r1 storm
g1 I miss land drops for 5 turns and die on t8 when he has a single card in hand, past in flames and I am stuck on 3 lands with lethal next turn. I missed my 3rd land for a while and never hit my 4th with a TKS in hand..brutal. g2 we have a good game and he tries to go off through some disruption. basically he double manamorphose, no cards in hand and flips into an empty the warrens, of course, and I don't see any of my wraths or pulses...We play a few extra games for fun and they actually went a lot more like I thought they would...aka, I slaughter him mercilessly. That's magic for ya, sometimes variance is on your side, sometimes not.
0-1
r2 metalwork colossus combo
this deck despite it being jank is actually very resilient. It's similar to KCI but instead of a really stupid and BS combo it just poops out artifacts and recurs colossus. g1 I would say it's like a 80-20 or better in his favor. g2 my SB cards get me there and in g3 he losses to his deck. Draws lots of lands and useless cards like nature's claims.
1-1
r3 burn
fun turn with me having 2 4/5 goyfs a liliana TLH on 2 loyalty, him at 15 and me at 2 life. I'm trying to think how on earth I can deal 15 in 1 turn. So i know that minusing lili makes them 5/6 so I start with that, flipping a reality smasher and well, i take that, cast and smush for 15 hahaha oh man totally stole that game. I LOVE smasher. g2 he just gets TOTALLY run over i don't think i dropped below 10 health. brutality into discard and fast beats. GG
2-1
r4 hardened scales
I win in 3 very hard games. I could not believe how hard this deck was to play against. he just has so much value and his guys get so huge almost everything is must answer. I think I'm going to add a torpor orb in the SB for this and other matches like humans/spirits etc. To be honest I think i only won because he played poorly. He missed a lot of triggers of various sorts. I need to play against this more, I think I could have made better choices too along the way. I know how the deck plays but not having reps against it I know I played suboptimally. Even with huge goyfs and scoozes I always felt behind.
3-1
Came in 9th missing out on breakers. We had 31 people which means we were 1 short of having 5 rounds. 4 rounds really sucks especially at 31 people. What can you do. Sadly no top 8 means no more modern for me but got to play cube so I guess it's fine
where do you find a fixed modern metagame? I want in on that format. You sound pretty much like you are in this forum to advocate jund. We are giving you reasons as to why we are playing these cards and not others but you give answers like "Ok and i am happy with my 2 push / 4 bolt..... no offense but that's not help a lot to discuss." In this scenario, push combined with the rest of the cards typically found in GB lists are enough. We aren't trying to hide tech. 4 push is enough, if more is needed in matches that are hard aggro you can add more in the SB, deathmark is a fine addition.
GB is a simplification of colors and tools. You should read the extensive and amazing primer if you want break downs of things. Adding a 3rd color does not mean it makes it better even if some of those cards are singularly more powerful in certain situations. There are also a lot of results from various tournaments. You can see given what that meta looks like how each variant does. In general, GB IS performing better than jund. There are tons of reasons but it doesn't mean one is strictly better. Skred red won a GP but that means nothing. This is modern, one week GB rules, the next Jund rules. If you want the best deck I can promise you it's not jund or gb. It's a matter of personal preference at this point, saying one deck is 5-10% better doesn't mean it will perform that way for you.
I think the biggest thing missing here is the deck as a whole not just individual cards. You can compare the strengths of 1 card vs another all you want but it's kind of a fruitless effort. It's not about having 4 1-cmc removals spells and that's it. GB has very flexible removal at every cmc. 2-3 wastelands in the main and 2-4 trophy give you game against land decks and make things like surgical absolutely backbreaking in the SB. Why do you need moon only to have it get destroyed then lose. Moon is not a bad card, far from it but you don't have to include it in your game plan when you have just as flexible answers still in the colors. moon vs sphere for instance in tron/scapeshift/amulet match is not going to make a difference. They do the same thing at essentially the same speed.
I see jund as a slightly lower and more aggressive deck which is better in some matches but worse than others. GB is bigger and slower but much more well rounded. You choose GB because of the play style just as you would jund. I like GB more because every one of your cards get you a lot of consistent mileage where as cards like bob, BBE and even sometimes bolt don't. This is modern there's no definitive best version. It's very possible next set Gruul colors will get something amazing and then it's back to jund as top dog.
there are at least a few very solid artifact removal in GB. Reclamation Sage, Natural state, creeping corrosion, dispossess I suppose and unravel the aether are basically the best we have. Sure, they are no ancient grudge but they are very solid on top of main deck trophies gives us a lot of options. Natural state in particular is strong.
