If I don't chalice for 1 on turn one (like against abzan where it does almost nothing) I'm either chalicing for 0 to turn on my mox or chalicing for 2. Sometimes 3 against GDS for command.
Chalice on one on the first turn is basically a free win against burn, GDS, tron (if they have to dig for tron at all)
I know you guys are all on the edge of your seat, so I have a change to my gemstone build. I moved the abrupt decays back to the sideboard and added three supreme wills into the main.
Abrupt is a so-so removal spell in G1 and incredible in games 2 and 3, so it should be in SB.
Getting to three mana turn two with this deck is very, very simple. So if another upside of playing this build is that we can virtually play a mana leak with impulse stapled to it, I like to be in the spot. Also I think it will help in games where we were otherwise helpless like tron and primeval titan. In topdeck wars if our opponent does nothing we can dig for something to bust the game open. In intitial testing against infect it won us games that were otherwise a surefire loss. I'm gonna go play a 4 round tourney tonight and will report back.
Rd1 Beat Grixis delver game two was k command shatterstorm snap shatterstorm all of which I swansong'd, then snap kcommand my bridge. Snapcaster is good.
Besides that I just beat him with infinite thopters onegame and tez under a bridge in third
R2 vs Saheeli pile of GW
G1 I get a super awkward draw that was keepable but barely and he got saheeli with a quasali pridemage (pre-side WTF) so I scooped to hope he didn't know what was up. G2 I killed stuff and got whir 5 lands and thopter sword, he plays kataki the turn before I go off. Life sux sometimes.
R3 against burn I had three gemstones a chalice 2 pentads and a mox. I kept, missed three land drops and then drew the fourth gemstone. G2 I had fast pentad abrupt swan song, the rest land including a gemstone. I kept and my next 14 draws were 11 land/2 simian spirit guides/1 amox opal. That was the worst luck I have ever had in magic to date.
R4 I dream crush burn in 2 games with collective and some well timed thopter/sword rips.
Overall the supreme will experiemnt is over. I think they might be good in the side in games where you want to have heavy counterspells but not glut out on countermagic. I'm also thinking about deprive.
But for now the abrupts are back in main.
Ultimately a 2-2 that could easily have been a 4-0
Saheeli pridemage is unusual but pridemage maindeck is very common. Seems like your out would be whir for needle or capsule, muddle for brutality, or some such (assuming you play any of those cards md).
Supreme will is something I may try at some point as a one or two of. Thinking about it its a bit like muddle - a counterspell that audibles as card selection. Its not unusual to get hellbent under a bridge and be passing turns with 4-6 mana up and nothing to do. The mana cost may still be too much to be efficient but its not an immediate write off.
Abrupt decay main seems like a waste of space to me. Creatures are solved by bridge, thoptersword, and brutality/liliana and there just arent any troublesome game one noncreature permanents that decay hits. Yeah if some clown plays throne of the god pharoah or maindeck rest in peace its annoying, but hardly worth the slot to hedge against that level of random.
Swan song seems a litle sketchy since it forces us to get a bridge or combo off quickly if we dont want to die to birds, and without one or the other we gift them a way to smackdown our planeswalkers. Maybe still fine but id be cautious that the downside on it could cause trouble.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
So i'm currently slowly running boomforest's gemstone build through a league, you can see the first round on my youtube channel if you want. Round 2 should be up later today and round 3 hopefully up tomorrow.
So far my testing is limited, but I'm pretty unimpressed. At less than 40% chance to have a gemstone caverns in your opener, and only 54% to have either a caverns or a SSG, giving up the play for such low chances of doing anything silly feels really bad. I've yet to do anything crazy like turn 1 chalice or turn 2 tezz. So far the gemstone caverns feel like a significant hindrance. So far the few times gemstone caverns has come down to give me an extra mana, it hasn't actually felt relevant at all, and feels like the game would have played out the same if it hadn't. I also hate the loss of serum visions.
So I dunno, I could be playing it poorly, keeping bad hands, etc. But so far I don't think I like the gemstone caverns build. I think it gives up too much for too little benefit
How on earth does quarter w crucible beat mill? Was the guy playing zero basics and keeping bad hands? They only need 3 lands and archive trap is free. I can imagine gq lock happening to any deck if stars align but as a legit plan vs mill im not seeing it - just lucky?
