After I wrote that, I went 1-2 drop at fnm, losing to Eldrazi Tron (2maindeck ulamogs with servant of the conduit to search them up) and mono white hate bears with a grave misplay. Opponent goes plains plains arbitor, I decide on a bridge instead of moon, he gqs me and I get locked under a thalia and 2 mana. Oh well, bad beats. Gonna swap to grishoalbrand next week to trip them up.
Edit: orcish librarian is cute but I don’t think it will work how we want. The random part is harsh. You do get to look at the cards before you put them back but possibly bricking hard and ultimately brainstorm locking yourself is bad.
Thursday night modern report. Took out Chandra Pyromaster for an orcish librarian. Went 2-2. Lost to grixis shadow and Tron. Shadow had the turn one stubby D followed by k command a few turns later, game one. Game two, stubby D again, along with ceremonious rejection. Sealed it up. Other loss was to Tron. Turn one flip Chandra met ratal push. Turn these blood moon met an o stone. Ulamog joined the party and we're off to game 2 which I mulled to 4. The games I won were textbook pyro prison, orcish librarian showed up twice the whole night. First time it did serious work. Putting Chandra on top, fixing what gets milled away to draw the next card then cast the 4ty felt great. Honestly, although I only activated it twice in the same game, it felt better than crystal ball....a LOT better. Jury is still out, but it's something I'll continue to teat. Flip Chandra also only appeared once, so no decision on her yet either. What I can say is the deck tops out at 7 4-drops. Anyway, gonna keep on testing and seeing what works.
and I thought I am brave testing mediocre cards like Arc Slogger or Goblin Charbelcher in our flexible slot but you Sir topped me easily with that Orcish Librarian
I've also considered testing icy manipulator in the deck. It can tap down that pesky basic your opponent fetches out or a tarmogoyf when you don't have bridge. Problem is that it costs 4 mana and as previously stated, the deck can only really afford 7 of those at most. If we're looking for more lock pieces at the 4 slot, icy is definitely the way to go. This also needs trading,. It for now, I think the 4 slot is best suited for bug threats that end the game. If anyone has the guts to try an icy or two instead of pia and Kiran or hazoret, let me know the results. I don't think we can touch 4 Chandra or koth. Koth can't protect himself but he ultimates so quick, I think he's worth keeping.
I tried Icy Manipulator before and wasn't impressed. Costs whole four and is a defensive card - something I don't like in this deck. I think I'd rather play Mom and Dad who can at least attack.
I thought of it because it used to be played back in the old school sligh decks. It always ensured the red decks never ran out of gas. It serves a similar purpose here. Still testing it, but the few times it's appeared, it's been really good
They spoiled a new artwork for Dominaria, looks like we may be getting a new Jaya card!!! I wonder if they will make her a walker this go around or if they will do another creature with abilities.
alright, we finally did well in a competitive league. 4-1. only loss was to humans because I went all in on a one land hand that had chalice, blood moon, bridge, land, ritual, ritual, spirit guide. on the play, figured chalice on one turn one was good and then if i drew land, blood moon turn two to completely lock him out. didn't draw that land for the rest of the game.
played humans three times and this deck just straight up crushes it. resolve a bridge game one and it's over. blood moon also does God's work in this match. the other two matches were burn and death and taxes. both matchups i think are fairly straight forward. orchish librarian did SERIOUS work game one vs death and taxes. we're talking at least 5 activations and milling myself down to 25 cards, however, the fixing of the draws got me down to my ensnaring bridge which all four were in the bottom half of my deck. I sided it out vs humans because all the sweepers come in and it dies to the sweepers. so, when he works, he's great. I can see him being good in the jund, shadow, eldrazi tron, and control matches. not so good vs the combo decks and the decks where you are boarding in all the angers. also not good vs traditional tron. you need to be deploying power vs tron and taking a turn off for librarian usually means they draw and activate an o-stone with plenty of life to spare.
So, in closing, librarian might be the card this deck was looking for. still needs more testing. Oh, and flip Chandra has not been relevant, like ever. she might be coming out for something.....don't know what that something is yet.
Congratulations. Seriously with that luck with Librarian, you should play lottery often. For me the only RANDOM card affecting you worth playing is Gamble in Lands and this is only because if you manage to get unlucky and throw your searched card away, you can usually get it back via Loam or Crucible.
I see You have never played with librarian. Yes it exiles half the cards at random, however, this deck is so repetitive it's not a big deal. Fixing the top 4 at end of tune is either great or you do it again during your upkeep.