I understand I play a different variant of GB in that I play 7 eldrazi, but FoR (I play 3) has always been awesome for me. There are so many utility lands and manlands running around they get use in almost every matchup. As for quagmire, I too find it underwhelming in most scenarios but there are plenty of times it just stone brickwalls an opponents huge monster. Or they forget about it or completely choose to undervalue it (which is usually the case in my experience) and it just doomblades their guy. I find it hard to justify more than 1 though even in normal GB but depending on the meta I could see it.
Playing jund you get slightly better % vs some matches but worse vs others. You just have all the tools you need in GB even if you lose out on the 3 mana 3 damage wrath. You have a better mana base and a more consistent game. I find no wrong with people choosing to play jund though. It's still very good. Trophy and brutality have really allowed GB to stand on it's own though.
FNM Tournament report We had about 50 players at our black friday FNM. We had some notable attendees like Dav Shiels - GP winner, Sky mason - GP winner, Rich Shay - vintage pro and a couple pro tour competitors among others. So it wasn't a soft fnm haha.
r1: 4 color saheeli combo
Not going to go into too much detail. This felt very very easy. With so much removal and interaction I'm honestly not sure how they even with this matchup.
1-0
r2 abzan counters company.
g1 I run him over after we play back and forth for a little bit. I know what he's on ahead of time so I made sure to keep a hand that can deal with the combo. g2 I keep a 1 landser with a bunch of 2 drops and some cheap GY hate. I figure if i draw a land in 3 draws I'll be fine. I didn't and lost horribly. In hindsight I need to not ever do that again...Game 3 was a long drawn out one but I run out of gas eventually and can't compete with his Rhonas.
1-1
r3 mono blue tron
I was excited to play this match as it is favorable for me. I have 6 main deck ways to turn off tron and I don't have to deal with ulamog. I'm always excited to play Utron even though it's rare. I also knew what I was up against so I new I needed trophies and fields to show up. They did and I was able to get the removal I needed to stop huge walkers. It also helped my goyfs were always 6/7s. g2 got even worse for him as I add in more hate. I played around counters but TKS is such a beating in this match.
2-1
r4 jund vengevine
I'm not sure what he's on at first but figure out it's a vengevine list. I manage to deal with his threats and keep him off any sort of shenanigans. I thought he was much more all in combo and in g2 was stuck with a lot of GY hate and got smushed. g3 I remove surgicals and go back to a more typical set up I would do for jund. As expected g3 was long and drawn out but my top end is so much better than his and smushers took it home.
3-1
r5 GR titan shift
I was afraid of this matchup. I don't really have any good ways to interact with valakut or scapeshift. G1 I kept him off lands as best I could but i missed my 4th and 5th lands by a turn and that was huge. Had I been on the play I think I would have gotten there but I was 1 turn too late and he had the scapeshift and 7 lands and I was at 18. g2 i run him over very fast with some discard and he's unable to do anything about it. g3 we actually have a pretty long game after I thoughtseize his scapeshift seeing as second one then surgical them out. With step 1 completed I just needed to dodge prime time until I found answers which I did but he never drew any of the 3. I was able to finish him off pretty easily from here.
4-1
Bonus round while waiting for top 8: merfolk
g1 I run him over very fast despite it being a fairly close race. He shut off a temple which slightly screwed me for a bit till I was able to rip another land and play my guys. g2 he draws a bunch of vials and I was able to pulse them, haha felt good. He was light on mana and only really being able to play 1 guy a turn after that point was all I needed. My guys are far bigger and making sure I play around the lords and it's not really too bad. I do know from previous plays that things can get outa hand real quick with spreading seas and lords so thankfully that wasn't too much of an issue here. Trophy has been such a wonderful addition to this deck it's pretty dumb.
5-1
top 8 vs jeskai control
g1 I keep a hand with some discard and a bunch of goyfs. We play a lot of back and forth and I just run him out of resources, not run too badly into supreme verdict and my 3rd goyf gets the job done. g2 I get the eldrazi dream and t2 tks into t3 smusher. He of course is eventually able to deal with them but by that time he has but 1 lightning helix and a snapcaster in play and a couple lands in hand. I get down a kalitas, kill his snapcaster and from there I dodge 1 turn of removal for a quick win. This match felt pretty easy for me but from experience it has never felt easy. For me UW has ALWAYS been the harder matchup I was glad he was on jeskai where bolts and helix are pretty bad.
6-1
We split top 4. Top 4 was gTron, dredge, infect and GB eldrazi. Top 8 had KCI, 4 color shadow, jeskai control and 1 other I don't remember. I made a few changes prior to the tourney in moving brutalities to SB and adding a treetop and another scooze. I miss the utility of brutality but I think the consistency if more important. I really liked those changes and will stick with them for now. The additional manland was huge in the jund match. Smusher and trophy were MVPs. Smasher is such a hell of a card. I love it. I love having FoR too and the deck synergizes so well. I can't see myself playing anything else.
