With the exception of Blessed Alliance, those cards seems not great against a deck with so much hand disruption and at least 2-3 Stubborn Denial main deck. They are very slow and they're a huge tempo loss if countered. I would definitely keep Inquisition over Damnation or Ob Nix, and I'd probably keep Thoughtseize over those too. Dismember is a good card against GDS for their Delve fatties.
Reshaper is a faster clock than Souls, but Souls is way better against removal of all kinds and is way grindier. I can think of Eldrazi decks that don't really play Reshaper (e.g. Bant) but I can't think of any BW decks that don't play Souls. Lingering Souls is absolutely one of the best cards in the whole format.
I refuse to believe that this deck is actually competitively viable. There's simply no way that 10 duals plus two Plains and one Swamp (do you want T1 Inquisition or T1 Path, bro?!) is gonna cast your Scullers when you want them. Can we get some of these shaky manabase players on this thread to tell us how the hell they are getting their Scullers out on-curve? Because it just seems like it must be pure luck to me. Or like Iguana, maybe they're GQing their own lands (in a build that's trying to get to 5 for Smasher, no less)?
Any deck that can cast T2 Sculler successfully should probably be able to cast either Liliana or Mirran Crusader on T3.
Blessed Alliance can hit Geist of Saint Traft in response to the angel trigger, or at end of combat after the angel disappears but before the second main phase. It also has wide utility against Burn, Bogles, and attack-with-big-dudes decks like Shadow builds. It's a very strong modal card in my opinion.
Urborg does make the colorless lands tap for B, it's just that this doesn't really matter, unless you run BB spells. I suppose that rarely you might want to Push a target on the same turn you flash back a Souls or something like that, so I guess it could help a little in corner cases. IMO, running very few spells with double-color casting requirements is part of what makes the deck work. BTW it wasn't your land package I was questioning, but another poster's.
I don't think Aetherborn is better than other things we could be doing on T2. There is a ton of targeted removal floating around right now and being strong against Push seems pretty important. Sculler can at least take away the Push/Path/Bolt that would kill it, but Aetherborn's just gonna die. Displacer is amazing and you are right that it has a much higher ceiling than Reshaper does, but it has a lower floor, too. When I tested it, I found that often I wanted the mana I'd need to activate it for other spells I hadn't cast yet. In other words, I think Reshaper (or Scourge) are much better T2/T3 plays than Displacer is.
I don't think you can run Cast Out like that because it is so expensive for its primary use. (Even Unmaking is too expensive, actually.) I don't actually think of Relic or Mind Stone as cyclers with a non-cycling upside. To me they are part of the deck's gameplan that can also cantrip when they are not relevant. But maybe Cast Out could replace an Unmaking in the maindeck. There have definitely been several times when I couldn't spare the life to cast an in-hand Unmaking, so I dunno.
Etcherik, that mana base will never cast Sculler reliably. (Not sure if you're playing that card or not, though.) It also has only ten ways to cast IoK/Thoughtseize on T1. I cut Sorin from my last version and am noticeably softer to Burn now, but probably better in most other matches. I would not run Basilisk Collar because it is a do-nothing by itself. In E-Tron it makes Ballista and also Endbringer unbelievable. Not so sure that Gemstone Caverns fits in this deck; I think it should probably be a couple more duals.
You can deal with Blood Moon in several ways with this deck. Some builds have more outs than others do.
Run some number of Mind Stone--this is particularly strong in G1
Take their Moon with hand disruption
Run fetches and fetch for basic Swamp/Plains
Run a Wastes in your 75--you can tutor for it as described in the next two options
Path your own creature (optimally a Spirit token) for any basic
Hold up an unactivated Ghost Quarter to hit your own land in response to Blood Moon, getting any basic
Most Moon-playing lists (not all!) don't apply a lot of fast pressure and the above works very well in such cases. If you fetch, you want to fetch a Plains most of the time so you can cast the first half of Lingering Souls and then Path a token end step for your next basic. (You run fetches for mana fixing, not deck-thinning.) Builds with no fetches and no Ghost Quarters are guaranteed to be soft to Blood Moon, doubly so if they also run Smasher and Seer but no Wastes or Mind Stone. I have played this deck a lot, and I would never post a list that doesn't have a solid plan for the format's best red hate card.