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Reporting back after my first rounds in weeks at «MegaModern» FNM (3-0 record: 75$, 2-0-1: 50$, 2-1: 25$), 35ish people turnout. After my 6 weeks hiatus, the expected metagame of all CoCos and Hatebears had changed a lot.
Card choices: Biggest decision I took here was to cut Aether Grid (will miss you) and red from the sideboard expecting to go black-er with all the Tendrils and Damnation I wanted to be playing. Also I figured that if we're looking for an alternate win-con through a Bridge, barring a Surgical Extraction (not played much anymore I heard) or a Pithing Needle, Tezz AoB himself is the sickest of them all, no? Then, like we just discussed, I have the Academy Ruins «alternate wincon» (I can't be milled in the event of an epic boardstall or opponent at infinite life -- which has happened to me before at this very store) and with Time Sieve I can go technical infinite and beat infinite life with technical infinite damage.
Onto the rounds: R1 I'm paired against an old timer judge who hates my artifact control deck and plays Bushwhacker zoo. My luck! This match-up, if we stabilize, we win. It's all about tempo. G1 On the play, my IoK into Brutality into Thopter-Sword gets the concession. G2, I'm just about to stabilize against his fairly fast draw (including a Harsh Mentor, red flag!) when he topdecks the Revelry he needs to blow up my Bridge and put me to zero. Tight game. G3 I'm one life short of stabilizing with T-Sword to his double Experiment One, double Nacatl and double Narhnam Renegade opener. But I die. He had sideboarded in 4x Harsh Mentors and 3x Destructive Revelry. Pretty harsh on us; (1-2) 1-2 games, 0-1 matches.
R2 I'm up against Living End. G1 on the draw, our T3 combo overpowers everything he has, even though we see MB Ingot Chewer and Faerie Macabre along the expected Beast Within. G2 is a grind fest where I have to blow up his suprise tech of Damping Matrix (SSG'd T2) before I can do anything. Luckily I had sided in a singleton Pulse and it showed up. But he has setup pressure on board and I barely keep alive through his 3x Ingot Chewer but... I eventualy come out on top through sheer redundancy of our deck. I kill him with a Tezz ultimate turn 4 after time is called; (2-0) 3-2 games, 1-1 matches.
R3 Up against Mono-Black Control/Devotion. On the play, G1 my IoK into Thopter-Sword online T3 takes me out of lifedrain (Gary) reach and a couple turns later it's me that's draining him 36 with Tezz. Go home, noob. G2, pretty much the same. (2-0) End record: 5-2 games, 2-1 matches. Some pocket change, nice. Anyway, what a blast, this deck.
@systrill Hey dude, checked out the video. For starters not my build. Has some of the same cards, but too many changes to call it mine.
Secondly I watched the videos. I think it'll take an adjustment to your regular play to get the most out of the deck. Basically I'd say you need to mull more, play to your outs and game ending lines more than try to react so much and try to be more efficient with your mana. You definitely could have won that scapeshift g2. And then you won the second match after just inexplicably not killing them with 5/5s starting on turn 3 in the first game and playing one win con into your own chalice in the second (with the ability to sac it to foundry). That's winning with a few victory laps, I'd say.
If that's your only sample, 4 games of which you are 2-2 losing to our worst predator, I'd say play it a bit more before making up your mind.
But thank you very much for trying the tech, and keep us posted on the rest of the league. Cool youtube channel.
@badmcfadden I think supreme will has a place in the SB, but barely. I'll keep testing it.
Abrupt kills almost everything in the format, usually a creature is fine. As removal it's got ups and downs balanced against push/go for the throat but what tips it is how important it is game two in almost every matchup so buying virtual space in the SB.
As far as counterspells in the side go after one week I felt the sadness of swan song. I brought it in against the wrong opponents (grixis delver and burn for eidolon/stony), should be used more against controlly matchups. But I'm going to get 2-3 deprives into the side. That card seems like it might be perfect for my build and potentially all tez builds since land drops aren't paramount.
