@PMDirac I don't like being restricted to naming non-artifacts, the mana cost and the possible card draw are also detractors. The 3 mana thing might be good though, I did lose 1 game to a person who Ad Nauseam'd on turn 4 on the draw when I would have cast memoricide the following turn. I don't think it is worth it though since the BB is only 46.7% likely to happen on turn 3, unless you ghost quarter yourself, then it is slightly over 53%.
Maindeck DoJ over the 2nd wrath is interesting, but I think there are enough elves players in my city that it is really close. Plus the 2nd wrath isn't as much as a liability as the 3rd/4th, and I sorta have that coverage with the Settle. As it stands of the active modern players I think there are on average 1-2 more elves players I will see in a given week than Humans players (I usually hit about 4 stores each with about 20 players per event). Actually just thought of an idea, since most of the elves are on the north side of the city, I can just swap accordingly depending on the store I am in. Thanks!
Changes from my last list are as follows:
Maindeck-
-1 Tectonic Edge
+1 Field of Ruin
Field of ruin is nearly strictly better than tectonic edge, as the have they same effective cost to activate
Sideboard-
-1 Wrath of God
+1 Day of Judgement
-2 Surgical Extraction
-1 Stony Silence
+2 Memoricide
+1 Cranial Extraction
-1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Profane Procession
In the sideboard primarily I wanted to have more game against combo, I took a look at Steffen's list and decided that I liked the slaughter games tech and went with the black versions. I did a 2/1 split because they are effectively identical in function and it plays around name a card type effects that might exist in some edge case. Speaking of name a card situations, the sweeper swap was specifically for meddling mage.
The final change is more experiemental, but performed decently this past weekend, which is testing out profane procession over the 2nd bloodbaron. Blood baron excels in the midrange black or white deck matchups, and theoretically profane is good there too. The upside to profane is that it is better against other strategies, like eldrazi tron. I killed 2 Thought-knot seers and then traded it for a ratchet bomb against the e-Tron regular at one of my LGS and that felt great. If he hadn't spent the ratchet bomb on it the value would have been insane. I also managed to exile an Emrakul that someone Through the breached into play.
It ultimately might be too cute, but I'm testing it out for a few weeks to get more data
@Thorlokicac
Field of ruin replaces itself on its own, where as ghost quarter works against emeria unless you draw your other card that could also otherwise be a plains. Field of ruin arguable has synergy with Emeria, while ghost quarter has none, and actually makes it harder to get emeria online.
If you are on the draw with field of ruin, and they have turn 3 tron, they do get 1 turn of 7 mana, which is definitely a downside. Being on the draw with ghost quarter, you do get to knock them down to only having access to 3 mana on turn 3, but unless you have a wayfarer you are going to be very far behind. You will be down to 1 land to their 3 on the end of their 3rd turn. Even if you have crucible you won't be able to get it in play and useful until they are at 5/9/11 mana. Since ghost quarter is only good with wayfarer on the draw, and wayfarer can tutor for GQ on the draw, there really isn't a good reason to play more than 1. I definitely agree 1 ghost quarter is good to have in the toolbox, but it is a huge step down in power level from FoR.
@soccerfanxl
Field of ruin costs 2 mana to use, ghost quarter costs 1.
If you have 2 plains and a utility land in play you have 3 mana.
If you have 2 plains and a ghost quarter in play and you ghost quarter one of their lands you have 2 mana left.
If you have 2 plains and a field of ruin in play and you field of ruin one of their lands you have 1 mana left.
@madudu2
Hey, forgive me for being direct here, I think it is really awesome that you are brewing a fun deck with Martyr of sands in it, you definitely don't have a martyr proc deck there so I'm not sure that this is the best place to talk about it. Your deck, while lacking in win conditions, isn't really a control deck and features no late game presence. I have a big long critique of your deck I can PM you though if you want it
Best of luck!
@Demanic
I like having 4 Ghost Quarter because my typical line against Tron is too spend my first few turns tutoring ghost quarter and destroying Tron lands. 2 Mana is so much in the early game where killing Tron matters the most. With crucible of worlds and wayfarer you can recover the land disadvantage or by just pathing your own guys.
FoR gives you an untapped land, it only costs 1 more mana than Ghost Quarter which you make up for the next turn by having +1 land. Crucible of worlds only lets you stay at the same number of lands you had with GQ, it lets you be positive with FoR.
I also think that flagstones loses its place in martyr with the advent of FoR because you don't need it to convert your lands into plains.