D90Dennis14, unless you run some number of BB-cost cards in the 75, the only benefit in running an Urborg is to make fetch lands tap for B. Which some builds will want, seeing as I am reading deck lists with four Marsh Flats, but only three targets. Running a land package like that is definitely a mistake that will at times lead to playing dead fetch lands, in a deck that really cannot afford to miss land drops. Grixis and BGx builds can regularly cast their 4/5s on T2, but we have to wait... gotta make those land drops. BTW I agree with your take on [c[]Cast Out[/c] and Glorybound Initiate.
In my recent nights I have been playing with two Eternal Scourge in the place of the Mind Stones I had, to up the threat density, synergize with Relic, bolster the makes-targeted-removal-bad premise of my build, and provide something to do if my opponent does land an unexpected Blood Moon. I also run a Wastes main now. The deck seems OK, but I did mull a lot on Monday and ended up 2-2, beating traditional Abzan and Jund Shadow but losing to Naya Burn and Affinity. I am still not sold on Sculler but may try it again tomorrow night. If I do I'll run the land package I described above.
I went 4-0 at my local Modern with this yesterday. I have also been having very good success with it on MODO as well. Mana base feels very solid, although I can see cutting 1 Mutavalut for a second Swamp or Godless Shrine.
Just went 4-1 in a league with this, loosing only to Storm in a close three games. I don't own surgicals on MODO, so have 2x timely in that slot for now. If I had them, theres a good chance it would have been a 5-0. Side note, Mutavault won me several games. I am considering moving the ratchet bomb to the board and bringing in the second Collective Brutality, as it's been an all star.
Question: competitive leagues or friendly? Also, are you tracking number of starts with uncastable Scullers, by any chance? I really can't get behind a manabase that has Sculler and fewer than say 17 lands minimum that unconditionally cast him on T2. There are few things I enjoy less than dying because I had the wrong lands for my spells.
I'm still not sold on Sculler, but I think it might work with the right manabase. I may try a Sculler build again with something like this as a land package (btw I am certain 23 is too few lands for a deck that wants T3/4 Seer and T4/5 Smasher, and Karsten agrees):
This would cast T1 Thoughtseize/IoK very reliably, though usually with some kind of pain attached. Drawing Shambling Vent in an opener with T1 disruption, plus T2 Sculler mana, would be awkward but rare. Almost any early game state gives the color-producing lands that together will cast Sculler on T2, and there are 18 of these lands, which is not too far off from Karsten's recommended 20. Meanwhile there are 11 sources for C which puts us at his recommendation for T4 Thought-Knot Seer. And we still have room for a couple of Mutavaults (three manlands total), plus a decent fetch-to-target ration that should leave us with very few dead fetch lands, and still allow decent access to basics if Blood Moon pops up.
A concern I have with this land package is that Ghost Quarter really is still relevant. I lost to Inkmoth out of Affinity on Monday, and to Tron on Friday, so I still want land hate anyway, and I bet those going to other large events will not infrequently find they do, too. Also, no Wastes for Blood Moon backup is a recipe for disaster against that hate card, since it is very hard to win without the big guys. All of this makes it look like maybe as many as 3-4 SB slots need to go to Fulminator Mage and one Wastes, but then we gimp some other match.
Right now I feel I have at least a few things to side in for really any match I might encounter. Adding Sculler makes me feel that I might need to just write off some matches, and hope to dodge them instead. Maybe this is correct, even, in terms of getting a higher overall win rate. But it's not how I have always thought about this deck idea, personally, and I can be pretty resistant to change.
Also when doing your assumptions don't factor in the chance of drawing sculler and lands, what you need to find is the chance of drawing the lands in time given you've already drawn a sculler
I'm not sure I understand why this matters, can you please explain?
I put Soh's deck into cockatrice and ran 100 opening-hands-plus-one-card to explore how often Sculler would come down on curve when on the play. I did not mull at all, but kept every opener and then added another card.
