Imo a main deck ratchet bomb would be better than a second anguished in the main, your second anguished should be in the side so it's not a dead draw against aggro/burn/etc.
Going up to 4 Marsh Flats sounds like a good idea, would we also want a third Godless Shrine if we do that though? Having 4 flats and only 5 fetch-able lands can get us into trouble, very very rarely I've had a dead Marsh Flats due to having all my fetch-able lands already on the battlefield or in my hand, and I'd be wary of increasing the odds of that happening.
Mimic is a bit underwhelming for me, I think it competes with taplands/relic/mind stone/reshaper on T2 quite a bit, and I'd have a lot of trouble making room for it. Also I don't think it is what we want, because it dies to bolt and push without giving us value. It could work in a Herder shell, and replace some or all copies of Tidehollow as it is a much better late-game draw (usually). Lastly, it's not that often I swarm the board with eldrazi, that usually only happens with T2 reshaper -> T3 TKS -> T3 smasher, most often they kill my eldrazi off and I win off of being able to keep playing them when they run out of targeted removal. Swarming the board usually happens with souls tokens and that line could get blown out by Anger the Gods, which is seeing all kinds of play thanks to dredge.
The BG shell seems decent because of the power of birds and stirrings, but I think if I went green for those two things I'd just go Bant Eldrazi because I see push as a supplement to Path, not a replacement. I still think path is the king. That's why I'm so excited for Push in the B/W shell, because it means we will have more cheap targeted removal for matchups like infect/merfolk/elves/etc. I think Push could give processors a nice bump in its machup winrates with some of the tougher aggro matchups, and obviously it should slow down the format as a whole with many decks playing it. I'm really thinking this card was their answer to the current modern meta, and we won't be seeing much for bannings. If you look at meta % dredge topped at like 10-13% or something over a month ago, and currently the meta is pretty well spread out. the top percentages are: 8%, 8%, 7%, 7%, 6%, and then 5 decks at 5%. That is seriously the best numbers I've seen since I started paying attention to them around 9 months ago.
I ran without a maindeck anguished for a month or maybe more, and I missed it dearly. There's just so many games where a planeswalker, ensnaring bridge, blood moon, whatever else sticks on the board because you don't have that out, and I'm not a fan of giving up free Game 1's. I was definitely thinking the GftT/Dismember slot in the maindeck would now be push, and for the other push slot (I like the idea of 4 path 2 push maindeck), I was thinking either going down to 2 reshaper, or moving Sorin to the side.
Fatal push is amazing. It is huge for us. It hits manlands and misses our smashers! I will probably run 4 path's and 2 of these main deck. It will help us out against aggro decks.
Yeah it looks insane, it kills infect and affinity creatures, pumped Swiftspears, merfolk and elf creatures, and can kill anything up to an opposing TKS or Kalitas. This is the low cost removal we needed, and probably is a 2-of in the side at the very least and might deserve 2 maindeck slots, taking the dismember/GftT slot.
Also, had some ups and downs with the deck over the weekend. For paper, FNM went really well, 3-1. I have lost a couple weeks in a row to this Goblin Charbelcher deck, that has 6/7 beat downs as a backup plan. Stony silence has been great to shut down the belching and Batterskulls, but I'll be trying a Batterskull of my own over my main deck ratchet bomb for the next couple FNMs. I feel I can get away with it because my FNM meta is really fair right now, no affinity, dredge, or infect; lots of UX control,jund, tron. I trimmed a relic over a smasher because I just can't see going down to 3 smashers when it's one of the best topecks we can get midgame or later.
On mtgo, I had both a 4-1 league and 1-4 league. The first started 4-0, my best start yet, and I got just crushed by living end in round 5. I mean it was insane. Do you guys have any suggestions for this matchup other than cracking relic to empty the GY at opportune times? The 1-4 league started with just abysmal hands, mulligans, and flooding, as well as a couple blood moon opponents. I'll be adding a wastes to my sideboard on mtgo now, it would have without a doubt helped those matches. Then I just got tilted and played poorly the last couple of rounds, such as mis clicking a ratchet bomb and ticking up rather than blowing it up, costing me the game. My mtgo list can be found on my tappedout.net. these were both friendly leagues as I think it's too difficult to make a 12 dollar entry back with a non tiered deck with any consistency in competitive leagues, often I'm finishing 3-2 or 2-3 and I've been slowly accumulating tix through friendly leagues.
Edit: Finished another league to 4-1, again starting 4-0 and then losing to Death's Shadow in round 5 this time. Used This list for it.
Round 1: 2-1 vs. Grixis Delver (1-0)
Game 1: T3 play souls and T4 flash it back. I could have opened faster here with a Reshaper first, but he was playing untap-go as Blue/Black so I assumed some form of Grixis Control with lots of counters and figured souls was a better open to bait out counterspells. He passes on his T4 so I drop a reshaper and start swinging in, his following turn he plays a Tasigur which I path asap. At some point he killed the reshaper with Kolaghan's Command making me discard, discard relic into a relic off of the reshaper trigger. The turn after I pathed Tasigur I drop a smasher and he concedes with 16 life and 5 cards in hand, tapped out though. Wtf?
Game 2: He suspends ancestral vision on T1, meanwhile I have two stranglers in my opening hand. He also drops a Tasigur on T3 thanks to delve, my T3 I strangler and eat vision, thanfully I could now throw the -3/-3 on Tasigur rather than killing my own strangler to do it. He swings with Tasigur and I don't block, my following turn he flashes in Snapcaster to Thought Scour and block the attacking Strangler. I also play Souls on this turn. Then he swings in with Tasigur and I chump with a token. My T5 I play a TKS over a smasher to get a look at his hand since he had 6 cards, he Terminates it before ETB trigger, and when I see his hand I see: Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command, Damnation, Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, and Duress. My hand was smasher, strangler, and Wreckage and he ended up running away with the game because I could not keep up with that amount of removal. I believe I brought in 1 Pithing Needle after this game just for Tasigur. Oh, and he played three Sun Droplets over the course of what turned out to be a 25 turn game for each of us, him having 5 cards in his deck when he wins and me having drawn over half my deck and not seeing either ratchet bomb to take out the Droplets. He won off of snapping back lightning bolts from the GY over and over lol, that was a new one, this was not a win condition I saw coming and I didn't see many relics anyway to stop it, only one the whole game. The good thing that came out of this game is I went from a 4 minute deficit on the clock (13:00 to 17:00) to being tied at 9:00 going into game 3. My strategy here was to draw this game out and make up clock time while hoping for a ratchet bomb or making him mill out.
Game 3: We both open slowly, the first play is me with a ratchet bomb on T3. Holding a smasher and Pithing Needle in hand, drawing lots of lands. He bolts my EOT on T4 where I dropped a land and passed and then on his T4 plays Tasigur. I topdeck a temple and play my Pithing Needle naming Tasigur and attacking in with smasher which he decides not to chump. He swings in with Tasigur, plays delver and passes. My T6 I swing in with smasher and activate Vault because it's really my only play as I had Vault, shambling, and a swamp in my hand at the time. Turn 6 and I had 6 lands on the battlefield and two in my hand. He does not block, so I heal to 16 and take him down to 9. He plays a Gurmag Angler on his T6, I topdeck a path and target the angler with it and swing in with a vault powered smasher again. He trades with the delver that hadn't flipped yet and the Tasigur, and I was happy and expecting this as I could do 1 damage to each thanks to deathtouch and trample him down to 5, and heal to 21 with a shambling vent in hand to keep the pressure on. He Kolaghan's commands my shambling from my hand, and plays a Tasigur. I topdeck anguished and kill the Tasigur. This whole time ratchet bombs been sitting at 2 because Sun droplet was my only priority for it, he never ended up playing it this game. He delvers and then passes, on my turn on my draw phase after I draw dismember he casts Snapcaster targeting his Kolaghan's to make me discard, I dismember the currently 1/1 delver in response so his Kolaghan's whiffs. He just uses it to do 2 damage to me. His next turn he delvers and passes, I draw a strangler and -3/-3 the delver. He bolts the strangler to swing in with snappy, now its his 4 to my 12 life, I topdeck a land and pass. Then 3 life to 10 as he fetches and I topdeck another land. When he swings with snap the following turn I blow up the ratchet to kill it as I start to get worried about bolt + snapcaster finishing me off, he has a bolt in the GY at the time. I topdeck a relic, cycle for a draw and to clear his GY, and get a TKS which I cast and he casts Mana Leak, I play the 3 to avoid the counter. He bolts face before ETB trigger and now has zero cards in hand for TKS to exile. He fetches down to 2 to thin the deck because he needs an answer to TKS swinging, passes turn with 1 card in hand. Topdeck a smasher and he concedes when I cast it.
Round 2: 2-1 vs. G/W Tron (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a hand with two temples, anguished, koilos, CoBr, path, and relic, a bit slow but it's game 1 and I feel if i draw any eldrazi in my first 3 turns I'm pretty set. Turns out its tron and I had nothing to interrupt his plan, He has two tron lands in hand and sphere's for a green and to cast Sylvan Scrying on T2 and have tron. I scoop because I want to reveal as little info to him as I can in the hopes he doesn't know what I'm on. I think it was the right decision as he did take a while to sideboard.
Game 2: Opening 7 has a pithing needle, ghost quarter, strangler, souls, 3 lands. Instant keep as it already has two ways of slowing him down and pithing also shuts down O-stone and plainswalkers. I hold off on playing ghost quarter until the turn I anticipate using it, in case I get to get a look at his hand and see any duplicates for tron lands to avoid hitting that one. He plays a power plant and tower from his hand T1 and T2, my T3 I play the ghost quarter targeting Tower. He plays mine and casts Sylvan scrying with the forest he got from GQ and is now back to having tron up the following turn. Yay us! My T4 I have two pithings, two souls, a smasher, and strangler in hand, and I jam a pithing needle anticipating a possible karn the next turn and play strangler. He assembles tron and plays.....CHROMATIC STAR!?!? and passes. With 6 cards in his hand at this point I'm 95% sure I just saved my own ass by jamming naming karn before seeing it. I don't have the lands to play smasher so I swing with strangler and cast a souls. He wurmcoils, I anguish it. He plays a land and with 6 cards in hand and 11 mana passes the turn. I finally get a land to start smashing and I also have two smashers in my hand, so I drop one and swing in, he paths the smasher but still goes down to 6 from strangler and 2 souls tokens. He plays o-stone and passes. My first main I play my second pithing, knowing he'll crack the o-stone in response so I can't lock him out of it, which he does. I still name o-stone with it as I have a followup smasher and Ugin is not a threat in that position. He goes down to 1, next turn plays Ulamog and exiles smasher and eldrazi temple. No idea why he chose eldrazi temple over the pithing needle naming o-stone (other pithing which was naming karn was destroyed from the o-stone wipe earlier), as I had 5 lands including temple on the board and a souls and path in my hand. On my turn I path the ulamog and cast a souls, now having two tokens on the battlefield and two copies of souls in my GY. He's at 1 health, COME ON BABY I WANT TO BEAT TRON. He casts Ugin and destroys my souls and my dreams. I topdeck a surgical (which I have yet to see a single time to pair it up with ghost quarter, which is much of the reason I brought it into the sideboard recently), and anguish his ugin and pass with only the surgical in hand and 1 land short of flashing back a souls. He ghost quarters a godless shrine and passes. Topdeck a mind stone and play it, then flash back one of the souls. With him at 1 life its a much better play than casting both souls cards. He topdecks no answer and concedes, WE MADE IT. I am always happy to even take 1 game off tron, it is so difficult to pull off much of the time.
