I've tested the deck online...you haven't played it yet?
Play a bunch of games, you'll see what I mean with your opening hands being more clunky in comparison to other GBx decks
You can't look at mtggoldfish's meta shares, they aren't accurate. They cherry pick data that has either 5-0'd a Daily, or paper events. There's a slew of people who tried Rock with a bunch of 5-3. The numbers are bolstered from very recent results, that's why I wouldn't recommend looking at Rock at face value at its percentage. MTGGolddish isn't a good source for meta shares anymore due to the changes that took place in late 2017.
I played it of course, but can't say I played it enough to call that testing yet. So I will toy around with it a little more.
Yeah its true, but on the other hand you can see which decks are doing best right now. I know that changes very often, but I think for getting information on recent meta changes it can be valuable. It might be that it will change drastically in the next days/weeks.
Like I said, you have to be careful about using that website. I use it all the time but the numbers are sketchy, it's better to analyze the top decks in an open field.
I played the deck again, won a close game to Grixis Shadow.
I replaced the 4th Scooze with 1x E-Witness, which won me the game.
Ended up at 2 life to his 1 life, LOTV at 5. I had to end the game, since a snap or K-Command would end it on the spot. Bob reveals thoughtseize and I swing for lethal at 1 life left.
The matchup vs. Grixis Shadow is also one interesting thing. Jund is unfavoured, Abzan favoured to Souls and am curious how this deck fares against it compared to Jund and Abzan. Don't know how big of an impact Ruins has here.
E-Wit is surely a great card to have. Also thinking about running one copy in place of the fourth Ooze since 4 Ooze seem to many.
The land destruction wasn't a huge deal. Grixis if anything still has issues with flooding, despite 18 lands. I took him off 1 red source and he kept a fetch uncracked, he never needed it.
I never felt advantaged or great against grixis today, I felt behind from the get go.
He discarded LOTV immediately, I played a scooze knowing it'd die, played a turn 3 E-Wit to get LOTV, and hoping to draw a second black source. Took 4 from Tasigur several times, not letting E-Wit die. I swung back until I left him in an awkward spot. Then I had to chump block E-Wit and Treetop in hopes of topdecking an LOTV or Pulse for his second Tasigur.
I felt behind the entire. He cycled to 1 life to find a push for a lethal scooze. I discarded Bob earlier because 2x swings wasn't worth the risk of dying to a topdeck.
It feels 40/60 to me, lingering souls is a huge deal. The sideboard post-board isn't great, it only has 2x nihil spellbombs, and maybe a Last Hope, which isn't that fantastic against the deck.
i think this could be done. in UW control build, they use Field of Ruin as fetch lands. we could adapt this principle. usually we play 8-10 fetch lands and 8 basic/shock. and fast lands could be droped.
I think this card is counterintuitive. Why? Well besides that card being instant, I don't see what it really does better than Damnation. The theoretical strength of this card is that its instant, can get rid of indestructible and or cards like Finks/Voice etc, while not killing our creatures.
So, since it doesn't hit our creatures there has to be some creatures on the BF which we want to protect to make it better than Damnation. And often times, when you are up against creature decks, they won't attack you with all their creatures due to your creatures which makes this card not an one sided Wrath at all.
If you don't have creatures on the BF this card is just worse than Damnation.
Yeah it hits Finks/Voice and indestructible, but usually decks running Finks/Voice are running Birds/Hierachs which most likely won't attack at all.
Concerning indestructible its not that relevant in the top decks atm.
So the one advantage it has is that is instant. In theory you don't loose tempo compared to Damnation. However it is incredibly unrealiable and you also ramp your opponent. I think that I would run Damnation over it any day.
Double white is difficult to hit with this deck, we also definitely don't want to desperately look for double white on tour 4. Yes, we play Gideon, but thats when we are hopefully on the aggressive or grindy plan
It's also why Damnation is played over Wrath, despite being the same card.
I really don't love playing wrath effects in GBx too much anymore.
