Why isn't Bogles on this list? Because it's "easy to play" but very hard to win with. The deck is clunky, winning by turn 4+ making it relatively easy to race. It has a lot of parallels to Infect but without the free-win speed.
I found playing boggles at many larger events always a great choice. the leylines slay thoughtseize and burn, and the umbras can crush Supreme verdict. making day 2 with boggles requires a special player though who embraces it, and really knows how to beat eidolon, blood moon and eng explosive. I only pilot this deck when spellskite is out of the meta. the free wins are there but winning against the meta thats super deep takes some talent
I do. My homebrew wins by taking extra turns. People apparently hate that too. More than Infect? I don't know, but I'll sacrifice myself for the good of the community to find out...
@@joshbailey7775 lol. Tbh I woud ever to Choose to play against Infect then tron, regardless Wich Deck i am plaing. It is much esier to interact With creatures than Lands.
You are HANDS DOWN the current #1 most entertaining content creator that talks about modern. I also think you are in the top 3 of the most-often correct format commentators. But what REALLY puts the icing on the cake for me is that you put out new content just about every day. AND THEN YOU ACTUALLY READ THE COMMENTS! Thank you. :)
@@NikachuMTG Me and my friend are now buying into mtg more than we already had. We already had mono red prowess and elves for modern, but i'm done trying to make elves work in modern, so switching that over to pioneer/legacy. We've now got jeskai control, UW control, and the next cog in the modern meta: BLUE JUND. tappedout.net/mtg-decks/blue-jund-2021/?cb=1621141603
I think this waa one of the best analysis of the infect archetype I have ever heard. Yeah, sometimes you win turn two with nothing your opponent can do, but other times it's a rush where everything has to be calculated perfectly to work, with a lot f bluff involved, 50/50 to decide if your opponent has a removal or a discard. And the matchup against control. The slow grind to win turn 20 with your dryad while you cheap away your opponent's life using all your resources to not get your creature killed.
This is why you should play Scapeshift with Cryptic Commands. You wanna do dumb shit, but you gotta let them know it's a choice and not inability to think
I have made a lot of decks in Modern and have dismantled plenty as well. However, I have always kept Burn and Tron sleeved up even though I practically never register them at tournaments. Mostly for nostalgia because they were some of my earliest decks, but more importantly because they're great loaner decks for friends who tag along to events but don't consistently play Modern.
Nika, you're truly one of the best content creators on this platform. The text, the editing, the humor, really well made. Congrats, man... And I'm glad you didn't put UWx Control on the list :D
We built burn for my 8 year old. Great learning deck though. She loves doing face damage though. Im working on a black white for her though as she loves that life gain/life drain.
that is awesome!!!! i played against a 10 year old at a mythic qualifier also piloting burn, he was a cool kid, felt bad beating him but he was a good sport about it, he knew that deck inside and out and I was like wow you've played that deck a lot huh, he just smiled and said, you have no idea fat man
I think the largest evaluation criterion for "easy-hard to play" in modern is mulligan. This why burn and tron are the hardest to pilot decks in this list. I dont play burn too many, but i think its not so easy deck in general.
Spike made a good point about Green Tron though - there are few decks where an inexperienced pilot is so easy and so fast to spot. You instantly know they're a pony if they kept seven cards and play a forest turn two.
I play the Izzet Blitz deck and I’ll say it’s not easy to play it sometimes because my iteration is more of a tempo style than super aggro. An example would be something similar to what Dylan Donnegan piloted with vapor snag.
I think it’s worth noting that for just about every deck here, despite the game one strategy being simple, post board games are usually a much different game and can be a bit more skill expressive.
I would put burn in the too easy tier just because a caveman might not know that you can kill protection from red creatures like kor firewalker with combat damage if you use skullcrack. The other decks are spot on.
Losing to Lifegain decks is the most painful thing. You see the strategy coming. You know how to beat it. ...But you just drew your fifth straight land. With scrying.
Very much appreciate that you include the perspective of low-skilled kitchen table players like myself, for example when you mentioned forgetting about triggers.
As a Heliod player, I must say I find the deck in fact easier that what you ranked xD It's the deck I play when I feel ''easy win without thinking''. But it was since the 2 last rotations of sets in Arena, so I'm less familiar with Modern.. (Just saying; Inspiring Commander is really an incredible underestimated value engine!!)
Getting back in to magic finally after nearly 10 years.. Ive always been a standard player but decided to dip my toes in modern. The last set i played with in standard i LITERALLY quit the game because of wurmcoil engine. Im glad to see its still a popular card hahaha oh boy
@@seancpp I promised you 😂! You can Play Coco in Turn 2 With that Deck. T1 forest Arbor elf. T2 forest Utopia sprawl in untapped forest. Tap untapped forest for 2 Mana untapp untapped forest with Arbor elf. Tap untapped forest again for 2 Mana. now you have 4 mana in t2 so you Play Coco and Hope to find Heliod and Spike feeder
@@seancpp the Most Things you Said were right. The only Thing you Missed is that you can Play Utopia sprawl on the untapped forest, tgan add 2 Mana from it and untapp IT witg Arbor elf so you can add another 2 Mana from it which makes 4 in total
I hardly disagree on the Burn/Scapeshift position. Burn is much more difficult than Scapeshift. Scapeshift is literally the linearest Deck i have ever seen while in Burn you have some really tough decisions. Do I bolt this creature and set back my clock or do i risk getting overrun? Should I bolt their phase now even if they could have a counterspell or do I wait? Should I Crack this Canyon or keep my mana open?