Game 3: Commence the total reversal of roles here. The poor guy didn't even play magic, he casts both expedition map and chromatic star on the play on T2, and with him tapped out I stony silence on my T2 making them both dead cards. His T3 he plays a brushland and passes, now I know he is far behind because that means he has urza's power plant on the battlefield and zero tron lands in hand. On my T3 I play a ghost quarter and remove his power plant, and use temple to cast a strangler and get a clock going. He plays a mine and passes. I swing in with strangler and pass, I'm stuck on 2 lands after saccing my GQ and even though I've got two pithings and can jam one down, I decide to hold up for the warping wail I just drew, hoping to counter a Sylvan Scrying or Ancient Stirrings. He plays nothing and passes, I swing with strangler and pass as I drew a path instead of a land and am now beginning to worry that even with massively slowing him down I'm not presenting enough of a clock with a single strangler. He plays a mine and passes, now 1 topdeck short of tron online. I topdeck a temple and swing him down to 11 with strangler and play souls. He warping wails the souls. He plays nothing and passes, I draw a marsh flats and flashback the souls and swing him down to 8, pass turn with an open marsh flats and 3 paths in hand. He thragtusks and I decide not to path it because he'd get the 3/3 token anyway. Also he was at 5 lands so I knew if I pathed he would potentially be 1 topdecked land away from a karn without tron online. I swing in and he blocks my strangler with the 5/3 and I get him back down to 11 with the souls. Play a matter reshaper and pass turn, he passes his turn and on his end step I path his 3/3 token. I topdeck a smasher and thanks to two temples am able to swing him down to 1 life, he uses 6 lands to cast a wurmcoil on his turn which is immediately pathed and I seal the deal on the tron menace.
Round 3: 2-0 vs. Jund (3-0) This was the saltiest person I've faced in friendly leagues, usually it's little talking or questions about mechanics or friendly banter in chat, as most people are focusing on not playing slow thanks to the possibility of losing due to playing slower than the opponent. But this guy claimed I had the best topdeck and draw luck ever, to which I replied that with 4 maindeck relics, souls, smashers, and paths, that I'm quite favored in the matchup both G1 and post board. He then says something about well thats good, but you have other decks to beat too (assuming he means to call the processors deck bad?) to which I replied that I was 3-0 and had already made my entry back, so it can't be that bad. Sometimes I get the feeling Jund players can get this sense of entitlement that because they spent $2000 on their deck it means they should be unbeatable in grindy creature and removal matchups. And frankly, I quite enjoyed systematically destroying him both game 1 and 2 as he whines in the chat about topdeck luck (meanwhile he topdecks abrupt decay the turn before I play a TKS game 2, allowing him to remove it and get a draw as I cast it).
Game 1: I am on the play, thoughtseize away his terminate as I have a temple and TKS ready to go for T3. His T1 and my T2 are both passed, he drops Goyf on T2. I path it right away as I have a backup dismember in hand. T3 I TKS taking Kalitas, he has a bolt and two lands in hand. He land drops and passes. T5 I swing with TKS and hold a strangler back, because it can be bolted I want to make use of it's -3/-3 as removal. He plays Dark Confidant and passes, I remove it with strangler and he bolts strangler. Swing him down to 9 with TKS. He topdecks Liliana of the Veil and makes me sac TKS, I topdeck anguish but decide to activate shambling to finish off Lili who's at 1 loyalty counter. he plays another lili and with 1 card in hand he does not uptick, I don't mind at all since my two cards in hand are dismember and anguish. I anguish lili, play a relic I just drew, and pass. He inquisitions my dismember and activates and swings with Raging Ravine. I can't stop it as my hand is empty. I topdeck a ghost quarter and play it, and swing in with my shambling to heal to 13 and put him to 7. He passes turn, I topdeck a smasher and rather than play it I decide to take him down to 5 with vent and followup with the surprise smasher the following turn, he bolts the shambling so there goes that plan. He passes turn and I topdeck a mind stone, play smasher and swing him down to 2. He plays scooze and cats CoBr to drain 2 life and passes. I topdeck path and swing in to finish the game.
Game 2: He thoughtseizes away a path on T1, next play of the game is him casting Painful Truths for 3 on T3. I topdeck a much needed 3rd land and play a reshaper, also jam a pithing needle naming liliana since that land was a temple and I had 4 open mana. He plays Huntmaster of the Fells and passes. I topdeck a land and play smasher to swing in for 8, he does not block anything and goes down to 8. He passes turn so his huntmaster flips on my upkpeep, and he attacked with his creatures as well. He takes out reshaper on my upkeep with the trigger, which flips a relic. I anguish the huntmaster and swing in with smasher, he terminates it. On his turn he activates raging ravine, swings me down to 4 life with that and the 2/2 wolf token. I topdeck a TKS but the play I have to make is to cast a souls so I can use 1 to chump the raging ravine the next turn or I would have to chump the TKS to it. He activates ravine and double swings, I double chump. I topdeck a temple which allows me to TKS taking terminate and flash back souls. He had a lili in hand but could not play it thanks to my pithing needle earlier. He terminates TKS and swings with the 2/2 wolf, I take it out with two souls tokens as I have a followup souls in hand he has no clue about, its his 6 life to my 4 life, and I know if I can remove the raging ravine I'll win. He thoughtseizes a souls away (over a ratchet bomb), 4 life to 4. I had wanted to cycle relic here for a draw but could not once souls hit the GY, it was a mistake that I did not do it in response to the thoughtseize but I think at the time I felt like there was no way he'd choose souls over ratchet bomb. At this point I just chump his raging ravine for a turn, then I cycle relic to draw into another souls. Swing him down to 3 with my token, play 4 more tokens, he sends a salty message in the chat. He plays kitchen finks to go up to 5, and plays a second raging ravine. I go full yolo and swing in for the win with 5 tokens and him at 5 life, and him having two cards in hand. He abrupt decays a token to go down to 1 life. I hold back a strangler in hand so I can activate my shambling to chump the ravine once he goes for it on his turn, he draws his card and concedes.
Round 4: 2-1 vs. Eldrazi n Taxes (Stranglers and TKS's, no smashers, seemingly no aether vials at all which I would assume is for budget reasons) (4-0)
Game 1: I open with thoughtseize, seeing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, two Leonin Arbiters, and Flickerwisp. I take an arbiter as I have 1 path for one of the arbiters, and he had a ghost quarter and a path of his own and I did not want to allow him to shut me out of lands, as that is when their deck performs best. T2 I land pass, anticipating to path a creature he plays and then -3/-3 with a strangler the following turn. He thalias which I did not anticipate, for some reason I was thinking he could both play an arbiter and use ghost quarter on T2, and I am unable to path since I played a tapped godless shrine. Definitely a misplay by me, trying to get too cute. I path the thalia on my turn, being one mana short of casting a relic to get something in exile allowing me to -3/-3 without casting path. Would have much preferred that play. He arbiters and ghost quarters my eldrazi temple, I strangler and kill the arbiter. He plays thalia and passes, I play relic and pass, and he casts Tidehollow Sculler and I allow it to resolve rather than pathing it before the trigger resolves, I was holding a souls and path and smasher and I wanted him to make a difficult decision on what to take. He took souls. I play another relic and pass, and on his turn I path the sculler. He gets stuck on three lands for a few turns and I get 4 souls tokens out with 2 smashers and a sorin in hand. I play smasher and swing in, he trades thalia and a strangler for smasher which I'm happy to do since it makes my spells cheaper to cast and I have a followup smasher. He plays a flickerwisp and takes out a souls token, and on my next turn I flash back souls to get 5 tokens total, drop sorin, and swing with 3 tokens. He trades with two of them and now has a lone Eldrazi Displacer on the board. I play my smasher and he paths it, I still swing him down to 4 life thanks to sorin powered tokens, leaving 1 token back to protect sorin. I ghost quarter his caves of koilos to take him off colorless so he can't use his displacer ability to remove my tokens, cast my third smasher of the game and he concedes.
Game 2: He opens with thalia on T2, I pass on T2, and he plays arbiter on T3 and swings. I path the thalia, he gets no search. He also ghost quarters a godless shrine but I'm fine with that as I was holding an eldrazi temple in hand that I did not want destroyed. On my T3 I -3/-3 his arbiter with strangler.He passes T3, on my T3 I cast CoBr, one mode to make him discard, he paths strangler in response, I make him discard a second path since I was hoping to play smasher next turn. He casts Gideon on T4 and makes a 2/2 token. I swing with the smasher I play, taking Gideon down to 1 thru his blocker. He casts TKS and takes away anguished unmaking, and makes a new token. This is the moment I lost the game, where smasher failed to trample enough to take out Gideon and then my only way to remove it was taken from me next turn. He ran away with the game through 2/2 tokens and drawing creatures while I drew dead cards like lands and thoughtseize. I did get a souls draw in there but he removed one with a strangler ETB trigger and one with a flickerwisp ETB.
game 3: Kept an opening 7 that had T2 reshaper, strangler, and dismember. I open with reshaper on T2, he plays a sculler and takes the anguished unmaking I just drew on my turn. That's bad for me as that's my only way in hand to exile something and enable a strangler process, which is hugely important in this matchup where board presence swings mean everything. T3 I play a land and swing with reshaper and pass. His T3 he plays displacer, when he swings with it I dismember it so I can get my anguish back. On my T4 I anguish the displacer so I can swing in with reshaper and because I'm 90% sure he's going to play a creature on his next turn and I plan to remove it with strangler. He plays a strangler and removes my reshaper, I strangler to remove his strangler. On his T5 he plays a fickerwisp only as board presence and passes, I'm at 14 life and he's at 11, I have a path and vault in hand so I activate shambling and swing with both it and strangler, ghost quarters shambling and trades wisp for strangler. He casts a sculler so I path it before ETB trigger, he takes no cards. I topdeck a thoughtseize and cast it to remove a path from his hand. Activate my second shambling and swing him down to 7. He passes turn and I draw and play a strangler and swing again with shambling, now he's down to 5 and I'm presenting lethal. He plays an arbiter and passes, and I swing with both strangler and shambling, he trades with strangler and is now down to 3. He topdecks a ghost quarter and I force him to use it by attacking with vent on my turn after I drew a land. I topdeck a land and he topdecks a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +0 to make a 2/2 token. Now I'm scared af. I topdeck a path and pass turn, he makes another token and passes. I topdeck a ghost quarter and pass, he casts a tidehollow so I path it before ETB, he takes nothing. He makes gideon a 5/5 and swings in, I'm down to 10 and he's still at 3. He then plays a strangler second main and my board is empty so nothing to -3/-3. I topdeck a TKS and he has an empty hand, I play it for board presence alone because he's presenting lethal with a gideon activation. He topdecks a shambling vent and here's where it gets weird, rather than making gideon a 5/5 and swinging for lethal while still holding a 2/2 knight token back to block my strangler or making another 2/2 token, he does his ultimate to get a board of a 4/3 strangler, and two 3/3 knight tokens, and swings in with the strangler and one of the 3/3 tokens. I block a 3/3 with my TKS and kill it, and take 4 from strangler down to 6. I really think this was a massive mistake by him, because he gains nothing from attacking with that 3/3 token as I'm sure as ***** not going to trade my TKS for a lone 4/3 strangler attacking when I'm at 10 life, and he pretty much just gives me a 3/3 token for free rather than holding it back to block. I topdeck a smasher and because of two eldrazi temples and the fact that it's turn 15 I'm able to cast the smasher and activate vault for the win, which made that mistake irrelevant anyway thanks to deathtouch on smasher.
