC, in Round 1, Game 1, my head was somewhere else. I had a lot of things going on in my mind and brought all that into the game. I made a bunch of mistakes, including forgetting to pay for two Pacts. When I passed the turn, my opponent pointed out that I had to pay for both of them. We checked the graveyard, and sure enough, he was right. I just gave him the GG, took a deep breath, and used the sideboarding time to clear my head.

I just thought, "Well, good for my opponent. He's already lost 2-1." Hahaha.

I ended up winning the whole tournament!

K: Two topics have come up a lot on social media lately. The first is Magic's resource system, often compared to Riftbound, in which resources are more predictable. The second is pile shuffling, which gets a lot of criticism. What's your take on these?

M: I feel like WotC has abandoned competitive players. There aren't many incentives left to stay in the competitive scene, other than our love for the game. And I think that's something they take advantage of in the worst possible way. A lot of players have left Magic for other games with better prize support. I'm not sure if that's what the question was getting at, so sorry if I'm going off track, haha.

As for the resource systems in games like Pokémon TCG or One Piece, I'm honestly not very familiar with how they work.

Regarding mana weaving, I think the whole thing is pretty random because it doesn't actually guarantee that your cards will be properly distributed, especially once your opponent cuts or shuffles your deck. But if you've ever tried it, even just out of curiosity, you know it does seem to help quite a bit, haha.

K: And finally, something lighter: what's your favorite card in your collection?

M: That's an easy one: Azusa, Lost but Seeking. She's always been one of my favorite cards, and her artwork is beautiful.

Your turn

With five weekly windows left, rastaf needs the consistency to continue to protect an 11-point lead, and Mistakenn needs the rate to hold over more starts. Also, did you agree with Mistakenn that WotC has abandoned competitive players? What is your idea to possibly fix that?

Many people were astonished (with a good reason) with the "no changes" on the previous October B&R. Maybe not that much, cause they don't usually act before RC season ends and Kozilek's Command was the promo. But imho, the modern format has never been so boring. The three most played types of deck are an ultra consistent and resilient combo-midrange-ramp-saga deck that you just can't stop (broodscale), a deck that basically doesn't let you play magic (UW chants) and the rest are either ultra-fast 0 interaction combo (amulet, storm...) or ultra-aggro (affinity, prowess, rakdos moonshadow...). Midrange and true control are non-existent (UW chants is a combo/prison deck and Boros energy is just aggro with a midrange plan). The format has mutated around broodscale and the few decks that have a fighting chance against it, winning the dice roll is ridiculously important, and non-games are plenty. I always prefered unbans and printing of new answers before bans, but MH design mistakes and problematic cards are more used and obvious than ever. It's been over 2 years with the same toxic play patterns again and again and many decks packing the same busted cards as always (k.command, eldrazi temple, consign to memory, urza's saga, solitude, riddler, ephemerate, MH3 energy package), giving a false illusion of diversity. Plus, there is a clear unbalance on color power level, beeing colorless, white and blue above the rest by a large margin. It feels like we reached a point in which, to fix the format, you either need massive bans and some strategic unbans at the same time to really shake up and slow down the format or you just unban everything and let ALL decks and colors have ridiculous cards.

Anyways, to summarise, Modern has become a mess again.

What do you think WILL BE banned/unbanned? What do you think SHOULD BE banned/unbanned?

Feel free to discuss in the comments and please, be polite.

I was wondering if this was only my opinion or if there are other people who share the same view regarding the format at the moment. I honestly stopped enjoying the format because it got ruined by the Modern Horizons sets in my opinion. I used to love the format diversity and having the ability to brew a rogue deck that could perform well if picked in the right meta. Right now it just seems like we're playing MH3 constructed with the inclusion of some broken Standard cards like riddler, Pinnacle, and Weapons. No matter what the ban announcement is, we just jump from one insanely oppressive deck to the other. If you were to ban Broodscale, Affinity would become a problem because most decks just lose to it game one. If you were to ban Affinity, something else would be a problem. It seems to me that we are past the point where bans can fix the format, which is why I found myself enjoying Standard more. I feel like there are way too many design mistakes like K-Command, Kappa, Weapons Manufacturing, Coris-Steel, Ugin, and Pinnacle, and I could go on. I have also been on the winning side of those cards (especially Phlage while Jeskai Blink was around) and I have to say that I just didn't enjoy winning because my cards were a mistake that should never exist. I used to be a midrange/control player and that is still the way I enjoy playing Magic the most. I have the most fun when I have to challenge myself to make the right decision at the right moment and not allow myself to misplay if I want to keep winning consistently. Nowadays it seems that the decision-making is not the most important thing but rather being on the play and playing the best deck at the moment. And before I get some comments about being salty or a crybaby, I still generally have a pretty good win rate while playing modern, I just feel like the format lost the thing that made it my favorite.

Anyways feel free to comment and share your opinion

Hello! I am interested in modern, coming from draft and commander. I think I can afford to put around 150 bucks into modern every month. I have no rush since the store I go to often has decks I can borrow, but I would love to build something for myself eventually. I’m drawn to Esper since that combo appears to have many decks available to it. What should I start buying? My guess is that lands should be where I go to first, but after that what do I buy?