Right now the market price for Phlage is around $40, and honestly, I expect it to continue to climb up. Phlage is very powerful, and has utility outside of Jeskai Control as well. It’s easy to slot into a shell that has red or white in it, and has an immediate and repeatable impact on the game in addition to threatening large amounts of damage. For a while, we used the Golgari midrange decks, and they were quite good. Now the deck has some more early game value creatures that allow them to attack life totals earlier on in the game. Some of the sideboard options can allow them to grind out a midrange matchup as well, as there are still some higher-cost spells in the list.
They can affect the balance, the strategies, and the preferences of the players and the teams. As a coach, you need to help your players adapt to these changes and keep improving their performance. Again, this change alone probably doesn’t make Jade Druid bad.
Understanding the MTG Arena Deck Builder
Just for some time to see if the problem lied in those or not. Which in itself is not a bad thing, and having a rebound possibility is very good. But in addition to that it is so easy to dump your wincons intentionally into your graveyard and go from there, offering – as the 4 cards before – too linear path for victory. Mystic Remora – in most cases I have witnessed, even if you sac it during your next turn, draws you reliably 5+ cards per round, which is a lot for single blue. Demonic Consultation – offers too reliable engine for winning with plethora of cards, and is almost undependent of what other cards you have in your deck.
As I am not playing not blue nor black atm, then I might be biased. Nor would I say that some specific card is overly oppressive in the format. There is nothing stopping cedh to have a different or additional banlist than casual or non-cedh commander. I hardly doubt it would kill the format, as the banlist would only affect cedh, and in it self being only temporary. A community for passionate EDH players to discuss the competitive meta of the format. At the highest levels, adapting to these changes isn’t optional.
CompetitiveEDH
Can I realistically stick to a few decks for a long time and remain competitive? Also I have no idea what people are talking about when they talk about new formats or whatever so if someone would explain it’d be appreciated. I think Ruby Storm is better on paper than Bant Nadu, despite Bant Nadu being the most popular deck by day one statistics. I would expect, short of a ban, that Ruby Storm will be here to stay.
It was simply too effective at counteracting a major historical weakness of the Druid class to wide, aggressive boards (as a recent analysis by HSreplay showed), which was a key in spiking Jade’s popularity. By making the card weaker, Jade Druid should hopefully develop some more bad matchups, which will discourage it from being played as often. Less Jade Druid allows other decks to arise that can counter those weakness more effectively. This helps reintroduce some the rock-paper-scissors elements to matches that keeps the meta balanced and dynamic. Speaking of the best cards in the game, War Axe has long been a class- and game-defining card.
And a new powerhouse from Aetherdrift is looking to shake things up even more. Specially if this short ban would envigorate most of the format. Specially if they could play with their toy again in a short window.
While it is nice to see a fresh meta where Leyline of the Guildpact isn’t nearly as ubiquitous, Modern seems to be “rotating” into its new form–for better or worse. The new meta as of Pro Tour MH3 is one that has Nadu at the forefront with Ruby Storm right behind it. Some fans of the format are calling this meta “Nadu Summer,” in reference to one of the most egregious metas in Modern’s history, “Hogaak Summer,” which was a meta dominated by Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.
How balance changes affect the meta decks
Is the current meta shaping up to be on-par with Hogaak Summer? Well, looking at some historical data, during Mythic Championship IV Hogaak occupied a little over 20% of the meta on day one with a roughly 70% conversion rate for day two. In the case of Pro Tour MH3, the percentage of the field on Nadu seems to be roughly equivalent to Hogaak at around 20%.
We have a meta where everything is about at least being a two-for-one. In some instances, this card can even be better than Sheoldred, The Apocalypse due to the fact that it immediately affects the board, even if it does get removed right after. It ends up turning into each player uses a card to remove it, the opponent likely spends two mana, we spent four mana to cast it, made them discard a card, and got a clue token. That results in a net positive even if we spent more mana to do it. These little incremental resource advantages can really help make a difference in midrange matchups, and it is why Investigator is seeing play in Standard and even Pioneeer. It’s worse, yes, but not by that much, tt’s mostly a breach deck today, and would still be a breach deck post thoracle ban.
With updates rolling out frequently, what works today could be obsolete tomorrow. Staying on top of the meta isn’t just about knowing your favorite agent commander deck or weapon, it’s about mastering the new dynamics and keeping up with constant shifts. Easily import and export decks with tools that support multiple formats. This feature is particularly useful when you want to share your builds with the community or test someone else’s creations. When using KrakenTheMeta, you can effortlessly export your decks to share them with friends or on social media platforms.
These changes are going to be massively impactful in terms of what decks can exist now and into the future, and we don’t know what those decks will be yet. Since Hex wasn’t currently seeing play, this change will likely go unnoticed as far as the meta is concerned (not unlike when Warrior’s Charge got reworked). It might be the kind of thing that gets felt more in the future, but for now it shouldn’t affect the game much. While Hex has always been some of the best removal in the game, it hasn’t really defined the class the way Innervate or War Axe did. In fact, at 4 Mana Hex is still a reasonable card, comparable to removal like Polymorph. Nevertheless, I want to press ahead past that strangeness and nostalgia, assess the changes coming to the cards, and think about what their impact on the meta is likely to be.