Round 5: 0-2 vs. Death's Shadow (4-1)
Game 1: Kept a slow hand with 3 lands (1 being a temple), souls, and a path. They open T1 with a Gitaxian Probe, then play a Monastary Swiftspear, then play a Mishra's Bauble for prowess and swing for two. I pass on T1 because I'm holding a path for the swiftspear, but he doesn't pump or prowess it at all so I held the path. My reasoning behind this was if I can use something like strangler to remove these early game creatures, and save paths for Death's Shadow, that is the better line to victory. He plays a wild nacatl and passes. So now it's my T2 and I have the choice of playing a ratchet bomb or passing and holding a path. I debate about this but ultimately with me being at 16 life I am too afraid of something like probe + Mutagenic Growth + 1 more 1 cost spell spell + Temur Battle Rage to swing in for lethal, and if I went with ratchet bomb I'd be folding to that. I think this was my biggest mistake of the league and I over thought it too much, I should have went with ratchet, which would have wiped both his creatures on the board in 1 turn and would make him have to have the combo in his hands. Sometimes you can't play around the threat or fear of what potential they have, you have to play the odds of them having the right answer/threat/etc. It also hurt that I never got a look at his hand, as it does against infect. He plays a swiftspear and swings in with two of those and a nacatl, I path the nacatl because he doesn't pump the swiftspears, I'm down to 13. On my T3 I have to play the ratchet bomb, but now it's a lot easier for him to have lethal than it was a turn ago and I would have slowed him down from playing more creatures on the board the previous turn because the threat of ratchet bomb blowing up had I played it on T2. He has two cards in hand, swings in with his creatures, and casts mutagenic growth and Temur battle rage on his nacatl, attacking with 16 damage and killing me.
Game 2: Kept a really solid opening hand of ratchet bomb, sorin, vault, path, souls, mind stone, two lands. Play marsh flats and pass turn, he probes on his T1 and thougthseizes away ratchet. topdeck a land, play mind stone and pass. He plays Death's Shadow and passes, and I play a Sorin and make a 2/2 flyer. Maybe I should have gone with lingering souls instead, but since I had a mind stone ramp I was looking forward to 4 souls tokens on T4, and Sorin on T3 seemed good as well. He attacks with Death's Shadow and I block with the 2/2 flyer, he had 5 cards in hand and 3 untapped lands, and a 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays a goyf which I was not expecting to see (I don't play against this deck much), and had sided out all but 1 relic. I topdeck a ratchet bomb and play it and leave mana open for a path. He toughtseizes so I path death's shadow in response, and then he gets me good with Faith's Shield, another card I was not expecting to see. I topdeck a blessed alliance and I flash back souls and pass the turn with ratchet at 1. He pyroclasms my tokens away, inquisitions my blessed which ruined my plan of blowing up bomb to kill Death's shadow and then making them sacrifice goyf, thereby wiping their board, instead I had to use blessed in response to inquisition and heal for 4, and then blow up ratchet bomb to kill Death's Shadow but also buff goyf up to a 6/7 once it hit the yard. I'm at 12 and I topdeck a smasher on T6, play it but can't attack with it. He buffs up goyf and swings in with temur battlerage and goes over the top of smasher to kill me.
This deck seems to get hit just as hard as any other when it comes to needing to draw/have the right cards at the right time, but it just feels overall really consistent, and the cantrips make digging for answers feel plausible rather than desperate. And smasher is such a beast, especially chain casting them mid to late game. You hardly lose a game if you get to the point where you have smasher(s) on the board and the opponent can't remove or trade with them.
Also, at least on paper, Matter Reshaper feels bad man. What has it done for you, and how often do you actually capitalize on its' death clause?
The list looks fairly standard, except the two scullers and second sorin. Two sorins would be best with blight herders rather than smashers as a go wide strategy. With your list I'd recommend cutting two scullers for mind stones and the second Sorin for some spot removal or collective brutality. The synergy between CoBr and souls in an opening hand is insane, and mind stone has so many uses, mostly for ramping since our deck had a higher average CMC than most modern decks, we want to more consistently ramp.
Sorin is a lifegain card used to power souls or smasher for a big lifelink gain, it can put us way ahead in a grindy game and his ultimate is something decks that grind are afraid of, so they'll over extend to kill him. The 2/2 flyer has actually been quite useful a few times, such as a scenario where it's T4 or later and you have an empty board and hand. You top deck Sorin, drop a 2/2 flyer, and the next turn start up ticking. I've seen both lilies do well in this slot, but that's about the only alternatives I think synergize well enough. The lifegain is also important to offset paining ourselves from lands, Thoughtseize, and anguished.
Matter Reshaper is awesome. It's either going to give you a draw, ramp you into TKS or smasher with a land, or best case flip a strangler, get the -3/-3 process, basically they kill reshaper only to lose a creature of their own and still be staring at a 3/2 body. Now that feelsbadman (for them). It's also a lot better of a T2 play than strangler. It eats up path to exiles so a followup TKS or smasher has alot easier time sticking to the board. I would run 4 in my list if I could fit it in, but there are games (few and far between) such as merfolk where you don't get opportunities to trade with it.
Edit: oops, just noticed you already had two CoBr in the main. Most people run a go for the throat or dismember for spot removal, I'm an advocate of dismemberest because I love Phyrexian mana and being able to cast it with one colorless land open, opponents rarely play around it.
Oh and deaddrift, I too have been toying with the idea of dropping discard for more removal as it seems like sometimes I can never have enough. A thought I had was running only 2x CoBr maindeck for discard, which obviously also doubles as removal, and moving 2x Thoughtseize to the side. Not too confident about it because Thoughtseize is a house against matchups like tron and bant eldrazi. I've also been reconsidering warping wail back in the side, my loss in the Ro8 to affinity was due to a really bad open G1 where I missed land drops T3 and T4, and G3 I had two dead stranglers in hand that I could have used to remove key robots on T3 and T4 if I had something in exile. Affinity is a matchup I bring like 8 or 9 cards in for, so all 4 relics come out, and warping wail could be used here to enable strangler and it hits a lot of other stuff. But the problem I have with WW is in many cases it's only a minor effect on the game, and I feel like sideboard cards should aim to heavily sway the game in our favor if we draw and play it. Your thoughts? Also you should consider a ratchet bomb maindeck for extra removal, there are so many decks it destroys (people all around my local meta are big on the swiftspear/TiTi decks, which both WW and ratchet bomb are good against) and really not many matchups where it's a terrible card G1 (like tron). Even against a deck like Jund where it's not key to winning, it's a threat they need to account for because it wipes out basically all of their creatures.
Pretty much agree with all 6 points here. Taking out one tron land is often not enough because of how resilient tron is, but I have had recent success against a GW tron player by hitting two expedition maps (one he drew after I played it) with a T1 pithing needle, then as he slowly recovered from that I slowed him down yet again with a ghost quarter and squeaked out a win before he got going. Just tonight on mtgo against some U/G tron list, I won a game through a fast clock via T2 reshaper into T3 TKS, and I baited a condescend with souls T4 and anguished an o-stone T5, T6 he plays a wurmcoil as his only chance to survive the next attack by me, and I had the path waiting for several turns to use. I also recently added 1 surgical extraction back in the sideboard to combo with my ghost quarters (and 1x fulminator in the side) against tron and valakut, and surgical is decent in a few other matchups as well so it's not dedicated to only that use.
Against greedy mana decks like jund, or really any 3-color deck, if you path and/or quarter enough you'll see fail to finds. It just doesn't happen all too often because of how much of the meta is linear aggro.
Crucible is definitely better over Grim Discovery. I'm actually thinking about picking one up with store credit sometime to have the option to sideboard it if there's hatebears/ponza/etc.
Infect can definitely be rough, I played in a competitive modern tournament last Saturday, my two losses being to infect in group stage and affinity in Ro8. The infect match was really close all 3 games, it was seriously intense. I think because of Gitaxian Probe (which he saw at least two of the three games early) gives them a huge leg up on us if we don't also see their hand, this matchup is very much like a game of chess, where you're planning turns ahead and thinking about how to sequence to have the right removal at the right time. If we don't draw enough removal, or if we have dead strangler's in hand and can't use their -3/-3 because there's nothing in exile, we're going to lose very very fast. I ended up losing game three to a very bad mistake, he had an empty hand and drew a card for turn, swung in presenting lethal with two attackers, I blocked one attacker to trade with reshaper and cast dismember on the other creature which was a blinkmoth nexus, and like a dumbass I wasn't prepared for him to have a counterspell and I paid two black mana intead of 4 life for the dismember. Turns out the card he topdecked was Spell Pierce and I couldn't pay the 2 to stop it. If you have the proper removal you still need very tight play, whoever makes more mistakes will lose givn both players have competitive hands and topdecks early on.
If you want to run Arbiter, you should just to the eldrazi n taxes list, it is incredibly good at executing a lockdown plan. And honestly with this build we want to be accelerating with mind stone, dropping a relic or discard, or dropping a T2 reshaper with temple (my personal favorite) on T2, not playing a 2/2 hatebear.
It is not surprising to see the new liliana in the deck. It was talked about a few pages ago starting here but nobody has reported on it. I think that it is an amazing fit for our deck but I am waiting until it gets much cheaper to pick a few up.
The more surprising thing, to me, is running 3x blight herder and ZERO discard! I have always been hesitant to cut discard from this deck, but maybe I should give it a try.
What surprises me is the amount of double black on 3 cards in the maindeck with that manabase, as well as sculler with that manabase. It seems way lighter on B/W lands than previous sculler versions I've seen. The discard maybe makes sense when you factor in T2 sculler taking cards away from the opponent. I'm down to 3 discard maindeck myself (with no scullers). It is strange to see 6 5-drops, haven't had many lists with that high of a curve for months now.
