so has anybody played any recent matches they can recount? I'd love to hear some gameplay and get some incite.
From what I remember, I played Soul Sisters, Ad Nauseam, Bug mill ( http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1143062 ) UR Storm, URW control(with the 20 + cantrips), uwr midrange, affinity, 8rack, 2 jund decks, a bunch of tron decks, and about 4 living end decks all on cockatrice. I don't remember how they all exactly played out but I can recall to the best of my ability
Soul Sisters is a pretty free matchup, but it's easy for me to say since i'm running Thundermaw Hellkite and Electolyze MD. It usually starts out with him gaining about 56 life, me neutralizing whatever threat (Ascendant, and sometimes that 2/2 ajani card). If anything got out of hand, I would unsummon them with far and pull ahead with a thundermaw and cruel ultimatum. We played about 4 back to back matches and I never lost one
I haven't lost a full match to ad nauseam yet, but since i'm new to modern I usually get bodied by any combo deck game one until I know what to IOK and what to not let resolve. G2 is always way better, always try to stall these matchups as long as possible even if there is no way to win game 1
I went 1 - 2 against the mill deck. I don't know how to interact with that one outside of being as aggressive as possible. Misplayed quite a bit, always got hit by Archive Trap. Be careful with your fetch lands on this one, i've had half my deck milled out on turn one and all of my win cons extracted before
UR storm feels a lot like ad nauseam, but way more difficult. I pulled ahead 2-1 after losing terribly the first round. IOK/Seize their starting pieces (rite of flame, and that 2 cmc enchantment that copies their spells)
Against affinity, I took out 2 vault skirges, an inkmoth nexus, and that 0/1 battlecry dude with an electrolyze followed up by another one. He scooped and left before we can go to game 2
I was somehow able to stabilize with blue sun's zenith against 8rack game 1, don't remember the exact details and played as aggressively as possible. g2 he resolves a liliana, 2 racks, and an ensaring bridge, fought for dear life in vain and lost. g3 I got lucky and played engineered explosives for 1. He strips away my entire hand after I get a snapcaster with lb flashback to hit him for 8. at 12 life he resolved an ensnaring bridge. I top decked a rakdos charm and a thundermaw hellkite back to back for the win. I don't know what to say exactly about this matchup because I got really lucky in the 3rd round. Sideboarding can be tricky too, would IOK be viable against them? It's a terrible top-deck but disrupting their disruption early enough can be make or break too.
Jund overwhelmed me with Goyfs/Bobs and Lilianas g1 while I drew into no removal/draw and land flooded. g2/3 I was on top of his goyfs with terminates, IOKs and landed cruel ultimatum. Killed quite a few Lilianas with my own thundermaws
Lost the first match 0-2 against URW control. In the next match I won g1 and then he had to leave, I don't have enough experience to come to a verdict on where we stand in this match-up.
Tron is another tricky matchup but it feels very even. My gameplan is to just play agressively, there isn't much you can do to interact with them, it feels like i'm playing a uw delver deck against wolf-run ramp. Far // Away is huge in this matchup, if you can stall their attack phases long enough then you can pull ahead. Lost against 2 tron decks and won against 2 tron decks so far. I have yet to draw into Sowing salt against them, but Thoughtseize helps a hell of a out and so does countering their uncounterables with mindbreak traps
URW Midrange feels like it's slightly in my favor. I lost one match 1-2 and won another 2-1, IOK is pretty boss here.
I think the living end match-up is slightly in their favor game 1 and then g2 is slightly in ours. Rakdos Charm is unsurprisingly a powerful sb choice here
What I've learned so far is that Rakdos Charm and Mindbreak traps are auto-includes in any grixis sideboard. They're both extremely cross-applicable. It's also recommended to have at least 1 Engineered explosives and 1 witchbane orb for those one-sided, non-interactive matchups
Because It's faster and cheaper. For 5 mana you're getting 4 cards where the 4x mana you'd have to tap to draw 4 cards would set your mana cost to 7 with blue sun's zenith. The discard isn't that much of a factor really because of our snaps.
Edit:
Also I was just thinking about Condescend. Thoughts?
Good point, Thoughtflare draws 4 but in the end it nets +1. It's not that cut and dry I know, this is because it digs 4 deep while you simply pitch the irrelevant cards so I would say it's worth at least 1.5 to 3.5 in terms of CA depending on the situation.
Condescend would definitely be more effective in a ton of situations, which is why I'll test it out for at least ten games in place of a Mana Leak
Draining Whelk is my solution to my feeling like I am not doing enough / wasting time when keeping counter magic up but not finding a target. I played at my LGS on Modern Wednesday recently and will write a report when I get off work later. I would love to read thoughts in the mean time.