FNM Tournament report We had about 50 players at our black friday FNM. We had some notable attendees like Dav Shiels - GP winner, Sky mason - GP winner, Rich Shay - vintage pro and a couple pro tour competitors among others. So it wasn't a soft fnm haha. I've been on my rockdrazi list for quite some time and you can find all of my many many exploits in the deck creation forums under GB eldrazi midrange. Now that Rock is it's own forum I don't feel bad posting this here. Here is my list:
r1: 4 color saheeli combo
Not going to go into too much detail. This felt very very easy. With so much removal and interaction I'm honestly not sure how they even with this matchup.
1-0
r2 abzan counters company.
g1 I run him over after we play back and forth for a little bit. I know what he's on ahead of time so I made sure to keep a hand that can deal with the combo. g2 I keep a 1 landser with a bunch of 2 drops and some cheap GY hate. I figure if i draw a land in 3 draws I'll be fine. I didn't and lost horribly. In hindsight I need to not ever do that again...Game 3 was a long drawn out one but I run out of gas eventually and can't compete with his Rhonas.
1-1
r3 mono blue tron
I was excited to play this match as it is favorable for me. I have 6 main deck ways to turn off tron and I don't have to deal with ulamog. I'm always excited to play Utron even though it's rare. I also knew what I was up against so I new I needed trophies and fields to show up. They did and I was able to get the removal I needed to stop huge walkers. It also helped my goyfs were always 6/7s. g2 got even worse for him as I add in more hate. I played around counters but TKS is such a beating in this match.
2-1
r4 jund vengevine
I'm not sure what he's on at first but figure out it's a vengevine list. I manage to deal with his threats and keep him off any sort of shenanigans. I thought he was much more all in combo and in g2 was stuck with a lot of GY hate and got smushed. g3 I remove surgicals and go back to a more typical set up I would do for jund. As expected g3 was long and drawn out but my top end is so much better than his and smushers took it home.
3-1
r5 GR titan shift
I was afraid of this matchup. I don't really have any good ways to interact with valakut or scapeshift. G1 I kept him off lands as best I could but i missed my 4th and 5th lands by a turn and that was huge. Had I been on the play I think I would have gotten there but I was 1 turn too late and he had the scapeshift and 7 lands and I was at 18. g2 i run him over very fast with some discard and he's unable to do anything about it. g3 we actually have a pretty long game after I thoughtseize his scapeshift seeing as second one then surgical them out. With step 1 completed I just needed to dodge prime time until I found answers which I did but he never drew any of the 3. I was able to finish him off pretty easily from here.
4-1
Bonus round while waiting for top 8: merfolk
g1 I run him over very fast despite it being a fairly close race. He shut off a temple which slightly screwed me for a bit till I was able to rip another land and play my guys. g2 he draws a bunch of vials and I was able to pulse them, haha felt good. He was light on mana and only really being able to play 1 guy a turn after that point was all I needed. My guys are far bigger and making sure I play around the lords and it's not really too bad. I do know from previous plays that things can get outa hand real quick with spreading seas and lords so thankfully that wasn't too much of an issue here. Trophy has been such a wonderful addition to this deck it's pretty dumb.
5-1
top 8 vs jeskai control
g1 I keep a hand with some discard and a bunch of goyfs. We play a lot of back and forth and I just run him out of resources, not run too badly into supreme verdict and my 3rd goyf gets the job done. g2 I get the eldrazi dream and t2 tks into t3 smusher. He of course is eventually able to deal with them but by that time he has but 1 lightning helix and a snapcaster in play and a couple lands in hand. I get down a kalitas, kill his snapcaster and from there I dodge 1 turn of removal for a quick win. This match felt pretty easy for me but from experience it has never felt easy. For me UW has ALWAYS been the harder matchup I was glad he was on jeskai where bolts and helix are pretty bad.
6-1
We split top 4. Top 4 was gTron, dredge, infect and GB eldrazi. Top 8 had KCI, 4 color shadow, jeskai control and 1 other I don't remember. I made a few changes prior to the tourney in moving brutalities to SB and adding a treetop and another scooze. I miss the utility of brutality but I think the consistency if more important. I really liked those changes and will stick with them for now. The additional manland was huge in the jund match. Smusher and trophy were MVPs. Smasher is such a hell of a card. I love it. I love having FoR too and the deck synergizes so well. I can't see myself playing anything else.
Went 3-1 on Friday losing to naya zoo r1 which put me in 9th place I made a large misplay g3 where I played a tapped land on the draw facing down an experiment 1. I figured how much damage could that really do. He untaps plays a vexing devil and goblin guide and attacks. OUCH. If I had just played an untapped land and kept up my push I would have been able to delay long enough to get down some blockers. I needed to rip a board wipe and never did but I didn't give myself the chance. Live and learn (hopefully).