You're describing how to play burn to it's highest win percentage. This tier list is how to achieve the most win % with the least skill. All these decks can be harder if you want the most out of them.
humans are easier than tron, they have answer for everything while having super fast clock, tron is no brain game one, but it gets rekt by all the hate cards in the format
I'd like to know what cards you're referring to. Any hate card you could possibly play is usually only marginally effective and can be blown up by the Tron player with 1 green mana. Unless you're running multiple land destruction cards + Surgical Extraction (aka too many cards), your sideboard isn't that relevant at all. And by this I don't mean to say that Tron in unbeatable of course: simply put, either your main deck has a good matchup against it or it doesn't. No sideboard can really fix that fact.
@@NatiPerPerdereNPP damping sphere, stony silence, pithing needle, counterspells of various type, hell brazen borrower given the right scenario is pretty rough on tron
@@someperson7622 all of those can be pulverized with a 1 mana nature's claim. Counterspells and borrower are not really sideboard cards: as I said, either your main deck is prepared for tron or it isn't. Your sideboard won't save you, most of the times. A main deck counterspell or 20 damage by turn 3 may do the trick.
I agree that the skill level of the player make a few of these decks way better then in the hands of a random. I think tron players get a bad rap most of the time. A person with no skill can luck sac into good plays if the deck is constructed well mostly because of the power of the cards. However playing against a good tron player is definitely something that feels scarier lol. I agree with your rankings overall except I would bring tron down to easy enough (reasoningabove) , ponza down to easy (play patterns and targeting choices play a big part), humans up to easy enough ( no a lot of skill or decision making necessary. Play threats on curve and fade kill spells) and lastly blitz and all its variations up to so easy a cave man can do it ( turn 1 and 2 play over powered threats then cantrip to victory. You can even play you one drops straight into a chalice of the and it doesn't matter. I've tried it out and it is literally the easiest to pilot deck I've ever played. Very little thought into the game and win or lose it's over in a few turns.) Also heilod is super easy to play a+b is dummy easy.
vanishing verse is going to really hurt heliod combo, exiling heliod feels great when your opp casts either spike feeder or walking ballista, i cant wait until fnm's return, Im itching to get in some play time
I aggree that burn is the easiest deck to just pick up and play. Most of the card have pretty straightfoward text written in them. But disagree that burn is only hard to play when "the meta has lifegain cards". Aggro mirrors are very hard to play usually. The caveman will lose aggro mirrors if something goes slightly wrong for them.
There is a bit of math and play patterns for certain games for burn, but overall seems pretty easy to play. My intro to modern was with burn (was looking for edh players and got invited to play modern and use someones deck) I played against a UR prowess deck and just destroyed him 7/10 games. I now am super interested in devoting more time and money into modern lol
Red Deck Burns is a custom build of mine that I think might be able to compete. Twin win conditions that play into one another to keep the gas going. I'm thinking the same thing with my Dragon and Elf decks, also custom built. The rest, maybe, but I doubt I would win a competition, but I am confident for a Top 8
Long time ponza player here. I'll be the cringey defender of the deck. I see Ponza as a deck on wich all the thinking is made before the event, the strategy depends a lot on the metagame and every slot of the deck is flexible on what decks you are going to see. I know this is true for every modern deck but i think this is espacially the case for ponza. How many land destruction do you run ? Do you run Magus or Blood Moon and how many ? How many Klothys ? Do you include 2-drops in case arbor elf is bolted ? Do you go with 4 Spyros or include Tireless Tracker for grindier games ? Do you go with 8 or 10 dorks ? How will you deal with creatures that has >4 thoughtness with only lightning bolts ? Do you go with the Karn TGC variant ? This deck had so many variants during last years and is constantly evolving from midrange to full-on aggro strategies. So yeah, the deck is really dumb to play during events, but the thinking of your card choices is, in my mind, very very interesting.
I love Burn. I've built every version of that deck that's ever existed. I know that deck inside and out and can alter the colors of the deck to match my meta. If I want to play something a bit more complicated I will play Hardened Scales.
20 seconds in and i see lava spike in the pictures below and I start to cry. ive been playing modern for a decade and "red deck wins" has always been my baby, and second is my baby 8 rack so I am curious if 8rack makes the list!
Excited to start getting into Modern after Horizons 2 comes out. Going to my first pre release event for it. Would love to see a limited review of the set!
Nice job on burn, base level yeah it’s an easy deck to play. But it become much harder when you learn that it us actually a tap out control deck masquerading as an aggro deck.
Where would you put modern Death & Taxes? I've been playing it and its doing really good with Archon of emeria and Skyclave apparition. Plus we're supposed to be getting some new white cards so I think it will be really good in near future.
Ive been playing Burn for 6 yrs it's always been solid because of direct damage and skullcrack effects, you cant be too pissed if your opponent is dead by turn 5. It is probably one of the easiest decks to learn and perfect
Company will always be a challenging deck, you always need to know what card you should pull out from casting tutors, when you should play the tutor to begin with, and also you need to learn how to play around other people's strategies, two card combos are hard to pull off because they're so fragile, that's why I play affinity, the combo is the synergy, but with company, chalice of the void and leyline of sanctity completely kills the deck, bring in all the hate you want, they can still play a removal spell on your walking ballista
My friend took me to a doubles tournament and let me pilot his Scapeshift deck and we ended up coming in third. This was my first brush with Modern so I had no clue of the meta. I ended up beating this super try hard dude who at first was all smiles during the game providing some guidance even, and then after I beat him he was so annoyed that ended up calling a judge over to verify my decklist. Scapeshift is so easy it can make you look like a poolshark .. err magicshark lol
hi Nikachu, great content and I dont even play modern :D (just some casual arena from time to time) - I got a question, did u record a video for cardrunners years ago (afair on cashgames on nl100). If it was you, do u still play? maybe some offtopic video on your poker past?
