Where Are They Now? Modern Deck Edition 

The diarrhea joke legit killed me lmao. Good video :)

I didn't expect this to have jokes thrown in there😂 you have your morning show and now you can start the latenight MTG show. funny stuff

How about a "What happened to" series? Specific cards could be fun! Snapcaster Mage? Tarmogoyf? Lingering Souls? Dark Confidant? Through the Breach? I mean, FIRE design is what happened, we all know that, but will these cards ever see play again?

Where are they now: Merfolk decks in modern.

Lantern died not because the opal ban, but because controling the top of the library is not a super powerfull thing anymore unfortunatelly.

I used to play a lot of lantern, like 2-3 years ago. Another issue with it it's that decks don't just fold to a Ensnaring Bridge anymore, back then decks had 1-2 outs to it, now you have Karns, Teferis, Wrenns, Assasin's Trophy, infinite damage combos, thassa's oracle decks, one million burn spells decks, Urza decks with infinite combos, and so on, Ensnaring Bridge does very little in current meta.

How you always looked over to the left to reference notes made me feel like I was on tweak again lmao

As a former Infect player, I died laughing at your assessment of it. I actually got bored of the deck due to how much of a Glass cannon it was (the fact I shifted to Blitz says nothing XD)

The revival of Infinity is already here, it's Hammer Time !!

This video may as well just be "why these decks can't compete with the nonsense printed in the last 2 years."

Not a fan of what has happened to modern since 2019 started

i loved playing against lantern as an Abzan player with abrubt decay just good fun. The look on their face when you build out a deadly field blow up their ensaring bridge with a stony silence present allowing them to see the torment coming.

The development of Aggro from Zoo to Hollow One to Dredge to UR has been interesting.

good points on Eldrazi and Taxes. I shed a tear when I look over at my pile of Tidehollow Scullers, wasteland stranglers, eldrazi displacers, and thoughtknot seers, but I have hope that one day it shall rise again. Rise of the Eldrazi... and Taxes!

I really appreciate this kind of video because it gives some insight what was played before I started playing modern. Really cool! :)

Edgiest Nikachu I've ever seen that's for sure. 2021 is shaping up well.

This is the type of video I was hoping to see actually. :) Thanks for making this Nikachu!

Nikachu you have such good vibes, wisdom from experience but also lots of little funnies

If you really look into it, the 2021 version of old school Affinity is just Hammer Time

As an Affinity player I can confirm that it was long out the door before the Mox Opal banning.

There are still Titanshift decks out there putting up decent results. For some reason MTGG just classifies them as RG and sticks them in the “Other” category.

I built Lantern Control a couple years ago and I have to say I love your take on it. I stopped playing it after Opal got banned. I decided to rebuild it as GDS after that. It was fun while it lasted though, for me at least.

"You can learn a lot about a person's sexual performance by how they play infect" Me: Haha joke's on you, I don't play infect Me: *realises I'm asexual* wait

I was only half listening to this video (had it playing in the background), I about did a spit take when it got to the discussion about infect, lmao

I took a break from mtg for about 2 years so this is a really helpful catchup lol

I may be the lunatic of the elf community but I have a feeling there are builds that are possible to play currently...sure modern is a much more dangerous place for 1/1 dorks thanks to horizons but we are beginning to brew and slowly become a more than rogue deck in the modern format. Kaldheim is the first big step for the tribe in a long time. I can’t wait to see what my brothers and sisters of the tribe come up with and how we may innovate this once and still great tribe.

I wanted tribal to get some support in MH1, instead we got Plague Engineer! WTF Wotc?

Nicachu is not only a merfolk master, but also an analogy master

The Infect jokes did it for me hahahaha great content as always!

As a Devoted Druid Player, I can confirm. I played that deck for several years. It was crazy fun playing a toolbox combo deck. But, Heliod’s printing (fuck FIRE) gave Collected Company Creature Combo (which is an umbrella archetype that will never go away, CoCo isn’t going anywhere) a strict upgrade. But I can’t afford to keep changing my deck all the time. So now I just play my Golgari Yawgmoth deck that I also have built. Hopefully that has staying power.

great video for people like me who started watching modern a long time before they started playing it

I loved old school dredge before Golgori troll got banned .