Went 4-0 at modern monday with the list I posted on the last page beating Grixis Midrange 2-0 (looked like Death Shadow, didn't actually see Death's shadow), Burn 2-1, Mono Blue Living End 1-0-1, and then Burn 2-0.
Most noteworthy thing is that I mulled to 5 on the play vs burn in both game 1s on purpose because I knew they were on burn and I wanted to make sure my hand wasn't too slow.
Round 2 was a guy who was new to town so he had not played against me before. He played normally and beat me on turn 4, when all I really needed to do was untap with ranger. The finals were against a guy that I beat regularly so he knew what I was up to and I think that did him a disservice. I had kept a 1 lander and scryed a martyr to the top. He assumed I was sandbagging a land to make him tap out so I could slam a martyr and gain life, so he didn't really cast much while I was stuck on 1 land. Eventually I landed the martyr, blocked with it and sac'd but he had the skullcrack. Unfortunately for him I had orzhov charm and was able to martyr the following turn undoing all of his work. I think I would have lost that game had he not been playing around martyr so much in the first few turns, which is kind of funny.
I'm pretty sure I'm playing something similar to this list this weekend at the SCG Dallas, probably only change would be to go up to 3 or 4 field of ruin
To start, I don't think Proc needs a combo finish, but a few counterpoints:
1) It doesn't really cost 2 mana though, it is more like 7+ mana over the course of multiple turns.
2) The loot is an exile, which has disynergy with recursion. You would need to exile some number of important spells if you want to flip it at all. In the Mono White version specifically, due to the curve you have to exile a proc or it will never flip, meaning you have to draw 2 of your 3 procs if you want to use the mana from it to forecast.
3) Gateway requires a cast, 5 turns, 5 cards with 5 different CMCs, 7 mana, and then another card to take advantage of the success condition. You can't possibly flip it before turn 8, meaning you also more or less require a martyr and an activation just like the guildmage. Guildmage costs less mana, has fewer requirements, and actually wins the game. A 2 mana white 2/2 is about as useful as exile-looting for 1 mana every turn. But I feel like it is important to point out I think guild mage is not playable right now, I mentioned it because it is better in that it takes less set up and actually wins the game when it works out.
4) Nahiri can loot away emrakul, and has dramatically higher upside than gateway because it can exile artifacts, enchantments, creatures, and so on.
Aside from that the cards you are looting away are your spells, meaning it is going to trend towards reducing the number of white cards in your hand making martyrs worse.
I just feel like the card is asking for a lot, and the payoff doesn't actually win you the game, like an emrakul or drain would.
Oh! That makes more sense, thanks.
I feel like if you are trying to combo kill Vizkopa Guildmage plus Martyr of Sands is easier to assemble, and Nahiri, the harbinger is going to be more consistent and isn't a dead card when you aren't comboing. Really I think Nahiri is the best option if you are looking to combo kill
Hey!
I like field of ruin way more than ghost quarter, and I am probably going to bump it up to 3 of them, but I was running the 2/1/1 split because wayfarer can tutor for a specific one if you need it. I wanted to be able to search up a ghost quarter to keep my opponent off tron on turn 2, which did come up last night at my tuesday night modern event. I'd say the tectonic edge will get the axe first since it has the lowest upside now that field of ruin does the same thing for the same amount of mana.
Settle the wreckage is excellent. I like having it as a 1-of because there are a lot of matchups where you don't want to tap out for a wrath (manlands etc) and being 1 sided is nice too. It also will cause people to play around it after you cast the first one, so you get a bit of mind game value there too.
I have 5 sweepers total, so the fact that only 3 are maindeck hasn't been a problem.
I told BoBoCTiberius yesterday that the only way any of the 4 orzhov charms are getting removed from my 75 is if someone kills me and physically takes them out of my deck. The card does so much heavy lifting it can't be understated. It really allows you to get out of way too many situations.
As far as what I'm playing against I'll just run through what I've faced this week, I've done three 4 round events and have a combined record of 10-1-1
8whack 2-1
Wr Kiki-Taxes 2-1
Grixis Control 2-0
BR Death's shadow 2-0
RG Shamans 2-0
Counters Company 1-2
Zombies 2-0
Burn 2-0
Boggles 1-1 (Game 1 I won on turn 38, game 2 I lost in extra turns)
WB Eldrazi&Taxes 2-0
Gb Tron 2-1
Skred 2-0
I don't remember my matches last week, but I think I went 3-1, 3-0-1, 2-1-1, and 2-2 in 4 events.