I beat, sultai midrange, 8 rack and merfolk. Not too much to say, although sultai has gotten a LOT better with trophy. I liked his build but I don't think he played optimally and tree top/liliana last hope just wrecked him. Merfolk stumbled game 3 and I just ran him over with a clutch maelstrom pulse. That can be tough and 8 rack, well, I dunno. It feels like it should be a tough matchup but I've never actually lost to it in a very long time. I think having trophy main helps a lot for sure. In game 2 I thoughtseize him revealing 5 lands, smallpox and raven's crime. Boy did that crime go the distance haha.
Still undecided on the 2 brutalities and swapping for push/trophy. I just don't know. They are rarely ever bad and sometimes they are MUCH better than either of those 2 cards. Sometimes they are worse. Might still keep them for now. I dunno
Well It's been a long time since I was last able to play some modern so it was nice to get back on the horse. I've been playing this list and I like it so far.
I went 2-1-1 on friday losing to 4 color shadow (list that won Dallas) I played realllllyy poorly so i deserved the loss. Had I played optimally I think it's more than beatable. That list is fragile if you have the removal. Otherwise it just punishes you super hard for any sort of stumbles. Hopefully I learn from making bad plays haha. I beat mono red prowess and naya zoo pretty handily and then drew to counter company. He had rhonas 2/3 games and That's one card I just have so much trouble against. Had it not been for that card in g3 I easily would have been able to beat him.
My thoughts on the list: I can't decide if I want the 2 brutalities in the main. They have always been overall pretty good for me so it's hard to want to cut them but at the same time perhaps I want the consistency of 4 push 4 trophy. I think I may try that out and move brutalities to the SB. My meta is also mega littered with GBx decks so I'm trying to think of some more tech to fight them. I think this may be a good time to bust out imp's mischief and or a Rhonas the indomitable myself. There's still plenty of other decks around that I obviously can't go overboard on random cards so I'm not sure the best but mischief seems like a good place to be in my inbred meta. I would love to have more eldrazi like an endbringer but it's just so sketchy with trophy and liliana around. Time will tell maybe it's fine as it only needs to stick around a turn or 2 for it to be worth it. Nissa, vital force may just be better.
If you are running a full 12+ eldrazi then maybe boreal but even then I have a hard time justifying it over hierarch or maybe also birds. Casting your colored spells on time is pretty huge.
My only experience with vraska is in arena and she's fine but rarely great. She does help a lot in the very late game. Her plus is brutal
I went 3-1 at FNM with my normal list. My assassin's trophies were in the mail I just got them SO I will at least get to test them out this friday. I lost to sultai in R1 which cut me outa top 4 contention Here I wish I had trophy as I was staring down a kalitas with a cast down in hand...I beat mardu pyro, 8 rack and something else I forget. Here's my new list, I only have 3 trophy currently. I'm undecided if 4 trophy is better over a pulse. probably?
another possible version of this list with no oaths although I've been enjoying them. more consistent I guess but can and will suffer a little more to top decks. SB still up for debates. My meta has a lot of midrange in it but smatters of a bunch of other things. Elves seems to be on the uptick.
One last version with mana dorks. I'm not sure I would play this version as the discard has been pretty important but if I'm expecting more midrangy matchups I would probably want the dorks over discard.
Well forgot to post last few weeks for my testing at FNM. No changes except added a torpor orb in the SB to help with humans and spirits. Sadly, spirits feels like an abysmal matchup. I played a whole bunch of games vs bant and UW spirits and lost every single one but 1. I'll get to this in a bit. I went 3-2 then 2-3 and went 3-2 again on friday. I lost to elves, humans x2, spirits x3 and kci. Every one of my losses except to elves (chained multiple shaman of the packs every game)and kci were due to fliers and not even close. I have no idea how to even stop fliers to be honest. I think trophy will help a little but then again not really as decay is basically the same thing but better. Any tips on how to better manage fliers that double as counters I am all ears. Perhaps I need a bontu's or something but I feel like that's just bad. Humans at least I can fight and have proven that but jeez the turns they just slam t2 rider into more of them just kills me every time.
Kci still feels fightable but that has also proven to basically feel unwinnable for me. My opponents just always gets it no matter what I do to them. They either just always find a claim and explosives always. Not sure GB has the tools to reliably beat them. I know I can do more, like have more surgicals but still. Leyline I'm sure would help a bit but I'm know it's not enough but maybe it's better than surgical. The issue is surgical also works well with field and trophy...
I'm gonna test 1 vraska. I would only want her for late game. My meta has a ton of midrange and other gbx or control decks and there's plenty of times I just don't draw relevant things. My biggest problem with vraska is she doesn't pressure opponents. Outside that, she has relevant removal and can usually draw a card. I'll start with in the main but most likely a SB card. Even then maybe Ob is better but we shall see. I guess it depends how relevant abrupt decay is in the meta. Being able to plus on oath, clues and lands is pretty cute.