I was able to cast Sculler on T2 23 times.
I had Sculler in hand 50 times (including the above 23)
I had mana to cast Sculler 55 times (including the above 23)
I was unable to cast Sculler T2 77 times.
A little subtraction shows that I had Sculler but couldn't cast it due to mana constraints 27 times, and had the mana but no Sculler another 32 times, leaving 18 hands with neither Sculler nor T2 BW.
I think it's safe to say that the deck needs several more duals than it has, if it wants to play Sculler with any sort of consistency on T2. And again, I ask if the card is worth it? If 20 duals is the 90% benchmark (including Karsten's mulligan parameters) then can we say that 17 duals might be acceptable? If that is true (and I'd guess that 17 is really pushing the envelope) then we have room for four Temples and only three other colorless lands of any kind, with no room for Shambling Vent at all.
Actually I suppose you could cheat with Cavern of Souls, and name Zombie when needed. Then you'd have Karsten's 90% reliability targets covered:
Matter Reshaper (if we still run it) gets: 4x Eldrazi Temple, 4x Caves of Koilos, 3x Cavern of Souls, and 1x Fetid Heath = 12 sources for T3 C
Sculler gets: Something like 4x Caves of Koilos, 4x Marsh Flats, 4x Concealed Courtyard, 3x Cavern of Souls, 2x Godless Shrine, 1x Plains, 1x Swamp, and 1x Fetid Heath = 20 sources for T2 BW.
This manabase also gives 15 sources for B on T1 to cast IoK, Thoughtseize, or Push, which is better than where I've been, and better than Karsten's recommended 14 sources for a T1 play.
Food for thought. Makes for a heavily disruptive build for sure. That land package is likely to die to Blood Moon pretty badly though, which maybe pushes us back towards Blight Herder.
EDIT: Played a few rounds on cockatrice with the above build and it really seems bad. Sculler seems very bad all around. It's useless as a threat, and unlike Reshaper it doesn't get any value when it dies (unless you mean negative value, when it gives a card back).
Last night I went 2-2. I lost to Eldrazi Tron and a GW Enchantress build, beating a Zombie brew and Grixis Shadow. playing a version of my older BW build that took out the two Mind Stone for two Eternal Scourge. No Unmaking or Ratchet Bomb in the main, only side. Having more threat density that the Sculler builds have seems like a good angle from where I sit.
Mutavault is a great manland no doubt, but I believe I disagree about Ghost Quarter. It only functionally sets us back a turn when used in the early/mid game, and it can be invaluable late. (And of course using it is always optional.) It's a tool against Spreading Seas out of Merfolk. By fetching a Wastes, it saves Eldrazi creatures from getting stranded in hand by Blood Moon. Though Push has made manlands (including ours maybe?) far less popular, Gavony Township, and Kessig Wolf Run, and Academy Ruins et al. remain relevant. GQ can occasionally color-screw an opponent, as I did tonight, and--with Surgical Extraction--is one of our very few knockout punches against most Tron builds. Having it main frees up a couple of slots that Fulminator Mage would probably want to occupy in the sideboard as well. I have always thought of this deck as attacking on many axes, and this is a crucial one IMO.
Running a hypergeometric probability function gives pretty low odds of landing a T2 Sculler with the Kobe build. Here's how I did the math. (This is simplified and conservative, as in, the numbers below likely overstate the odds.)
Assuming 15 ETB-untapped dual lands, each producing B OR W; assuming a 60 card deck; assuming 4x Sculler; then you will need two dual lands plus a Sculler in your first eight cards on the play, nine cards on the draw, to play it out on-curve:
Getting two or more duals in the first eight cards--regardless of what the other cards in hand are--comes out at 65%. This doesn't account for hands where they are two of seven lands or the only two lands, so the real odds of a keepable opener with two duals are lower.
Getting one or more Scullers in the remaining six cards comes out at 36%.
This suggests that the odds of casting Tidehollow Sculler on-curve, on the play, in a 60 card deck with only 15 duals, is 0.65*0.36, or roughly 24%.