Prefer Nihil Spellbomb in the slot, very useful against so many decks, and can set it up to draw off a Flayer attack setup if it's not serving other purposes or sac anytime to add a type to your graveyard to save a Goyf or Flayer.
Not to mention this card would also activate the voice trigger.
Another thing to remember with Junk is that double W is not just free. It can be very hard to obtain some games if the opponent is interacting with your lands.
Hey all! Played @Spsiegel1987's 22 land junk list to a 3 round modern event. I went 2-0 G/B tron, 2-0 Lantern, and 1-2 dredge, so went 2-1 overall. Here was the list I played, which is very close to @Spsiegel1987's list but some slight changes:
The differences were that I did a 3/3 IoK/TS split, and the other list has 3 PtE and 1 pulse, but my 3rd PtE was actually coming in the mail so I replaced it with a maelstrom pulse for the time being. The sideboard is also different as it has 2 nihil spellbombs instead of 2 surgical extraction and 1 creeping corrosion instead of the lost legacy
Round 1 B/G Tron
Game 1 I kept a one land hand with PtE, Flayer, Goyf, Bob, TS, IoK. It was risky but I figured with the discard I could slow down my opponent enough to get a second land. I was on the draw but drew my basic swamp on first draw. I lead with IoK to see a hand with expedition map, ugin, ancient stirrings, wurmcoil, and some lands. I take the map, TS the ugin, path the wurmcoil, and beat down my opponent quickly with goyf, bob, and flayer. He was able to get a karn out but I ended up flipping a pulse through my bob. Makes me wonder if that pulse would've been a path instead.
In 2 Stony, 3 Fulminator Mage
Out 4 Push, 1 Decay
Game 2 my 7 card hand had something like 4 lands, a LoTV, a bob, and I think an ooze. Too slow I figured so I sent it back and had a 6 card hand with stony silence in my starting hand. He played map on turn 1. On turn 2 he used one of his mana to use ancient stirrings, which was a relief for me when I slammed stony silence next turn. I was able to IoK a sylvan scrying, which would've gotten him Tron. I top decked a fulminator to get rid of his one urza's mine while he had two towers, and he proceeded to draw 2 more expedition maps and an o-stone, so I won pretty quickly after that. His hand also had a world breaker and a wurmcoil but thanks to LoTV i was able to strip those from his hand before he can get Tron to play them. I was fortunate not to see a single fatal push both games.
Round 2 Lantern Control
I chuckled a bit game 1 when I saw my starting hand was two fetchlands, 3 bobs, and 2 goyfs. My opponent didn't find any lanterns or mill rocks all game 1. He had ensnaring bridges but I was able to dig pretty quickly through my deck to find abrupt decays and maelstrom pulse.
In 2 Stony, 2 Spellbomb, 1 EE, 1 Creeping Corrosion
Out 4 Push, 2 Path to Exile
Game 2 I started with an IoK to see 3 ensnaring bridges. I took away one of them, but he eventually played the other 2. He didn't find a single sorcerous spyglass or pithing needle so I was able to ult LoTV to have him either take 2 ensnaring bridges or 4 lands and a codex shredder. He threw away the 2 ensnaring bridges, but was able to play his 4th ensnaring bridge soon after. Even after I abrupt decay'd that, he was able to get it back with academy ruins. I was fortunate to flip a maelstrom pulse through bob to get rid of the replayed ensnaring bridge and swing for lethal. He was running the B/G version, as he said the lands for the whir version were coming in the mail.
Round 3 Dredge
I don't remember much about game 1. I remember just beating him down with goyf; he was pretty stuck on lands. He had two blood crypts the entire game for conflagrate but couldn't loam to trigger bloodghasts. To be honest I'm not sure how to sideboard against this deck. I took out 4 LoTV, 1 TS and put in 2 spellbomb, 1 LtLH, 1 damnation, 1 EE. What goes in seems obvious but I'm not sure what to take out. Should I be taking out the collective brutality instead? Anyways both game 2 and 3 he was able to get out all 4 bloodghasts somehow and I could not stabilize the board quickly enough. I mulled to 5 game 2 with a one lander but with nihil spellbomb and scavenging ooze, my opponent was still too fast.