On the flip side my worst matchups are the more aggro matches and fliers. I get wrecked by fliers a lot.
I think Pelt Collector could be a serious consideration for this deck depending on the build. With mine for instance, I can't poop out a bunch of dudes and make him huge very quickly but every one of our guys are huge. It's possible that it being a bad top deck is enough to not include it but I will test a couple. Things could go either way with it.
I would agree. Without tireless trackers or something to give you enough fodder, vraska doesn't seem worth it. I would love to try her as a 1 of but I'm not confident in what she does. It's sad I was super hoping for a playable GB or G or B walker but I'm not sure she is the one. Perhaps in other GB decks but this one doesn't have the tools to make the best use of her.
Perhaps out of the SB for really long control or midrange matchups. I can see her being relevant where a TKS would be bad.
depending on your build it's still worth playing 2. The card is just so good regardless if it's just a bad doom blade vs many decks. The ones where it kills a teferi or other 4cmc thing is worth it. Being able to catch manlands and artifacts and enchantments gives us a good bump g1 vs some of our tougher matches. I don't think the card is a 4 of tho.
depending how the meta shakes out tho, giving them a land may not matter when we have smashers and the like. The bigger issue is for combo decks and things like burn or aggro. But these probably free up the fulminator mages in the SB for other things.
3 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
3 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 fatal push
4 oath of nissa
3 assassin's trophy
1 maelstrom pulse
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
2 llanowar wastes
1 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
2 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
3 surgical extraction
1 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
3 collective brutality
1 maelstrom pulse
1 Obstinate baloth
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
1 damping sphere
r1 storm
g1 I miss land drops for 5 turns and die on t8 when he has a single card in hand, past in flames and I am stuck on 3 lands with lethal next turn. I missed my 3rd land for a while and never hit my 4th with a TKS in hand..brutal. g2 we have a good game and he tries to go off through some disruption. basically he double manamorphose, no cards in hand and flips into an empty the warrens, of course, and I don't see any of my wraths or pulses...We play a few extra games for fun and they actually went a lot more like I thought they would...aka, I slaughter him mercilessly. That's magic for ya, sometimes variance is on your side, sometimes not.
0-1
r2 metalwork colossus combo
this deck despite it being jank is actually very resilient. It's similar to KCI but instead of a really stupid and BS combo it just poops out artifacts and recurs colossus. g1 I would say it's like a 80-20 or better in his favor. g2 my SB cards get me there and in g3 he losses to his deck. Draws lots of lands and useless cards like nature's claims.
1-1
r3 burn
fun turn with me having 2 4/5 goyfs a liliana TLH on 2 loyalty, him at 15 and me at 2 life. I'm trying to think how on earth I can deal 15 in 1 turn. So i know that minusing lili makes them 5/6 so I start with that, flipping a reality smasher and well, i take that, cast and smush for 15 hahaha oh man totally stole that game. I LOVE smasher. g2 he just gets TOTALLY run over i don't think i dropped below 10 health. brutality into discard and fast beats. GG
2-1
r4 hardened scales
I win in 3 very hard games. I could not believe how hard this deck was to play against. he just has so much value and his guys get so huge almost everything is must answer. I think I'm going to add a torpor orb in the SB for this and other matches like humans/spirits etc. To be honest I think i only won because he played poorly. He missed a lot of triggers of various sorts. I need to play against this more, I think I could have made better choices too along the way. I know how the deck plays but not having reps against it I know I played suboptimally. Even with huge goyfs and scoozes I always felt behind.
3-1
Came in 9th missing out on breakers. We had 31 people which means we were 1 short of having 5 rounds. 4 rounds really sucks especially at 31 people. What can you do. Sadly no top 8 means no more modern for me but got to play cube so I guess it's fine
GB is a simplification of colors and tools. You should read the extensive and amazing primer if you want break downs of things. Adding a 3rd color does not mean it makes it better even if some of those cards are singularly more powerful in certain situations. There are also a lot of results from various tournaments. You can see given what that meta looks like how each variant does. In general, GB IS performing better than jund. There are tons of reasons but it doesn't mean one is strictly better. Skred red won a GP but that means nothing. This is modern, one week GB rules, the next Jund rules. If you want the best deck I can promise you it's not jund or gb. It's a matter of personal preference at this point, saying one deck is 5-10% better doesn't mean it will perform that way for you.
I see jund as a slightly lower and more aggressive deck which is better in some matches but worse than others. GB is bigger and slower but much more well rounded. You choose GB because of the play style just as you would jund. I like GB more because every one of your cards get you a lot of consistent mileage where as cards like bob, BBE and even sometimes bolt don't. This is modern there's no definitive best version. It's very possible next set Gruul colors will get something amazing and then it's back to jund as top dog.