I tried combining scapeshift and evolution sage to ult planeswalkers in historic. Predictably, it was hard to pull off

By the way, I don't know how viable it would be, but I would love to see a series of videos from you where you analyee unusual, recent tournament winning decks, either proposing your version based on it, or discussing possible upgrades, things like that. The other day, a dimir delver won something in modern and it looked pretty interesting, I'd like to know your opinion about it (or delver decks in general in modern)

Best nikachu video ever!

You're not going to kill it, you're just going to piss it off XD Well said Nikachu!

I 5-0ed with infect in late October. The deck isn’t dead, it just dies to blitz.

Merfolk is also at risk. Look at Merfolk in Legacy: Can't win through the usual beatdown plan anymore. Needs to combo off some way or morph to Wizards like TuxDev's list to win games consistently. Hullbreacher is just one finger stopping the water from coming in through the hull breach of Legacy Merfolk's slowly sinking ship. This is because of power creep and Modern Merfolk is not safe either: It is becoming harder and harder to win, so much so that masters such as yourself and MHayashi are looking to colour splash, companions (e.g. Lurrus and Yorion), combos (e.g. Inverter of Truth and Thassa's Oracle) and even other decks (e.g. Prowess in the case of MHayashi) to win. What Modern Merfolk needs to be great again is strong Merfolk. Historically, Merfolk always came with some drawback and that just isn't cutting it anymore, especially with cards like Fatal Push and Plague Engineer getting printed.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 "If you try to wasteland strangle Uro you're not gonna kill it, you're just gonna pis him off"! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Opal ban was a near death blow to Lantern, but the real end of the deck was Blast Zone.

Nikachu channeling his inner vintage AVGN haha

Lantern control with mechanized production is fun cus it actually has a win con and dealing with x ensnaring bridges is hard

diarrhea reference was hilarious 😂😂😂

I started playing when I was 11 in 6th grade in 00/01 I started with 7th edition, left a while after odyssey, came back for Ixalan.. currently loving my simic merolk commander deck ...edit: have yet to use it

This video contains my favorite top 20 Nikachu quotes of all time

My favorite video yet haha

Makes sense, Karn the great creator basically Exiled Affinity and Lantern from existence. Banning of Mox opals just took away it's competitiveness against every deck without Karn. So it's two major losses I'm wondering, where is Abzan Midrange? Good ol' Goyf, bob,lilliana with Path to exiles and stuff.. What about Siege Rhino? I remember the days when Siege Rhino saw play in abzan

As a Devoted Druid player I can agree with you. Do you think it’s possible to combine Heliod Company with the Devoted Druid combo?

I was an Affinity player. Luckily, I managed to exit and sold every cards before the Karn was printed. Phew But I still felt the pain throughout ur explanation…

Thx, I had been wondering wut happened to Lantern Ctrl. Wut happened to Cheerios? With Puresteel Paladin n Sram n 0 cmc equipment into grapeshot. Is it still around? Do people still play Prime Speaker Zigana (I think it's that version of her, the 2GU version that says a creature to search ur deck for a creature 1 cmc higher n put it into play) or other Kikki Jiki decks?

That sex performance comparison on the infect deck got me dying

Keep up the great work my friend. Infect if my second baby , and I have had to move to golgari version as of late.

Just noticed that the 'Run' in the flavor text of Prime Titan is not italicized meaning it's included in the effect of the card. So after shuffling your library, run.

I miss lantern in the meta. I know people stick their nose up and call control decks snores, but lantern was a really cool and unique version of control that required a lot of game knowledge, meta knowledge and general brain juice. It's kinda hard to counter people's topdecks when every single card they can topdeck is a good card.

"the thing is the value of shit went up" hahahah fucking great

This video got in my recomments and noe im subbed😂😂 love the content😂😂

Plague Engineer was a mistake.

I'm still a massive fan of Lantern Control. Lantern + something like grafdigger's cage solves a lot of the power creep issues

Hello there!

Finally someone who understands that Affinity was dying way before Mox Opal got banned. Even before it got banned, Affinity was often seen as inferior to the hardened scales version. Karn was the gun wound, and the Mox Opal ban was the headshot

engineered plagues have surely been the bane of 2020, but not just for magic

Free red and bogles don't see much play anymore, not sure if its because they are bad or just old news

Great vid, keep them coming.

