MTG Salvation

Here's my take on a Scepter list.

Oh my god, Magistrate's Scepter is Modern legal.

My comment on UW was entirely speculative. I only thought of it because my buddy is on that list. I did actually do some testing against it and went 2-0 before boarding and 2-0 after so I think I can safely retract my statement. I think their switch to Spell Quellers cutting counterspells weakened their matchup against Skred a lot.

Here's the promised tournament report. Overall, I went 3-3. Definitely need to put in some more reps with the deck, I faced 5 favorable matchups and I had tech for the last one, definitely believe I could've gone 5-1. As for the deck, I haven't really formed an opinion on Rabblemaster in the main, but Ensnaring Bridge is definitely very strong right now, I sided it in all 6 matches and it won me a lot of games.

Round 1: Infect (L 1-2)
G1: Won the die roll, I kept a hand with Anger, Mind Stone, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, which I think is reasonable, but it had no single-target removal. I Angered away the first creature he played but didn't draw any removal for the second one and he had more than 10 on turn 4.
SB: + Blood Moon, + 3 Molten Rain, + Kozilek's Return, + 3 Ensnaring Bridge, - 4 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Spitebellows, -1 Koth of the Hammer, -1 Stormbreath Dragon
G2: Removed the Glistener Elf, got out a Blood Moon and an Ensnaring Bridge to have enough time to make a Koth emblem.
G3: I kept a hand with a Bolt, 2 Skreds and 2 Angers, but he had 4 creatures in his opener so we traded 1 for 1 for the first few turns. I got out a Bridge and a Blood Moon. I was short on lands, but I felt pretty safe because I had two removal spells in hand. And then I made two misplays which cost me the game. First one was I drew Molten Rain and I destroyed his Forest to take him off green, instead of the Inkmoth Nexus. Second one was I had 6 lands and drew and played Stormbreath Dragon. I still had both Skred and Bolt in hand, so I could only cast one, except I could've used Chandra for mana. So I got punished when he had Nature's Claim for the Blood Moon and then could attack with the Nexus for lethal with Become Immense growing it in response to Skred.

Round 2: Temur Midrange (W 2-0)
G1: He conceded really early to a turn 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar and then a second one on turn 5 after I killed his Tarmogoyf with Spitebellows.
SB: +Blood Moon, +3 Molten Rain, +3 Ensnaring Bridge, -3 Anger of the Gods, -2 Goblin Rabblemaster, -2 Stormbreath Dragon
G2: He played very conservatively around Relic and didn't play out his Tarmogoyfs or Snapcaster Mages, until late in the game when he played Snap and responded to the Relic activation with a second Snap. He sideboarded in a Garruk Relentless which was beating me down with wolves until I drew a Bridge. Eventually, I Blood Mooned and Molten Rained his only forest, stranding all 3 Tarmogoyfs in his hand and killed him with Thopter tokens.

Round 3: Abzan with Eldritch Evolutions (W 2-1)
G1: I cleared the board with Anger on turn 3 and then played a Koth on turn 4 and a Pia and Kiran Nalaar on turn 5 and didn't see anything else from him.
SB: (Based on what I saw, I sideboarded for Value Company) + 3 Ensnaring Bridge, + Blood Moon, + 3 Molten Rain, + 1 Kozilek's Return, - 2 Goblin Rabblemaster, - 4 Relic of Progenitus, - Spitebellows, - Koth of the Hammer
G2: Eldritch Evolution into Sigarda, Host of Herons that I couldn't answer.
SB: -1 Kozilek's Return, + Koth of the Hammer
G3: T3 Anger to clear Hierarch and Birds. Got out a Chandra and then next turn, plussed for mana and played double Molten Rain to leave my opponent on 2 mana and I won pretty quickly after that.

Round 4: Bant Eldrazi (W 2-1)
G1: Opponent kept a one-lander with a Hierarch and a Bird, I turn 3 Angered and they were stuck on 2 lands.
SB: + 3 Ensnaring Bridge, + 3 Molten Rain, + Blood Moon, -4 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Goblin Rabblemaster (I forgot to take notes after this game and I don't recall what the last card out was)
G2: Opponent goes T1 Hierarch, T2 Displacer, T3 Displacer. I cast Anger and they Stubborn Denial into T4 Reality Smasher.
G3: I get out an Ensnaring Bridge to buy time to ultimate Koth.