Different topic....has anyone tested culling scales as s potential lock piece? It hits everything cheap and will never hit your 4 drops. Unlike icy manipulator, it costs three, so it's on curve. Doesn't take care of delve threats, but can slowly grind out games vs affinity, or anything else low to the ground
Strong is the 4-1 finish, Stickballruss. Strong is the Orcish libr...arian??? I'd say that it would quickly get killed by removal for lack of other targets in our creature-light deck. But, that would mean that the opponent would have to see it as a threat. Cull and top deck stacking aside, really. O.K. perfectly hit on curve from an opening hand, I can see it. As fast as modern is today, that might be your only chance anyway.....
/withholding judgement --- it sounds like lunacy.
Culling Scales is just too slow: affinity spills out too fast and it will not stem a swarm attack, but keep on the storming thoughts. I will say that I liked your suggestion of Damping Matrix and it's in the sideboard now -- I put (2) slagstorm in the main deck which allowed a drop of the Anger of the gods in the sideboard to make room. Like you said, it stops Eldrazi Tron and Affinity. Both can be *****ers.
Well, time to prepare for high noon hijinks in my Rumpus Room. I've got a 1/2 dozen buddies stopping by for our seasonal gathering of EDH and Draft events: Magilympics: Autumn 2017 - November's Embers.
Ray, I'm honored that you responded to my post. Ever since I saw the deck you won the titanium series with, I was hooked. Took your exact list from that event to an IQ top 8 and never looked back. As far as librarian goes, yes, they need to realize it's a threat. And there are lots of times turn one rabblemaster makes the librarian just stay around. Rabblemaster is the purest genius card in the deck. Turn one goblin changes the entire game. Opponent now plays to manage that, which leaves them open to all sorts of shinnangians. Damping matrix has been nurs., Just watch out with your own spellskite. One card that turns off aethwr vial and eldrazi displacer....sold. also good vs tron for map and o-stone. With around 7 flex slots in this deck, I'd say we are one card away from it being truly busted. I keep swapping out flip Chandra, swelling suns, jets, abrade, and none of it matters. Either you lock them out with the core or you don't. Yes, those are useful when you draw them, but they fill similar roles and aren't the cards you REALLY want. Anyway, I'm old school like yourself and I'm going to keep testing bad cards and see if I can make something work. Maybe maindexk spellskite with another in the board....
Hey all, have not posted recently been playing the deck some online, but I cannot currently take the deck to FNM, not because I am not going but rather there are now 3 - 5 mono color decks there that are making it difficult to play the whole punishing land decks. So the current meta locally is just basically waiting for me to go 0-4 at the FNMs (last time I did take the deck I went 1 - 3).
Interesting stuff going on, the hardest thing I find though is not having any filtering what so ever. This is the most painful part. I took an old BTL Build to the latest FNM and swept going undefeated, but it (being the blue aspects) destroys the mono-colored decks.
Anyway what do we do when we're in a heavy Mono color meta? Is it just shelve to later, or other ways to approach the deck?
When you say mono color, what are we talking about? So far, the hardest matchups I've had are storm and eldrazi Tron. Honestly, even with major side board, both seem pretty unwinnable. Let us know what your looking at and we can develop a plan.
Hey Ray, has abrade been really better than magma jet? I see you switched to abrade and was wondering how it was going for you. Also, I see you moved away from sweltering suns to slagstorm. How's that been? Is the three damage to the face or Planeswalkers better than cycling? Let me know your results with these changes. As I said, I'm taking this to the invitational next week and I want to play as optimal a build as possible.
Side note on librarian, further testing has shown that it's slow. The issue isn't the random exile....it's having to wait a turn to use it. Too often I need that card NOW, and playing a two drop, waiting a turn to use it, only to fix the draw has been too slow. If I was going to play something to smooth the draw, I think I'd rather have a magma jet in this slot. When he was good, he was nuts....just the downside was too low for this to be viable. Everyone at fnm did get a good laugh when I destroyed someone with it though, so there's that.
One of the most prideful points at FNM events is trying out a single piece of inspired Jank from left field, and watching it smash an opponent and all expectations from doubting onlookers. Trying out a Librarian twice? Get that hand out of the cookie jar quickly, Stickball - you had your moment! Oh, did you mention that you took my 1K winning deck to a top 8 finish in an IQ? Did that result get published online??
Has Abrade been better than Magma Jet, you ask. Well, I am down to just (1) Abrade in the main deck. I like it fine, but we are talking about a singleton - so who really knows. The choice between the 2 is about an even call depending on the meta.