I can understand the fulminator in the main, I've felt for a while that my weakest matchups are to decks running tron lands, eldrazi temple, and valakut. Also it can be re-cast through bringing it out of the yard with Lili, which would shut down tron quite a bit. Also 2x thoughtseize in the side rather than main is an interesting take.
What I don't get is the two caverns when running sculler and fulminator, which it can't make uncounterable, in a deck that is stressed for B/W lands. And lastly, no ratchet bomb, EE, or other sweepers before T4 in the side. Is the high curve and lack of sweeper indicative of the meta this deck was played in? Perhaps this deck did well because the tournament had few aggro decks and lots of midrange; I can see this build excelling in that meta.
I know people tested Westvale Abbey a few months back. Why did it fall out of favor?
We just don't have the 1/1 tokens to consistently flip it, and if you're saccing 3/2 bodies to flip it's not ideal. I had it in my maindeck for a couple months at least, and I think maybe one or two games the flip made the difference. It's just a win-more card unless its a clogged up board (like against jund) and you need the flyer to go over the top. Also, between ghost quarters, cavern of souls, and Black/White lands, there just isn't a slot for a colorless only producing land that doesn't consistently perform.
I'll take a proper look over your SB guide later but don't you just slide in all your SB against mill? Their plan is to mill so having more cards is like having more life. I'd start at 22.5 life against burn if I could game 2.
I think it's best to only bring in relevant SB cards and trim nothing against mill. We are still racing them and drawing a dead card like stony silence or Damnation is really bad.
I'm always scratching my head about relic of progenitus wether to board it out entirely or not.
It just feels dead / slow against some decks and i haven't got enough Stuff to board in here.
If you look for the times I take out all 4 RoP in the list I wrote up, it happens only in matchups where they have ZERO graveyard play and I'm siding in like 7-9 cards and need to make some room (affinity, Bant Eldrazi, Tron). The cantrip of a T1 or T2 relic for card advantage is something to not undervalue, and as Deaddrift states, the ability to dig through the deck is very important as our deck consists of 3 things - threats, removal, ways to dig for them. Also a topdeck relic late isn't really that bad, as you can probably play it and crack it for a new card right away. It's not like topping a Thoughtseize after T5 bad. If there's an opportunity at all to get value from the graveyard exile ability on RoP, I'm definitely doing everything I can to keep it in. It's just such a value card against the graveyard play that is all over modern.
edit: I've also had incredibly durdly opens where I go through 3 relics and both mind stones by turn 5-6 and don't get threats, but I don't think that means the cards are bad for the deck, just variance.
So here's my list and SB guide I ran at the FtF 3k open last week with 176 players. I'm interested in peoples thoughts on the SB guide. If they agree or disagree with choices. Any questions on my choices feel free to ask.
Edit: PtE = Path to exile, TS = thoughtsezie, IoK = inquisition of kozilek, RoP = relic of progenitus, CoBr = collective brutality, GtfT = Go for the throat, Dec = Declaration in Stone, BA = Blessed alliance
Bant Eldrazi - Definitely bring in Blessed Alliance here. Usually only the sacrifice is relevant, but hitting a TKS or Smasher with it will happen very often, which is great. You've got relics to take out for them, they are way better than a cantrip here. I had not been bringing Pithing Needle in for this matchup, I overlooked how crazy the Displacer/Drowner combo can destroy us late in a stalled board-state. I run two Pithings and I think I'll try bringing them in and taking out more copies of Lingering Souls. Souls is quite weak against any deck running maindeck EE/ratchet and Smashers.
Speaking of Pithing Needles, I'm not sure if this is agreed upon widely, but personally I bring them in against any Sakura-Tribe Elder decks, pretty much Breach and Valakut. The way I see it is shutting down Tribe elder will slow them down, and that is exactly what we need to do in both matchups, be faster.
R/G Tron - Not sure if GftT is worth keeping in for pretty much just World Breaker, which is better to exile anyway.
Kiki Chord - I keep Thoughtseize in here, wanting as much hand removal to keep them off a T4 kiki combo. Obviously seize isn't great with their graveyard play through Eternal Witness, but I see Lingering Souls as weak in this matchup so I take two copies of that out instead. Not sure who's plan is better here, just mentioning that I do this matchup differently.
Cards - It seems Warping Wail is not brought in very often, especially against the higher % played decks. Maybe its a local metal choice and does work, but if it's not I suggest taking them out. I see Collective Brutality as basically a better version of WW, especially when the biggest draw to both is stopping a powerful sorcery (CoBr insant as well). With two open slots in the SB I'd bring in a second pithing needle, insta win in some games and useful in so many matchups. Your SB guide inspired me to rewrite one up for my current list, and out of 32+ matchups I bring Pithing in for 20, and in quite a few drawing both is great (infect and affinity for example). With the other slot without a doubt Anguished Unmaking. I see having one in the 75 minimum as highly important. Problem permanents (Ensnaring Bridge) and matchups where it shines (Tron/Infect) make it an asset that needs to be something you can bring in for G2 and 3.
I've also recently learned that at FNM you are allowed to have sideboard notes, you're just only allowed to look at them during sideboarding between games. It's a crutch I can use since I've only been playing mtg for basically a year and there's no way I can mentally catalog 30+ possible decks to face, and what to take out or bring in for them all. Also, running into time and losing or tying because of it sucks, so speeding up the sideboard part of the match is good, especially if you have no clue what to do in a certain matchup.
I like skite to interrupt buff decks like infect and bogles(as well as for stopping opponent's path on my TKS or smasher, when I hear 'in response to thought-knots trigger, path it', I die a little inside. It's just a solid T2 play to protect a T3 followup TKS or if the mtg gods are shining down on me T3 smasher), fulminator to slow down land decks like tron and valakut, and EE for asap removal of wide and/or fast aggro. Everything else is pretty standard for the sideboard.
Here's what Ive got(copying your framework out of laziness which I will play off as efficiency, I will say though not much a fan of the PtE abbreviation as it's only one letter shorter than path). Also the link in my sig is up to date list + sideboard:
PtE = Path to exile, TS = thoughtseize, IoK = inquisition of kozilek, RoP = relic of progenitus, CoBr = collective brutality, GtfT = Go for the throat, Dec = Declaration in Stone, BA = Blessed alliance
Deck: Soul Sisters
Out: -3 TS, -1 dismember, -1 PtE, -1 RoP (couldn't decide on Path or relic, relic seeming relevant because of Proclimation of Rebirth, but I had to look up a list on Mtggoldfish because Ive personally never played this matchup. It says 50% of decks run 3 copies, so maybe the decision comes down to whether you see it in game 1. I also see T2 reshaper as very relevant against their quick open)
In: +2 Damnation, +1 anguish, +1 Pithing, +2 EE
Deck: TiTi Ascension
Out: -4 souls (honestly not liking this choice, but I see relic as very key if you don't have removal for Ascension. If that thing goes off, with how much they can dig they can take the game over very fast. Paths need to stay in for TiTi removal, and I feel like all the eldrazi need to stay in for pressure because we need to be faster)
In: +2 EE, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Matter Reshaper is the real deal. It is card advantage on a stick, and makes for an excellent T2 play where Strangler might lose value for lack of targets or processor fuel. Even better than flipping a second Reshaper when the first dies, to my way of thinking, is flipping a Strangler that can process and kill something else--sometimes even the big thing that killed the Reshaper in the first place. I would love to have room for a 4th Reshaper in my deck.
That's why I've gone down to 3 strangler and 4 reshapers, I'd love to have 4 of each but it's really hard to make that happen as I don't want to take anything else out. Other than the situations you mentioned (reshaper being much better T2 play, flipping a strangler with the trigger), being able to target reshaper in order to process a search for tomorrow or Ancestral Vision is much better than having to target the strangler itself. These reasons are why I run 4 reshapers, the biggest being I really really like reshaper as a T2 play and want that as often as possible, and strangler is more difficult to guarantee value beyond a 3/2 body. If you play a reshaper you are highly likely going to get value from the trigger, or from them pathing it, thus having one less removal for a TKS/Smasher followup. Ideally I'd have 4 of each, but it's hard to get 16 creatures in the maindeck. Oh, I also forgot, getting a reshaper trigger into a land ramp or them pathing it for ramp before your T3 is really good with smasher (obviously if you dropped a T2 reshaper you've got the temple).
I had an idea for a post, not sure if I'm going to make the effort or not. The idea would be to create a list of problems and answers and see if it would be possible to correlate which set of cards would most broadly cover ALL of the potential problems while using up the least amount of deck space. That is the end goal I am shooting for. It's why I run Thoughtseize but not Inquisition. It's why I have two Unmaking instead of other options, two Bombs, etc.
What about a sort of sideboard/flexslot guide or post? It would be a table with the left column being 30 or so of the most poplular decks, top column would be best flex/SB cards, and the table would have an 'x' to mark where a certain card is good/sided in in a particular matchup. It could also include In/Out guides for those matchups. I've got similar notes, both a table and In/Out notes, for my local meta that I used to decide on my personal flex/SB cards and could post that over the weekend if it would be beneficial. I will admit though my In/Out ideas are probably pretty bad in some cases, sideboarding in general is one of my weaknesses with this deck.
I dunno, doesn't seem super great, can't cast any of our strong creatures off of it and like Sburani said for 4 mana I'd prefer to cast Damnation. That being said against go wide decks like elves it may be worth it.
I definitely agree, Damnation is better since they are both double B and 4 CMC. This card is maybe better than flaying tendrils in that it's easier to cast double B on T4 rather than T3. Also getting a free 3-cost spell on T4 doesn't seem very exciting for this deck. Question: If I play lingering souls with the free cast, do they resolve after the -3/-3 resolves? Lastly, Damnation is solid in matchups like bant eldrazi and jund, which this new card would basically do not even close to as much of a boardwipe.
Right now i'm trying 2 thought seizes and 2 brutality, but feel like only 2 T1 discard is a little risky on the current meta. Also playing a split of 2 matter reshapers and 2 displacers, the latter as a threat removal more than a TKS blinker. reseting a Delver or tapping some troublesome creatures to land TKS blows is really good, because of lack of evasion.
Also thiking of dropping sea gate wreakage for a second vault or OGT oran-rif.
Yesterday I saw a list somewhere running 1-of Phyrexian metamorph. Do you think it could be a thing? as a 5th smasher/TKS?
That's the same reason I love the deck, it may not beat down as well as bant eldrazi, or jund as well as jund, but the games are exciting and the different angles to winning keep it fresh. I was actually thinking the same thing for discard, cutting my ratchet bomb from the main to get back to 4 discard, and running a 2-2 split of CoBr and seize. My thought was CoBr is a waaay better late game top deck and I hate drawing dead cards. But like you I'm not totally convinced, there are some matchups where you really really want to seize T1 or T2 (bant eldrazi and bogles for example). I don't see the two life loss on seize as a factor to not run it, we've got plenty of main deck lifegain.
Edit: I wouldn't recommend a second vault, it is an absolute beast when it's effect is usable, but when it's not it's just a wastes and I'd recommend some B/W land instead to help with casting colored cards.