Haha, yes, that was me. I made 4 or 5 videos for them. I still play, but very casually on my phone and only ultra busto stakes. So it’s not worth making videos about.
@@NikachuMTG I think cardrunners are down atm and I saw some players reuploading their videos on their own on youtube. do u still have them? I think they were hilarious :D
Hey nikachu. Don't know if you remember me, but I used to be super active on your channel. I had sold my foiled merfolk deck and im now pimping in Japanese instead cause of.... Curling issues.... Im just wondering what your opinion on master of waves is in the current modern climate. I feel that it's too slow rn. Thoughts?
Hi, PandaPri! I still remember meeting you at… GP Portland I think? Some GP. MoW at the moment doesn’t look playable, though I wish he was. He’s slow and there’s a lot of answers for him.
I play dimir zombies. I’m under no veil of “skill” my deck could be played by a baby who has been lobotomized. Do i win often? No. do I have fun? Fuck yeah!
Burn is easy until you play against control or death's shadow. That's when the burn players that know what they're doing really separate themselves from the ones who don't.
Does anyone else find it incredibly frustrating that I need to have a five color commander to have a myr sunburst artifact deck. It's been bothering me very much.
I've been away from MTG for the past decade or so due to depression and other bullshit. I've been looking into getting back into it and going to competitions. where can I go to find info on how they work and/or when/where they are? also, should I learn more about various cards? I don't wanna be that annoying guy who has to take time out of a game just to read a card... every time someone plays a non-land card... possibly even a non-basic land card...
You can Google: “magic the gathering store locator” and maybe add your city. You can also search for magic the gathering and your city in Facebook to find a group. Hope that helps! In terms of learning cards, you’ll just have to be that guy that doesn’t know cards for a few months. You won’t really know what a card does until you play against it anyway. Some of my favourite sites anyway are: mtggoldfish.com, scryfall.com, mtgstocks.com
As a merfolk master don't you want ( unless you arleady did) do a kind of merfolk analysis, explain a bit history, its evolution to start, explain how it works (lords, islandwalk, aether vial, difficult choices and why one choice rather that an other like playing lords quickly, being scared to lose the lord and having merfolk in hands so playing silvergill, etc) sideboard choices (meta counts of course but which hate cards and which deck to considere like aone deck would so bad matchup or opposite so good that doesnt even worth consider sideboard answers,etc). Aethervial automatic turn 1? Many things. As I think I already told you I started playing merfolk before being a thing with just one lord (4 obv) and the tide warriors or something like that (1/1 merfolk for U that can be tap to change a land into island), won a little tournament that we made with friends. Then, years later I discoverd merfolk in modern so had to build it.. 🙃. Was in french magic website (magiccorporation) and registered me as MadMerfolk 😂.
I used to have a primer on individual cards but that was about it. I never liked the idea of making a video on sideboard choices because that can change drastically as new cards are printed, banned, or the meta changes. Soon Counterspell will change the toolbox of Merfolk and maybe the strategy of the deck.
@@NikachuMTG yes counterspell, I was think about counters and even with the few games than I plyed I ve seen why in a deck like merfolk, even being mono blue or eventually simic or azorius, the counters where not very good, not played a lot.. because we want to spitt our gand during our turn and cannot really keep mana for the opponents turn, so of course playing a two mana counter like counterspell would change the strategy, the card is too good in modern to not diserve at least a try but keeping 2 mana.. merfolk played very few one mana counters but even remand is a bad choice, 2 mana is a lord, a card and a draw with sivergill or the spreading seas or other merfolks. Keeping two mana would be okay if we had more two mana merfolk with flash like merfolk trickster. Maybe to play counterspell we should also play other 2 mana counter like mana leak or remand, or both. Try to keep just the minmum merfolk like the 2 mana lords,trickster, silvergill and prtect them with counters, maybe with green to have a third 2 mana lord lord to have valuebable boardstate to protect or with whith to play celestial colonade to have a "big" creature using land slot.
But what if I play Scapeshift and my opponent has creatures in play? There is nothing on the flowchart about that situation. Got confused and conceded.
Get a ballista with two counters. Give ballista lifelink from Heliod. Shoot opponent for 1 damage, gain life, Heliod triggers, put counter on Ballista, repeat process
@@NikachuMTG Most definitely. Always thought it was just for combat damage. This is gonna change tabletop with my buddies and probably gonna go brew a few fun things with this new knowledge.
So if your in izzet aggro here and your opponent is murktide and you just know they have a removal spell cuz they left that treasure up. You play sprite dragon. The opponent goes that's ok. But then you tap out to drop a pauper card in clout of the dominus. The opponent say wait let me see that. They see it give +2/+2 and shroud which means they probably can't kill it. They instantly drop a unholy heat. 😵 But wait, you have a force of negation in hand. Toss the enigma drake you don't need it against Murktide. So now you have 5/5 flying haste shroud. Say turn 3. Don't forget about you mishra's bauble! 6/6 flying haste shroud turn 3. If the opponent does not have some kind of wipe they can get past you they have to get flying blockers. That's why you run playsets of lightning bolt and terminate. But that enigma drake we tossed to force of negation in the last game is gonna be useful in your next matchup, which is mono white hammertime.
I Played Titanshift at a TeamGP 3 years ago and of course the 5 weeks before on FMN for playtesting. It Was incredibly good. I go 22-1-1 on the FNMs Winning 4 of them and like 12-3 on the GP When i Just Considere my own matches and Not the Mix With my teammates. However.... IT WAS SO FKING BORING !!!! I HAVE NOT ENJOED IT AT ALL. REGARDLESS OF THE WINS. And i woud have Not going for play it if it wasend a Team Event. And i Touch that Thing never again. Infact it Was so boring that i played Homebrew jank for Like 7 months or so in modern. Like 4c loam , abzan Gitrog Monster, sultai midrange, paradox engine combo and 4c superfriends. I need that after Plaing Titanshift like a therapy. I Was much more Losing. Still had Moore fun.