I understand I play a different variant of GB in that I play 7 eldrazi, but FoR (I play 3) has always been awesome for me. There are so many utility lands and manlands running around they get use in almost every matchup. As for quagmire, I too find it underwhelming in most scenarios but there are plenty of times it just stone brickwalls an opponents huge monster. Or they forget about it or completely choose to undervalue it (which is usually the case in my experience) and it just doomblades their guy. I find it hard to justify more than 1 though even in normal GB but depending on the meta I could see it.
Playing jund you get slightly better % vs some matches but worse vs others. You just have all the tools you need in GB even if you lose out on the 3 mana 3 damage wrath. You have a better mana base and a more consistent game. I find no wrong with people choosing to play jund though. It's still very good. Trophy and brutality have really allowed GB to stand on it's own though.
3 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
3 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 fatal push
4 oath of nissa
3 assassin's trophy
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
1 maelstrom pulse
2 llanowar wastes
1 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
2 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
3 surgical extraction
1 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
3 collective brutality
1 maelstrom pulse
1 Obstinate baloth
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
1 damping sphere
r1: 4 color saheeli combo
Not going to go into too much detail. This felt very very easy. With so much removal and interaction I'm honestly not sure how they even with this matchup.
1-0
r2 abzan counters company.
g1 I run him over after we play back and forth for a little bit. I know what he's on ahead of time so I made sure to keep a hand that can deal with the combo. g2 I keep a 1 landser with a bunch of 2 drops and some cheap GY hate. I figure if i draw a land in 3 draws I'll be fine. I didn't and lost horribly. In hindsight I need to not ever do that again...Game 3 was a long drawn out one but I run out of gas eventually and can't compete with his Rhonas.
1-1
r3 mono blue tron
I was excited to play this match as it is favorable for me. I have 6 main deck ways to turn off tron and I don't have to deal with ulamog. I'm always excited to play Utron even though it's rare. I also knew what I was up against so I new I needed trophies and fields to show up. They did and I was able to get the removal I needed to stop huge walkers. It also helped my goyfs were always 6/7s. g2 got even worse for him as I add in more hate. I played around counters but TKS is such a beating in this match.
2-1
r4 jund vengevine
I'm not sure what he's on at first but figure out it's a vengevine list. I manage to deal with his threats and keep him off any sort of shenanigans. I thought he was much more all in combo and in g2 was stuck with a lot of GY hate and got smushed. g3 I remove surgicals and go back to a more typical set up I would do for jund. As expected g3 was long and drawn out but my top end is so much better than his and smushers took it home.
3-1
r5 GR titan shift
I was afraid of this matchup. I don't really have any good ways to interact with valakut or scapeshift. G1 I kept him off lands as best I could but i missed my 4th and 5th lands by a turn and that was huge. Had I been on the play I think I would have gotten there but I was 1 turn too late and he had the scapeshift and 7 lands and I was at 18. g2 i run him over very fast with some discard and he's unable to do anything about it. g3 we actually have a pretty long game after I thoughtseize his scapeshift seeing as second one then surgical them out. With step 1 completed I just needed to dodge prime time until I found answers which I did but he never drew any of the 3. I was able to finish him off pretty easily from here.
4-1
Bonus round while waiting for top 8: merfolk
g1 I run him over very fast despite it being a fairly close race. He shut off a temple which slightly screwed me for a bit till I was able to rip another land and play my guys. g2 he draws a bunch of vials and I was able to pulse them, haha felt good. He was light on mana and only really being able to play 1 guy a turn after that point was all I needed. My guys are far bigger and making sure I play around the lords and it's not really too bad. I do know from previous plays that things can get outa hand real quick with spreading seas and lords so thankfully that wasn't too much of an issue here. Trophy has been such a wonderful addition to this deck it's pretty dumb.
5-1
top 8 vs jeskai control
g1 I keep a hand with some discard and a bunch of goyfs. We play a lot of back and forth and I just run him out of resources, not run too badly into supreme verdict and my 3rd goyf gets the job done. g2 I get the eldrazi dream and t2 tks into t3 smusher. He of course is eventually able to deal with them but by that time he has but 1 lightning helix and a snapcaster in play and a couple lands in hand. I get down a kalitas, kill his snapcaster and from there I dodge 1 turn of removal for a quick win. This match felt pretty easy for me but from experience it has never felt easy. For me UW has ALWAYS been the harder matchup I was glad he was on jeskai where bolts and helix are pretty bad.