Factoring into this the fact that having your Strangler also come down the following turn is how you really want to play Sculler, and you can see that it's not likely to pan out very well in the long run. And if you're playing Sculler later than T2, then what aren't you casting on T3, T4, or T5? Until Strangler processes its stolen card, Sculler can usually neither attack nor block, especially in the midgame when the ground gets cluttered up with creatures that are usually way bigger than it.
I'm no math genius and I may well have made some mistakes with my assumptions. If so I'd be interested to hear where I went wrong. But Karsten would suggest that you need something on the order of TWENTY BW duals to get Sculler out on curve 90% of the time with reasonable mulligan parameters. Running a single Swamp, a single Plains, and a single Fetid Heath would be functionally identical to running only duals in terms of casting BW spells. But, if you double up on any basics or on Heath then the odds get worse, not better. (Urborg would help with Liliana or board wipes, but not with Sculler.) Is Sculler worth gimping our manabase like this? It leaves room for only Temples and Caves and one Heath for C... and then we can no longer cast TKS on-curve on T4 reliably.
I thought Joe Soh's deck was great. Everything makes a lot of sense for the deck to compete. I would probably put in a single Eldrazi Displacer over a dismember or something though.
This deck isn't going to out ramp Bant or Tron versions, so it has do play to it's strengths with B and W. Which is discard and removal. And it does that wonderfully, turn 1 path/push/discard, turn 2, discard, turn 3, more discard, then turn 4, with a good solid creature suite and removal, it can push through. It has mainboard grave hate, which is nice. The only real strong weakness is the lack of card draw, but the discard should be more than able to make up for it.
T1 Path is almost always a terrible play. Normally a T1 creature is a mana dork. Unless you're hitting like a Guide or a Swiftspear you accomplish nothing except to discard your best removal. Discard does not substitute for card draw in any way, they're completely different things, as you'll discover for yourself the first time you topdeck a Thoughtseize or Inquisition in a late-game topdeck battle. Which is going to happen to you a lot if you run enough discard spells to hit an opponent with disruption on each of your first three turns.
Have you ever played this deck?
You're thinking way too much hypotheticals. I can easily just say, on the draw I IOK his threat turn 1, then pushed his thread turn 2, then slammed down my TKS turn 3, taking away his removal. He draws into bad removal only to have me turn 4 Reality Smasher and win. With a path in the way of his blocker. I don't argue with results. A big Tourney win AND a 5-0 finish? That's getting somewhere. Have you stopped theorycrafting and played?
And you clearly draw and discard is different. But the power of discard should be able to make up for the lack of card draw. Sheesh, there's no super deck with every single answer and playstyle ever. I already acknowledged the lack of card draw.
As a matter of fact, the deck I helped put together (and have played for a year and a half, as you'll see if you look back through this thread, so who's theorycrafting here?) does look for card draw through Relic, Mind Stone, and Matter Reshaper (and sometimes Sea Gate Wreckage). Because hand disruption substitutes in no way at all for card draw. Again, they are completely different--at least when you are looking to advance your own game plane instead of being purely reactive, which latter approach is a recipe for many losses in the current meta.
Have you ever actually played any version of this deck? Even once?
Joe Soh optimized his whole deck to be fast (as fast as you can be within this build):
- almost not lands that come into play tapped (two Godless Shrine, and that's it - four (4!) Concealed Courtyard)
- Mutavault is an additional attacker on Turn 3/4, where the normal built may have none
- full playsets of Turn 2/3 creatures
- more removal so he hopefully can get rid of the one creature which makes it through the discard, clearing the board for him
I think the idea was to already be the aggressor on Turn 3/4, where "our" build of the deck is usually turning the tables on Turns 5 or 6 with lifegain, Reality Smasher and removal.
This approach changes the gameplan of the deck, so I do not think you can just compare it card for card with the "normal" one.
Btw, I also think that Wasteland Strangler is the worst card in the deck right now. If I had a good replacement, I would probably use it.
The new 3-mana wrath is good sideboard material, I think, against Affinity and Elves, as they usually don't have card advantage to come back son fast if you wipe their boards. I will definitively try it.
