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Before Pro Tour Philadelphia, the DCI's stated guideline for the Modern format was to avoid having decks that consistently win the game on turn three.
With the results of the Pro Tour in, we are tweaking that goal to not having top-tier decks that consistently win on turn three or earlier. We also have the goal of maintaining a diverse format. Seeing the results, these still seem like reasonable goals. The Pro Tour is the highest level of competition, and the best deckbuilders in the world are likely to find the fastest and strongest decks.
Many found blazingly fast decks. However, the winning deck could not deliver 20 damage or equivalent in less than four turns, and the second-place deck could very rarely do that either. This shows that the format has the potential to meet the initial vision, but it is not there yet. Blazing Shoal Blazing Shoal decks exile cards with converted mana cost of at least 9 to deliver turn-two and turn-three kills using the infect mechanic usually with Inkmoth Nexus or Blighted Agent.
While this is exciting the first time, Blazing Shoal delivers that same quick kill too consistently. Rite of Flame This was primarily used in combination decks to deliver very quick wins. Ad Nauseum either. Quick combo decks are another matchup where Natural Order players may be siding out their NO package.
Ichneumon Druid is another threat, fetchable with GSZ, to fight those decks from the sideboard. Natural Order has a huge upside but can be a complete blowout if countered. Xantid Swarm , however, can protect you from that, as well as any other spells you are looking to cast. You can happily sacrifice the Xantid Swarm to Natural Order without fear of Counterspell s: the effect lasts until end of turn, whether the Xantid Swarm is in play or not. One of the benefits of Green Sun's Zenith is being able to tutor for creatures that are pretty bad in multiples Gaddock Teeg.
Vexing Shusher falls into this category as well and fits into a similar space as Xantid Swarm. I find this guy more effective in Bant builds, as decks representing red spells RUG will have Hydroblast s and Blue Elemental Blast s sideboarded against them, which can easily kill off Shusher. Loaming Shaman : One-shot graveyard hate in the form of a Green Creature. Riftsweeper : Suspended Ancestral Vision.
Bonus: Get back Progenitus after pitching it to Force of Will. Spore Frog : Fog on a frog. Brooding Saurian : anti Shackles, Sower of Temptation. The criteria for Green Sun's Zenith targets in Legacy are pretty restrictive, as Legacy's has such a high standard for quality.
The cards need to be cheap and any effects they have must also be powerful or free. As powerful as Green Sun's Zenith is, there's still plenty of untapped room for it's use. Good read! Interesting call on the Stag against Germs. I did my fair share of scrounging around for random green creatures with that deck.
Awww yeah. The numbers suggest we're still seeing two decks with Plow per Top 8 despite the fact that new removal cards are giving it a run for its money, and that creature strategies are making up less and less of the metagame. Path represents a problem to Merfolk and Goblins; as it's normally coming from Zoo, it also is bad for decks packing Dark Confidant. We only see a deck packing a full set of Path to Exile penetrate the Top 8 every blue moon or so, but in control and aggro-control decks, it can often be used to supplement the number of Swords.
No one plays this anymore, and so no one should really be concerned with it; it wasn't very good to begin with. Merfolk, Goblins, and Affinity are the decks primarily concerned with Grim Lavamancer.
The predictors for Grim Lavamancer are a bit more difficult, as it's often a card we see less as a full set, but even still, we certainly see less than a full set in a given Top 8, so likely every Top 16 will have a deck using Grim Lavamancer. However, each of those decks is going to be pressed with how to fit it into the seventy-five, something that I'm sure most everyone will be eager to see work itself out.
Because it's such a complicated issue, I'm sure it's possible to break it down. I believe that for the most part, the only time a deck is likely to use Mental Misstep to protect a card in hand from Thoughtseize , a fetch land from Stifle , or a threat from Spell Snare or opposing Mental Misstep is when that player is already quite far behind, and I'm skeptical at this card's ability to swing that tide one way or the other.
I expect that those and most other combo decks are going to need stronger tools if they're going to compete. Other combo decks really aren't looking for cards that are so narrow and likely to leave you struggling to go hell-bent for Infernal Tutor.
As far as countering an opposing Mental Misstep , I keep hearing about it, but I've yet to see the deck that really wants to be doing that. As covered before, there are certainly decks that want to answer Grim Lavamancer , but Mother of Runes is generally only working if her controller is way ahead in the game. Regardless, Mother of Runes can be one of the most frustrating cards to play against and is a major annoyance, so it's likely that there are going to be people who are happy to trade 2 life and a card to get the opponent's Mom out of there.
By far, the least common use of these cards is to try to actively kill the opponent, shown by the low number of attackers. Taking out potential threats is one of the best uses of Mental Misstep , but that is what the fewest people are trying to do with cards in this slot.
For the most part, aggro-control and control decks gain the most from countering aggressive creatures, but Merfolk also isn't happy to see many of them. This all changes if that creature is Goblin Lackey , which most decks are looking to avoid taking a hit from, as that could easily end the game. The numbers established in the last section are the most important 2. Despite this, I want to share the bar graph for this section:.
Most of these numbers we've seen displayed already, but this time I added in a value to show how weak the Counterbalance lock is being represented and performing. Dredge is the big factor weighing up the "Other" section, but decks like Elves have also been doing well recently.
These numbers won't sync up with the previous ones due to including some deck's copies of Top for this example, but the relative weakness of Counterbalance being represented here is clearly why it wasn't considered for this section previously. Vial is considered here due to the assumption that Blue-based aggro-control decks are going to be the first decks looking at playing Mental Misstep , and they are the decks that struggle the most with Vial.
