MtG. Decks to avoid in current Modern.

Hello, crew and passengers!

In this ride I would tell you about Modern decks to avoid in Amonkhet season.

This is my opinion only, which is based on current format playtesting, data mining, and my own past experience in the game.

This post would be a very short overview, yet it will feature solid explanations.

This overview applies to competitive events where large portion of the field are top tier decks.

Infect

Chalices from Eldrazies (even Merfolks sometimes play them in the sideboard), discard spells and cheap removals from Death's Shadow decks, land destruction and other hate, loss of Gitaxian Probe to get info and cycle cheaply. All in all way to many factors to rely on the deck.

Delver decks

Grixis Delver just loses harshly in comparison to its Death's Shadow counterpart. Pretty much all Delver decks that we know just don't match up with the current opposition. I mean that the threats and answers just do not line up well at the moment against what the field is expected to be.

Mixed field can spell a better story, but I feel like to justify playing a deck of this type one has to build something radical or go the UR route imitating in part a burn deck. UR would mean punishing Shadow decks and getting wins vs others before they get their game on.  

Big mana decks (to an extent, i.e. taken with caution)

While RG Valakut and Gx Tron do not seem to number down drastically, I would approach them carefully, when picking your deck of choice for an event of the size of a Grand Prix or SCG Open. While Modern is a wide format and matchups roulette can uplift you in a tournament, it can also pair you up against the decks that take up the biggest share.

Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, Crucible of the Worlds, Fulminator Mages (creature combo decks, Living End, Death's Shadow), and so on, coupled with things like Surgical Extraction, will just send you back to the stone age more often than you would be ready for. Abundance of discard spells doesn't help either.

Decks like Eldrazi Tron do not exactly follow this category, since they are not so dependent on ramping like other similar decks.

UR Storm

One of the decks that has to be analysed with differences between paper and online play in mind. Storm is common online due to a nice power/cost ratio. It is also not that hard to pick up and master.

But the reasons why I would shy away from the deck are: inability to combat discard spells plus a good clock, graveyard dependence, inconsistent draws, and linear game plan. Mass of cheap removals around doesn't help that much either. Overall cards that help vs Storm are also efficient in many other key matchups.

Company combo decks

Decks like Abzan Vizier Company, however powerful they are in general, are too vulnerable right now. On one hand Chalice of the Void doesn't kill the deck, but it can be tough Game 1, and then there are all the Fatal Pushes and discard.

At the premier level events I value more non-combo Collected Company decks or Saheeli-Guardian decks. Those decks either can play the fair game better, or have a two-card combo, that is not so easily disrupted and the pieces provide value on their own.

Thank you very much for reading!

Good luck at your local and online tournaments!

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