I'm still deciding what deck I'm going to play at the SCGO in Dallas this month so that is why I've been going to a lot of the local events. I'm either on this, or Elves (9 lords no combo)
Took a break from elves after my dog ate the sideboard and then kept on playing proc after I got the sideboard replaced because I was loaning elves to my girlfriend. I've been consistently going 3-1 or 4-0 with it twice a week and got 9th at a pptq with it a few months ago. This is where I'm at:
https://discord.gg/dU8G54J
Maindeck DoJ over the 2nd wrath is interesting, but I think there are enough elves players in my city that it is really close. Plus the 2nd wrath isn't as much as a liability as the 3rd/4th, and I sorta have that coverage with the Settle. As it stands of the active modern players I think there are on average 1-2 more elves players I will see in a given week than Humans players (I usually hit about 4 stores each with about 20 players per event). Actually just thought of an idea, since most of the elves are on the north side of the city, I can just swap accordingly depending on the store I am in. Thanks!
1 kami of false hope
1 weathered wayfarer
1 crucible of worlds
4 Serra ascendant
4 ranger of eos
4 squadron hawk
2 proclamation of rebirth
2 wrath of God
1 settle the wreckage
4 path to exile
4 orzhov charm
2 anguished unmaking
2 ayli, eternal pilgrim
1 blood Baron of vizkopa
7 plains
1 swamp
3 field of ruin
1 ghost quarter
4 godless shrine
4 Marsh flats
1 mistveil plains
2 emeria, the sky ruin
4 leyline of sanctity
1 day of Judgment
1 austere command
1 anguished unmaking
1 profane procession
2 memoricide
1 cranial Extraction
Changes from my last list are as follows:
Maindeck-
-1 Tectonic Edge
+1 Field of Ruin
Field of ruin is nearly strictly better than tectonic edge, as the have they same effective cost to activate
Sideboard-
-1 Wrath of God
+1 Day of Judgement
-2 Surgical Extraction
-1 Stony Silence
+2 Memoricide
+1 Cranial Extraction
-1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
+1 Profane Procession
In the sideboard primarily I wanted to have more game against combo, I took a look at Steffen's list and decided that I liked the slaughter games tech and went with the black versions. I did a 2/1 split because they are effectively identical in function and it plays around name a card type effects that might exist in some edge case. Speaking of name a card situations, the sweeper swap was specifically for meddling mage.
The final change is more experiemental, but performed decently this past weekend, which is testing out profane procession over the 2nd bloodbaron. Blood baron excels in the midrange black or white deck matchups, and theoretically profane is good there too. The upside to profane is that it is better against other strategies, like eldrazi tron. I killed 2 Thought-knot seers and then traded it for a ratchet bomb against the e-Tron regular at one of my LGS and that felt great. If he hadn't spent the ratchet bomb on it the value would have been insane. I also managed to exile an Emrakul that someone Through the breached into play.
It ultimately might be too cute, but I'm testing it out for a few weeks to get more data
Field of ruin replaces itself on its own, where as ghost quarter works against emeria unless you draw your other card that could also otherwise be a plains. Field of ruin arguable has synergy with Emeria, while ghost quarter has none, and actually makes it harder to get emeria online.
Field of ruin costs 2 mana to use, ghost quarter costs 1.
If you have 2 plains and a utility land in play you have 3 mana.
If you have 2 plains and a ghost quarter in play and you ghost quarter one of their lands you have 2 mana left.
If you have 2 plains and a field of ruin in play and you field of ruin one of their lands you have 1 mana left.
Hey, forgive me for being direct here, I think it is really awesome that you are brewing a fun deck with Martyr of sands in it, you definitely don't have a martyr proc deck there so I'm not sure that this is the best place to talk about it. Your deck, while lacking in win conditions, isn't really a control deck and features no late game presence. I have a big long critique of your deck I can PM you though if you want it
Best of luck!
FoR gives you an untapped land, it only costs 1 more mana than Ghost Quarter which you make up for the next turn by having +1 land. Crucible of worlds only lets you stay at the same number of lands you had with GQ, it lets you be positive with FoR.
I also think that flagstones loses its place in martyr with the advent of FoR because you don't need it to convert your lands into plains.
Most noteworthy thing is that I mulled to 5 on the play vs burn in both game 1s on purpose because I knew they were on burn and I wanted to make sure my hand wasn't too slow.