I remember burn was my first modern deck and I played against grixis death shadow I made the mistake trying to race them and gave them 2 free big shadows lol must be patient with death shadow then unload all burn at once to kill them lol
Can confirm Heliod is easy. Accidentally won a game of commander because I put out walking ballista while heliod was out. At the time did t know it was a combo
Can you describe Scapeshift a little more? I can’t wrap my brain around “sacrifice x lands to search your deck for x lands and place tapped”. What is the advantage of adding lands you just destroyed?
The combo is with Valakut the Molten Pinnacle. When you sacrifice 7 lands to grab Valakut and 6 mountains simultaneously to enter the battlefield, it deals 18 damage (usually enough to win). 8 lands can get 2 Valakut and 6 mountains for 36 damage.
I've said before, I'm a long time DnT player. But when I'm ready to grind out those free wins, my go to lately has been Ponza. It's very fun and satisfying to play. Turn 1, ramp Turn 2, play bloodmoon and hope they concede Turn 3, begin stomping
I'm surprised Humans is here. Other creature value decks like Taxes, Spirits and Merfolk are on the hardest decks list. Is it because Humans often deal only damage (Thalia's Lieutenant, Champion of the Parish, Mantis Rider) instead of interacting (Leonin Arbiter, Eldrazi Displacer, Spell Queller)?
Why isn't Bogles on this list? Because it's "easy to play" but very hard to win with. The deck is clunky, winning by turn 4+ making it relatively easy to race. It has a lot of parallels to Infect but without the free-win speed.
Yo Nikachu could you do a video on Izzet Gifts Storm?
Why isnt Jund on the list?
Boggles doesn't usually get out paced once daybreak is on. Main deck leyline of sanctity is a free win va some decks aswell.
@@Capifaca Maybe it could, but I used it on the hardest decks tier list. At a high level, it doesn't win much.
I found playing boggles at many larger events always a great choice. the leylines slay thoughtseize and burn, and the umbras can crush Supreme verdict. making day 2 with boggles requires a special player though who embraces it, and really knows how to beat eidolon, blood moon and eng explosive. I only pilot this deck when spellskite is out of the meta. the free wins are there but winning against the meta thats super deep takes some talent
Infect is just a matter of reading what people might have in their hands. The real skill is turning off your heart.
infect is dead now, control laughs at it, i know my esper list laughs at it
You're probably better off playing some version of Double Major Fynnfect with Hooded Blightfangs than Infect now.
@@Xoulrath_ fuck no
Infect was easier when G probe was legal
OP, making those reads is where it's at.
Source: Look at my username.
I don't have the courage to sit down infront of another human being with feelings and emotions and play infect and look them in the eye afterwards
Then play tron. Everyone loves Tron. All hail he Karnfather!
I do.
My homebrew wins by taking extra turns. People apparently hate that too. More than Infect? I don't know, but I'll sacrifice myself for the good of the community to find out...
@@joshbailey7775 lol. Tbh I woud ever to Choose to play against Infect then tron, regardless Wich Deck i am plaing.
It is much esier to interact With creatures than Lands.
@@joshbailey7775 damping sphere and pithing needle have entered the chat 🤣
I main board solemnity, Idc about infect
You are HANDS DOWN the current #1 most entertaining content creator that talks about modern.
I also think you are in the top 3 of the most-often correct format commentators.
But what REALLY puts the icing on the cake for me is that you put out new content just about every day.
AND THEN YOU ACTUALLY READ THE COMMENTS!
Thank you. :)
You're welcome! But I'm working on the daily uploads. I WISH I could.
I love this TH-camr and i don't even play modern.he makes me want to though.
Go for it, the water's warm!
@@NikachuMTG thanks. I confess that I'm scared of the MTGO economy.....
@@NikachuMTG Me and my friend are now buying into mtg more than we already had. We already had mono red prowess and elves for modern, but i'm done trying to make elves work in modern, so switching that over to pioneer/legacy. We've now got jeskai control, UW control, and the next cog in the modern meta: BLUE JUND.
tappedout.net/mtg-decks/blue-jund-2021/?cb=1621141603
You know how hard it is to remember what to name with your first cavern on humans?
Maybe you think that you're playing a cleric deck?
Easy, illusion. Gotta need that sweet uncounterable phantasmal image!
I think this waa one of the best analysis of the infect archetype I have ever heard.
Yeah, sometimes you win turn two with nothing your opponent can do, but other times it's a rush where everything has to be calculated perfectly to work, with a lot f bluff involved, 50/50 to decide if your opponent has a removal or a discard.
And the matchup against control. The slow grind to win turn 20 with your dryad while you cheap away your opponent's life using all your resources to not get your creature killed.
This is why you should play Scapeshift with Cryptic Commands. You wanna do dumb shit, but you gotta let them know it's a choice and not inability to think
not an inability to think*
Read this comment and immediately knew it was you lmao
I have made a lot of decks in Modern and have dismantled plenty as well. However, I have always kept Burn and Tron sleeved up even though I practically never register them at tournaments. Mostly for nostalgia because they were some of my earliest decks, but more importantly because they're great loaner decks for friends who tag along to events but don't consistently play Modern.
It’s like smash 4. If you don’t main cloud you got him in your back pocket.
caveman here. was going to ask you what deck to play.
Word of warning: you might find Titanshift a bit too boring unless you also have had a lobotomy done.