I'd love to give a pie chart to represent the factors accurately, but because there is so much splash in card roles, it isn't really possible. The problem is that every other descriptor shows more cards being played than the broken ones; there is more accel overall than broken accel, more removal, more disruption, and, most of all, more creatures that aren't vital to any game plan, which means that you'll nearly always need to battle through other cards and then still have your MMS ready for this kind of card, if it's even there.
Making Room for Mental Misstep. Because Mental Misstep doesn't do anything new that other cards haven't done before, we can surmise that it allows no new decks to be built, which means that it can only go into existing decks.
This means you must take a card out of an existing deck and replace it with Mental Misstep. Now, simply because every deck can find a situation in which this card is valuable does not mean that every deck should be playing four copies.
Playing Blue also means that you're less likely to be stuck with a dead card if you're playing against Aggro Loam or Stax, since you can Brainstorm it away or pitch it to Force of Will. This deck would really like another answer to Vial and is looking for added protection from removal. Most people who are looking to fit this card into a deck are replacing Thoughtseize , Spell Pierce , or Daze.
Where do you think it fits best? For me, the big issue with Mental Misstep is that you're going to need to identify a card in your deck that Mental Misstep is nearly always better than, and I have a really hard time justifying it even though others are certain of the strength of this card.
Mental Misstep is fine and does some things very well, but others very poorly. Thoughtseize isn't the perfect card, but it's at least able to answer threats. Although Spell Pierce falls short there, it's incredibly powerful at reaching the midgame and still disrupting.
Both Spell Pierce and Daze lose value over the course of the game, and Thoughtseize will as well in most situations. Unlike Spell Snare , there is no mana cost, and so the opportunity cost is so small that you can always afford to tap out if you must; you're always going to spend the same mana to counter the opponent's spell that he used to cast it.
I think I differ from most people when I say I can't really see where a non-Blue deck wants this card in the main. As we've established before, you really have to put it in the deck and hope it works; you're not going to have the same tools of manipulation that a Blue deck will, and even if you're splashing a Blue dual, you'll often find yourself paying precious life points when you have ample mana otherwise. While Junk is a deck that fits my criteria other than being Blue, it's difficult to think of where you'd fit it in; most lists that don't run Blue are rather tight, and Junk is no exception.
Replacing Thoughtseize in Team America isn't great, because the deck wants to be able to answer all sorts of potential problems, not just the 1-drops, and has synergy with both Hymn to Tourach and Gerrard's Verdict.
Goblins has the flex slots but really isn't struggling against too many 1-drops, and even if it were, you're taking out threats for conditional, nontribal answers. Zoo is a great example that has been pretty hotly debated on The Source.
Jack Elgin, whom I normally find to be a somewhat reasonable person in this regard, argues that because Zoo is primarily concerned with the early game, it is much more interested in playing Mental Misstep than most other decks. While it's true that Zoo is quite interested in the early game, I disagree that the cards that Zoo is really losing to are the 1-drops, unless it's from a combo deck.
Zoo is struggling to beat the card advantage from decks like Junk and Team America, and then can't overcome an opposing Goyf, and the Natural Order decks have finally reached a point where they're able to race Zoo again.
Zoo's folding to Dredge, like a lot of decks are, and even a formerly easy match like Affinity has been complicated with the addition of Etched Champion and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. It's true that Zoo is disproportionally concerned with the early game, but I fail to see the list of 1-drops that Zoo is wanting to counter being very long, as you would be forced to reduce consistency to make it happen. If you're going to take a card out of Zoo and replace it with Mental Misstep , it has to be a card that actively supports the Zoo game plan, and the card you're replacing it with isn't a sure thing.
Decks that aren't descendants of Landstill, Storm, or Threshold don't have the same flexibility that Ponder and Brainstorm grant them, and as a result, either have incredibly rigid lists packed with redundancy or aren't viable at all.
The best I think these decks are going to be able to do is to eventually accommodate Mental Misstep is as a niche sideboard slot. When Mental Misstep is legal, people are going to be playing it; that isn't a point that many people are debating.
People will play Mental Misstep simply for the reason that people want to be playing the new cards and as a result will be feeling out the card's versatility and power in the field. But while ZP has some advantages, it has one major downside over Plague Engineer : It is not a permanent effect. Protected by your own Mother of Runes , the Deathtouch ability of Engineer comes in very handy against opposing Knight of the Reliquary , Gurmag Angler and Germ tokens.
It shuts off Arcanist out of UR Delver entirely as long as it stays on the board, and as nice bonuses, you can side it in against Grixis Control without feeling bad about having ZP in your deck vs.
Chains of Mephistopheles has always been a controversial card in decks that also run Sylvan Library e. Jund, Maverick, 4c Loam etc. I believe Sylvan Library is one of the strongest green cards legal in the format. I could definitely see playing something else over it or playing even a 2nd one. Chains definitely has been proven to be a house against Cantrip-heavy decks, and I have no more insight to add here sadly.
It also won me a game 1 versus Lands that would have been a loss otherwise — for example, where Ramunap would probably not have saved me.
Qasali Pridemage maindeck vs. Pridemage in the sideboard vs. I just felt having an on board removal for Jitte etc. If you have GSZ in your hand but no QPM in your deck, you sometimes have to pass there and let Jitte connect first without using your mana.
It obviously depends if you can afford to play around Swords to Plowshares etc. Vivien sounded appealing to me since Jailer is very awkward vs. Narset out of control decks and the risk of losing Monarch is real. Vivien also finds my me non-green bullets like Prelate , Engineer , Faerie Macabre that was the intention, at least. Vivien has proven to be a threat, but after a talk with one of my friends who is very experienced with Maverick , it is probably too inconsistent and should be a 2nd Tireless Tracker , a Jailer , or even a gravehate instead.
A huge thank you Stefan for your insights not only into your winning Maverick list but also the Legacy format. Douges here - Founder of the GreenSunsZenith.
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