A format full of Junk
It's already been two weeks since Pro Tour Fate Reforged and only now do I get around to writing down my impressions of it. I'd say better late than never and you might find the one or other tidbit that you haven't heard a hundred times already. Pro Tour Fate Reforged was this year's Modern Pro Tour. The format was going to be Standard until player demand caused WotC to change it to Modern. It's assumed that the aggressive bans we've seen (see my previous post) were caused by WotC's desire to shuffle things up a bit for this Pro Tour. They wanted a watchable event and weren't content with a format that was shaping up to be mainly Delver and Pod decks. It was probably clear to anyone that watched the coverage that this plan didn't entirely work out. A whopping 28.3% showed up with Junk (or Abzan as even I will probably adopt the new terminology soon enough) on day 1. This deck fills the void of Pod. It has the same colours and some of the same creatures minus the value engine that was Birthing Pod. A single deck making up this much of the Metagame can't be exactly what WotC had in mind. The runner up would also make a lot of people groan: Burn with 11.8%. Burn is often bashed as being easy to play and boring to watch. I'm pretty sure the first part isn't exactly true, there's quite a bit of damage math involved, but also the second issue isn't truly valid in my opinion. While games with Burn are over very fast they can be quite exhilarating to watch and are often very close.
Siege Rhino Illustr. by Volkan Baga
With these two decks making up more than 40% of the field the rest was diverse enough, with all the known Modern archetypes present but very little innovation. Post bans there was a potential for new decks to appear victorious but the only truly new idea I saw was Patrick "The Innovator" Chapin's Grixis Delve deck including Tasigur, the Golden Fang and even Gurmag Angler but with which he did horribly and lost every Match. He put it down to a sleepless night and some of the worst Magic he's ever played but maybe the new Modern format WotC created just hasn't changed enough to reshuffle the viable decks enough for brews like that. The main breakout performance we saw was by Amulet Bloom (or Bloom Titan, however you want to call it, you'll find it in the Top 8 lists here if you are unfamiliar), a deck that was probably under the radar for most players while testing for the PT. I'm sure it's a powerful deck but it seemed to have only done so well because it was piloted by two very skilled players (Justin Cohen and Sam Black) and because there wasn't that much hate around for it. As we saw in the finals it is not only skill intensive but also quite fragile and pretty much scoops to Blood Moon so I'd be surprised if it becomes a major player in the format. What surprised me was that there were no control decks around that did well. UWR control performed very poorly after winning the last Modern Pro Tour. After the banning of Cruise and Dig many players expected the Metagame to revert back to its former state but that's not exactly what happened. But at least some decks of old are top contenders again and Antonio Del Moral Leon managed to take the Trophy home with a pretty standard version of Splinter Twin. Here's a further few random thoughts to the new Modern Metagame I'd like to put out there, in no particular order: • Junk variants are good and will stay good. There isn't any single card in the Deck that can be banned to considerably weaken the Deck so the Metagame will have to adjust to it. • Infect didn't manage to Top 8 but it was many Pro player's choice for this PT and has become more powerful with Become Immense. It's certainly a deck to watch out and sideboard for. • The good decks of old that have thus far been spared any bannings, Splinter Twin and Affinity, seem to be two of the Tier 1 decks. • Combo is alive and more powerful, even though many Thoughtseizes are being trown about. Rogue combo decks have the chance to surprise the metagame and do very well. • Control (or at least Blue centered Control) seems to be dead, at least until there are some much needed unbannings (I'm looking at Ancestral Visions). • Tasigur, the Golden Fang has been adopted by Junk as a two-of and had a convincing performance. Time will tell if decks centered around Delve are viable.
I'll close with an interesting remark by Patrick Chapin on the Podcast he does with Michael Flores. He suggested that the Modern Fanbase, in insisting on Modern PTs, is actually killing the format. A bold claim but he does make valid points and I must admit that I myself have started to rethink the necessity of Modern PTs. The recent bannings, while some necessary, were harsh. All the bans have their justification but with some of them making a different Modern environment for the PT will have played a part. Chapin says that this aggressive ban policy was what harmed Legacy when there were still Legacy PTs being held. He believes that WotC will reshuffle Modern each year to make the PT interesting, leading to the destruction of some of the best decks. This will be harmful to the format in the long run. Modern players should accept Standard Pro Tours and instead be content with Modern Grand Prixs and a more stable format. I'm not sure I agree just yet but we'll see how things progress. Probably as soon as one of my decks gets hit by the banhammer I'll be preaching Chapin's mentality all day long.