Resident Tron player. Feels good to be a boogeyman and not a caveman
I'm pretty sure a monkey could play tron, should be in its own tier lol
I too wished to be like you.. but I am limited by my budget.
Love the content, but I'm feeling bullied here😅. I'm going to write down what I'm feeling on my cave wall.
It will be analyzed by historians 1000s of years in the future.
@@NikachuMTG for sure!😂
Please tell us, how it is to be a caveman content creator for cavemen audience? Still over the Tibalt's combo, isn't it? :)
amazing that you didn't put boggles on the tier list lmao
I didnt because the deck is really clunky, it's basically a turn 4+ deck. It's "easy to play" but hard to win with.
@@NikachuMTG That's fair enough, it's probably not in the best place in the meta right now.
GW Hexproof pilot here.
One might say that.... Bogles the mind
Bogles was deemed hazardous and got sent to a Blast Zone
Nika, you're truly one of the best content creators on this platform. The text, the editing, the humor, really well made. Congrats, man... And I'm glad you didn't put UWx Control on the list :D
Thank you! 😃
We built burn for my 8 year old. Great learning deck though. She loves doing face damage though. Im working on a black white for her though as she loves that life gain/life drain.
that is awesome!!!! i played against a 10 year old at a mythic qualifier also piloting burn, he was a cool kid, felt bad beating him but he was a good sport about it, he knew that deck inside and out and I was like wow you've played that deck a lot huh, he just smiled and said, you have no idea fat man
@@someperson7622 shes still learning alot about targeting and such, but my lgs has so many kids. It's really cool.
Wow really dude a black white get a grip and show a little class
You should make a tier list of the best tribes in modern
And not forget about cats this time :')
You hearted the comment, does this mean it will happen?
And maybe the underrated ones too (please give vampires a good chance)
I have a list on a piece of paper, just gotta make a video on it.
@@NikachuMTG That would be amazing
I think the largest evaluation criterion for "easy-hard to play" in modern is mulligan. This why burn and tron are the hardest to pilot decks in this list. I dont play burn too many, but i think its not so easy deck in general.
Lightning Bolt
Choose one mode-
・Deal 3 damage to target player
・Deal 3 damage to target Planeswalker
・Deal 3 damage to target creature
Spike made a good point about Green Tron though - there are few decks where an inexperienced pilot is so easy and so fast to spot. You instantly know they're a pony if they kept seven cards and play a forest turn two.
I play the Izzet Blitz deck and I’ll say it’s not easy to play it sometimes because my iteration is more of a tempo style than super aggro. An example would be something similar to what Dylan Donnegan piloted with vapor snag.
Vapor Snag is bae
@@TehSeksyManz yep, it trolls opponent's big creatures and saves ours. :D
I think it’s worth noting that for just about every deck here, despite the game one strategy being simple, post board games are usually a much different game and can be a bit more skill expressive.
I would put burn in the too easy tier just because a caveman might not know that you can kill protection from red creatures like kor firewalker with combat damage if you use skullcrack. The other decks are spot on.
20:17 God Nikachu I love the content and I will always come back for the TRON!
Losing to Lifegain decks is the most painful thing. You see the strategy coming. You know how to beat it.
...But you just drew your fifth straight land. With scrying.
Do you know what’s worse? Drawing land only on your starting hand…..
Every game
Without fail
exactly my thoughts about infect you have uttered there, thanks Nika
Thanks to you even my small pp brain can start modern
Very much appreciate that you include the perspective of low-skilled kitchen table players like myself, for example when you mentioned forgetting about triggers.
My pleasure!
Good video! Excited to see more tier lists!
I play mill. Super happy I'm not on the list! Love the content please keep it up! :D
That’s infect baby, games are fast lol. I do love my infect deck. Great video as always, my friend.
Thanks!
Hello, fellow Phyrexian! (^-^)/\(^-^)
Keep spreading that sickness !!!
As a Heliod player, I must say I find the deck in fact easier that what you ranked xD It's the deck I play when I feel ''easy win without thinking''. But it was since the 2 last rotations of sets in Arena, so I'm less familiar with Modern.. (Just saying; Inspiring Commander is really an incredible underestimated value engine!!)
I play BtL Scapeshift and I was like woah a caveman can’t play this... then I remembered that people actually play the GR ramp version
Getting back in to magic finally after nearly 10 years.. Ive always been a standard player but decided to dip my toes in modern. The last set i played with in standard i LITERALLY quit the game because of wurmcoil engine. Im glad to see its still a popular card hahaha oh boy
Honestly, turn 1 glistener elf is scary, but it almost never works. Chances are you’ll play a creature or a kill spell
Glistener loves sun-shine! always catches flashy spells like lava spike, lightning bolt.
@@athenazoey5093 lava spike?
@@blightedadmiral7006 right, literally does nothing to g elf
realistically, turn 1 giver of runes is scarier, if it flies for a turn ur pretty screwed once that actual threat creature drops
@@someperson7622 but if you get a creature, turn 2 is super hard to get, needing 4 specific pump spells.
With arbor elf + Utopia sprawl + collected company you can gain infinite life on turn 2 in the heliod ballista deck
@@seancpp I promised you 😂! You can Play Coco in Turn 2 With that Deck. T1 forest Arbor elf. T2 forest Utopia sprawl in untapped forest. Tap untapped forest for 2 Mana untapp untapped forest with Arbor elf. Tap untapped forest again for 2 Mana. now you have 4 mana in t2 so you Play Coco and Hope to find Heliod and Spike feeder
@@seancpp the Most Things you Said were right. The only Thing you Missed is that you can Play Utopia sprawl on the untapped forest, tgan add 2 Mana from it and untapp IT witg Arbor elf so you can add another 2 Mana from it which makes 4 in total
@@gamedaiv9168 oh i see. Thanks!