In theory I agree on decay - it makes little sense for such a versatile card to not just go in the maindeck. In practice I just never had a game one where I drew it and felt happy about it. There are cards that I like to hit with it - thalia, queller, ooze, and arbiter specifically; but brutality kills two of the four and needle hits ooze leaving queller as the only really anoying decay target that isnt solvable with other cards.
im sure there are situations where hitting a deaths shadow feels great but bridge or chump blocks are similarly a fine game plan for that card. Post board its so important because none of the things I just listed do anything vs stony or rip.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
I agree that I played kinda poorly, but I still think the gemstone caverns, SSGs, and main deck chalice are a mistake. Gemstone in particular feels just so bad and the odds aren't good that it'll do anything broken enough to make up for it. 40% chance of having it in your opener isn't worth giving up the play or making your manabase worse with it imo
@systrill 40% chance of having that plus the liklihood of having turn 1 active opal or land guide prism adds up to... I don't know what, but add in the increased odds from mulliganing and you're well in the better-than-a-coinflip chances of having the T1 and 2 christmasland.
Like I said, small sample size but no sweat if you don't run it. Honestly this deck is so sucrptible to hate I don't want it to break so I can keep on using it like an ATM. I'm down with people ducking out after two matches hahahahaha, just wanna share because I'm so excited tez can do anything in modern. Finally.
I literally had the dumbest fnm.
Match 1 " affinityish with mostly mountains and sacrifice to deal damage. 2-0
Match 2. Elves 2-0
Match 3 red white hate bears.
1-2 game I won was a hard fought battle. He gq 4 of my lands with arbiter out and a thalia and then had Magus of the moons. Barely stabilized but got the combo through bridge for the win. Game 2/3 stonys, katakis,rest in peace, moon effects. Couldn't do anything.
Match 4 bant bears. Wtf. G1 could fight through early thalias and gq with arbiters.lose
G2 I go land pass turn, his land pass, mine land foundry. His t2 he plays revoker on foundry, k. I play a prism next turn he casts another revoker on tezz. K. Then another revoker on foundry. I'm digging for pulse, damnation, and or decay. He meddling mages next turn naming bridge. Luckily I whir into bridge to hold him off. Then he meddling mages decay. Then meddling mages whir. So I draw into pulse. Go to pulse revokers. He spell quellers it. Draw into brutality and kill the mage which has decay on it. Go to decay the queller that has pulse under it he quellers it lol. Dig dig dig get a damnation yes! He quellers it. I eventually draw into 2 whirs I can't cast and he swings through bridge with like 15 2/2s
Lost 0-2
I've cut some combo and aggro hate for a couple Crumble to Dust in the last few days. I figured since I'm already splashing a steam vents for Staticaster, that I could run them, too. So far, I've only exiled Valakut. There's been a lot of scapeshift for me online, but surprisingly, I've won like 3 out of the last 5, thanks mostly to sieve for infinite a turn before they win. Crumble helped when I drew it, and once they saw it game 2, they played around it game 3 and gave me time to dig for answers. I feel like Crumble might be the best option for Tron, because I'm usually losing to their second threat thanks to whir for needle, which means we should have enouh time to cast crumble. That is, if we draw it.
I also think, with the release of Ixalan, tron could get a little easier with the printing of Sorceror's Spyglass. A needle that lets us peak at their hands means we don't have to hold up whir for needle.
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If I don't chalice for 1 on turn one (like against abzan where it does almost nothing) I'm either chalicing for 0 to turn on my mox or chalicing for 2. Sometimes 3 against GDS for command.
Chalice on one on the first turn is basically a free win against burn, GDS, tron (if they have to dig for tron at all)
Abrupt is a so-so removal spell in G1 and incredible in games 2 and 3, so it should be in SB.
Getting to three mana turn two with this deck is very, very simple. So if another upside of playing this build is that we can virtually play a mana leak with impulse stapled to it, I like to be in the spot. Also I think it will help in games where we were otherwise helpless like tron and primeval titan. In topdeck wars if our opponent does nothing we can dig for something to bust the game open. In intitial testing against infect it won us games that were otherwise a surefire loss. I'm gonna go play a 4 round tourney tonight and will report back.