Round 5: Esper Gifts (L 0-2)
G1: Collective Brutality takes a Bolt, Thoughtseize takes a Blood Moon. I have a Relic out so he Gifts for value. He plays a Lingering Souls, which I prevent the flashback on with the Relic, but it means I don't want to play Koth and then Koth got Thoughtseized away anyways. Eventually, he just casts an Obzedat, Ghost Council. My only answer was to cast a Spitebellows as a creature and block, which left only my Pia and Kiran Nalaar as a target for the LtB trigger, which felt bad. He has Unburial Rites and I lose to Obzedat.
SB (not really sure how to board this MU): + 2 Ensnaring Bridge, + 3 Molten Rain, + 1 Blood Moon, - 2 Eternal Scourge, -1 Spitebellows, - 2 Goblin Rabblemaster, -1 Stormbreath Dragon
G2: He plays Collective Brutality, discarding Obzedat. In response to Relic activation, he has Goryo's Vengeance. My only answer is double Bolt but he has a Countersquall. He plays a Runed Halo, naming Snow-Covered Mountain, which I thought was clever, though it wasn't relevant.

Round 6: Eldrazi Tron (L 1-2)
G1: He has turn 3 Karn. I play out two more turns, using my entire hand to get rid of it, but I can't answer the rest of the board.
SB: +3 Ensnaring Bridge, +1 Blood Moon, +3 Molten Rain, -4 Relic of Progenitus, -3 Anger of the Gods, -1 Stormbreath Dragon
G2: He goes for the Eldrazi Temples and has a decent start, but I get out an Ensnaring Bridge into P+K. Couple attacks from the Thopters and then a couple P+K activations does it. I never find a Blood Moon and he does eventually assemble Tron, so I am dead if he ever draws Karn, but he doesn't.
G3: Okay, this one was pretty degenerate. He keeps a hand with two pieces of Tron and no Map. I keep a 6 with Bridge. After that, we played about 25 turns. There was a Spyglass naming Koth and a Chalice on 1 (which countered 3 Bolts and 4 Skreds I had to play to keep him from attacking). I couldn't find a single live draw and he was clocking me with a Walking Ballista pinging me for 2 a turn. He does figure out that he can ping a Thought-Knot Seer to force me to draw on his turn to get in an attack for 5. We go to extra turns. He finally draws the third piece of Tron (he couldn't play Maps because of the Chalice) and adds 5 counters to Ballista and then the next turn, I topdeck a Blood Moon to stay alive. On his last turn of extras, he has to draw a land to get to 12 mana to have exact lethal and does.

Hi all! I am going to be playing Skred Red for the first time this weekend at GP Indy side events (hoping to get in two Modern events with it this weekend). It feels like the deck is well-positioned in the current meta, mostly even-to-favorable matchups and few bad ones. I'll do a tournament report after the weekend, just thought I'd share the list and see if you guys have any thoughts.



It's close to a stock list, but there are a couple interesting decisions. I moved the 2 Goblin Rabblemaster from the sideboard into the main since I think it is good in some of Skred Red's less good matchups (UW Control and Storm come to mind). The freed up sideboard slots are filled by Ensnaring Bridge which I find to be very strong right now.

I am not sure about Spitebellows vs. Roast, maybe you guys have an opinion on that. I know the merits of Spitebellows, just not sure they're worth paying 1 mana extra for.

Tolaria West is a split card. About 10% of the time, it's your land drop for turn 2 or turn 3. I tend to tutor for Inventor's Fair, but I've also used it to grab Astral Cornucopia after the one I had in play was destroyed and once I got a Walking Ballista to take out enough creatures to buy a turn I needed. It is versatile, but it is definitely one of the weaker cards in the 60 in both of those uses and sometimes, they get boarded out. I wonder if it might be better to just play one Inventors's Fair and one basic land in their place.

I actually haven't played at all with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. I just swapped Ugin for it with the introduction of the new planeswalker rule. I like Tezzeret the Seeker quite a bit, its ability to grab the Ensnaring Bridge the turn it is cast has won a lot of games.

Most typically, I will lock people out with Ensnaring Bridge and Wildfires and then I go for the combo all in one turn once I have enough mana. If you use Planar Portal, you only need one copy of each.

I definitely do think it is tuned a bit for weenies, which is what the majority of my local metagame is on. I am curious about what cards you think are good in the other matchups. I think I have decent tech for the combo decks. Chalice on 2 is good against Storm, Pithing Needle names Lightning Storm against Ad Nauseaum & Devoted Druid against Counters Company & Knight of the Reliquary against Knightfall and also Witchbane Orb stops a lot of win conditions. Midrange is close, Wildfire is definitely the key card in those matchups. Control is definitely rough.

For sideboard slots, I am not sure about the 3-2 split of Nature's Claim/Abrupt Decay. I actually just took that from your list, Redbaron, I'm at 3-1 right now, with the last slot being a Nihil Spellbomb, but I don't mind having another answer to Stony Silence. I know some of you guys play Blood Moon, I feel like that could definitely slot in as well but I would probably want 3 copies and I'm not sure what I would cut.

Hi all,

I've been playing this list at FNMs and side events at GPs, but I am planning on attending at least 3 Modern GPs with this in 2018, so I am seeking feedback, particularly on what you think about the sideboard in relation to tier 1 lists.

