Magic the Gathering

UR Delver is the probably best deck in Modern, though; it can fill it graveyard just as easily as Legacy, since many of the cards are basically the same. I keep getting smashed by it, which is why I have 7 Sideboard cards specifically for it, and sometimes still can't beat it. Those Cruises are very easily castable in that deck. Burn you, crack fetch, fetch, burn you, counter that, burn you, fetch, Cruise. Repeat.

In the case of Jeskai Ascendancy, it doesn't matter whether it's good or not, it's still a turn 3 Combo deck, which can sometimes kill turn 2, that is also being played fairly extensively. Wizards has said that they don't want to allow combo decks that either take too long to execute (like Eggs), or kill before turn 4 consistently (why Seething Song was banned from Storm) in Modern. Ascendancy combo does both.

I have personally not seen a UR Delver list for Modern due to the meta here in Japan. They prefer Combo/Control here in Japan over maybe new lists like that in the States, but I do feel like UR Delver wouldn't be as effective in Modern that in Legacy. xUR Delver decks in Legacy thrive off of cheap and effective spells to help enable Delver, whether it may be Daze, G. Probe or Brainstorm, and have a faster time filling the grave for Cruise for maximum potential.

In modern, I feel like that UR Delver might just go for the proactive plan of winning, but with so many reactive decks out there within modern, it is not as good. Again, I haven't played any UR delver lists besides in Legacy, but I'm not sure the viability of the deck.

As for Ascendancy, I do think it is a good deck, but very similar to game plan to Pyromancer's Storm. I personally have a lot of experience with this deck, playing and playing against it. With Ascendancy, I do feel like it is a 'one-trick' pony deck and not as flexible as with other combo decks in Modern such as Temur Valkut or Twin, in their case can win in other angles. If they lose a combo piece or two, they have other viable options of winning, whereas if Ascendancy loses a combo piece, such as Ascendancy or their mana dorks, they are set back a lot more.

It's actually pretty darn consistent. It's less of a traditional Delver deck, and more of just a burn deck with blue. In fact, a top-tier deck right now is Mono-Red-Burn splashing blue JUST for Treasure Cruise. It's kind of ridiculous. You're forced to play with 3-4 Dragon's Claw in the sideboard.
Serum Visions, Probe, and Bolts (of various kinds) are very much enough to fuel a Cruise quickly. That's why it's been pretty dominant. UR Delver stands up to its Legacy counterpart because of the free damage you get in modern due to Shocklands. Once again, it's essentially a burn deck, with Serum Visions, Delver, Probe, and Treasure Cruise as their blue cards. There's sometimes more, but for the most part, that's it. They don't even really need their counters anymore since they don't pump Swiftspear as effectively, and rather would just get in there for quick damage.

The point is that Jeskai Ascendancy's critical turn is usually turn 3, which is too early for Wizards' standards, because they wanted combo decks to only reliably go off on turn 4. Even if it's beatable, if it's too popular, they won't allow it. They made it clear that they don't want turn 3 combo decks. This can combo off on turn 2 with the right draw.
Storm needs Goblin Electromancer, the right cards, and some luck to be able to go off turn 3, but otherwise usually goes off turn 4. Jeskai Ascendancy will usually go off turn 3, sometimes 2 with a probe, and has more redundancy, so it's much easier to continue the combo until you find the kill card.

I saw at one of my local game stores a Premium Deck Series Slivers buying it soon.

First legacy tournament and went 4-1 with dredge.

Do you play manaless or mana dredge? I personally play manaless dredge, but congratulations on going 4-1.

Mana Dredge. More consistent.

Matches :

RUG Delver - 2-0
Jund - 2-1
UWR Blade - 1-2
BG Elves - 2-1
MUD - 2-1

I find manaless pretty consistent as well, usually going off on turn 3. I am impressed that you managed to beat RUG delver 2-0, since that match-up is usually a pain due to their ability to remove bridges rather easily by burning their own creatures. Add sideboard hate to that mix and you got a nasty deck to beat.

A friend introduced me to this game 2 years ago and I loved it ever since.

Started building an Abzan deck. I got the Abzan Seige intro pack to start, and traded a few cards from the 2 booster packs included for Glorious Anthem and Hardened Scales, which gives those outlast creatures an early boost.

I have a Goblin deck with Krenko as well but it doesn't do well against (forget what type this is) cards that do 1 damage to each creature every turn.

Also have a red/blue dragon deck with Utvara Hellkite and Ral Zarek. Only problem with this one is that its late game. Its one of my earlier decks but I'm still figuring out what to do with it.

