It is a slow engine that will never win the game prior to turn four. I could also imagine something like an Esper Control deck playing a few Signets, It wasn’t long ago that my teammates and I were trying to find the absolute best Modern decks we could for Pro Tour, The best and most obvious decks seemed to be, Along those lines, blue midrange decks were already pretty good, and are clear winners from these changes. SotM has been on the banned list since the inception of Modern due to its synergy with Thopter Foundry and the combo’s ubiquity in Extended. This week, I want to take on a card I think can be safely unbanned, Sword of the Meek (SotM). Interestingly enough, it might be a great time to transition towards a blue-based UrzaTron deck. The Banned Series continues with one of the most powerful combo cards of Extended's past! Speaking generally, the return of this combo is good news for combo decks like Storm and Scapeshift. This week, I want to take on a card I think can be safely unbanned, Sword of the Meek (SotM). … Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek were un-banned! However, as time goes on, expect these decks to make up a healthy portion of the field. The Vintage Super League players largely made the statement—both in their words and in their deck choices—that decks focused on, In that way, the restriction of Lodestone Golem in Vintage feels similar to the banning of Eye of Ugin in Modern. For the full playlist head to ChannelFireball.com. If you wanted, you could probably just toss 2 copies of each into a UW Control deck and have some success. Will Eldrazi still exist in Modern? These strategies remain basically unchanged. The fewer sideboard cards against Tron, the better Tron gets. Sword of the Meek’s last ability triggers only if it’s in your graveyard immediately after the 1/1 creature enters the battlefield. Hopefully, the answer to all of these questions is yes! Sword of the Meek Why is it unbanned? Aside from the Workshop itself, Lodestone Golem is the deck’s best card that to this point had remained unrestricted. If you’re looking for a new deck to pick up, they’re not at the very front of my list. My first instinct is that a card like Ancestral Vision will pull us away from cards like, There are also creature-based combo decks like, Vintage has gotten a bit of extra attention lately between its arrival on Magic Online and the weekly. Once put together you can sacrifice Sword of the Meek to the Foundry to make a 1/1 flyer and gain 1 life and then Sword returns to the battlefield. Also, Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry might make for a perfect end-game win condition for such a deck, especially when paired with Gifts Ungiven. Jund is my favorite deck in Modern, and it’s been good to me over the years, but I’m not willing to take it into a field of card-advantage based Snapcaster Mage decks. I could also imagine something like an Esper Control deck playing a few Signets, Thirst for Knowledge, and Gifts Ungiven with both an Unburial Rites + Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Package as well as a Thopter Foundry+Sword of the Meek Package. (Editor’s Note: The Deck Tech for the Tezzeret version is combined with the Kiki-Control Deck Tech.). For the full playlist head to ChannelFireball.com. Sword of the Meek is one half of a combo with Thopter Foundry.The combo is powerful but not broken. In the years since, the following commonly played cards have been printed that disrupt the engine: So if you’re a dedicated Tron player, don’t despair, you’ll get through this! The Banned Series – Sword of the Meek. Will Eldrazi still exist in Modern? Absolutely. By Caleb Durward / July 14, 2014 October 11, 2019. UW Urzatron, UB Tezzerator, and dedicated Thopter/Sword decks. It has a self-balancing mechanism which is that: The worse Tron gets, the fewer people play Tron. Eye of Ugin was one of the Eldrazi deck’s two “Sol Ring lands,” and is a tremendous part of what made it so powerful and explosive. In my opinion, it will actually make building the deck more fun, since players will now be forced to choose their win conditions—. Even better, it ought to increase diversity by forcing Workshop players to find creative replacements. The biggest question mark with regard to these decks will be how well they match up against permission spells. ChannelFireball - Magic: The Gathering Strategy, Singles, Cards, Decks. Moreover at the time it was banned, there were few reliable answers to the engine in Modern. The initial ban list is: Ancestral Vision, Ancient Den, Bitterblossom, Chrome Mox, Dark Depths, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature, Golgari Grave-Troll, Great Furnace, Hypergenesis, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Mental Misstep, Seat of the Synod, Sensei's Divining Top, Skullclamp, Stoneforge Mystic, Sword of the Meek, Tree of Tales, Umezawa's Jitte, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and Vault of Whispers. Will we see decks with Coercive Portal? It was the best on a number of dimensions, but most folks looking in would identify a deck full of Sol Rings pumping out de facto undercosted threats. Personally, I think Sword of the Meek could probably come off the banned list. Rather than theorycraft the pros and cons of unbanning, we went the extra mile and did some testing, brewing decks in an attempt to fight … Will we see decks with Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds? Blue Moon, Esper Control, Temur Midrange, Faeries, and UW Control with Ancestral Visions slotted right in. The Banned Series continues with one of the most powerful combo cards of Extended’s past! Tezzeret. A common strategy among dedicated Eldrazi players was to mulligan any hand that didn’t contain either Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi TempleShop Now. It meant that you could build RG Tron with a high concentration of mana sources, but still be confident that you wouldn’t flood out in the late game. With Eye of Ugin gone, Eldrazi players can no longer expect a “Sol Ring land” in every opening hand, and the deck will face a level of inconsistency that ought to keep it from being quite so oppressive. My first instinct is that a card like Ancestral Vision will pull us away from cards like Delver of Secrets, and more toward midrange decks that hit their stride around turns 4, 5, and 6. polls (Editor’s Note: The Deck Tech for the Tezzeret version is combined with the Kiki-Control Deck Tech.) It’s terrible news for aggressive decks like Zoo and attrition-based decks like Jund. Instead of being content with mostly mana, it will have to strike that delicate balance between ramping and playing with expensive win conditions. It’s now my firm opinion that Snapcaster Mage and Ancestral Vision are two of the very best cards legal in Modern. It also becomes better when you have a few ways to search your library for the combo pieces such as Gifts Ungiven or Muddle the Mixture. Often, the deck would only play a single copy of Eye of Ugin, and it certainly wasn’t Tron players’ most common route to victory (as anybody who’s ever faced down a turn 3 Karn Liberated knows). The macro storyline here is this: The Eldrazi deck in Modern was too good. It weakens the best deck without destroying it. Winning the game before Ancestral Visions comes off suspend is very appealing, as is punishing anybody wasting their time making 1/1 tokens off of Thopter Foundry. Eye of UginShop Now was one of the Eldrazi deck’s two “Sol RingShop Now lands,” and is a tremendous part of what made it so powerful and explosive. That said, the combo becomes more powerful when you have more artifacts (making Thopter Foundry a more reasonable card in its own right). Enjoy what these new environments have to offer! The fewer sideboard cards against Tron, the better Tron gets. I predict that we’ll still see a healthy number of Eldrazi decks in Modern, but they’ll be forced to grow and evolve. Of course. Nothing has changed about that. The banning of Eye of Ugin is great news for these decks, but the unbanning of Sword of the Meek and Ancestral Vision is catastrophic. SotM has been on the banned list since the inception of Modern due to its synergy with Thopter Foundry and the combo’s ubiquity in Extended. Will we see decks with, ChannelFireball - Magic: The Gathering Strategy, Singles, Cards, Decks. 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