Hi everyone! I posted a Paradox Engine combo list about a month ago that I took to play Team Unified Modern at GP Cleveland (my teammates were on Skred Red and Abzan Devoted Company). I sat in the middle seat to try to distract the opponents of my teammates, which worked to some extent. The final list I submitted was:

Saturday
Round 1 – I had a hilarious first round because I think I found one of this deck’s most interesting matchups. Game 1, after Coretapper, he plays a Suppression Field. He was on Enduring Ideal and it was basically game over after Dovescape. I could come close to being able to pay the 16 mana to attack for lethal through Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety but he could just tutor for Oblivion Ring for the mana rock. In game 2, he found triple Stony Silence but no Ghostly Prison effects and I got there with Coretapper and Batterskull attacks. No game 3 because both of my teammates had won by that point.
Round 2 – Bant Eldrazi. Towards the end of game 1, staring down lethal on board, I topdecked Mindslaver to buy myself a turn and then topdecked Planar Portal to combo off. Game 2, he finds two Engineered Explosives on 0 to destroy my mana rocks and I am not able to do much. We had just started a game 3. My hand was not bad, but my second teammate loses before we get past turn 2 and we agree to not play it out. We actually got beat by bad seating because both of my teammates had unfavorable matchups that were favorable if they had been swapped but this team was also quite experienced and ended up winning the event.
Round 3 – Eldrazi Tron. Game 1 I make a lot of mana, but I don’t have an answer for Reality Smasher attacks. Game 2 I resolve Ensnaring Bridge and later a Wildfire. He is left with double Endbringer to clock me, but I have enough time to set up the combo. Game 3 I keep a bad hand with Crumble to Dust. He had a turn 3 with Tron up, but didn’t have one of his payoff cards. He has nothing to do after I resolve Wildfire. Game 3 he mulls his 7, has no lands on 6 or 5 and ends up keeping his 3.
Round 4 – Grixis Delve. Game 1, I didn’t play around early Mana Leak and eventually get beat down by Tasigur,the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler. Game 2, I resolved an early Wildfire and then a second one to keep her off lands. A judge was watching me and told me I missed lethal when I could have tutored for Planar Portal but I miscalculated how much mana I could make. No game 3 because both of my teammates had lost by that point.
My record ends up being 1-0-3 and our team 1-3.

Sunday – Every entry to the main event came with a free entry to this side event, so I think this one was a little less competitive.
Round 1 – Affinity. Game 1, he has close to the nut draw, but on turn 4, at 1 life and 9 poison, I needed to draw any land to cast Wildfire and missed, though I wasn’t close to combo so I doubt I win the game even if I hit. Game 2, he has a much slower hand, I have a Nature’s Claim for Arcbound Ravager and then I have Wildfire on turn 4. He actually is able to rebuild a little bit, but I am able to find combo with very little pressure. No game 3 because both of my teammates had lost by that point.
Round 2 – Eldrazi Tron. Game 1, I find no Coretapper[/card or Surge Node but I have three Everflowing Chalice and an Astral Cornucopia after two draws so I start playing them naturally. I actually also naturally draw into all three pieces of the combo but I was a turn too slow and lose to Reality Smasher. Game 2, I keep a pretty solid hand but it was a one-lander and I don’t draw land and he turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer to take the Coretapper that made the hand keepable.
Round 3 – Zur the Enchanter Control. Game 1 is durdly, but a Zur the Enchanter with a Steel of the Godhead survives Wildfire which I wanted to play to keep him off lands. He ends up tutoring Detention Sphere for my mana rocks, which I hadn’t really thought about, so I don’t have the mana to combo and he gets the win. Game 2, I resolve turn 3 Wildfire and he doesn’t do much while I combo out. Game 2 was so long that we end up going to turns. I end up a bit short on mana to combo on turn 5 and take the draw but we agree that I easily win otherwise. My Skred Red teammate had received a 2 minute extension so they were not yet in extra turns and he actually wins within that extension and we get the match win.
Round 4 – I played an eight-year-old kid on Sigarda’s Aid combo but he had been playing for 2 years and actually understood what was happening with a few questions for his dad. Also, on turn 2, he had the following to say after seeing Surge Node into Astral Cornucopia: “I get it. If you make 50 charge counters, you win the game.” Which I think actually might be closer than all but one of my opponents to understanding what my gameplan is :).
He has a turn 3 lethal in game 1. In game 2, I have turn 4 Ugin which keeps his board clear of creatures and I am able to combo. In game 3, I have Ensnaring Bridge into the Mindslaver + Academy Ruins lock. After I demonstrated what would happen, he turned to his dad and says “I really hate this deck, but I want to play it” so I have high hopes for this guy.
My record was 1-1-2 and my team went 2-2 for a small prize payout. Team Unified Modern is an absolute blast. I think this is a sweet list and I am already thinking about a few modifications. I was not able to answer Reality Smasher/Tasigur/Gurmag Angler, so I am thinking of swapping in some Destructive Force for Wildfire.