Besides that I just beat him with infinite thopters onegame and tez under a bridge in third
R2 vs Saheeli pile of GW
G1 I get a super awkward draw that was keepable but barely and he got saheeli with a quasali pridemage (pre-side WTF) so I scooped to hope he didn't know what was up. G2 I killed stuff and got whir 5 lands and thopter sword, he plays kataki the turn before I go off. Life sux sometimes.
R3 against burn I had three gemstones a chalice 2 pentads and a mox. I kept, missed three land drops and then drew the fourth gemstone. G2 I had fast pentad abrupt swan song, the rest land including a gemstone. I kept and my next 14 draws were 11 land/2 simian spirit guides/1 amox opal. That was the worst luck I have ever had in magic to date.
R4 I dream crush burn in 2 games with collective and some well timed thopter/sword rips.
Overall the supreme will experiemnt is over. I think they might be good in the side in games where you want to have heavy counterspells but not glut out on countermagic. I'm also thinking about deprive.
But for now the abrupts are back in main.
Ultimately a 2-2 that could easily have been a 4-0
Supreme will is something I may try at some point as a one or two of. Thinking about it its a bit like muddle - a counterspell that audibles as card selection. Its not unusual to get hellbent under a bridge and be passing turns with 4-6 mana up and nothing to do. The mana cost may still be too much to be efficient but its not an immediate write off.
Abrupt decay main seems like a waste of space to me. Creatures are solved by bridge, thoptersword, and brutality/liliana and there just arent any troublesome game one noncreature permanents that decay hits. Yeah if some clown plays throne of the god pharoah or maindeck rest in peace its annoying, but hardly worth the slot to hedge against that level of random.
Swan song seems a litle sketchy since it forces us to get a bridge or combo off quickly if we dont want to die to birds, and without one or the other we gift them a way to smackdown our planeswalkers. Maybe still fine but id be cautious that the downside on it could cause trouble.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
So far my testing is limited, but I'm pretty unimpressed. At less than 40% chance to have a gemstone caverns in your opener, and only 54% to have either a caverns or a SSG, giving up the play for such low chances of doing anything silly feels really bad. I've yet to do anything crazy like turn 1 chalice or turn 2 tezz. So far the gemstone caverns feel like a significant hindrance. So far the few times gemstone caverns has come down to give me an extra mana, it hasn't actually felt relevant at all, and feels like the game would have played out the same if it hadn't. I also hate the loss of serum visions.
So I dunno, I could be playing it poorly, keeping bad hands, etc. But so far I don't think I like the gemstone caverns build. I think it gives up too much for too little benefit
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
3x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4x Whir of Invention
4x Mishra's Bauble
4x Serum Visions
4x Thopter Foundry
3x Sword of the Meek
1x Time Sieve
Bullets
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
3x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Welding jar
Disruption
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Collective Brutality
3x Mox Opal
3x Pentad Prism
1x Academy Ruins
4x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
2x Watery Grave
1x Breeding Pool
3x Spire of Industry
3x Darkslick Shores
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Torpor Orb
1x Trinisphere
1x Witchbane Orb
1x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Damnation
1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Onto the rounds: R1 I'm paired against an old timer judge who hates my artifact control deck and plays Bushwhacker zoo. My luck! This match-up, if we stabilize, we win. It's all about tempo. G1 On the play, my IoK into Brutality into Thopter-Sword gets the concession. G2, I'm just about to stabilize against his fairly fast draw (including a Harsh Mentor, red flag!) when he topdecks the Revelry he needs to blow up my Bridge and put me to zero. Tight game. G3 I'm one life short of stabilizing with T-Sword to his double Experiment One, double Nacatl and double Narhnam Renegade opener. But I die. He had sideboarded in 4x Harsh Mentors and 3x Destructive Revelry. Pretty harsh on us; (1-2) 1-2 games, 0-1 matches.