Joe's deck looks dead to Blood Moon for sure, with no fetches and no Mind Stone or Wastes. And even with the duals he uses he is still going to miss a T2 Sculler in many if not most games--you can't really run Mutavault like that if you want reliable BW on turn 2. I realize I'm arguing with a GP winner's list here, but forgive me if I discount the MODO 5-0, which isn't even a Swiss tourney and is therefore not so useful.
Sculler might be really good with Blight Herder instead of Smasher, because Herder can process the card under Sculler and it can also be cast with only generic mana, lowering the demands on the manabase. There's no question that Smasher is a more aggressive, proactive card than Herder is, though. Either way, the deck wants at least 11 (maybe 10 if you want to push it) sources for C on turn 4 for TKS. I just don't think there is any statistically reliable way to get the early BW dual-color spells into the same shell as the colorless spells without screwing up the manabase, and believe me, I've tried.
I thought Joe Soh's deck was great. Everything makes a lot of sense for the deck to compete. I would probably put in a single Eldrazi Displacer over a dismember or something though.
This deck isn't going to out ramp Bant or Tron versions, so it has do play to it's strengths with B and W. Which is discard and removal. And it does that wonderfully, turn 1 path/push/discard, turn 2, discard, turn 3, more discard, then turn 4, with a good solid creature suite and removal, it can push through. It has mainboard grave hate, which is nice. The only real strong weakness is the lack of card draw, but the discard should be more than able to make up for it.
T1 Path is almost always a terrible play. Normally a T1 creature is a mana dork. Unless you're hitting like a Guide or a Swiftspear you accomplish nothing except to discard your best removal. Discard does not substitute for card draw in any way, they're completely different things, as you'll discover for yourself the first time you topdeck a Thoughtseize or Inquisition in a late-game topdeck battle. Which is going to happen to you a lot if you run enough discard spells to hit an opponent with disruption on each of your first three turns.
Did not like the Kobe build... Sculler pressures the mana base pretty hard and dies to everything. It is a tempo play at best and needing Strangler for it not to suck is pretty unreliable.
In general BW Processors as a control-oriented midrange build is super fun, but too slow and not proactive enough in a wide-open meta like the current Modern scene.
Fascinating land choices there, all in on Mutavault and zero Shambling Vent, Vault, Cavern, Wreckage, Wastes, or even Ghost Quarter. Seems counter-intuitive to me for sure. Mutavault is great, but that great? I would love to talk to him about his choices and lines. Gotta say I am not feeling the 2x SB Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and have no idea what that's all about with 4x Path and only 2x Push.
Anyway the results speak for themselves, congrats to Joe Soh!
Extra T1 discard is real, real good--I had room for 5 in that build, compared to 3 in my current deck. This helped a lot against some combo decks I played.
Sculler is extremely good as a T2 play followed by T3 Strangler, but it is very greedy in the manabase--I felt I only had room for 6 colorless-only lands (4x Temple and 2x GQ). No Cavern, no Vault, no Wreckage, one less GQ.
When using Herder, it is much harder to side out Relics. Herder is greedy for processing fodder, and it is so hard to get without Relic in play. This leads to keeping Relic in the 60 post-SB even in cases where its only function is to enable Herder instead of to interfere with the opponent's plans. No bueno.
Herder is still an amazing play when it processes. But it is still challenging to turn that on sometimes. Sculler and Path aren't really enough, especially if you're also trying to get value out of Strangler a turn or two before you're trying to also get value out of Herder. This makes me wonder about swapping out one Relic for a main-deck Surgical Extraction which can often get 4 cards into exile very early on, especially with all the hand disruption. It can also occasionally shut an opponent down if they have a key primary wincon (Bridge in Lantern, Titan in RG Valakut decks, etc.)
I definitely missed haste and trample in a couple of situations (against Nahiri and other planeswalkers, when at 3 and topdecking vs. Burn).