As a dedicated affinity player for a few years how did we beat Karn? By killing you before he came down. Could it be difficult? Yeah, but at a local level not too hard. But it became impossible to do without mox opal.

I began to play mtg 2018ish and I started with Modern! And I started with Lantern Control and still play it xD hahah, now I'm building a Faerie Deck tho! And i boult an Equip deck for my girlfriend, and now she's hooked ;)

I still play scapeshift, it turns out that it plays well with uro omnath field of the dead and mystical sanctuary and yorion

Jesus fuck, I definitely wasn't expecting a scatological joke from you, made me laugh out hard, lmao

i actually couldn't stop laughing about the "when nature calls" comment

I remeber playing pyromancer ascension very long ago, I wonder what happened to it :O. I miss those manamorphose that draw 2 and make 4 mana for 2 :O

Also jund, mardu pyromancer, "classic" 3 color shadows, classic uwx controls like uwr, arclight phoenix decks, hollow one. Eldrazi (tron and Stompy) is almost vanished.

1:18 earned my like 👍

What do you think about unbanning the artefactlands Do you think they are to fair with hate like karn or are they to easy to abuse

Did you see the new saga land, there’s a good chance that brings back lantern control, and shapeshift is back

I feel like lantern could still see play in some capacity. With Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace both being options to shut down graveyards. Leyline is probably the better of the two for the deck overall.

As someone who stills plays elves you hit it on the nose with the removal

The only way to play Infect is turn 3 wins, turn 2 in Legacy ;). Also Jhoria artifact storm in EDH.

I play affinity from time to time when I'm not playing faeries or artificers Intuition. When I built my affinity deck I couldn't afford the mox opals so I never used them. I beat affinity decks that did use opals just fine. I also never ran ravagers because in my opinion they slow the deck down. Well technically its not affinity in my opinion, it's boros tempered steel, but everyone I know calls it affinity because it's free and cheap artifact creatures. Its commonly turn 4 win, occasionally turn 5 if they manage to slow me down, and once in awhile its turn 3.

I miss seeing boggles played more but plague engineer is hard to deal with as well as EE and blast zone.

"YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!"

What happened to UW Control? Is it pretty neutered at the moment?

I have to say, as an old school affinity player...I have to say that the deck died when they created the modern format and left my artifact lands on ban list.

I will never see Primeval Titan with the same eyes ever again 🤣💀

Hey, what about ad nauseam deck? did it desapear or is it still alive?

great vid man ty

I miss hollow one

I'd like to see a part 2 with stuff like UB faeries and bogles maybe ponza idk how relevant ponza is overall but its definitely not relevant in my local meta lol and i miss faeries

I miss when titanshift was good. Won 2 pptqs with it. I useto jam that deck daily.

i'm never going to be able to look at infect players the same again haha

me an a friend of mine brewed a deck in bct that has away of bringing lantern back

Where is Living End? I tried it and it's a decent deck tbh, it got some new toys recently, like seasonned pyromancer etc.. I'm guessing the short answer is t3feri existing but it was already out of favor before that I believe.

Infect players just be like: Let me hit you with my best shot!!! Person B: one pump, okay 2 pumps, wait what that's it?!?!?! Infect player: gets (fatal) pushed over on the bed* Person B: you didn't actually think you'd have it that easy... did you? Infect player: walks away with their head down in disgrace* Nuff said

Remember all those Second Sunrise decks. Geeze..

What about Living End? Ps: great video!!!

I feel like twiddle storm might be positioned well this meta

Is thing in the ice and phoenix deck still relevant in modern?

Omfg the infect analogy ☠️

good god, no trashtalk about jund hahaha, great video though

Scapeshift is diarrhea Infect is bad in bed Lantern is a sad enema Elves is the wrong combo you ordered Affinity is is on lockdown E&T is bad sushi . . . . . . Merfolk just keeps swimming.

maybe my meta is a little more laid back, but I always felt dirty playing Titanshift. I did much better with tribal archers and Greatbow Doyen.

Elf support in the coming kalheim expansion ..maybe..