Added to my post, please see example.
Also, midrange is short for midrange aggro. Midrange decks are still aggro and mostly critter-based, but sacrifice a bit of speed to survive games that drag out longer. Elves, for example has a combo, but wins with elf beats more often than not. I wouldn't call that a combo deck anymore than I'd call humanfish with a vault/key stuck in it a combo deck.
Burn is aggro, you are correct...I still don't see it as tier 1 despite one good showing though.
Burn has been having a lot of success in PtQ's too, but that is beside the point. I never said that Burn was tier 1. I said that Burn is much more competitive than it used to be. I could definitely see it being tier 1 if it starts putting up more GP finishes and more people start playing the deck.
Ok, On the elf example, I hadn't seen the list, mainly because elves is not the most competitive of decks.
Midrange is not short for "Midrange Aggro". If that was true, then why is it that the only one drops Pod plays are mana dorks and maybe a Viscera seer, and the only One drops Jund and Rock play are Discard spells? ITs because their game plan isn't to kill the opponent quickly. Otherwise you would see them running more aggressive creatures instead of Durdly things like Pod, Bob, Liliana, or Reveillark. Midrange decks don't "Sacrifice a bit of speed". They sacrifice a lot of speed when compared to Aggro Decks because they
want games to drag out.
Pyrodelver is also an excellent deck. It's usually RUG around me with delver, pyro, tarm. Right now, it only has leak/remand as "hard counters" for the early turns...some run snare, but then get busted vs 1 and 3cc stuff. With 4 CS, the deck has then 12 counters...4 being superior in every way to the others. Imagine the following line. Fetch, crack for steam vent, delver, pass. Opponent plays land, something for 1 (or nothing), pass. Turn 2, delver swings for 3, you drop a land...you counter the next spell. Turn 3 you swing for 3, cast sleight of hand to dig, land...leak the next spell. Turn 5, play land, swing 3, cast tarm, remand the next spell...Turn 6, cast telling time (or whatever digger), swing 6, counterspell the remanded spell that gets recast. Turn 7 win with leak/remand/CS backup.
Get busted by 1 and 3cc cards? The almighty counter spell can't answer 1 mana cards that are payed on turn one or even turn 2 on the draw. Snare is good because there are a lot of two-drops in Modern. Every single top tier deck runs multiple two mana cards that have a major impact on the Boardstate. 12 two mana counters. Ok, that's a rather awkward curve, when you also have Pyromancer or Goyf in the deck, and this is for a tempo deck. Most control decks don't run remand because it is not really a counter spell. Its a tempo play that just delays the opponent for another turn at its best.
As for the game you described, yes, this is Magic the Gathering. One deck will sometimes have a better draw than others. That scenario was also incredibly unlikely given that leak/CS/Remand make up only 1 in 5 of the deck's cards. Even for a deck that was cantripping like that, that chain of events was very unlikely, especially when the Delver deck happened to hit its land drops early on as well so it could play goyf with counter backup.
This scenario is also flawed because the Opponent somehow only has the capacity to play 1 spell a turn for the entire game, which plays perfectly into the Delver player's Counterspell heavy draw.
Finally, you once again forgot that Abrupt Decay is a card. That draw would fold immediately to a single decay, which sees wide play in the format and is one of the reasons Tempo almost fell off the map after RtR.
Forgetting all of this, Tempo decks also need help in Modern. They have been struggling ever since Return To Ravnica.
In the above scenario, let's say my best 1cc spell is seize. Right now I can choose between your leak and remand and force that window to come faster. Now I have to choose between the leak, remand, and CS in hand and my window may never come.
They could also just take the Delver instead of one of the three counters you were "lucky" enough to draw in a highly disproportionate amount. Eventually your stream of counter spells will run out and they will stick a threat.
Nut Draw scenarios(Not that that even would be a nut draw against any reasonable Midrange draw) are completely useless in evaluating the effects of a card in a format, because you could do that with any reasonable card. It only shows the futility of your position that you have to resort to Incredibly slanted Games played in Magical Christmas Land. I've heard people do the same thing about unbanning Mind Twist in Legacy: "But they can go Ritual Ritual Ritual Mind Twist on Turn 1!" when really the card is safe because scenarios such as that almost never happen.