Phyrexian Metamorph does look interesting. I hadn't seen that card before, but if I had to guess why it's not played it's because we have to pay 2 life every time to cast it since we have no blue source. And playing it on T3 to get that ramp value from the Phyrexian mana would really only come into play with an opening hand like this: 2x temple, TKS, a 3rd land, and metamorph. That won't happen too often.
Edit: didn't see someone else already said this
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Mimic is a bit underwhelming for me, I think it competes with taplands/relic/mind stone/reshaper on T2 quite a bit, and I'd have a lot of trouble making room for it. Also I don't think it is what we want, because it dies to bolt and push without giving us value. It could work in a Herder shell, and replace some or all copies of Tidehollow as it is a much better late-game draw (usually). Lastly, it's not that often I swarm the board with eldrazi, that usually only happens with T2 reshaper -> T3 TKS -> T3 smasher, most often they kill my eldrazi off and I win off of being able to keep playing them when they run out of targeted removal. Swarming the board usually happens with souls tokens and that line could get blown out by Anger the Gods, which is seeing all kinds of play thanks to dredge.
The BG shell seems decent because of the power of birds and stirrings, but I think if I went green for those two things I'd just go Bant Eldrazi because I see push as a supplement to Path, not a replacement. I still think path is the king. That's why I'm so excited for Push in the B/W shell, because it means we will have more cheap targeted removal for matchups like infect/merfolk/elves/etc. I think Push could give processors a nice bump in its machup winrates with some of the tougher aggro matchups, and obviously it should slow down the format as a whole with many decks playing it. I'm really thinking this card was their answer to the current modern meta, and we won't be seeing much for bannings. If you look at meta % dredge topped at like 10-13% or something over a month ago, and currently the meta is pretty well spread out. the top percentages are: 8%, 8%, 7%, 7%, 6%, and then 5 decks at 5%. That is seriously the best numbers I've seen since I started paying attention to them around 9 months ago.
I ran without a maindeck anguished for a month or maybe more, and I missed it dearly. There's just so many games where a planeswalker, ensnaring bridge, blood moon, whatever else sticks on the board because you don't have that out, and I'm not a fan of giving up free Game 1's. I was definitely thinking the GftT/Dismember slot in the maindeck would now be push, and for the other push slot (I like the idea of 4 path 2 push maindeck), I was thinking either going down to 2 reshaper, or moving Sorin to the side.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Yeah it looks insane, it kills infect and affinity creatures, pumped Swiftspears, merfolk and elf creatures, and can kill anything up to an opposing TKS or Kalitas. This is the low cost removal we needed, and probably is a 2-of in the side at the very least and might deserve 2 maindeck slots, taking the dismember/GftT slot.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
On mtgo, I had both a 4-1 league and 1-4 league. The first started 4-0, my best start yet, and I got just crushed by living end in round 5. I mean it was insane. Do you guys have any suggestions for this matchup other than cracking relic to empty the GY at opportune times? The 1-4 league started with just abysmal hands, mulligans, and flooding, as well as a couple blood moon opponents. I'll be adding a wastes to my sideboard on mtgo now, it would have without a doubt helped those matches. Then I just got tilted and played poorly the last couple of rounds, such as mis clicking a ratchet bomb and ticking up rather than blowing it up, costing me the game. My mtgo list can be found on my tappedout.net. these were both friendly leagues as I think it's too difficult to make a 12 dollar entry back with a non tiered deck with any consistency in competitive leagues, often I'm finishing 3-2 or 2-3 and I've been slowly accumulating tix through friendly leagues.
Edit: Finished another league to 4-1, again starting 4-0 and then losing to Death's Shadow in round 5 this time. Used This list for it.
Round 1: 2-1 vs. Grixis Delver (1-0)
Game 1: T3 play souls and T4 flash it back. I could have opened faster here with a Reshaper first, but he was playing untap-go as Blue/Black so I assumed some form of Grixis Control with lots of counters and figured souls was a better open to bait out counterspells. He passes on his T4 so I drop a reshaper and start swinging in, his following turn he plays a Tasigur which I path asap. At some point he killed the reshaper with Kolaghan's Command making me discard, discard relic into a relic off of the reshaper trigger. The turn after I pathed Tasigur I drop a smasher and he concedes with 16 life and 5 cards in hand, tapped out though. Wtf?
Game 2: He suspends ancestral vision on T1, meanwhile I have two stranglers in my opening hand. He also drops a Tasigur on T3 thanks to delve, my T3 I strangler and eat vision, thanfully I could now throw the -3/-3 on Tasigur rather than killing my own strangler to do it. He swings with Tasigur and I don't block, my following turn he flashes in Snapcaster to Thought Scour and block the attacking Strangler. I also play Souls on this turn. Then he swings in with Tasigur and I chump with a token. My T5 I play a TKS over a smasher to get a look at his hand since he had 6 cards, he Terminates it before ETB trigger, and when I see his hand I see: Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command, Damnation, Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, and Duress. My hand was smasher, strangler, and Wreckage and he ended up running away with the game because I could not keep up with that amount of removal. I believe I brought in 1 Pithing Needle after this game just for Tasigur. Oh, and he played three Sun Droplets over the course of what turned out to be a 25 turn game for each of us, him having 5 cards in his deck when he wins and me having drawn over half my deck and not seeing either ratchet bomb to take out the Droplets. He won off of snapping back lightning bolts from the GY over and over lol, that was a new one, this was not a win condition I saw coming and I didn't see many relics anyway to stop it, only one the whole game. The good thing that came out of this game is I went from a 4 minute deficit on the clock (13:00 to 17:00) to being tied at 9:00 going into game 3. My strategy here was to draw this game out and make up clock time while hoping for a ratchet bomb or making him mill out.
Game 3: We both open slowly, the first play is me with a ratchet bomb on T3. Holding a smasher and Pithing Needle in hand, drawing lots of lands. He bolts my EOT on T4 where I dropped a land and passed and then on his T4 plays Tasigur. I topdeck a temple and play my Pithing Needle naming Tasigur and attacking in with smasher which he decides not to chump. He swings in with Tasigur, plays delver and passes. My T6 I swing in with smasher and activate Vault because it's really my only play as I had Vault, shambling, and a swamp in my hand at the time. Turn 6 and I had 6 lands on the battlefield and two in my hand. He does not block, so I heal to 16 and take him down to 9. He plays a Gurmag Angler on his T6, I topdeck a path and target the angler with it and swing in with a vault powered smasher again. He trades with the delver that hadn't flipped yet and the Tasigur, and I was happy and expecting this as I could do 1 damage to each thanks to deathtouch and trample him down to 5, and heal to 21 with a shambling vent in hand to keep the pressure on. He Kolaghan's commands my shambling from my hand, and plays a Tasigur. I topdeck anguished and kill the Tasigur. This whole time ratchet bombs been sitting at 2 because Sun droplet was my only priority for it, he never ended up playing it this game. He delvers and then passes, on my turn on my draw phase after I draw dismember he casts Snapcaster targeting his Kolaghan's to make me discard, I dismember the currently 1/1 delver in response so his Kolaghan's whiffs. He just uses it to do 2 damage to me. His next turn he delvers and passes, I draw a strangler and -3/-3 the delver. He bolts the strangler to swing in with snappy, now its his 4 to my 12 life, I topdeck a land and pass. Then 3 life to 10 as he fetches and I topdeck another land. When he swings with snap the following turn I blow up the ratchet to kill it as I start to get worried about bolt + snapcaster finishing me off, he has a bolt in the GY at the time. I topdeck a relic, cycle for a draw and to clear his GY, and get a TKS which I cast and he casts Mana Leak, I play the 3 to avoid the counter. He bolts face before ETB trigger and now has zero cards in hand for TKS to exile. He fetches down to 2 to thin the deck because he needs an answer to TKS swinging, passes turn with 1 card in hand. Topdeck a smasher and he concedes when I cast it.
Round 2: 2-1 vs. G/W Tron (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a hand with two temples, anguished, koilos, CoBr, path, and relic, a bit slow but it's game 1 and I feel if i draw any eldrazi in my first 3 turns I'm pretty set. Turns out its tron and I had nothing to interrupt his plan, He has two tron lands in hand and sphere's for a green and to cast Sylvan Scrying on T2 and have tron. I scoop because I want to reveal as little info to him as I can in the hopes he doesn't know what I'm on. I think it was the right decision as he did take a while to sideboard.
Game 2: Opening 7 has a pithing needle, ghost quarter, strangler, souls, 3 lands. Instant keep as it already has two ways of slowing him down and pithing also shuts down O-stone and plainswalkers. I hold off on playing ghost quarter until the turn I anticipate using it, in case I get to get a look at his hand and see any duplicates for tron lands to avoid hitting that one. He plays a power plant and tower from his hand T1 and T2, my T3 I play the ghost quarter targeting Tower. He plays mine and casts Sylvan scrying with the forest he got from GQ and is now back to having tron up the following turn. Yay us! My T4 I have two pithings, two souls, a smasher, and strangler in hand, and I jam a pithing needle anticipating a possible karn the next turn and play strangler. He assembles tron and plays.....CHROMATIC STAR!?!? and passes. With 6 cards in his hand at this point I'm 95% sure I just saved my own ass by jamming naming karn before seeing it. I don't have the lands to play smasher so I swing with strangler and cast a souls. He wurmcoils, I anguish it. He plays a land and with 6 cards in hand and 11 mana passes the turn. I finally get a land to start smashing and I also have two smashers in my hand, so I drop one and swing in, he paths the smasher but still goes down to 6 from strangler and 2 souls tokens. He plays o-stone and passes. My first main I play my second pithing, knowing he'll crack the o-stone in response so I can't lock him out of it, which he does. I still name o-stone with it as I have a followup smasher and Ugin is not a threat in that position. He goes down to 1, next turn plays Ulamog and exiles smasher and eldrazi temple. No idea why he chose eldrazi temple over the pithing needle naming o-stone (other pithing which was naming karn was destroyed from the o-stone wipe earlier), as I had 5 lands including temple on the board and a souls and path in my hand. On my turn I path the ulamog and cast a souls, now having two tokens on the battlefield and two copies of souls in my GY. He's at 1 health, COME ON BABY I WANT TO BEAT TRON. He casts Ugin and destroys my souls and my dreams. I topdeck a surgical (which I have yet to see a single time to pair it up with ghost quarter, which is much of the reason I brought it into the sideboard recently), and anguish his ugin and pass with only the surgical in hand and 1 land short of flashing back a souls. He ghost quarters a godless shrine and passes. Topdeck a mind stone and play it, then flash back one of the souls. With him at 1 life its a much better play than casting both souls cards. He topdecks no answer and concedes, WE MADE IT. I am always happy to even take 1 game off tron, it is so difficult to pull off much of the time.