Working hypothesis: The choice of 5-drop finisher is meta-dependent. Corollary: Smasher and Sculler don't fit into the same deck. Herder is higher ceiling in some matchups (vs. control, vs. Suspend decks, vs. lots of targeted removal, vs. Blood Moon) and Smasher is higher ceiling in others (vs. Burn, vs. planeswalkers, oftentimes in late-game topdeck wars). Herder is lower floor though overall, because it's really pretty bad compared to Smasher if it doesn't process.
I'll probably keep testing the Sculler/Herder build, right now the jury (in my courtroom at least) is out. The crucial factor might turn out to be how much control and combo I start to see--Herder and lots of hand disruption are both very good against these decks.
3-1 tonight out of 51 players. Lost to Saheeli/Felidar/Sun Titan first round on the draw, due to many, many spreading seas and very bad draws.
In round 2 on the draw I beat Restore Balance in 3; G1 he mulled to 3, I lost G2 to Blood Moon (didn't expect it, sided in no outs for it), and I squeaked out a win in G3 on turn 5. Despite my processing several cards he still got off a lot of Balances, but Pithing Needle on Greater Gargadon was clutch in both G2 and G3. Herder would have been AMAZING in this match, it would have bene embarrassing.
Round 3 saw my Flayer Junk-playing opponent make some unpleasant discoveries (e.g. flipped a Reshaper to a Reshaper from his Decay), and I took an extremely easy two games.
Round 4 was similarly easy but against a BG Shadow deck with Souls in the side, which I also took in two; but he almost got me in G2 only to have me topdeck a Relic at 2 life with only one Spirit token against his two Flayers active with delirium. That allowed me to cast and crack Relic, cast my in-hand Strangler, kill a shrunken Flayer and wall the second one, drawing a Lingering Souls in the process.
Lots of creature removal has obviously been great against the Shadow decks, BG decks, Naya Burn, Zoo, Affinity, etc. But there's also more combo floating around for sure, so I'm kinda wishing for more direct hand disruption. Maybe I'll sleeve up some Scullers and Herders....
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I refuse to believe that this deck is actually competitively viable. There's simply no way that 10 duals plus two Plains and one Swamp (do you want T1 Inquisition or T1 Path, bro?!) is gonna cast your Scullers when you want them. Can we get some of these shaky manabase players on this thread to tell us how the hell they are getting their Scullers out on-curve? Because it just seems like it must be pure luck to me. Or like Iguana, maybe they're GQing their own lands (in a build that's trying to get to 5 for Smasher, no less)?
I think you always keep in hand disruption against the blue decks. What are you siding in for the Thoughtseize/IoK's you side out?
Blessed Alliance can hit Geist of Saint Traft in response to the angel trigger, or at end of combat after the angel disappears but before the second main phase. It also has wide utility against Burn, Bogles, and attack-with-big-dudes decks like Shadow builds. It's a very strong modal card in my opinion.
I don't think Aetherborn is better than other things we could be doing on T2. There is a ton of targeted removal floating around right now and being strong against Push seems pretty important. Sculler can at least take away the Push/Path/Bolt that would kill it, but Aetherborn's just gonna die. Displacer is amazing and you are right that it has a much higher ceiling than Reshaper does, but it has a lower floor, too. When I tested it, I found that often I wanted the mana I'd need to activate it for other spells I hadn't cast yet. In other words, I think Reshaper (or Scourge) are much better T2/T3 plays than Displacer is.
I don't think you can run Cast Out like that because it is so expensive for its primary use. (Even Unmaking is too expensive, actually.) I don't actually think of Relic or Mind Stone as cyclers with a non-cycling upside. To me they are part of the deck's gameplan that can also cantrip when they are not relevant. But maybe Cast Out could replace an Unmaking in the maindeck. There have definitely been several times when I couldn't spare the life to cast an in-hand Unmaking, so I dunno.
You can deal with Blood Moon in several ways with this deck. Some builds have more outs than others do.
D90Dennis14, unless you run some number of BB-cost cards in the 75, the only benefit in running an Urborg is to make fetch lands tap for B. Which some builds will want, seeing as I am reading deck lists with four Marsh Flats, but only three targets. Running a land package like that is definitely a mistake that will at times lead to playing dead fetch lands, in a deck that really cannot afford to miss land drops. Grixis and BGx builds can regularly cast their 4/5s on T2, but we have to wait... gotta make those land drops. BTW I agree with your take on [c[]Cast Out[/c] and Glorybound Initiate.