I will say that the moment I swapped the 2nd Abrade for a 2nd Slagstorm was in a G1 match against Affinity, and I had (2) abrade in my opening hand. I immediately told myself that IF I didn't win this game (even though Affinity is always favored in game 1), then the 2nd abrade had to go! Well, I would have gladly traded both Abrades for a single Slagstorm/Sweltering Suns/Anger of the Gods, as I got swarmed over with tiny robots that later got buttressed by an arcbound ravager. The ravager renders the abrade pretty close to useless.
For the damage to planeswalkers and face, I definitely consider slagstorm a better option than the 'cycle' property of sweltering suns. When you consider most game situations where you're holding a Slagstorm (only 2 in deck), you're usually better off casting it than cycling it for an unknown draw.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it was published....does this list look familiar? I lost in the first round of top 8 by 2% points. Undefeated in Swiss, I was 5th seed with an OMW of 54 to the 4th seed who was 56%. Game one vs grixis shadow goes like this, him...land, go. Me, land, guide, ritual, blood moon. Him, crack scalding tarn, stubby D. No worries, I got turn two bridge and he had his only k command as well. Bad beats.
Thanks for the advice on slagstorm. I'm currently running three jets and two suns, but those might turn into 3 abrade and two slags. Maybe two abrade and a spellskite or a walking ballista or just maindexk some eidolins and two slags. That's a thought. More testing on mtgo tonight. We really are one card away from making this deck truely busted.
18 lock pieces:
4 ensnaring bridge
4 Rabblemaster
4 Chalice of the void
4 Blood Moon
2 Magus of the moon
5 Planeswalkers:
4 Chandra, torch of Defiance
1 Koth of the Hammer
This leaves 7 flex slots.....
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 walking Ballista
2 abrade
2 Slagstorm
Sideboard:
3 Eidolin of the great revel
2 anger the gods
2 Shattering Spree
2 Sorcerous Syglass
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb
1 Boil
1 Hazoret the fervent
First things first, Hazoret got moved to the board. Too often he was sitting behind a bridge and not doing anything. discarding your draw step for two damage is not fast enough. he comes in when bridges come out.....tron, control, ad nausem, when I play this deck vs my friends who play vintage....you know, the creature-less opponents. Second, after hearing what Ray had to say on the subject, Abrade and Slagstorm are definitely the way to go. both felt great. Last, WALKING BALLISTA. Holy crap batman. How in the world have we overlooked this card?
Some brief sideboard commentary, you'll noticed i've abandoned ship on witchbane orb. In my matches, it hasn't done enough when I needed it to. Storm can play around it easily, ad nausem has answers to it, and it never stops discard. Blood moon and chalice do a great job of locking out burn, so i'm not seeing the need here. Boil is insane. tell me why that card is an instant again?
Alright, onto the matches. Friendly league, but unless you've 5-0'd several friendly leagues, don't say that the competition in not real, because it is.
Round 1 vs. Humans.
We should all be thankful that Humans has emerged as the deck to beat. The more popular this deck is, the better for us. It helps keep storm numbers down and it's a FANTASTIC match for us. Game one I lost because he got turn one 1/1 dude that grows, turn two thalia, turn three flying 3/3. Thalia locksed me out as he's swinging for lots. Game 2 and 3 were textbook. Game two was turn one chalice on one, eventually a bridge showed up, and then a moon, and he couldn't play anything. Game three he didn't play anything on this first turn, so I used my first turn to drop a blood moon. then a chaclice next turn, then he scooped. WIN
Round 2 vs. counters company
Holy crap, walking ballista did GODS work here. blood moon plus walking ballista was game over. Game one ballista went nuts. Game two lost to only drawing two lands. Game three was turn one blood moon. he play about 47 fetch lands before throwing in the towel. WIN
Round 3 vs. Esper Control.
Game one, a chalice on one resolves, then a blood moon resolves, then he looses to chandra. Side nore here, I opted to play a mutavault first. The mutavault immediaetly puts you on merfolk, which couldn't be further from what we are doing. I've won countless games because my control opponent fetches dual lands or doesn't leave up mana because of mutavault. game 2, I think he sides out all his creature removal since he didn't see any the first game. Turn two eidolin, turn three rabblemaster, turn 4 rabblemaster. all he did was cast a duress and draw some cards with esper charm WIN
Round 4 vs infect.
I don't think I have to mention how this sent. Game one I win because Ray told me abrade is better than magma jet. Abrade kills a creature that is pumped with pendlehaven. Magma jet does not. just sayin. Game two, chalice on one, followed by blood moon, followed by anger the gods. WIN
Round 5 vs jund shadow
Game one i mulligan to 6, see two lands and get destroyed
Game two, I keep 7, turn two chalice on one, turn three blood moon, turn 4 bridge, turn 5 chandra, he scoops because he couldn't play anything.