@@seancpp your Welcome (:
I hardly disagree on the Burn/Scapeshift position. Burn is much more difficult than Scapeshift. Scapeshift is literally the linearest Deck i have ever seen while in Burn you have some really tough decisions. Do I bolt this creature and set back my clock or do i risk getting overrun? Should I bolt their phase now even if they could have a counterspell or do I wait? Should I Crack this Canyon or keep my mana open?
You're describing how to play burn to it's highest win percentage. This tier list is how to achieve the most win % with the least skill. All these decks can be harder if you want the most out of them.
I know but I think even from this Point its easier too play Titanshift because there simply is almost no amount of decisions
You should do like a 3hr version with all the decks or a post mh2 list
humans are easier than tron, they have answer for everything while having super fast clock, tron is no brain game one, but it gets rekt by all the hate cards in the format
I'd like to know what cards you're referring to. Any hate card you could possibly play is usually only marginally effective and can be blown up by the Tron player with 1 green mana.
Unless you're running multiple land destruction cards + Surgical Extraction (aka too many cards), your sideboard isn't that relevant at all.
And by this I don't mean to say that Tron in unbeatable of course: simply put, either your main deck has a good matchup against it or it doesn't. No sideboard can really fix that fact.
@@NatiPerPerdereNPP damping sphere, stony silence, pithing needle, counterspells of various type, hell brazen borrower given the right scenario is pretty rough on tron
@@someperson7622 all of those can be pulverized with a 1 mana nature's claim.
Counterspells and borrower are not really sideboard cards: as I said, either your main deck is prepared for tron or it isn't. Your sideboard won't save you, most of the times. A main deck counterspell or 20 damage by turn 3 may do the trick.
Tron does get hated so much that it is not good~~~ however it is because they are so good people use 4+ slot against them.
first time viewer. nice work mtg friend. I subscribed.
Welcome aboard!
burn is straightforward, but after game 1 its anything but, leyline of sanctity puts a real crimp in its style
I agree that the skill level of the player make a few of these decks way better then in the hands of a random. I think tron players get a bad rap most of the time. A person with no skill can luck sac into good plays if the deck is constructed well mostly because of the power of the cards. However playing against a good tron player is definitely something that feels scarier lol.
I agree with your rankings overall except I would bring tron down to easy enough (reasoningabove) , ponza down to easy (play patterns and targeting choices play a big part), humans up to easy enough ( no a lot of skill or decision making necessary. Play threats on curve and fade kill spells) and lastly blitz and all its variations up to so easy a cave man can do it ( turn 1 and 2 play over powered threats then cantrip to victory. You can even play you one drops straight into a chalice of the and it doesn't matter. I've tried it out and it is literally the easiest to pilot deck I've ever played. Very little thought into the game and win or lose it's over in a few turns.) Also heilod is super easy to play a+b is dummy easy.
vanishing verse is going to really hurt heliod combo, exiling heliod feels great when your opp casts either spike feeder or walking ballista, i cant wait until fnm's return, Im itching to get in some play time
Love your videos man. You should totally make like a Dude Perfect style "Modern deck pilot stereotypes" video haha
I aggree that burn is the easiest deck to just pick up and play. Most of the card have pretty straightfoward text written in them.
But disagree that burn is only hard to play when "the meta has lifegain cards".
Aggro mirrors are very hard to play usually. The caveman will lose aggro mirrors if something goes slightly wrong for them.
you keep mentioning forgetting triggers as if MODO isn't the only place we play??? what universe are you in? 2018 SCGs?
There is a bit of math and play patterns for certain games for burn, but overall seems pretty easy to play. My intro to modern was with burn (was looking for edh players and got invited to play modern and use someones deck) I played against a UR prowess deck and just destroyed him 7/10 games. I now am super interested in devoting more time and money into modern lol
Red Deck Burns is a custom build of mine that I think might be able to compete. Twin win conditions that play into one another to keep the gas going. I'm thinking the same thing with my Dragon and Elf decks, also custom built. The rest, maybe, but I doubt I would win a competition, but I am confident for a Top 8
I wasn't ready for 0:08 😂
Lmao that flow chart has me dying over here! 🤣
My twiddle deck is chock full of two card combos and three card combos, as well as two combo combos. And some components are interchangeable.
Long time ponza player here. I'll be the cringey defender of the deck.
I see Ponza as a deck on wich all the thinking is made before the event, the strategy depends a lot on the metagame and every slot of the deck is flexible on what decks you are going to see. I know this is true for every modern deck but i think this is espacially the case for ponza.
How many land destruction do you run ? Do you run Magus or Blood Moon and how many ? How many Klothys ? Do you include 2-drops in case arbor elf is bolted ? Do you go with 4 Spyros or include Tireless Tracker for grindier games ? Do you go with 8 or 10 dorks ? How will you deal with creatures that has >4 thoughtness with only lightning bolts ? Do you go with the Karn TGC variant ?
This deck had so many variants during last years and is constantly evolving from midrange to full-on aggro strategies.
So yeah, the deck is really dumb to play during events, but the thinking of your card choices is, in my mind, very very interesting.
I love Burn. I've built every version of that deck that's ever existed. I know that deck inside and out and can alter the colors of the deck to match my meta. If I want to play something a bit more complicated I will play Hardened Scales.
13:59 Nikachu is here to teach everyone about the Birds and the Bees
Just switch Burn & Tron and i can 100% agree 😅
Greetings from a Player who just plays difficult decks 😁
20 seconds in and i see lava spike in the pictures below and I start to cry. ive been playing modern for a decade and "red deck wins" has always been my baby, and second is my baby 8 rack so I am curious if 8rack makes the list!