R2 I'm up against Living End. G1 on the draw, our T3 combo overpowers everything he has, even though we see MB Ingot Chewer and Faerie Macabre along the expected Beast Within. G2 is a grind fest where I have to blow up his suprise tech of Damping Matrix (SSG'd T2) before I can do anything. Luckily I had sided in a singleton Pulse and it showed up. But he has setup pressure on board and I barely keep alive through his 3x Ingot Chewer but... I eventualy come out on top through sheer redundancy of our deck. I kill him with a Tezz ultimate turn 4 after time is called; (2-0) 3-2 games, 1-1 matches.
R3 Up against Mono-Black Control/Devotion. On the play, G1 my IoK into Thopter-Sword online T3 takes me out of lifedrain (Gary) reach and a couple turns later it's me that's draining him 36 with Tezz. Go home, noob. G2, pretty much the same. (2-0) End record: 5-2 games, 2-1 matches. Some pocket change, nice. Anyway, what a blast, this deck.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Secondly I watched the videos. I think it'll take an adjustment to your regular play to get the most out of the deck. Basically I'd say you need to mull more, play to your outs and game ending lines more than try to react so much and try to be more efficient with your mana. You definitely could have won that scapeshift g2. And then you won the second match after just inexplicably not killing them with 5/5s starting on turn 3 in the first game and playing one win con into your own chalice in the second (with the ability to sac it to foundry). That's winning with a few victory laps, I'd say.
If that's your only sample, 4 games of which you are 2-2 losing to our worst predator, I'd say play it a bit more before making up your mind.
But thank you very much for trying the tech, and keep us posted on the rest of the league. Cool youtube channel.
Abrupt kills almost everything in the format, usually a creature is fine. As removal it's got ups and downs balanced against push/go for the throat but what tips it is how important it is game two in almost every matchup so buying virtual space in the SB.
As far as counterspells in the side go after one week I felt the sadness of swan song. I brought it in against the wrong opponents (grixis delver and burn for eidolon/stony), should be used more against controlly matchups. But I'm going to get 2-3 deprives into the side. That card seems like it might be perfect for my build and potentially all tez builds since land drops aren't paramount.
im sure there are situations where hitting a deaths shadow feels great but bridge or chump blocks are similarly a fine game plan for that card. Post board its so important because none of the things I just listed do anything vs stony or rip.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Like I said, small sample size but no sweat if you don't run it. Honestly this deck is so sucrptible to hate I don't want it to break so I can keep on using it like an ATM. I'm down with people ducking out after two matches hahahahaha, just wanna share because I'm so excited tez can do anything in modern. Finally.
Match 1 " affinityish with mostly mountains and sacrifice to deal damage. 2-0
Match 2. Elves 2-0
Match 3 red white hate bears.
1-2 game I won was a hard fought battle. He gq 4 of my lands with arbiter out and a thalia and then had Magus of the moons. Barely stabilized but got the combo through bridge for the win. Game 2/3 stonys, katakis,rest in peace, moon effects. Couldn't do anything.
Match 4 bant bears. Wtf. G1 could fight through early thalias and gq with arbiters.lose
G2 I go land pass turn, his land pass, mine land foundry. His t2 he plays revoker on foundry, k. I play a prism next turn he casts another revoker on tezz. K. Then another revoker on foundry. I'm digging for pulse, damnation, and or decay. He meddling mages next turn naming bridge. Luckily I whir into bridge to hold him off. Then he meddling mages decay. Then meddling mages whir. So I draw into pulse. Go to pulse revokers. He spell quellers it. Draw into brutality and kill the mage which has decay on it. Go to decay the queller that has pulse under it he quellers it lol. Dig dig dig get a damnation yes! He quellers it. I eventually draw into 2 whirs I can't cast and he swings through bridge with like 15 2/2s
Lost 0-2
I just find the upsides to having gemstone caverns/ssg in the deck to be far outweighed by the downsides of it
Not sure what to do, thought I had even overextended in my tron matchup hate.
Frustrated.
Tourney report: beat burn, abzan combo, 4cDS all pretty badly. Lost badly to tron.
I also think, with the release of Ixalan, tron could get a little easier with the printing of Sorceror's Spyglass. A needle that lets us peak at their hands means we don't have to hold up whir for needle.