6-1
We split top 4. Top 4 was gTron, dredge, infect and GB eldrazi. Top 8 had KCI, 4 color shadow, jeskai control and 1 other I don't remember. I made a few changes prior to the tourney in moving brutalities to SB and adding a treetop and another scooze. I miss the utility of brutality but I think the consistency if more important. I really liked those changes and will stick with them for now. The additional manland was huge in the jund match. Smusher and trophy were MVPs. Smasher is such a hell of a card. I love it. I love having FoR too and the deck synergizes so well. I can't see myself playing anything else.
3 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
3 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 fatal push
4 oath of nissa
3 assassin's trophy
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
1 maelstrom pulse
2 llanowar wastes
1 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
2 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
3 surgical extraction
1 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
3 collective brutality
1 maelstrom pulse
1 Obstinate baloth
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
1 damping sphere
r1: 4 color saheeli combo
Not going to go into too much detail. This felt very very easy. With so much removal and interaction I'm honestly not sure how they even with this matchup.
1-0
r2 abzan counters company.
g1 I run him over after we play back and forth for a little bit. I know what he's on ahead of time so I made sure to keep a hand that can deal with the combo. g2 I keep a 1 landser with a bunch of 2 drops and some cheap GY hate. I figure if i draw a land in 3 draws I'll be fine. I didn't and lost horribly. In hindsight I need to not ever do that again...Game 3 was a long drawn out one but I run out of gas eventually and can't compete with his Rhonas.
1-1
r3 mono blue tron
I was excited to play this match as it is favorable for me. I have 6 main deck ways to turn off tron and I don't have to deal with ulamog. I'm always excited to play Utron even though it's rare. I also knew what I was up against so I new I needed trophies and fields to show up. They did and I was able to get the removal I needed to stop huge walkers. It also helped my goyfs were always 6/7s. g2 got even worse for him as I add in more hate. I played around counters but TKS is such a beating in this match.
2-1
r4 jund vengevine
I'm not sure what he's on at first but figure out it's a vengevine list. I manage to deal with his threats and keep him off any sort of shenanigans. I thought he was much more all in combo and in g2 was stuck with a lot of GY hate and got smushed. g3 I remove surgicals and go back to a more typical set up I would do for jund. As expected g3 was long and drawn out but my top end is so much better than his and smushers took it home.
3-1
r5 GR titan shift
I was afraid of this matchup. I don't really have any good ways to interact with valakut or scapeshift. G1 I kept him off lands as best I could but i missed my 4th and 5th lands by a turn and that was huge. Had I been on the play I think I would have gotten there but I was 1 turn too late and he had the scapeshift and 7 lands and I was at 18. g2 i run him over very fast with some discard and he's unable to do anything about it. g3 we actually have a pretty long game after I thoughtseize his scapeshift seeing as second one then surgical them out. With step 1 completed I just needed to dodge prime time until I found answers which I did but he never drew any of the 3. I was able to finish him off pretty easily from here.
4-1
Bonus round while waiting for top 8: merfolk
g1 I run him over very fast despite it being a fairly close race. He shut off a temple which slightly screwed me for a bit till I was able to rip another land and play my guys. g2 he draws a bunch of vials and I was able to pulse them, haha felt good. He was light on mana and only really being able to play 1 guy a turn after that point was all I needed. My guys are far bigger and making sure I play around the lords and it's not really too bad. I do know from previous plays that things can get outa hand real quick with spreading seas and lords so thankfully that wasn't too much of an issue here. Trophy has been such a wonderful addition to this deck it's pretty dumb.
5-1
top 8 vs jeskai control
g1 I keep a hand with some discard and a bunch of goyfs. We play a lot of back and forth and I just run him out of resources, not run too badly into supreme verdict and my 3rd goyf gets the job done. g2 I get the eldrazi dream and t2 tks into t3 smusher. He of course is eventually able to deal with them but by that time he has but 1 lightning helix and a snapcaster in play and a couple lands in hand. I get down a kalitas, kill his snapcaster and from there I dodge 1 turn of removal for a quick win. This match felt pretty easy for me but from experience it has never felt easy. For me UW has ALWAYS been the harder matchup I was glad he was on jeskai where bolts and helix are pretty bad.
6-1
We split top 4. Top 4 was gTron, dredge, infect and GB eldrazi. Top 8 had KCI, 4 color shadow, jeskai control and 1 other I don't remember. I made a few changes prior to the tourney in moving brutalities to SB and adding a treetop and another scooze. I miss the utility of brutality but I think the consistency if more important. I really liked those changes and will stick with them for now. The additional manland was huge in the jund match. Smusher and trophy were MVPs. Smasher is such a hell of a card. I love it. I love having FoR too and the deck synergizes so well. I can't see myself playing anything else.