The thumbnail clickbait was on point. for a second I really thought you were about to say burn was difficult
Excited to start getting into Modern after Horizons 2 comes out. Going to my first pre release event for it. Would love to see a limited review of the set!
Nice job on burn, base level yeah it’s an easy deck to play. But it become much harder when you learn that it us actually a tap out control deck masquerading as an aggro deck.
Where would you put modern Death & Taxes? I've been playing it and its doing really good with Archon of emeria and Skyclave apparition.
Plus we're supposed to be getting some new white cards so I think it will be really good in near future.
Check hardest decks to beat tier list
Dude I am DYING at your voice at 0:08
Yeah, I have to play around more with that.
Ive been playing Burn for 6 yrs it's always been solid because of direct damage and skullcrack effects, you cant be too pissed if your opponent is dead by turn 5. It is probably one of the easiest decks to learn and perfect
As a burn player, yeah,
In my defense it was easy to build on budget then slowly build up.
Company will always be a challenging deck, you always need to know what card you should pull out from casting tutors, when you should play the tutor to begin with, and also you need to learn how to play around other people's strategies, two card combos are hard to pull off because they're so fragile, that's why I play affinity, the combo is the synergy, but with company, chalice of the void and leyline of sanctity completely kills the deck, bring in all the hate you want, they can still play a removal spell on your walking ballista
My friend took me to a doubles tournament and let me pilot his Scapeshift deck and we ended up coming in third.
This was my first brush with Modern so I had no clue of the meta.
I ended up beating this super try hard dude who at first was all smiles during the game providing some guidance even, and then after I beat him he was so annoyed that ended up calling a judge over to verify my decklist.
Scapeshift is so easy it can make you look like a poolshark .. err magicshark lol
hi Nikachu, great content and I dont even play modern :D (just some casual arena from time to time) - I got a question, did u record a video for cardrunners years ago (afair on cashgames on nl100). If it was you, do u still play? maybe some offtopic video on your poker past?
Haha, yes, that was me. I made 4 or 5 videos for them. I still play, but very casually on my phone and only ultra busto stakes. So it’s not worth making videos about.
@@NikachuMTG I think cardrunners are down atm and I saw some players reuploading their videos on their own on youtube. do u still have them? I think they were hilarious :D
I might have one in a hard drive stored away somewhere. It was 10 years ago 😂
The real deal is watching these decks go up against one another. The players don’t even need to speak the same language or even be the same species.
Hey nikachu. Don't know if you remember me, but I used to be super active on your channel. I had sold my foiled merfolk deck and im now pimping in Japanese instead cause of....
Curling issues....
Im just wondering what your opinion on master of waves is in the current modern climate. I feel that it's too slow rn. Thoughts?
Hi, PandaPri! I still remember meeting you at… GP Portland I think? Some GP. MoW at the moment doesn’t look playable, though I wish he was. He’s slow and there’s a lot of answers for him.
@@NikachuMTG Yes! It was GP portland! Hope to see you at another gp soon! Or at least whenever covid starts to really ease up.
Thanks for the advice!
Tron has a list of like five rules to follow and you'll probably win. The decisions are made for you and the deck plays itself
I play dimir zombies. I’m under no veil of “skill” my deck could be played by a baby who has been lobotomized. Do i win often? No. do I have fun? Fuck yeah!
Burn is easy until you play against control or death's shadow. That's when the burn players that know what they're doing really separate themselves from the ones who don't.
Does anyone else find it incredibly frustrating that I need to have a five color commander to have a myr sunburst artifact deck. It's been bothering me very much.
How dare you insult my precious tron deck I decree vendetta upon you sir! 😂
I've been away from MTG for the past decade or so due to depression and other bullshit. I've been looking into getting back into it and going to competitions. where can I go to find info on how they work and/or when/where they are? also, should I learn more about various cards? I don't wanna be that annoying guy who has to take time out of a game just to read a card... every time someone plays a non-land card... possibly even a non-basic land card...
You can Google: “magic the gathering store locator” and maybe add your city. You can also search for magic the gathering and your city in Facebook to find a group. Hope that helps!
In terms of learning cards, you’ll just have to be that guy that doesn’t know cards for a few months. You won’t really know what a card does until you play against it anyway. Some of my favourite sites anyway are: mtggoldfish.com, scryfall.com, mtgstocks.com
Glistener has distortion strike too, creatures aren’t much of a problem for infect
So what deck plays like chess using your right hand?
As a merfolk master don't you want ( unless you arleady did) do a kind of merfolk analysis, explain a bit history, its evolution to start, explain how it works (lords, islandwalk, aether vial, difficult choices and why one choice rather that an other like playing lords quickly, being scared to lose the lord and having merfolk in hands so playing silvergill, etc) sideboard choices (meta counts of course but which hate cards and which deck to considere like aone deck would so bad matchup or opposite so good that doesnt even worth consider sideboard answers,etc). Aethervial automatic turn 1? Many things.
As I think I already told you I started playing merfolk before being a thing with just one lord (4 obv) and the tide warriors or something like that (1/1 merfolk for U that can be tap to change a land into island), won a little tournament that we made with friends. Then, years later I discoverd merfolk in modern so had to build it.. 🙃. Was in french magic website (magiccorporation) and registered me as MadMerfolk 😂.
I used to have a primer on individual cards but that was about it. I never liked the idea of making a video on sideboard choices because that can change drastically as new cards are printed, banned, or the meta changes. Soon Counterspell will change the toolbox of Merfolk and maybe the strategy of the deck.