In my recent nights I have been playing with two Eternal Scourge in the place of the Mind Stones I had, to up the threat density, synergize with Relic, bolster the makes-targeted-removal-bad premise of my build, and provide something to do if my opponent does land an unexpected Blood Moon. I also run a Wastes main now. The deck seems OK, but I did mull a lot on Monday and ended up 2-2, beating traditional Abzan and Jund Shadow but losing to Naya Burn and Affinity. I am still not sold on Sculler but may try it again tomorrow night. If I do I'll run the land package I described above.
I'm still not sold on Sculler, but I think it might work with the right manabase. I may try a Sculler build again with something like this as a land package (btw I am certain 23 is too few lands for a deck that wants T3/4 Seer and T4/5 Smasher, and Karsten agrees):
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Concealed Courtyard
3x Marsh Flats
3x Godless Shrine
2x Mutavault
1x Shambling Vent
1x Fetid Heath
1x Swamp
1x Plains
A concern I have with this land package is that Ghost Quarter really is still relevant. I lost to Inkmoth out of Affinity on Monday, and to Tron on Friday, so I still want land hate anyway, and I bet those going to other large events will not infrequently find they do, too. Also, no Wastes for Blood Moon backup is a recipe for disaster against that hate card, since it is very hard to win without the big guys. All of this makes it look like maybe as many as 3-4 SB slots need to go to Fulminator Mage and one Wastes, but then we gimp some other match.
Right now I feel I have at least a few things to side in for really any match I might encounter. Adding Sculler makes me feel that I might need to just write off some matches, and hope to dodge them instead. Maybe this is correct, even, in terms of getting a higher overall win rate. But it's not how I have always thought about this deck idea, personally, and I can be pretty resistant to change.
I put Soh's deck into cockatrice and ran 100 opening-hands-plus-one-card to explore how often Sculler would come down on curve when on the play. I did not mull at all, but kept every opener and then added another card.
Actually I suppose you could cheat with Cavern of Souls, and name Zombie when needed. Then you'd have Karsten's 90% reliability targets covered:
Maybe something like this:
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Marsh Flats
4x Concealed Courtyard
3x Cavern of Souls
2x Godless Shrine
1x Fetid Heath
1x Swamp
1x Plains
Creature (16)
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Wasteland Strangler
4x Thought-Knot Seer
2x Blight Herder
2x Reality Smasher
4x Path to Exile
3x Fatal Push
Sorcery (9)
4x Lingering Souls
3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
Artifact (4)
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Anguished Unmaking
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Fulminator Mage
2x Collective Brutality
2x Stony Silence
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Pithing Needle
EDIT: Played a few rounds on cockatrice with the above build and it really seems bad. Sculler seems very bad all around. It's useless as a threat, and unlike Reshaper it doesn't get any value when it dies (unless you mean negative value, when it gives a card back).
Last night I went 2-2. I lost to Eldrazi Tron and a GW Enchantress build, beating a Zombie brew and Grixis Shadow. playing a version of my older BW build that took out the two Mind Stone for two Eternal Scourge. No Unmaking or Ratchet Bomb in the main, only side. Having more threat density that the Sculler builds have seems like a good angle from where I sit.
Assuming 15 ETB-untapped dual lands, each producing B OR W; assuming a 60 card deck; assuming 4x Sculler; then you will need two dual lands plus a Sculler in your first eight cards on the play, nine cards on the draw, to play it out on-curve:
I'm no math genius and I may well have made some mistakes with my assumptions. If so I'd be interested to hear where I went wrong. But Karsten would suggest that you need something on the order of TWENTY BW duals to get Sculler out on curve 90% of the time with reasonable mulligan parameters. Running a single Swamp, a single Plains, and a single Fetid Heath would be functionally identical to running only duals in terms of casting BW spells. But, if you double up on any basics or on Heath then the odds get worse, not better. (Urborg would help with Liliana or board wipes, but not with Sculler.) Is Sculler worth gimping our manabase like this? It leaves room for only Temples and Caves and one Heath for C... and then we can no longer cast TKS on-curve on T4 reliably.