I think I chose the right seat because 7 of my opponents really enjoyed the rogue jank deck and a lot of them asked me for the decklist (and one of my Saturday opponents told me that he was telling all of his opponents about it in the large Sunday Modern event) so hopefully, I have generated some influx of interest in this archetype. Thanks for reading!

@Redbaron
To be honest, Mindslaver was a holdover from when my mana base included Tolaria West so it was easier to tutor for the lock with Academy Ruins but that was before I added the Wildfire so it was just blue/green at that point. I will have to do some more testing to see if I can make that mana base work out to merit its inclusion.

I have done some goldfishing with Otherworld Atlas. You often combo without needing the Temple Bell, but when I get the Bell, I know I will have about only about two activations or so to find a spell. Sometimes I go for the combo on t4 but I have sacced my Coretapper to generate enough mana and in these cases, the Atlas is much worse than the Bell because the first activation is for a charge counter. I am pretty sure the Bell is right. Also, I did try out the Paradox Engine build you have on the first page of the primer with Elixir of Immortality and Otherworld Atlas and I found it to be less consistent than this one.

Do you have any thoughts about the sideboard slots? For Team Unified Modern, the pillars of the format are Infect, Tron, Burn, Affinity, Lantern Control and then maybe Ad Nauseum, Bant Eldrazi and Merfolk. I know I can probably use a Spellskite.

Yeah, you would definitely need to change up the mana base a little bit in order to support Whir of Invention. It is tough to find room for the Ghost Quarter but you could shave Inventors' Fair.

There are two ways to win with Aetherflux Reservoir. What it sounds like you're going for, if you have enough card draw, you can just chain together enough spells, so then it is really good to have two Temple Bell out at once. My main plan is the Batterskull combo. The 1-of Temple Bell is for when I don't make enough mana on a loop to have the infinite combo and then I can try to win the other way.

The reason for my mana base is that I have 4 Wildfire which I found often bought me some time to assemble the combo kill. The mana base has been working out pretty well for me.

As for your deck, I think that Whir of Invention is absolutely vital. I think you could cut the Planar Portal and a Temple Bell.

As for your question, I like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon more than Karn Liberated because you can minus to clear their board, but I also like the Wildfire in those slots. The Batterskull generates infinite mana when you have Paradox Engine if your rocks generate at least 9 mana per loop and it is infinite spells for Aetherflux Reservoir.

My friends and I are going to GP Cleveland. It is Team Limited, but each registration comes with a free entry to a Team Unified Modern side event, so I am building my first Modern deck. I got here from the Brian DeMars list on CF and I would appreciate any feedback you could give. I have been goldfishing the combo, it is typically t4-t5, but sometimes t3. I will try bringing this to an FNM or two first before the GP once I get the cards in.



Couple Notes:
1) One of my teammates is on Skred Red, which means that I cannot sideboard Blood Moon or Anger of the Gods for the sideboard.

2) I tried a build with Darksteel Citadels and Mox Opals but I found I wasn't always able to cast Ancient Stirrings and Glint-Nest Crane in the first two turns.

Just to give some more feedback on some of the cards that are seeing discussion.

I cube Chilling Shade with snow basics. It is easily a top performer for me and I could see it as being up to a 3. I don't think the issue is as Leelue says that you need 1 mana to make it into a 2/2 each turn. It's that it's flexible enough to be as big as you need it to be.

I also cube Crypt Rats but it's been pretty mediocre. The requirement to be running sufficient black sources to activate it for 3 or 4 is pretty hard to ask for. I feel like it merits a 1.

Obviously, I'm coming from the Peasant side, but I have been running most of the Conspiracies for a while because my drafters love them. Your thoughts and everybody else's are basically how I see the card play out. A large majority of the time, you just get a chump blocker out of it, which does help control against aggro quite a bit.

Also, my tier list from my Peasant experience and roughly the order I would rank them would be:
Tier 1: Double Stroke, Unexpected Potential, Backup Plan
Tier 2: Power Play, Advantageous Proclamation, Worldknit
Tier 3: Brago's Favor, Sentinel Dispatch, Immediate Action, Iterative Analysis, Muzzio's Preparations, Secrets of Paradise

So I guess if you're considering Pauper legality, I'd have it as the second best Conspiracy you could be playing.

In my last draft, my 8/8 got blocked by Illusory Ambusher. Then they reanimated the Ambusher and I decided that the best path to victory was to use Epic Confrontation to make my opponent draw 9 more and go to 7 cards in their library since I also had an Opportunity in hand. Not surprisingly, if you let someone draw 17 cards, they find a way to win.