Game three, I keep 7, turn one chalice on 1, turn 2, bridge, turn three, chandra gets to work. I couldn't find a third land for a while, but we got there. Eidoln was HUGE in this matchup. Felt like we were both counting the number of spells left he could play before he died. a secnd eidolin showed up when opponent was at 8 life, essentially locking him to just one spell for the rest of the game. WIN
5-0 baby. Walking ballista has earned it's keep. it's great against anything with mana dorks, infect, affinity, and humans. it also lowers the 4 drops in the deck to 6. of course, you want to play ballista on 4 if you can, but you don't have to. eidolin has been nuts every time i play it. so good, he might go up to 4 in the board, just don't know what to remove for it. Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for reading!
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Edit: orcish librarian is cute but I don’t think it will work how we want. The random part is harsh. You do get to look at the cards before you put them back but possibly bricking hard and ultimately brainstorm locking yourself is bad.
RG BBE Ponza
UX Eldrazi Tron
UR Jace Breach
played humans three times and this deck just straight up crushes it. resolve a bridge game one and it's over. blood moon also does God's work in this match. the other two matches were burn and death and taxes. both matchups i think are fairly straight forward. orchish librarian did SERIOUS work game one vs death and taxes. we're talking at least 5 activations and milling myself down to 25 cards, however, the fixing of the draws got me down to my ensnaring bridge which all four were in the bottom half of my deck. I sided it out vs humans because all the sweepers come in and it dies to the sweepers. so, when he works, he's great. I can see him being good in the jund, shadow, eldrazi tron, and control matches. not so good vs the combo decks and the decks where you are boarding in all the angers. also not good vs traditional tron. you need to be deploying power vs tron and taking a turn off for librarian usually means they draw and activate an o-stone with plenty of life to spare.
So, in closing, librarian might be the card this deck was looking for. still needs more testing. Oh, and flip Chandra has not been relevant, like ever. she might be coming out for something.....don't know what that something is yet.
Different topic....has anyone tested culling scales as s potential lock piece? It hits everything cheap and will never hit your 4 drops. Unlike icy manipulator, it costs three, so it's on curve. Doesn't take care of delve threats, but can slowly grind out games vs affinity, or anything else low to the ground
/withholding judgement --- it sounds like lunacy.
Culling Scales is just too slow: affinity spills out too fast and it will not stem a swarm attack, but keep on the storming thoughts. I will say that I liked your suggestion of Damping Matrix and it's in the sideboard now -- I put (2) slagstorm in the main deck which allowed a drop of the Anger of the gods in the sideboard to make room. Like you said, it stops Eldrazi Tron and Affinity. Both can be *****ers.
Well, time to prepare for high noon hijinks in my Rumpus Room. I've got a 1/2 dozen buddies stopping by for our seasonal gathering of EDH and Draft events: Magilympics: Autumn 2017 - November's Embers.
Interesting stuff going on, the hardest thing I find though is not having any filtering what so ever. This is the most painful part. I took an old BTL Build to the latest FNM and swept going undefeated, but it (being the blue aspects) destroys the mono-colored decks.
Anyway what do we do when we're in a heavy Mono color meta? Is it just shelve to later, or other ways to approach the deck?
Side note on librarian, further testing has shown that it's slow. The issue isn't the random exile....it's having to wait a turn to use it. Too often I need that card NOW, and playing a two drop, waiting a turn to use it, only to fix the draw has been too slow. If I was going to play something to smooth the draw, I think I'd rather have a magma jet in this slot. When he was good, he was nuts....just the downside was too low for this to be viable. Everyone at fnm did get a good laugh when I destroyed someone with it though, so there's that.
Has Abrade been better than Magma Jet, you ask. Well, I am down to just (1) Abrade in the main deck. I like it fine, but we are talking about a singleton - so who really knows. The choice between the 2 is about an even call depending on the meta.
I will say that the moment I swapped the 2nd Abrade for a 2nd Slagstorm was in a G1 match against Affinity, and I had (2) abrade in my opening hand. I immediately told myself that IF I didn't win this game (even though Affinity is always favored in game 1), then the 2nd abrade had to go! Well, I would have gladly traded both Abrades for a single Slagstorm/Sweltering Suns/Anger of the Gods, as I got swarmed over with tiny robots that later got buttressed by an arcbound ravager. The ravager renders the abrade pretty close to useless.
For the damage to planeswalkers and face, I definitely consider slagstorm a better option than the 'cycle' property of sweltering suns. When you consider most game situations where you're holding a Slagstorm (only 2 in deck), you're usually better off casting it than cycling it for an unknown draw.