Game 3: Commence the total reversal of roles here. The poor guy didn't even play magic, he casts both expedition map and chromatic star on the play on T2, and with him tapped out I stony silence on my T2 making them both dead cards. His T3 he plays a brushland and passes, now I know he is far behind because that means he has urza's power plant on the battlefield and zero tron lands in hand. On my T3 I play a ghost quarter and remove his power plant, and use temple to cast a strangler and get a clock going. He plays a mine and passes. I swing in with strangler and pass, I'm stuck on 2 lands after saccing my GQ and even though I've got two pithings and can jam one down, I decide to hold up for the warping wail I just drew, hoping to counter a Sylvan Scrying or Ancient Stirrings. He plays nothing and passes, I swing with strangler and pass as I drew a path instead of a land and am now beginning to worry that even with massively slowing him down I'm not presenting enough of a clock with a single strangler. He plays a mine and passes, now 1 topdeck short of tron online. I topdeck a temple and swing him down to 11 with strangler and play souls. He warping wails the souls. He plays nothing and passes, I draw a marsh flats and flashback the souls and swing him down to 8, pass turn with an open marsh flats and 3 paths in hand. He thragtusks and I decide not to path it because he'd get the 3/3 token anyway. Also he was at 5 lands so I knew if I pathed he would potentially be 1 topdecked land away from a karn without tron online. I swing in and he blocks my strangler with the 5/3 and I get him back down to 11 with the souls. Play a matter reshaper and pass turn, he passes his turn and on his end step I path his 3/3 token. I topdeck a smasher and thanks to two temples am able to swing him down to 1 life, he uses 6 lands to cast a wurmcoil on his turn which is immediately pathed and I seal the deal on the tron menace.
Round 3: 2-0 vs. Jund (3-0) This was the saltiest person I've faced in friendly leagues, usually it's little talking or questions about mechanics or friendly banter in chat, as most people are focusing on not playing slow thanks to the possibility of losing due to playing slower than the opponent. But this guy claimed I had the best topdeck and draw luck ever, to which I replied that with 4 maindeck relics, souls, smashers, and paths, that I'm quite favored in the matchup both G1 and post board. He then says something about well thats good, but you have other decks to beat too (assuming he means to call the processors deck bad?) to which I replied that I was 3-0 and had already made my entry back, so it can't be that bad. Sometimes I get the feeling Jund players can get this sense of entitlement that because they spent $2000 on their deck it means they should be unbeatable in grindy creature and removal matchups. And frankly, I quite enjoyed systematically destroying him both game 1 and 2 as he whines in the chat about topdeck luck (meanwhile he topdecks abrupt decay the turn before I play a TKS game 2, allowing him to remove it and get a draw as I cast it).
Game 1: I am on the play, thoughtseize away his terminate as I have a temple and TKS ready to go for T3. His T1 and my T2 are both passed, he drops Goyf on T2. I path it right away as I have a backup dismember in hand. T3 I TKS taking Kalitas, he has a bolt and two lands in hand. He land drops and passes. T5 I swing with TKS and hold a strangler back, because it can be bolted I want to make use of it's -3/-3 as removal. He plays Dark Confidant and passes, I remove it with strangler and he bolts strangler. Swing him down to 9 with TKS. He topdecks Liliana of the Veil and makes me sac TKS, I topdeck anguish but decide to activate shambling to finish off Lili who's at 1 loyalty counter. he plays another lili and with 1 card in hand he does not uptick, I don't mind at all since my two cards in hand are dismember and anguish. I anguish lili, play a relic I just drew, and pass. He inquisitions my dismember and activates and swings with Raging Ravine. I can't stop it as my hand is empty. I topdeck a ghost quarter and play it, and swing in with my shambling to heal to 13 and put him to 7. He passes turn, I topdeck a smasher and rather than play it I decide to take him down to 5 with vent and followup with the surprise smasher the following turn, he bolts the shambling so there goes that plan. He passes turn and I topdeck a mind stone, play smasher and swing him down to 2. He plays scooze and cats CoBr to drain 2 life and passes. I topdeck path and swing in to finish the game.
Game 2: He thoughtseizes away a path on T1, next play of the game is him casting Painful Truths for 3 on T3. I topdeck a much needed 3rd land and play a reshaper, also jam a pithing needle naming liliana since that land was a temple and I had 4 open mana. He plays Huntmaster of the Fells and passes. I topdeck a land and play smasher to swing in for 8, he does not block anything and goes down to 8. He passes turn so his huntmaster flips on my upkpeep, and he attacked with his creatures as well. He takes out reshaper on my upkeep with the trigger, which flips a relic. I anguish the huntmaster and swing in with smasher, he terminates it. On his turn he activates raging ravine, swings me down to 4 life with that and the 2/2 wolf token. I topdeck a TKS but the play I have to make is to cast a souls so I can use 1 to chump the raging ravine the next turn or I would have to chump the TKS to it. He activates ravine and double swings, I double chump. I topdeck a temple which allows me to TKS taking terminate and flash back souls. He had a lili in hand but could not play it thanks to my pithing needle earlier. He terminates TKS and swings with the 2/2 wolf, I take it out with two souls tokens as I have a followup souls in hand he has no clue about, its his 6 life to my 4 life, and I know if I can remove the raging ravine I'll win. He thoughtseizes a souls away (over a ratchet bomb), 4 life to 4. I had wanted to cycle relic here for a draw but could not once souls hit the GY, it was a mistake that I did not do it in response to the thoughtseize but I think at the time I felt like there was no way he'd choose souls over ratchet bomb. At this point I just chump his raging ravine for a turn, then I cycle relic to draw into another souls. Swing him down to 3 with my token, play 4 more tokens, he sends a salty message in the chat. He plays kitchen finks to go up to 5, and plays a second raging ravine. I go full yolo and swing in for the win with 5 tokens and him at 5 life, and him having two cards in hand. He abrupt decays a token to go down to 1 life. I hold back a strangler in hand so I can activate my shambling to chump the ravine once he goes for it on his turn, he draws his card and concedes.
Round 4: 2-1 vs. Eldrazi n Taxes (Stranglers and TKS's, no smashers, seemingly no aether vials at all which I would assume is for budget reasons) (4-0)
Game 1: I open with thoughtseize, seeing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, two Leonin Arbiters, and Flickerwisp. I take an arbiter as I have 1 path for one of the arbiters, and he had a ghost quarter and a path of his own and I did not want to allow him to shut me out of lands, as that is when their deck performs best. T2 I land pass, anticipating to path a creature he plays and then -3/-3 with a strangler the following turn. He thalias which I did not anticipate, for some reason I was thinking he could both play an arbiter and use ghost quarter on T2, and I am unable to path since I played a tapped godless shrine. Definitely a misplay by me, trying to get too cute. I path the thalia on my turn, being one mana short of casting a relic to get something in exile allowing me to -3/-3 without casting path. Would have much preferred that play. He arbiters and ghost quarters my eldrazi temple, I strangler and kill the arbiter. He plays thalia and passes, I play relic and pass, and he casts Tidehollow Sculler and I allow it to resolve rather than pathing it before the trigger resolves, I was holding a souls and path and smasher and I wanted him to make a difficult decision on what to take. He took souls. I play another relic and pass, and on his turn I path the sculler. He gets stuck on three lands for a few turns and I get 4 souls tokens out with 2 smashers and a sorin in hand. I play smasher and swing in, he trades thalia and a strangler for smasher which I'm happy to do since it makes my spells cheaper to cast and I have a followup smasher. He plays a flickerwisp and takes out a souls token, and on my next turn I flash back souls to get 5 tokens total, drop sorin, and swing with 3 tokens. He trades with two of them and now has a lone Eldrazi Displacer on the board. I play my smasher and he paths it, I still swing him down to 4 life thanks to sorin powered tokens, leaving 1 token back to protect sorin. I ghost quarter his caves of koilos to take him off colorless so he can't use his displacer ability to remove my tokens, cast my third smasher of the game and he concedes.
Game 2: He opens with thalia on T2, I pass on T2, and he plays arbiter on T3 and swings. I path the thalia, he gets no search. He also ghost quarters a godless shrine but I'm fine with that as I was holding an eldrazi temple in hand that I did not want destroyed. On my T3 I -3/-3 his arbiter with strangler.He passes T3, on my T3 I cast CoBr, one mode to make him discard, he paths strangler in response, I make him discard a second path since I was hoping to play smasher next turn. He casts Gideon on T4 and makes a 2/2 token. I swing with the smasher I play, taking Gideon down to 1 thru his blocker. He casts TKS and takes away anguished unmaking, and makes a new token. This is the moment I lost the game, where smasher failed to trample enough to take out Gideon and then my only way to remove it was taken from me next turn. He ran away with the game through 2/2 tokens and drawing creatures while I drew dead cards like lands and thoughtseize. I did get a souls draw in there but he removed one with a strangler ETB trigger and one with a flickerwisp ETB.
game 3: Kept an opening 7 that had T2 reshaper, strangler, and dismember. I open with reshaper on T2, he plays a sculler and takes the anguished unmaking I just drew on my turn. That's bad for me as that's my only way in hand to exile something and enable a strangler process, which is hugely important in this matchup where board presence swings mean everything. T3 I play a land and swing with reshaper and pass. His T3 he plays displacer, when he swings with it I dismember it so I can get my anguish back. On my T4 I anguish the displacer so I can swing in with reshaper and because I'm 90% sure he's going to play a creature on his next turn and I plan to remove it with strangler. He plays a strangler and removes my reshaper, I strangler to remove his strangler. On his T5 he plays a fickerwisp only as board presence and passes, I'm at 14 life and he's at 11, I have a path and vault in hand so I activate shambling and swing with both it and strangler, ghost quarters shambling and trades wisp for strangler. He casts a sculler so I path it before ETB trigger, he takes no cards. I topdeck a thoughtseize and cast it to remove a path from his hand. Activate my second shambling and swing him down to 7. He passes turn and I draw and play a strangler and swing again with shambling, now he's down to 5 and I'm presenting lethal. He plays an arbiter and passes, and I swing with both strangler and shambling, he trades with strangler and is now down to 3. He topdecks a ghost quarter and I force him to use it by attacking with vent on my turn after I drew a land. I topdeck a land and he topdecks a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +0 to make a 2/2 token. Now I'm scared af. I topdeck a path and pass turn, he makes another token and passes. I topdeck a ghost quarter and pass, he casts a tidehollow so I path it before ETB, he takes nothing. He makes gideon a 5/5 and swings in, I'm down to 10 and he's still at 3. He then plays a strangler second main and my board is empty so nothing to -3/-3. I topdeck a TKS and he has an empty hand, I play it for board presence alone because he's presenting lethal with a gideon activation. He topdecks a shambling vent and here's where it gets weird, rather than making gideon a 5/5 and swinging for lethal while still holding a 2/2 knight token back to block my strangler or making another 2/2 token, he does his ultimate to get a board of a 4/3 strangler, and two 3/3 knight tokens, and swings in with the strangler and one of the 3/3 tokens. I block a 3/3 with my TKS and kill it, and take 4 from strangler down to 6. I really think this was a massive mistake by him, because he gains nothing from attacking with that 3/3 token as I'm sure as ***** not going to trade my TKS for a lone 4/3 strangler attacking when I'm at 10 life, and he pretty much just gives me a 3/3 token for free rather than holding it back to block. I topdeck a smasher and because of two eldrazi temples and the fact that it's turn 15 I'm able to cast the smasher and activate vault for the win, which made that mistake irrelevant anyway thanks to deathtouch on smasher.