Best,
Zachtraps
Draining Whelk seems like it would work wonders in the same deck that runs Mystical Teachings. I'm going to try him out and will probably end up dedicating a sideboard slot to him in the end since he seems so tech
You seem really bent on killing creatures as you have 3 Far/Away, but I would use mass removal spells instead. Decks will tend to sacrifice their worst creatures to it, and costs quite a bit to use. Consume the Meek and Damnation are generally just better. There are of course exceptions to that rule, such as UWR Midrange/Control for which you prefer to have such effects, but I do not think your metagame is entirely made up of such strategies.
Also, if you run Mystical Teachings, I suggest running 2 or 0 instead of 1. This is because in order to supply yourself with more "gas", as in effective spells, you should have the option to play Teachings searching up a second Teachings. It is hard for opponents to win after you have also the option of using Teachings' flashback.
Thanks man! Yeah, when I've only had so much time to playtest I go for miser's of each when in doubt.
My question is the choice of draw spells, why would you use say thoughtflare over Blue Sun's Zenith? We always complain about not having sphinx's revelation, my initial impression is that blue sun's zenith would be a better replacement.
So we have access to Thoughtflare vs Opportunity vs Blue Sun's Zenith vs Mystical Teachings vs Gifts Ungiven
Has anyone playtested with each extensively? What are your impressions? What list surrounded your choice of draw spell?
The 3-drop slot is a tough one to crack for me as well. I've tried slagstorm, dissipate, or even opted for consume and damnation. 3 cmc counters are too slow and sweepers are just bad, so I'm just erring on the side of safety with the most versatile spell I could find.
Maybe a 4-2 Electrolyze to Far split? Snapcaster dances with far // away are good to dodge removal and abuse the graveyard as well as re-using the etb trigger for thundermaw to squelch squadron hawks and lingering souls
There are a lot of directions to take it, is it better to be able to tutor up Consume the Meek or just have a 5/5 etb beatstick?
On a side note, It's just as important to put a strong emphasis on choice of side-boarding. I want to make mine as diverse as possible with a minimal amount of hosers. I need suggestions based on results and experience
For instance, should I play mindbreak trap over sowing salt or slaughter games? Mindbreak seems to be the most versatile since it can exile an emrakrul in the tron matchup, can override boseiju decks (ad nausaum, that one epic enchantment build) and hose storm
What about thoughtseize in the sideboard? Is it viable to replace lightning bolt or IOK with it post-board depending on certain matchups?
Witchbane orb vs Spellskite?
Rakdos Charm vs Hurkyl's recall, shatterspree, ect
I'm completely new to modern and I thought I'd just play my favorite shard. I need any comments/criticism and help especially with forming my mana-base
I also need help constructing a sideboard since I'm not yet savvy with modern meta
From what I remember, I played Soul Sisters, Ad Nauseam, Bug mill ( http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1143062 ) UR Storm, URW control(with the 20 + cantrips), uwr midrange, affinity, 8rack, 2 jund decks, a bunch of tron decks, and about 4 living end decks all on cockatrice. I don't remember how they all exactly played out but I can recall to the best of my ability
Soul Sisters is a pretty free matchup, but it's easy for me to say since i'm running Thundermaw Hellkite and Electolyze MD. It usually starts out with him gaining about 56 life, me neutralizing whatever threat (Ascendant, and sometimes that 2/2 ajani card). If anything got out of hand, I would unsummon them with far and pull ahead with a thundermaw and cruel ultimatum. We played about 4 back to back matches and I never lost one
I haven't lost a full match to ad nauseam yet, but since i'm new to modern I usually get bodied by any combo deck game one until I know what to IOK and what to not let resolve. G2 is always way better, always try to stall these matchups as long as possible even if there is no way to win game 1
I went 1 - 2 against the mill deck. I don't know how to interact with that one outside of being as aggressive as possible. Misplayed quite a bit, always got hit by Archive Trap. Be careful with your fetch lands on this one, i've had half my deck milled out on turn one and all of my win cons extracted before
UR storm feels a lot like ad nauseam, but way more difficult. I pulled ahead 2-1 after losing terribly the first round. IOK/Seize their starting pieces (rite of flame, and that 2 cmc enchantment that copies their spells)
Against affinity, I took out 2 vault skirges, an inkmoth nexus, and that 0/1 battlecry dude with an electrolyze followed up by another one. He scooped and left before we can go to game 2
I was somehow able to stabilize with blue sun's zenith against 8rack game 1, don't remember the exact details and played as aggressively as possible. g2 he resolves a liliana, 2 racks, and an ensaring bridge, fought for dear life in vain and lost. g3 I got lucky and played engineered explosives for 1. He strips away my entire hand after I get a snapcaster with lb flashback to hit him for 8. at 12 life he resolved an ensnaring bridge. I top decked a rakdos charm and a thundermaw hellkite back to back for the win. I don't know what to say exactly about this matchup because I got really lucky in the 3rd round. Sideboarding can be tricky too, would IOK be viable against them? It's a terrible top-deck but disrupting their disruption early enough can be make or break too.