Have you ever actually played any version of this deck? Even once?
Joe's deck looks dead to Blood Moon for sure, with no fetches and no Mind Stone or Wastes. And even with the duals he uses he is still going to miss a T2 Sculler in many if not most games--you can't really run Mutavault like that if you want reliable BW on turn 2. I realize I'm arguing with a GP winner's list here, but forgive me if I discount the MODO 5-0, which isn't even a Swiss tourney and is therefore not so useful.
Sculler might be really good with Blight Herder instead of Smasher, because Herder can process the card under Sculler and it can also be cast with only generic mana, lowering the demands on the manabase. There's no question that Smasher is a more aggressive, proactive card than Herder is, though. Either way, the deck wants at least 11 (maybe 10 if you want to push it) sources for C on turn 4 for TKS. I just don't think there is any statistically reliable way to get the early BW dual-color spells into the same shell as the colorless spells without screwing up the manabase, and believe me, I've tried.
For reference:
Frank Analysis – How Many Colored Mana Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells?
Also a new Karsten article, showing 24 lands is correct for the deck, and discussing siding out lands post-board:
How Many Lands Do You Need to Consistently Hit Your Land Drops?
Bontu's Last Reckoning looks extremely good. BB on T3 is still never easy though....
Have you ever played this deck?
In general BW Processors as a control-oriented midrange build is super fun, but too slow and not proactive enough in a wide-open meta like the current Modern scene.
Fascinating land choices there, all in on Mutavault and zero Shambling Vent, Vault, Cavern, Wreckage, Wastes, or even Ghost Quarter. Seems counter-intuitive to me for sure. Mutavault is great, but that great? I would love to talk to him about his choices and lines. Gotta say I am not feeling the 2x SB Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and have no idea what that's all about with 4x Path and only 2x Push.
Anyway the results speak for themselves, congrats to Joe Soh!
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Marsh Flats
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Godless Shrine
2x Concealed Courtyard
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Swamp
1x Fetid Heath
1x Shambling Vent
1x Plains
Creature (14)
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Wasteland Strangler
3x Tidehollow Sculler
3x Blight Herder
4x Lingering Souls
3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Collective Brutality
Instant (6)
4x Path to Exile
2x Fatal Push
Artifact (4)
4x Relic of Progenitus
Planeswalker (1)
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2x Damnation
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Pithing Needle
2x Stony Silence
2x Anguished Unmaking
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Rest in Peace
1x Thoughtseize
1x Disenchant
I'll probably keep testing the Sculler/Herder build, right now the jury (in my courtroom at least) is out. The crucial factor might turn out to be how much control and combo I start to see--Herder and lots of hand disruption are both very good against these decks.
In round 2 on the draw I beat Restore Balance in 3; G1 he mulled to 3, I lost G2 to Blood Moon (didn't expect it, sided in no outs for it), and I squeaked out a win in G3 on turn 5. Despite my processing several cards he still got off a lot of Balances, but Pithing Needle on Greater Gargadon was clutch in both G2 and G3. Herder would have been AMAZING in this match, it would have bene embarrassing.
Round 3 saw my Flayer Junk-playing opponent make some unpleasant discoveries (e.g. flipped a Reshaper to a Reshaper from his Decay), and I took an extremely easy two games.
Round 4 was similarly easy but against a BG Shadow deck with Souls in the side, which I also took in two; but he almost got me in G2 only to have me topdeck a Relic at 2 life with only one Spirit token against his two Flayers active with delirium. That allowed me to cast and crack Relic, cast my in-hand Strangler, kill a shrunken Flayer and wall the second one, drawing a Lingering Souls in the process.
Lots of creature removal has obviously been great against the Shadow decks, BG decks, Naya Burn, Zoo, Affinity, etc. But there's also more combo floating around for sure, so I'm kinda wishing for more direct hand disruption. Maybe I'll sleeve up some Scullers and Herders....