@@NikachuMTG yes counterspell, I was think about counters and even with the few games than I plyed I ve seen why in a deck like merfolk, even being mono blue or eventually simic or azorius, the counters where not very good, not played a lot.. because we want to spitt our gand during our turn and cannot really keep mana for the opponents turn, so of course playing a two mana counter like counterspell would change the strategy, the card is too good in modern to not diserve at least a try but keeping 2 mana.. merfolk played very few one mana counters but even remand is a bad choice, 2 mana is a lord, a card and a draw with sivergill or the spreading seas or other merfolks. Keeping two mana would be okay if we had more two mana merfolk with flash like merfolk trickster.
Maybe to play counterspell we should also play other 2 mana counter like mana leak or remand, or both. Try to keep just the minmum merfolk like the 2 mana lords,trickster, silvergill and prtect them with counters, maybe with green to have a third 2 mana lord lord to have valuebable boardstate to protect or with whith to play celestial colonade to have a "big" creature using land slot.
But what if I play Scapeshift and my opponent has creatures in play? There is nothing on the flowchart about that situation. Got confused and conceded.
your opponent having creatures in play doesn't change how Scapeshift work
Playing infect is like playing chess if your opponent has no pawns
Thanks for the shopping list
You should talk about Hardened Scales and Affinity making a comeback
Just found the channel and have been going on a bender watching your vids
☺️
“Easy” decks also mean they are efficient and intuitive.
How does the heliod-ballista work?
Get a ballista with two counters. Give ballista lifelink from Heliod. Shoot opponent for 1 damage, gain life, Heliod triggers, put counter on Ballista, repeat process
@@NikachuMTG Didn't know lifelink worked like that
Yeah, it’s not intuitive unless someone tells you.
@@NikachuMTG Most definitely. Always thought it was just for combat damage. This is gonna change tabletop with my buddies and probably gonna go brew a few fun things with this new knowledge.
Yeah, anytime a source with lifelink deals damage, you gain life. Sometimes spells have lifelink.
19:17 "Ulamog basically sudo wipes the board" lmao
What about bogles? It doesnt play anymore?
Easy deck to play but very hard to win with
Infect is very hard and stressfull deck, a simple well timed fatal push can smack you.
I think Nikachu, has a love/hate story with Tron... Keep up the drama!
So if your in izzet aggro here and your opponent is murktide and you just know they have a removal spell cuz they left that treasure up. You play sprite dragon. The opponent goes that's ok. But then you tap out to drop a pauper card in clout of the dominus. The opponent say wait let me see that. They see it give +2/+2 and shroud which means they probably can't kill it. They instantly drop a unholy heat. 😵 But wait, you have a force of negation in hand. Toss the enigma drake you don't need it against Murktide. So now you have 5/5 flying haste shroud. Say turn 3. Don't forget about you mishra's bauble! 6/6 flying haste shroud turn 3. If the opponent does not have some kind of wipe they can get past you they have to get flying blockers. That's why you run playsets of lightning bolt and terminate. But that enigma drake we tossed to force of negation in the last game is gonna be useful in your next matchup, which is mono white hammertime.
I Played Titanshift at a TeamGP 3 years ago and of course the 5 weeks before on FMN for playtesting. It Was incredibly good. I go 22-1-1 on the FNMs Winning 4 of them and like 12-3 on the GP When i Just Considere my own matches and Not the Mix With my teammates.
However.... IT WAS SO FKING BORING !!!! I HAVE NOT ENJOED IT AT ALL. REGARDLESS OF THE WINS. And i woud have Not going for play it if it wasend a Team Event. And i Touch that Thing never again.
Infact it Was so boring that i played Homebrew jank for Like 7 months or so in modern. Like 4c loam , abzan Gitrog Monster, sultai midrange, paradox engine combo and 4c superfriends. I need that after Plaing Titanshift like a therapy.
I Was much more Losing. Still had Moore fun.
As a burn player I am appalled, but agree lol.
I remember burn was my first modern deck and I played against grixis death shadow I made the mistake trying to race them and gave them 2 free big shadows lol must be patient with death shadow then unload all burn at once to kill them lol
Really nice vidéo great work
pretty sus that humans is on here, but not merfolk
I play ponza and the amount of ppl that scoop to blood moon is insane 😳
Just realized I play that Izzet strat as my main deck
Can confirm Heliod is easy. Accidentally won a game of commander because I put out walking ballista while heliod was out. At the time did t know it was a combo
Can you describe Scapeshift a little more? I can’t wrap my brain around “sacrifice x lands to search your deck for x lands and place tapped”. What is the advantage of adding lands you just destroyed?
The combo is with Valakut the Molten Pinnacle. When you sacrifice 7 lands to grab Valakut and 6 mountains simultaneously to enter the battlefield, it deals 18 damage (usually enough to win). 8 lands can get 2 Valakut and 6 mountains for 36 damage.
@@NikachuMTG ah okay. So it helps find the desired card needed. Makes more sense now! Thanks!
After that monolouge about "Helios", I was expecting a lower rating than 4 out of 5 in difficulty.
EDIT: Same with infect.
Got the heliod combo done on me twice at fnm!
I've said before, I'm a long time DnT player. But when I'm ready to grind out those free wins, my go to lately has been Ponza. It's very fun and satisfying to play.
Turn 1, ramp
Turn 2, play bloodmoon and hope they concede
Turn 3, begin stomping
in any case, you are playing mana denial
I'm surprised Humans is here. Other creature value decks like Taxes, Spirits and Merfolk are on the hardest decks list. Is it because Humans often deal only damage (Thalia's Lieutenant, Champion of the Parish, Mantis Rider) instead of interacting (Leonin Arbiter, Eldrazi Displacer, Spell Queller)?
Yes, Humans is a much better deck at putting a turn 4 kill (sometimes effectively turn 3) than the other decks.