Round 5: 0-2 vs. Death's Shadow (4-1)
Game 1: Kept a slow hand with 3 lands (1 being a temple), souls, and a path. They open T1 with a Gitaxian Probe, then play a Monastary Swiftspear, then play a Mishra's Bauble for prowess and swing for two. I pass on T1 because I'm holding a path for the swiftspear, but he doesn't pump or prowess it at all so I held the path. My reasoning behind this was if I can use something like strangler to remove these early game creatures, and save paths for Death's Shadow, that is the better line to victory. He plays a wild nacatl and passes. So now it's my T2 and I have the choice of playing a ratchet bomb or passing and holding a path. I debate about this but ultimately with me being at 16 life I am too afraid of something like probe + Mutagenic Growth + 1 more 1 cost spell spell + Temur Battle Rage to swing in for lethal, and if I went with ratchet bomb I'd be folding to that. I think this was my biggest mistake of the league and I over thought it too much, I should have went with ratchet, which would have wiped both his creatures on the board in 1 turn and would make him have to have the combo in his hands. Sometimes you can't play around the threat or fear of what potential they have, you have to play the odds of them having the right answer/threat/etc. It also hurt that I never got a look at his hand, as it does against infect. He plays a swiftspear and swings in with two of those and a nacatl, I path the nacatl because he doesn't pump the swiftspears, I'm down to 13. On my T3 I have to play the ratchet bomb, but now it's a lot easier for him to have lethal than it was a turn ago and I would have slowed him down from playing more creatures on the board the previous turn because the threat of ratchet bomb blowing up had I played it on T2. He has two cards in hand, swings in with his creatures, and casts mutagenic growth and Temur battle rage on his nacatl, attacking with 16 damage and killing me.
Game 2: Kept a really solid opening hand of ratchet bomb, sorin, vault, path, souls, mind stone, two lands. Play marsh flats and pass turn, he probes on his T1 and thougthseizes away ratchet. topdeck a land, play mind stone and pass. He plays Death's Shadow and passes, and I play a Sorin and make a 2/2 flyer. Maybe I should have gone with lingering souls instead, but since I had a mind stone ramp I was looking forward to 4 souls tokens on T4, and Sorin on T3 seemed good as well. He attacks with Death's Shadow and I block with the 2/2 flyer, he had 5 cards in hand and 3 untapped lands, and a 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays a goyf which I was not expecting to see (I don't play against this deck much), and had sided out all but 1 relic. I topdeck a ratchet bomb and play it and leave mana open for a path. He toughtseizes so I path death's shadow in response, and then he gets me good with Faith's Shield, another card I was not expecting to see. I topdeck a blessed alliance and I flash back souls and pass the turn with ratchet at 1. He pyroclasms my tokens away, inquisitions my blessed which ruined my plan of blowing up bomb to kill Death's shadow and then making them sacrifice goyf, thereby wiping their board, instead I had to use blessed in response to inquisition and heal for 4, and then blow up ratchet bomb to kill Death's Shadow but also buff goyf up to a 6/7 once it hit the yard. I'm at 12 and I topdeck a smasher on T6, play it but can't attack with it. He buffs up goyf and swings in with temur battlerage and goes over the top of smasher to kill me.
This deck seems to get hit just as hard as any other when it comes to needing to draw/have the right cards at the right time, but it just feels overall really consistent, and the cantrips make digging for answers feel plausible rather than desperate. And smasher is such a beast, especially chain casting them mid to late game. You hardly lose a game if you get to the point where you have smasher(s) on the board and the opponent can't remove or trade with them.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
The list looks fairly standard, except the two scullers and second sorin. Two sorins would be best with blight herders rather than smashers as a go wide strategy. With your list I'd recommend cutting two scullers for mind stones and the second Sorin for some spot removal or collective brutality. The synergy between CoBr and souls in an opening hand is insane, and mind stone has so many uses, mostly for ramping since our deck had a higher average CMC than most modern decks, we want to more consistently ramp.
Sorin is a lifegain card used to power souls or smasher for a big lifelink gain, it can put us way ahead in a grindy game and his ultimate is something decks that grind are afraid of, so they'll over extend to kill him. The 2/2 flyer has actually been quite useful a few times, such as a scenario where it's T4 or later and you have an empty board and hand. You top deck Sorin, drop a 2/2 flyer, and the next turn start up ticking. I've seen both lilies do well in this slot, but that's about the only alternatives I think synergize well enough. The lifegain is also important to offset paining ourselves from lands, Thoughtseize, and anguished.
Matter Reshaper is awesome. It's either going to give you a draw, ramp you into TKS or smasher with a land, or best case flip a strangler, get the -3/-3 process, basically they kill reshaper only to lose a creature of their own and still be staring at a 3/2 body. Now that feelsbadman (for them). It's also a lot better of a T2 play than strangler. It eats up path to exiles so a followup TKS or smasher has alot easier time sticking to the board. I would run 4 in my list if I could fit it in, but there are games (few and far between) such as merfolk where you don't get opportunities to trade with it.
Edit: oops, just noticed you already had two CoBr in the main. Most people run a go for the throat or dismember for spot removal, I'm an advocate of dismemberest because I love Phyrexian mana and being able to cast it with one colorless land open, opponents rarely play around it.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Against greedy mana decks like jund, or really any 3-color deck, if you path and/or quarter enough you'll see fail to finds. It just doesn't happen all too often because of how much of the meta is linear aggro.
Crucible is definitely better over Grim Discovery. I'm actually thinking about picking one up with store credit sometime to have the option to sideboard it if there's hatebears/ponza/etc.
Infect can definitely be rough, I played in a competitive modern tournament last Saturday, my two losses being to infect in group stage and affinity in Ro8. The infect match was really close all 3 games, it was seriously intense. I think because of Gitaxian Probe (which he saw at least two of the three games early) gives them a huge leg up on us if we don't also see their hand, this matchup is very much like a game of chess, where you're planning turns ahead and thinking about how to sequence to have the right removal at the right time. If we don't draw enough removal, or if we have dead strangler's in hand and can't use their -3/-3 because there's nothing in exile, we're going to lose very very fast. I ended up losing game three to a very bad mistake, he had an empty hand and drew a card for turn, swung in presenting lethal with two attackers, I blocked one attacker to trade with reshaper and cast dismember on the other creature which was a blinkmoth nexus, and like a dumbass I wasn't prepared for him to have a counterspell and I paid two black mana intead of 4 life for the dismember. Turns out the card he topdecked was Spell Pierce and I couldn't pay the 2 to stop it. If you have the proper removal you still need very tight play, whoever makes more mistakes will lose givn both players have competitive hands and topdecks early on.
If you want to run Arbiter, you should just to the eldrazi n taxes list, it is incredibly good at executing a lockdown plan. And honestly with this build we want to be accelerating with mind stone, dropping a relic or discard, or dropping a T2 reshaper with temple (my personal favorite) on T2, not playing a 2/2 hatebear.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
What surprises me is the amount of double black on 3 cards in the maindeck with that manabase, as well as sculler with that manabase. It seems way lighter on B/W lands than previous sculler versions I've seen. The discard maybe makes sense when you factor in T2 sculler taking cards away from the opponent. I'm down to 3 discard maindeck myself (with no scullers). It is strange to see 6 5-drops, haven't had many lists with that high of a curve for months now.
I can understand the fulminator in the main, I've felt for a while that my weakest matchups are to decks running tron lands, eldrazi temple, and valakut. Also it can be re-cast through bringing it out of the yard with Lili, which would shut down tron quite a bit. Also 2x thoughtseize in the side rather than main is an interesting take.
What I don't get is the two caverns when running sculler and fulminator, which it can't make uncounterable, in a deck that is stressed for B/W lands. And lastly, no ratchet bomb, EE, or other sweepers before T4 in the side. Is the high curve and lack of sweeper indicative of the meta this deck was played in? Perhaps this deck did well because the tournament had few aggro decks and lots of midrange; I can see this build excelling in that meta.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
We just don't have the 1/1 tokens to consistently flip it, and if you're saccing 3/2 bodies to flip it's not ideal. I had it in my maindeck for a couple months at least, and I think maybe one or two games the flip made the difference. It's just a win-more card unless its a clogged up board (like against jund) and you need the flyer to go over the top. Also, between ghost quarters, cavern of souls, and Black/White lands, there just isn't a slot for a colorless only producing land that doesn't consistently perform.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
I think it's best to only bring in relevant SB cards and trim nothing against mill. We are still racing them and drawing a dead card like stony silence or Damnation is really bad.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
If you look for the times I take out all 4 RoP in the list I wrote up, it happens only in matchups where they have ZERO graveyard play and I'm siding in like 7-9 cards and need to make some room (affinity, Bant Eldrazi, Tron). The cantrip of a T1 or T2 relic for card advantage is something to not undervalue, and as Deaddrift states, the ability to dig through the deck is very important as our deck consists of 3 things - threats, removal, ways to dig for them. Also a topdeck relic late isn't really that bad, as you can probably play it and crack it for a new card right away. It's not like topping a Thoughtseize after T5 bad. If there's an opportunity at all to get value from the graveyard exile ability on RoP, I'm definitely doing everything I can to keep it in. It's just such a value card against the graveyard play that is all over modern.
edit: I've also had incredibly durdly opens where I go through 3 relics and both mind stones by turn 5-6 and don't get threats, but I don't think that means the cards are bad for the deck, just variance.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Here's my comments:
Bant Eldrazi - Definitely bring in Blessed Alliance here. Usually only the sacrifice is relevant, but hitting a TKS or Smasher with it will happen very often, which is great. You've got relics to take out for them, they are way better than a cantrip here. I had not been bringing Pithing Needle in for this matchup, I overlooked how crazy the Displacer/Drowner combo can destroy us late in a stalled board-state. I run two Pithings and I think I'll try bringing them in and taking out more copies of Lingering Souls. Souls is quite weak against any deck running maindeck EE/ratchet and Smashers.
Speaking of Pithing Needles, I'm not sure if this is agreed upon widely, but personally I bring them in against any Sakura-Tribe Elder decks, pretty much Breach and Valakut. The way I see it is shutting down Tribe elder will slow them down, and that is exactly what we need to do in both matchups, be faster.
R/G Tron - Not sure if GftT is worth keeping in for pretty much just World Breaker, which is better to exile anyway.
Kiki Chord - I keep Thoughtseize in here, wanting as much hand removal to keep them off a T4 kiki combo. Obviously seize isn't great with their graveyard play through Eternal Witness, but I see Lingering Souls as weak in this matchup so I take two copies of that out instead. Not sure who's plan is better here, just mentioning that I do this matchup differently.