Overall the deck felt great. Lesser lands but drawing more action. Maelstrom pulse did work all 3 matches (got a 4 for 1 with maelstrom pulse on bloodghast :P), but given that most of my games I only had 3-4 lands out in critical moments I'd rather have the path than pulse. If people could offer tips on the dredge matchup that'd be great, as I really don't know how to navigate it.
Another LGS near me has 4 rounds of modern on thursday, so hopefully the 3rd path will come in time. Either way will be running this deck back on Thursday for sure so we'll see how that goes.
Against dregde, cut LoTV and Pulse/Decay. Push isn't great but you don't have better stuff from the SB to bring in. Then bring in Spellbomb, CB, LtLH, Damnation and EE.
Targeted discard is good to hit Cathartic Reunion, Neonate or general hate.
Use Ooze wisely here, if you have enough green mana, immediatly exile all dredges otherwise don't use it and exile a narcomoabe (with its trigger on the stack) or simply some Bloodghasts or Amalgams.
If you have Spellbomb don't use it too aggressively, let the opponent make the first move. If you pop it too early, the opponent will rebuild afterwards.
some discard + Spellbomb + Ooze is usually good enough. If you have much dredge in your meta you can consider running Flaying Tendrils over some other card in the SB.
However, you are generally very light on GY hate, I'd consider running a Surgical or Cage in your SB.
Just to remove Bloodghasts and Narcomoeba, yeah. Blood Ghast doesn't have to have haste necessarily. Sometimes you can manage the board with a couple of Lili pluses as well as some single target removal before you draw your GY hate. Its to buy time.
I think Pulse is somewhat situational. Can be good, but sometimes its awfully clunky. Since most of the time the deck is pretty explosive, I am not sure I can rely on Pulse hitting multiple things. I am not high on it, but if someone prefers it, its surely ok.
You guys are hedging into greedy town quite heavily I have to say. What is that landcount lowering all about?
I think you are slowly but surely dropping lands and adding cheap stuff so that one day, you will realize when you are landed on a 4c Shadow configuration. Which is just the most efficient you can get with that low level on lands.
If a midrange strategy is the goal here, I would never go below 23 lands.
You guys are hedging into greedy town quite heavily I have to say. What is that landcount lowering all about?
I think you are slowly but surely dropping lands and adding cheap stuff so that one day, you will realize when you are landed on a 4c Shadow configuration. Which is just the most efficient you can get with that low level on lands.
If a midrange strategy is the goal here, I would never go below 23 lands.
My 22 land has no 4 drops in the 60 and only 4 drops in the sideboard.
It works well unless your land gets picked apart.
I faced 8rack this monday and that was disastrous, but he tuned his deck to really beat up on midrange decks.
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Play a bunch of games, you'll see what I mean with your opening hands being more clunky in comparison to other GBx decks
You can't look at mtggoldfish's meta shares, they aren't accurate. They cherry pick data that has either 5-0'd a Daily, or paper events. There's a slew of people who tried Rock with a bunch of 5-3. The numbers are bolstered from very recent results, that's why I wouldn't recommend looking at Rock at face value at its percentage. MTGGolddish isn't a good source for meta shares anymore due to the changes that took place in late 2017.
I played it of course, but can't say I played it enough to call that testing yet. So I will toy around with it a little more.
Yeah its true, but on the other hand you can see which decks are doing best right now. I know that changes very often, but I think for getting information on recent meta changes it can be valuable. It might be that it will change drastically in the next days/weeks.
I played the deck again, won a close game to Grixis Shadow.
I replaced the 4th Scooze with 1x E-Witness, which won me the game.
Ended up at 2 life to his 1 life, LOTV at 5. I had to end the game, since a snap or K-Command would end it on the spot. Bob reveals thoughtseize and I swing for lethal at 1 life left.