Jund overwhelmed me with Goyfs/Bobs and Lilianas g1 while I drew into no removal/draw and land flooded. g2/3 I was on top of his goyfs with terminates, IOKs and landed cruel ultimatum. Killed quite a few Lilianas with my own thundermaws
Lost the first match 0-2 against URW control. In the next match I won g1 and then he had to leave, I don't have enough experience to come to a verdict on where we stand in this match-up.
Tron is another tricky matchup but it feels very even. My gameplan is to just play agressively, there isn't much you can do to interact with them, it feels like i'm playing a uw delver deck against wolf-run ramp. Far // Away is huge in this matchup, if you can stall their attack phases long enough then you can pull ahead. Lost against 2 tron decks and won against 2 tron decks so far. I have yet to draw into Sowing salt against them, but Thoughtseize helps a hell of a out and so does countering their uncounterables with mindbreak traps
URW Midrange feels like it's slightly in my favor. I lost one match 1-2 and won another 2-1, IOK is pretty boss here.
I think the living end match-up is slightly in their favor game 1 and then g2 is slightly in ours. Rakdos Charm is unsurprisingly a powerful sb choice here
What I've learned so far is that Rakdos Charm and Mindbreak traps are auto-includes in any grixis sideboard. They're both extremely cross-applicable. It's also recommended to have at least 1 Engineered explosives and 1 witchbane orb for those one-sided, non-interactive matchups
Good point, Thoughtflare draws 4 but in the end it nets +1. It's not that cut and dry I know, this is because it digs 4 deep while you simply pitch the irrelevant cards so I would say it's worth at least 1.5 to 3.5 in terms of CA depending on the situation.
Condescend would definitely be more effective in a ton of situations, which is why I'll test it out for at least ten games in place of a Mana Leak
Draining Whelk seems like it would work wonders in the same deck that runs Mystical Teachings. I'm going to try him out and will probably end up dedicating a sideboard slot to him in the end since he seems so tech
Thanks man! Yeah, when I've only had so much time to playtest I go for miser's of each when in doubt.
My question is the choice of draw spells, why would you use say thoughtflare over Blue Sun's Zenith? We always complain about not having sphinx's revelation, my initial impression is that blue sun's zenith would be a better replacement.
So we have access to Thoughtflare vs Opportunity vs Blue Sun's Zenith vs Mystical Teachings vs Gifts Ungiven
Has anyone playtested with each extensively? What are your impressions? What list surrounded your choice of draw spell?
The 3-drop slot is a tough one to crack for me as well. I've tried slagstorm, dissipate, or even opted for consume and damnation. 3 cmc counters are too slow and sweepers are just bad, so I'm just erring on the side of safety with the most versatile spell I could find.
Maybe a 4-2 Electrolyze to Far split? Snapcaster dances with far // away are good to dodge removal and abuse the graveyard as well as re-using the etb trigger for thundermaw to squelch squadron hawks and lingering souls
There are a lot of directions to take it, is it better to be able to tutor up Consume the Meek or just have a 5/5 etb beatstick?
So far, it's looking like
- 2 Far // Away
- 1 Blue sun's zenith
+ 1 Consume the Meek
+ 1 Electrolyze
+ 1 Mystical Teachings
On a side note, It's just as important to put a strong emphasis on choice of side-boarding. I want to make mine as diverse as possible with a minimal amount of hosers. I need suggestions based on results and experience
For instance, should I play mindbreak trap over sowing salt or slaughter games? Mindbreak seems to be the most versatile since it can exile an emrakrul in the tron matchup, can override boseiju decks (ad nausaum, that one epic enchantment build) and hose storm
What about thoughtseize in the sideboard? Is it viable to replace lightning bolt or IOK with it post-board depending on certain matchups?
Witchbane orb vs Spellskite?
Rakdos Charm vs Hurkyl's recall, shatterspree, ect
I also need help constructing a sideboard since I'm not yet savvy with modern meta
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Augur of Bolas
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
Instants (20)
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
2 Terminate
3 Electrolyze
3 Far // Away
3 Cryptic Command
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Sorceries (6)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Swamp
4 Thoughtseize
3 Spellskite
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sowing Salt
2 ???