Thanks for the advice on slagstorm. I'm currently running three jets and two suns, but those might turn into 3 abrade and two slags. Maybe two abrade and a spellskite or a walking ballista or just maindexk some eidolins and two slags. That's a thought. More testing on mtgo tonight. We really are one card away from making this deck truely busted.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=115157
30 mana:
17 mountains
3 gemstone caverns
1 Mutavault
5 rituals
4 simian spirit guide
18 lock pieces:
4 ensnaring bridge
4 Rabblemaster
4 Chalice of the void
4 Blood Moon
2 Magus of the moon
5 Planeswalkers:
4 Chandra, torch of Defiance
1 Koth of the Hammer
This leaves 7 flex slots.....
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 walking Ballista
2 abrade
2 Slagstorm
Sideboard:
3 Eidolin of the great revel
2 anger the gods
2 Shattering Spree
2 Sorcerous Syglass
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb
1 Boil
1 Hazoret the fervent
First things first, Hazoret got moved to the board. Too often he was sitting behind a bridge and not doing anything. discarding your draw step for two damage is not fast enough. he comes in when bridges come out.....tron, control, ad nausem, when I play this deck vs my friends who play vintage....you know, the creature-less opponents. Second, after hearing what Ray had to say on the subject, Abrade and Slagstorm are definitely the way to go. both felt great. Last, WALKING BALLISTA. Holy crap batman. How in the world have we overlooked this card?
Some brief sideboard commentary, you'll noticed i've abandoned ship on witchbane orb. In my matches, it hasn't done enough when I needed it to. Storm can play around it easily, ad nausem has answers to it, and it never stops discard. Blood moon and chalice do a great job of locking out burn, so i'm not seeing the need here. Boil is insane. tell me why that card is an instant again?
Alright, onto the matches. Friendly league, but unless you've 5-0'd several friendly leagues, don't say that the competition in not real, because it is.
Round 1 vs. Humans.
We should all be thankful that Humans has emerged as the deck to beat. The more popular this deck is, the better for us. It helps keep storm numbers down and it's a FANTASTIC match for us. Game one I lost because he got turn one 1/1 dude that grows, turn two thalia, turn three flying 3/3. Thalia locksed me out as he's swinging for lots. Game 2 and 3 were textbook. Game two was turn one chalice on one, eventually a bridge showed up, and then a moon, and he couldn't play anything. Game three he didn't play anything on this first turn, so I used my first turn to drop a blood moon. then a chaclice next turn, then he scooped. WIN
Round 2 vs. counters company
Holy crap, walking ballista did GODS work here. blood moon plus walking ballista was game over. Game one ballista went nuts. Game two lost to only drawing two lands. Game three was turn one blood moon. he play about 47 fetch lands before throwing in the towel. WIN
Round 3 vs. Esper Control.
Game one, a chalice on one resolves, then a blood moon resolves, then he looses to chandra. Side nore here, I opted to play a mutavault first. The mutavault immediaetly puts you on merfolk, which couldn't be further from what we are doing. I've won countless games because my control opponent fetches dual lands or doesn't leave up mana because of mutavault. game 2, I think he sides out all his creature removal since he didn't see any the first game. Turn two eidolin, turn three rabblemaster, turn 4 rabblemaster. all he did was cast a duress and draw some cards with esper charm WIN
Round 4 vs infect.
I don't think I have to mention how this sent. Game one I win because Ray told me abrade is better than magma jet. Abrade kills a creature that is pumped with pendlehaven. Magma jet does not. just sayin. Game two, chalice on one, followed by blood moon, followed by anger the gods. WIN
Round 5 vs jund shadow
Game one i mulligan to 6, see two lands and get destroyed
Game two, I keep 7, turn two chalice on one, turn three blood moon, turn 4 bridge, turn 5 chandra, he scoops because he couldn't play anything.
Game three, I keep 7, turn one chalice on 1, turn 2, bridge, turn three, chandra gets to work. I couldn't find a third land for a while, but we got there. Eidoln was HUGE in this matchup. Felt like we were both counting the number of spells left he could play before he died. a secnd eidolin showed up when opponent was at 8 life, essentially locking him to just one spell for the rest of the game. WIN
5-0 baby. Walking ballista has earned it's keep. it's great against anything with mana dorks, infect, affinity, and humans. it also lowers the 4 drops in the deck to 6. of course, you want to play ballista on 4 if you can, but you don't have to. eidolin has been nuts every time i play it. so good, he might go up to 4 in the board, just don't know what to remove for it. Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for reading!