I'll keep playing with the deck a little.
E-Wit is surely a great card to have. Also thinking about running one copy in place of the fourth Ooze since 4 Ooze seem to many.
I never felt advantaged or great against grixis today, I felt behind from the get go.
He discarded LOTV immediately, I played a scooze knowing it'd die, played a turn 3 E-Wit to get LOTV, and hoping to draw a second black source. Took 4 from Tasigur several times, not letting E-Wit die. I swung back until I left him in an awkward spot. Then I had to chump block E-Wit and Treetop in hopes of topdecking an LOTV or Pulse for his second Tasigur.
I felt behind the entire. He cycled to 1 life to find a push for a lethal scooze. I discarded Bob earlier because 2x swings wasn't worth the risk of dying to a topdeck.
It feels 40/60 to me, lingering souls is a huge deal. The sideboard post-board isn't great, it only has 2x nihil spellbombs, and maybe a Last Hope, which isn't that fantastic against the deck.
But thats why I thought about running a Rock list splashing white for Souls earlier. I posted a list a few pages back.
David Ochoa: "Mono-bacon!..."
BGWAbzanBGW
GBGB RockGB
BGRJundBGR
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
So, since it doesn't hit our creatures there has to be some creatures on the BF which we want to protect to make it better than Damnation. And often times, when you are up against creature decks, they won't attack you with all their creatures due to your creatures which makes this card not an one sided Wrath at all.
If you don't have creatures on the BF this card is just worse than Damnation.
Yeah it hits Finks/Voice and indestructible, but usually decks running Finks/Voice are running Birds/Hierachs which most likely won't attack at all.
Concerning indestructible its not that relevant in the top decks atm.
So the one advantage it has is that is instant. In theory you don't loose tempo compared to Damnation. However it is incredibly unrealiable and you also ramp your opponent. I think that I would run Damnation over it any day.
It's also why Damnation is played over Wrath, despite being the same card.
I really don't love playing wrath effects in GBx too much anymore.
Prefer Nihil Spellbomb in the slot, very useful against so many decks, and can set it up to draw off a Flayer attack setup if it's not serving other purposes or sac anytime to add a type to your graveyard to save a Goyf or Flayer.
Another thing to remember with Junk is that double W is not just free. It can be very hard to obtain some games if the opponent is interacting with your lands.
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
Spells (21)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lingering Souls
1 Collective Brutality
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
1 Windswept Heath
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Shambling Vent
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Gavony Township
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Stony Silence
1 Creeping Corrosion
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
The differences were that I did a 3/3 IoK/TS split, and the other list has 3 PtE and 1 pulse, but my 3rd PtE was actually coming in the mail so I replaced it with a maelstrom pulse for the time being. The sideboard is also different as it has 2 nihil spellbombs instead of 2 surgical extraction and 1 creeping corrosion instead of the lost legacy
Round 1 B/G Tron
Game 1 I kept a one land hand with PtE, Flayer, Goyf, Bob, TS, IoK. It was risky but I figured with the discard I could slow down my opponent enough to get a second land. I was on the draw but drew my basic swamp on first draw. I lead with IoK to see a hand with expedition map, ugin, ancient stirrings, wurmcoil, and some lands. I take the map, TS the ugin, path the wurmcoil, and beat down my opponent quickly with goyf, bob, and flayer. He was able to get a karn out but I ended up flipping a pulse through my bob. Makes me wonder if that pulse would've been a path instead.
In 2 Stony, 3 Fulminator Mage
Out 4 Push, 1 Decay
Game 2 my 7 card hand had something like 4 lands, a LoTV, a bob, and I think an ooze. Too slow I figured so I sent it back and had a 6 card hand with stony silence in my starting hand. He played map on turn 1. On turn 2 he used one of his mana to use ancient stirrings, which was a relief for me when I slammed stony silence next turn. I was able to IoK a sylvan scrying, which would've gotten him Tron. I top decked a fulminator to get rid of his one urza's mine while he had two towers, and he proceeded to draw 2 more expedition maps and an o-stone, so I won pretty quickly after that. His hand also had a world breaker and a wurmcoil but thanks to LoTV i was able to strip those from his hand before he can get Tron to play them. I was fortunate not to see a single fatal push both games.