If you have a lategame deck, you need to be able to stall for time until you reach the lategame. Being in red/blue gives you access to counters and burn spells which you can use to control the board/stack until you hit the lategame.

Gonna post my EDH deck tomorrow.

Here's what you should expect to see.

I didn't wanna return like this...

Because of certain circumstances, I've been forced to quit paper Magic. I've also had to liquidate several of my gaming assets... it's been a rough patch, and it's not getting any easier, so that's why I've been away more than normal. :(

I really want to play Magic. I do. I might just make the transfer to MTGO where it's cheaper, or stick to untap.in and never play FNM ranked (I get too much entertainment from ranked play to quit though). In any case, the money I've spent on paper cards has tremendously bitten me in the ass, and I just can't maintain the hobby. I'm no budget player, at all, and I was already feeling pretty restricted by staying out of green (goyf) and black (Bob and Lili) in competitive play, but that's as far as I could take it.

It was a fun time. I'll still play, but I'll be downgrading to filthy casual, lol.

Boo. Hopefully everything works out for you.

Why not just play combo then? For a relatively reasonable price you can build some pretty sweet combo decks. Personally I got five legacy combo decks: Eggs, Dredge, All Spells, Lifegain, and TES. All Spells is relatively cheap to assemble if you are not making the Belcher transformation SB, and still pretty strong potent what way with a critical turn of 1 or 2 in most cases. The problem is that it is graveyard based, so people will always have hate for it. Eggs is probably the cheapest and you go into white which means you can have enchantment/artifact hate in your SB, still I think that Dredge, TES, and All Spells would be the most competetive of the decks, TES is expensive though.

You can also throw a dirt cheap Pox deck together for something like 40$ including SB, if you don't use Lily. I haven't really played pox in a couple of years (I have turned to combo), but last time I went to a ~30 person tournament with it I went 3-2, which is not bad for a 40$ investment. Another option is simply to play Burn, very linear game plan, so "big" money cards. I mainly use mine to playtest my decks on, if burn can consistently beat my deck, the deck is not good enough.

However if you are a Modern player, try either Fish or Burn, both decks are cheap and viable in that format too, Fish being my to go to Modern deck, however it can be a bit pricy with vials and mutavaults.

Not all good decks cost a lot of money to assemble, I have a casual deck that is more expensive than my Dredge deck. Don't give up on paper magic too easily there is a lot of fun in going rogue and bring decks the opposition is not prepared to face.

Another issue is play time: between work and college, I just won't be able to put as much time as I want for point grinding, GPs or FNM. I want nothing more than to slam cards all day, but this is just the wrong time in my life to do it. :c

If you are still around in Japan, let me know, this way we can at least hand out once. Plus, I might want to get UWR Control for Modern off your hands... :D

Ah, yup... That's a realistic barrier. My college life keep me from going to a bunch of events I'd otherwise want to go to.

Hopefully when things get more smooth, you can get back into this.

As much as I absolutely loved that MonoU-splash-Red deck I showed off earlier, and as much as I'd like that to be my competitive deck, I think it's gonna cost too much to finish. Between 3 Vendillion Cliques, 2 Cryptics, a set of Scalding Tarns, and a bunch of other stuff, I can't realistically pull it together in real life.
I'll happily continue to play this deck online, though. It's still a great deck; the most fun control deck I've played.

On the other hand... It turned out I had a gigantic chunk of stuff available for Jeskai Ascendancy combo, the version that only needed Fatestitcher and Faerie Conclave (no green). I guess I'm selling out and just playing that deck, since I actually kinda like playing it. I only need 4 Scalding Tarns and an Arid Mesa, also still expensive, but it's much more manageable, hopefully. There's a couple more cards, but they're all cheap enough to be negligible.

For now, I'm exactly netdecking Josh Utter-Leyton's list from the World Championship. I do like the Gifts plan in the sideboard, but other parts of the sideboard I'm very likely to change, and I'm probably gonna smooth out the numbers of stuff in the maindeck more to my liking once I learn how to play the deck well enough.

I'll post up the list at another time. As of when I write this, it's 4AM...

This card is so good for the Jeskai Ascendancy Combo decks and Jeskai Tokens for Standard right now. A lot less strict over Hordeling Outburst mana-wise, and I find a bit more useful than that of Rabblemaster.

I play mostly black/blue control in modern. Running a mill variant currently, but still running 4 thought seize, even though it's the less popular choice for my deck's particular build.

I mostly just play at locals (I'm not all that great, and don't make enough money for a truly great deck), have fair amounts of success, but haven't won in 1st place yet, sadly.

Well, it's just one of my many hobbies, I don't focus on it because it tends to get expensive pretty quick.