I beat, sultai midrange, 8 rack and merfolk. Not too much to say, although sultai has gotten a LOT better with trophy. I liked his build but I don't think he played optimally and tree top/liliana last hope just wrecked him. Merfolk stumbled game 3 and I just ran him over with a clutch maelstrom pulse. That can be tough and 8 rack, well, I dunno. It feels like it should be a tough matchup but I've never actually lost to it in a very long time. I think having trophy main helps a lot for sure. In game 2 I thoughtseize him revealing 5 lands, smallpox and raven's crime. Boy did that crime go the distance haha.
Still undecided on the 2 brutalities and swapping for push/trophy. I just don't know. They are rarely ever bad and sometimes they are MUCH better than either of those 2 cards. Sometimes they are worse. Might still keep them for now. I dunno
2 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
3 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
3 fatal push
4 oath of nissa
3 assassin's trophy
2 collective brutality
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
1 maelstrom pulse
2 llanowar wastes
2 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
1 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
2 surgical extraction
2 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
1 yahenni's expertise
1 maelstrom pulse
1 thrun, the last troll
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
2 damping sphere
1 pithing needle
I went 2-1-1 on friday losing to 4 color shadow (list that won Dallas) I played realllllyy poorly so i deserved the loss. Had I played optimally I think it's more than beatable. That list is fragile if you have the removal. Otherwise it just punishes you super hard for any sort of stumbles. Hopefully I learn from making bad plays haha. I beat mono red prowess and naya zoo pretty handily and then drew to counter company. He had rhonas 2/3 games and That's one card I just have so much trouble against. Had it not been for that card in g3 I easily would have been able to beat him.
My thoughts on the list: I can't decide if I want the 2 brutalities in the main. They have always been overall pretty good for me so it's hard to want to cut them but at the same time perhaps I want the consistency of 4 push 4 trophy. I think I may try that out and move brutalities to the SB. My meta is also mega littered with GBx decks so I'm trying to think of some more tech to fight them. I think this may be a good time to bust out imp's mischief and or a Rhonas the indomitable myself. There's still plenty of other decks around that I obviously can't go overboard on random cards so I'm not sure the best but mischief seems like a good place to be in my inbred meta. I would love to have more eldrazi like an endbringer but it's just so sketchy with trophy and liliana around. Time will tell maybe it's fine as it only needs to stick around a turn or 2 for it to be worth it. Nissa, vital force may just be better.
My only experience with vraska is in arena and she's fine but rarely great. She does help a lot in the very late game. Her plus is brutal
2 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
3 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
3 fatal push
4 oath of nissa
3 assassin's trophy
2 collective brutality
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
1 maelstrom pulse
2 llanowar wastes
2 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
1 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
2 surgical extraction
2 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
1 yahenni's expertise
1 maelstrom pulse
1 thrun, the last troll
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
2 damping sphere
1 pithing needle
another possible version of this list with no oaths although I've been enjoying them. more consistent I guess but can and will suffer a little more to top decks. SB still up for debates. My meta has a lot of midrange in it but smatters of a bunch of other things. Elves seems to be on the uptick.
3 scavenging ooze
4 tarmogoyf
4 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 fatal push
4 assassin's trophy
2 collective brutality
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
1 maelstrom pulse
2 llanowar wastes
1 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
1 treetop village
2 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
2 surgical extraction
2 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
1 yahenni's expertise
1 maelstrom pulse
1 thrun, the last troll
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
2 damping sphere
1 pithing needle
One last version with mana dorks. I'm not sure I would play this version as the discard has been pretty important but if I'm expecting more midrangy matchups I would probably want the dorks over discard.
3 noble hierarch
2 birds of paradise
3 scavenging ooze
3 tarmogoyf
4 tireless tracker
4 thought-knot seer
3 reality smasher
spells
4 fatal push
4 assassin's trophy
2 collective brutality
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
2 llanowar wastes
2 Blooming marsh
4 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
3 swamp
2 forest
1 twilight mire
1 treetop village
1 hissing quagmire
4 eldrazi temple
3 field of ruin
2 surgical extraction
2 flaying tendrils
1 damnation
1 yahenni's expertise
1 maelstrom pulse
1 thrun, the last troll
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 reclamation sage
1 fulminator mage
1 golgari charm
2 damping sphere
1 pithing needle
Kci still feels fightable but that has also proven to basically feel unwinnable for me. My opponents just always gets it no matter what I do to them. They either just always find a claim and explosives always. Not sure GB has the tools to reliably beat them. I know I can do more, like have more surgicals but still. Leyline I'm sure would help a bit but I'm know it's not enough but maybe it's better than surgical. The issue is surgical also works well with field and trophy...
On the flip side my worst matchups are the more aggro matches and fliers. I get wrecked by fliers a lot.
Perhaps out of the SB for really long control or midrange matchups. I can see her being relevant where a TKS would be bad.
depending how the meta shakes out tho, giving them a land may not matter when we have smashers and the like. The bigger issue is for combo decks and things like burn or aggro. But these probably free up the fulminator mages in the SB for other things.