Round 2 Lantern Control
I chuckled a bit game 1 when I saw my starting hand was two fetchlands, 3 bobs, and 2 goyfs. My opponent didn't find any lanterns or mill rocks all game 1. He had ensnaring bridges but I was able to dig pretty quickly through my deck to find abrupt decays and maelstrom pulse.
In 2 Stony, 2 Spellbomb, 1 EE, 1 Creeping Corrosion
Out 4 Push, 2 Path to Exile
Game 2 I started with an IoK to see 3 ensnaring bridges. I took away one of them, but he eventually played the other 2. He didn't find a single sorcerous spyglass or pithing needle so I was able to ult LoTV to have him either take 2 ensnaring bridges or 4 lands and a codex shredder. He threw away the 2 ensnaring bridges, but was able to play his 4th ensnaring bridge soon after. Even after I abrupt decay'd that, he was able to get it back with academy ruins. I was fortunate to flip a maelstrom pulse through bob to get rid of the replayed ensnaring bridge and swing for lethal. He was running the B/G version, as he said the lands for the whir version were coming in the mail.
Round 3 Dredge
I don't remember much about game 1. I remember just beating him down with goyf; he was pretty stuck on lands. He had two blood crypts the entire game for conflagrate but couldn't loam to trigger bloodghasts. To be honest I'm not sure how to sideboard against this deck. I took out 4 LoTV, 1 TS and put in 2 spellbomb, 1 LtLH, 1 damnation, 1 EE. What goes in seems obvious but I'm not sure what to take out. Should I be taking out the collective brutality instead? Anyways both game 2 and 3 he was able to get out all 4 bloodghasts somehow and I could not stabilize the board quickly enough. I mulled to 5 game 2 with a one lander but with nihil spellbomb and scavenging ooze, my opponent was still too fast.
Overall the deck felt great. Lesser lands but drawing more action. Maelstrom pulse did work all 3 matches (got a 4 for 1 with maelstrom pulse on bloodghast :P), but given that most of my games I only had 3-4 lands out in critical moments I'd rather have the path than pulse. If people could offer tips on the dredge matchup that'd be great, as I really don't know how to navigate it.
Another LGS near me has 4 rounds of modern on thursday, so hopefully the 3rd path will come in time. Either way will be running this deck back on Thursday for sure so we'll see how that goes.
Targeted discard is good to hit Cathartic Reunion, Neonate or general hate.
Use Ooze wisely here, if you have enough green mana, immediatly exile all dredges otherwise don't use it and exile a narcomoabe (with its trigger on the stack) or simply some Bloodghasts or Amalgams.
If you have Spellbomb don't use it too aggressively, let the opponent make the first move. If you pop it too early, the opponent will rebuild afterwards.
some discard + Spellbomb + Ooze is usually good enough. If you have much dredge in your meta you can consider running Flaying Tendrils over some other card in the SB.
However, you are generally very light on GY hate, I'd consider running a Surgical or Cage in your SB.
I think Pulse is somewhat situational. Can be good, but sometimes its awfully clunky. Since most of the time the deck is pretty explosive, I am not sure I can rely on Pulse hitting multiple things. I am not high on it, but if someone prefers it, its surely ok.
I think you are slowly but surely dropping lands and adding cheap stuff so that one day, you will realize when you are landed on a 4c Shadow configuration. Which is just the most efficient you can get with that low level on lands.
If a midrange strategy is the goal here, I would never go below 23 lands.
My 22 land has no 4 drops in the 60 and only 4 drops in the sideboard.
It works well unless your land gets picked apart.
I faced 8rack this monday and that was disastrous, but he tuned his deck to really beat up on midrange decks.