Round 2 was a guy who was new to town so he had not played against me before. He played normally and beat me on turn 4, when all I really needed to do was untap with ranger. The finals were against a guy that I beat regularly so he knew what I was up to and I think that did him a disservice. I had kept a 1 lander and scryed a martyr to the top. He assumed I was sandbagging a land to make him tap out so I could slam a martyr and gain life, so he didn't really cast much while I was stuck on 1 land. Eventually I landed the martyr, blocked with it and sac'd but he had the skullcrack. Unfortunately for him I had orzhov charm and was able to martyr the following turn undoing all of his work. I think I would have lost that game had he not been playing around martyr so much in the first few turns, which is kind of funny.
I'm pretty sure I'm playing something similar to this list this weekend at the SCG Dallas, probably only change would be to go up to 3 or 4 field of ruin
1) It doesn't really cost 2 mana though, it is more like 7+ mana over the course of multiple turns.
2) The loot is an exile, which has disynergy with recursion. You would need to exile some number of important spells if you want to flip it at all. In the Mono White version specifically, due to the curve you have to exile a proc or it will never flip, meaning you have to draw 2 of your 3 procs if you want to use the mana from it to forecast.
3) Gateway requires a cast, 5 turns, 5 cards with 5 different CMCs, 7 mana, and then another card to take advantage of the success condition. You can't possibly flip it before turn 8, meaning you also more or less require a martyr and an activation just like the guildmage. Guildmage costs less mana, has fewer requirements, and actually wins the game. A 2 mana white 2/2 is about as useful as exile-looting for 1 mana every turn. But I feel like it is important to point out I think guild mage is not playable right now, I mentioned it because it is better in that it takes less set up and actually wins the game when it works out.
4) Nahiri can loot away emrakul, and has dramatically higher upside than gateway because it can exile artifacts, enchantments, creatures, and so on.
Aside from that the cards you are looting away are your spells, meaning it is going to trend towards reducing the number of white cards in your hand making martyrs worse.
I just feel like the card is asking for a lot, and the payoff doesn't actually win you the game, like an emrakul or drain would.
I feel like if you are trying to combo kill Vizkopa Guildmage plus Martyr of Sands is easier to assemble, and Nahiri, the harbinger is going to be more consistent and isn't a dead card when you aren't comboing. Really I think Nahiri is the best option if you are looking to combo kill
I like field of ruin way more than ghost quarter, and I am probably going to bump it up to 3 of them, but I was running the 2/1/1 split because wayfarer can tutor for a specific one if you need it. I wanted to be able to search up a ghost quarter to keep my opponent off tron on turn 2, which did come up last night at my tuesday night modern event. I'd say the tectonic edge will get the axe first since it has the lowest upside now that field of ruin does the same thing for the same amount of mana.
Settle the wreckage is excellent. I like having it as a 1-of because there are a lot of matchups where you don't want to tap out for a wrath (manlands etc) and being 1 sided is nice too. It also will cause people to play around it after you cast the first one, so you get a bit of mind game value there too.
I have 5 sweepers total, so the fact that only 3 are maindeck hasn't been a problem.
I told BoBoCTiberius yesterday that the only way any of the 4 orzhov charms are getting removed from my 75 is if someone kills me and physically takes them out of my deck. The card does so much heavy lifting it can't be understated. It really allows you to get out of way too many situations.
As far as what I'm playing against I'll just run through what I've faced this week, I've done three 4 round events and have a combined record of 10-1-1
8whack 2-1
Wr Kiki-Taxes 2-1
Grixis Control 2-0
BR Death's shadow 2-0
RG Shamans 2-0
Counters Company 1-2
Zombies 2-0
Burn 2-0
Boggles 1-1 (Game 1 I won on turn 38, game 2 I lost in extra turns)
WB Eldrazi&Taxes 2-0
Gb Tron 2-1
Skred 2-0
I don't remember my matches last week, but I think I went 3-1, 3-0-1, 2-1-1, and 2-2 in 4 events.
I'm still deciding what deck I'm going to play at the SCGO in Dallas this month so that is why I've been going to a lot of the local events. I'm either on this, or Elves (9 lords no combo)
4 martyr of sands
4 serra Ascendant
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
4 Ranger of Eos
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
SPELLS(16)
4 Path to Exile
4 Orzhov Charm
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
2 Anguished Unmaking
2 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Mistviel Plains
4 Marsh Flats
4 Godless Shrine
1 Swamp
7 Plains
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Castigate
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Wrath of God
1 Austere Command
1 Stony Silence