Cards - It seems Warping Wail is not brought in very often, especially against the higher % played decks. Maybe its a local metal choice and does work, but if it's not I suggest taking them out. I see Collective Brutality as basically a better version of WW, especially when the biggest draw to both is stopping a powerful sorcery (CoBr insant as well). With two open slots in the SB I'd bring in a second pithing needle, insta win in some games and useful in so many matchups. Your SB guide inspired me to rewrite one up for my current list, and out of 32+ matchups I bring Pithing in for 20, and in quite a few drawing both is great (infect and affinity for example). With the other slot without a doubt Anguished Unmaking. I see having one in the 75 minimum as highly important. Problem permanents (Ensnaring Bridge) and matchups where it shines (Tron/Infect) make it an asset that needs to be something you can bring in for G2 and 3.
I've also recently learned that at FNM you are allowed to have sideboard notes, you're just only allowed to look at them during sideboarding between games. It's a crutch I can use since I've only been playing mtg for basically a year and there's no way I can mentally catalog 30+ possible decks to face, and what to take out or bring in for them all. Also, running into time and losing or tying because of it sucks, so speeding up the sideboard part of the match is good, especially if you have no clue what to do in a certain matchup.
I like skite to interrupt buff decks like infect and bogles(as well as for stopping opponent's path on my TKS or smasher, when I hear 'in response to thought-knots trigger, path it', I die a little inside. It's just a solid T2 play to protect a T3 followup TKS or if the mtg gods are shining down on me T3 smasher), fulminator to slow down land decks like tron and valakut, and EE for asap removal of wide and/or fast aggro. Everything else is pretty standard for the sideboard.
Here's what Ive got(copying your framework out of laziness which I will play off as efficiency, I will say though not much a fan of the PtE abbreviation as it's only one letter shorter than path). Also the link in my sig is up to date list + sideboard:
PtE = Path to exile, TS = thoughtseize, IoK = inquisition of kozilek, RoP = relic of progenitus, CoBr = collective brutality, GtfT = Go for the throat, Dec = Declaration in Stone, BA = Blessed alliance
Deck: Junk
Out: -1 reshaper, -1 Sorin , -3 TS, -1 strangler
In: +2 Needle, +2 Damnation, +1 skite, +1 anguish
Deck: Jund
Out: -3 TS, -1 sorin, -1 reshaper
In: +2 Needle, +2 Damn, +1 anguish
Deck: Abzan CoCo
Out: -1 sorin, -3 TS, -4 souls
In: +1 anguish, +2 Damn, +1 CoBr, +2 Needle, +2 EE
Deck: Affinity
Out: -2 smasher, -3 TS, -4 RoP
In: +2 EE, +2 Stony, +2 Damn, +1 anguish, +2 Needle
Deck: (stupid) Elves
Out: -4 Relic, -1 Smasher, -1TS
In: +2 Damnation, +1 anguish, +2 EE, +1 Pithing
Deck: Infect
Out: -1 Sorin, -4 smasher, -2 mind stone, -2 reshaper
In: +1 skite, +1 anguish, +2 Needle, +1 CoBr, +2 EE, +2 BA
Deck: Bant Eldrazi
Out: -4 souls, -4RoP, -1 ratchet
In: +1 skite, +2 Damnation, +2 Needle. +2 BA, +1 fulm, +1 anguish
Deck: Merfolk
Out: -4 Relic, -2 reshaper
In: +1 anguish, +2 EE, +2 Damnation, +1 timely
Deck: Burn
Out: -3 TS, -1 dismember, -1 relic
In: +2 BA, +1 skite, +1 timely, +1 CoBr
Deck: Dredge
Out: -3 TS, -1 dismember
In: +2 Damnation, +1 timely, +1 anguish
Deck: Death’s Shadow
Out: -1 dismember, -2 Mind Stone, -4 smasher
In: +2 BA, +1 anguish, +2 EE, +1 skite, +1 CoBr
Deck: D&T
Out: -1 Sorin, -4 RoP, -1 smasher, -1 reshaper
In: +2 Damn, +1 skite, +2 Needle, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Deck: Zoo
Out: -3 TS, -1 dismember, -2 Relics, -2 smasher
In: +2 BA, +2 Damn, +1 timely, +1 CoBr, +2 EE
Deck: Bogles
Out: -4 PtE, -1 dismember, -2 RoP, -1 sorin
In: +1 anguish, +2 Damnation, +1 skite, +2 EE, +2 Blessed Alliance
Deck: RG Tron
Out: -4 RoP, -1 dismember, -1 ratchet
In: +2 Stony, +2 Needle, +1 anguish, +1 fulm
Deck: Esper Control
Out: -4 PtE, -1 dismember, -1 strangler
In: +1 anguish, +2 Needle, +1 CoBr, +1 skite, +1 fulm
Deck: UW Control
Out: -4 PtE, -1 dismember
In: +2 Needle, +1 fulm, +1 skite, +1 CoBr
Deck: Jeskai Nahiri
Out: -4 PtE, -1 Sorin, -1 dismember
In: +1 anguish, +2 Needle, +1 skite, +1 fulm, +1 CoBr
Deck: Grixis Delver
Out: -3 TS, -2 Mind Stone, -2 smasher
In: +2 EE, +2 blessed, +1 skite, +1 CoBr, +1 timely
Deck: Grixis Control
Out: -1 Sorin, -3 strangler, -1 ratchet
In: +2 pithing, +1 skite, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Deck: Blue Moon
Out: -1 dismember, -2 Strangler
In: +1 anguish, +1 CoBr, +1 skite
Deck: Soul Sisters
Out: -3 TS, -1 dismember, -1 PtE, -1 RoP (couldn't decide on Path or relic, relic seeming relevant because of Proclimation of Rebirth, but I had to look up a list on Mtggoldfish because Ive personally never played this matchup. It says 50% of decks run 3 copies, so maybe the decision comes down to whether you see it in game 1. I also see T2 reshaper as very relevant against their quick open)
In: +2 Damnation, +1 anguish, +1 Pithing, +2 EE
Deck: Kiki Chord
Out: -1 sorin, -2 smasher, -2 souls
In: +1 anguish, +2 Damn, +2 Needle
Deck: Scapeshift
Out: -4PtE
In: +2 needle, +1 fulm, +1 CoBr
Deck: Living End
Out: -4 souls, -1 ratchet
In: +1 anguished, +2 Damnation, +2 needle
Deck: Ad Nauseam
Out: -4 PtE, -1 Sorin, -1 dismember
In: +2 Stony, +1 anguish, +2 Needle, +1 CoBr
Deck: Reanimator
Out: -1 ratchet, -1 dismember, -1 PtE
In: +1 CoBr, +2 Needle
Deck: TiTi Ascension
Out: -4 souls (honestly not liking this choice, but I see relic as very key if you don't have removal for Ascension. If that thing goes off, with how much they can dig they can take the game over very fast. Paths need to stay in for TiTi removal, and I feel like all the eldrazi need to stay in for pressure because we need to be faster)
In: +2 EE, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Deck: Storm
Out: -2 PtE, -1 dismember, -1 Sorin
In: +2 EE, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Deck: TitanBreach
Out: -1 dismember, -1 ratchet, -2 relic
In: +1 CoBr, +1 fulm, +2 pithing
Deck: Bant Spirits
Out: -4 relic, -1 Sorin, -1 dismember
In: +2 damn, +2 pithing, +2 EE
Deck: R/G Ponza
Out: -4 relic
In: +2 pithing, +1 CoBr, +1 anguish
Deck: Temur Battlerage (basically this)
Out: -4 souls, -1 smasher, -2 mind stone
In: +2 EE, +2 blessed, +1 timely, +1 skite, +1 CoBr
Deck: U/B Mill
Out: none
In: +2 EE, +1 anguish, +1 CoBr
Deck: Bant Knightfall
Out: -3 TS, -1 Sorin, -1 smasher, -1 reshaper
In: +2 damn, +2 pithing, +1 skite, +1 fulm
This isn't even close to perfect, and I'm definitely looking for criticism or ideas to make this list better.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
That's why I've gone down to 3 strangler and 4 reshapers, I'd love to have 4 of each but it's really hard to make that happen as I don't want to take anything else out. Other than the situations you mentioned (reshaper being much better T2 play, flipping a strangler with the trigger), being able to target reshaper in order to process a search for tomorrow or Ancestral Vision is much better than having to target the strangler itself. These reasons are why I run 4 reshapers, the biggest being I really really like reshaper as a T2 play and want that as often as possible, and strangler is more difficult to guarantee value beyond a 3/2 body. If you play a reshaper you are highly likely going to get value from the trigger, or from them pathing it, thus having one less removal for a TKS/Smasher followup. Ideally I'd have 4 of each, but it's hard to get 16 creatures in the maindeck. Oh, I also forgot, getting a reshaper trigger into a land ramp or them pathing it for ramp before your T3 is really good with smasher (obviously if you dropped a T2 reshaper you've got the temple).
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
What about a sort of sideboard/flexslot guide or post? It would be a table with the left column being 30 or so of the most poplular decks, top column would be best flex/SB cards, and the table would have an 'x' to mark where a certain card is good/sided in in a particular matchup. It could also include In/Out guides for those matchups. I've got similar notes, both a table and In/Out notes, for my local meta that I used to decide on my personal flex/SB cards and could post that over the weekend if it would be beneficial. I will admit though my In/Out ideas are probably pretty bad in some cases, sideboarding in general is one of my weaknesses with this deck.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
I definitely agree, Damnation is better since they are both double B and 4 CMC. This card is maybe better than flaying tendrils in that it's easier to cast double B on T4 rather than T3. Also getting a free 3-cost spell on T4 doesn't seem very exciting for this deck. Question: If I play lingering souls with the free cast, do they resolve after the -3/-3 resolves? Lastly, Damnation is solid in matchups like bant eldrazi and jund, which this new card would basically do not even close to as much of a boardwipe.
That's the same reason I love the deck, it may not beat down as well as bant eldrazi, or jund as well as jund, but the games are exciting and the different angles to winning keep it fresh. I was actually thinking the same thing for discard, cutting my ratchet bomb from the main to get back to 4 discard, and running a 2-2 split of CoBr and seize. My thought was CoBr is a waaay better late game top deck and I hate drawing dead cards. But like you I'm not totally convinced, there are some matchups where you really really want to seize T1 or T2 (bant eldrazi and bogles for example). I don't see the two life loss on seize as a factor to not run it, we've got plenty of main deck lifegain.
Edit: I wouldn't recommend a second vault, it is an absolute beast when it's effect is usable, but when it's not it's just a wastes and I'd recommend some B/W land instead to help with casting colored cards.
Phyrexian Metamorph does look interesting. I hadn't seen that card before, but if I had to guess why it's not played it's because we have to pay 2 life every time to cast it since we have no blue source. And playing it on T3 to get that ramp value from the Phyrexian mana would really only come into play with an opening hand like this: 2x temple, TKS, a 3rd land, and metamorph. That won't happen too often.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR