Is there any blue creature we can consider or blue planeswalker due to the mana of Hierarch?
With Noble Hierarch as the only blue source? Nop
If you want to play blue, you have to warp the manabase
I have tried this before. You basically end up removing arbiters as to reliably have blue mana you need to be fetching and then why not add Geist of Saint Traft or Snapcaster Mage or Meddling Mage or.... While in theory I love Bant I have never been able to find a build I really liked. It always feels as it it is missing something and/or ran kind of clunky but that could totally be a result of how I constructed it.
@dcovino: List looks good. Fit a lot of great stuff in there, Oath helps with getting those utility 1-ofs I hope. Would you consider a 1-of Eldrazi Displacer? with the Finks, Witness, etc? He removes blockers, resets opposing Oozes, stops big attacks, etc.
Did you end up playing that 2x Archangel of Tithes at all? Was she good?
I ran Sea Gate Wreckage this weekend and while I liked it I found that having the mana to use it was sometimes difficult. Getting the colorless requirement isn't terribly hard but I felt I had other things I had or wanted to be doing with 3 mana. I realize Eldrazi Displacer is a different card - but it has the same activation cost and isn't free to get on the board to begin with. I'm sure that it is completely oppressive when it gets going (like most blink effects) but I probably wouldn't run it. I've run Restoration Angel for myriad reasons before and I'd probably just run 1-2 of those for the blink effect and have the additional abilities of flash, flying, and four toughness to boot. Flash casting a Serendib Efreet is pretty solid.
Archangel of Tithes is great at offense and defense and is still in my 75 right now. I'm constantly moving her in and out of the board and can't figure out a) where I want her to live and b) how many copies (0-2) I would run total. I would run her in the board as a Ghostly Prison of sorts that I can Oath of Nissa for in game two against swarm strategies or decks that rely on lots of token / wall type blockers to push through my own damage. Obviously again, flying...five toughness, etc is worth it in modern.
Is there any blue creature we can consider or blue planeswalker due to the mana of Hierarch?
All of the Jaces cost UU as far as I recall and Narset does nothing for us. I have used Kiora, the Crashing Wave in scapeshift builds before and found her to be subtly powerful. She does a decent job of protecting herself and can ultimate pretty quickly. The look on people's faces is kind of priceless. I haven't tried the newer version of her but I could assume it would be similar.
We run a similar manabase. I haven't had any issues in casting the cards you were concerned about. Agree that while in theory you could drop a land because of Oath of Nissa we are sacrificing lands all over the place so the count of 23 is somewhat deceptive.
Creatures
Agree with your expectations of the format in the short term. Being able to play a three drop on turn three and not worry too much about losing to twin really opens up their use quite a bit. Add that to the influx of agro strategies of different flavors and I'm all about maximizing the slot. I don't run Loxodon Smiter anymore for reasons stated earlier in the thread. To replace him I knew I wanted a good creature on both offense and defense that will in most situations force some kind of two for one in my favor.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos: He's a great combination of threat and stabilizing force in one. If he weren't legendary it would be a four of for me. Has to attack or block to get that 2-for-1 but being 4 toughness passes the bolt test.
Eternal Witness: Not the most exciting of creatures but being able to buy back critical cards from the graveyard has been helping a ton. Recent addition to the build this week, so time will tell if she makes the cut for the long term.
Blade Splicer: Hands down this is the card that is performing well above my expectations. The token is excellent for stabilizing as well as a great carrier of exalted triggers - first strike is a very powerful ability that is somewhat hard to find in modern. He can block Etched Champion and if the golem eats a bolt I still have a 1/1 to chump block for a turn. Overall, 4 power spread across two bodies is a great deal for the casting cost.
Regarding your question - I see moving any one of the three cards you're debating out of the main and in to the board as viable depending on your local scene. I dont think Thrun, the Last Troll is particularly good right now but I've always loved Restoration Angel. Ultimately I think Linvala, Keeper of Silence wins the four cmc slot for me as her ability shuts down so many random things and makes life difficult for the other side. Flying is huge in modern as many decks have little to no way to block it.
Enchantments
Still loving the four Oath of Nissa plan here. Don't see that changing soon.
Planeswalkers
I tried out the off-color planeswalker idea this weekend at the LGS, with Ajani Vengeant main and Chandra, Pyromaster and Ob Nixilis Reignited in the side. In short - the strategy works overall but its certainly risky for the reasons you stated. If any of those stay it would be Ob Nixilis because his abilities are really good and at 5 cmc I will typically have an Oath in play by the time I have mana to cast him.
This experiment did show me how planeswalkers in general are definitely more viable in a twin-free world. To that end I'll be running Elspeth, Knight-Errant in the main this week and Gideon Jura in the side. I feel like those two give the deck the ability to play the aggressor or defender pretty well.
Ohh wow sorry guys, i totally missed the "non-creature" fact on Teeg
I totally agree with Coeurly: In the matchups where you want Gideon you probably Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge their lands away so 5cmc is harder to cast and you probably want to overrun them in the early turns anyway with your hatebear-army.
Gideon Jura has many more applications than just against Eldrazi style decks.
Actually, that card is surprisingly absent since mostly they just go big. Plus you can't side against everything. I'm accepting that is going to ruin my day.
I am also considering other options, like Gideon Jura, since we can ramp into him and then force them to attack, leaving them completely vulnerable and being unable to swing back for lethal because of a wall of El-skeezy was literally how I lost multiple games. However, I think a 3-drop recurring removal guy is better.
I've been thinking about it this way because I also play Merfolk and Islandwalk is the skittles against Eldrazi since it makes their dudes non-blockers. So I thought, how do we get that effect in GW? Well, removal or Gideon are pretty much it. I think removal is more efficient and 3 mana more effective, since it can drop on turn 2 sometimes and it is also a vial target.
I agree that the deck needs more recurring removal in general. Between the two I'd probably take Gideon Jura because he can at least kill something tapped when he etb and is more resilient than Intrepid Hero. Gideon Jura has the added benefit of also being a win con.
I think with Twin gone, other blue decks might try to fill the void, like UWx Geist, Scapeshift or Grixis Control, so smiter still has value. Liliana decks might be on the down, but Smiter still has the best rate as a beater for the deck.
More specifically, the decks you mention are three color decks by nature more susceptible to the mana denial that we run than twin. As long as I get around 3-4 power in this slot I'm ok with trying to race them.
I'm running into issues against infect, which is most of my local game store. Does anyone have sideboard cards that specifically beat infect?
I've run Melira, Sylvok Outcast when I know I'll face it and it works like a charm. They typically don't have any creature removal to get her off the board and its much harder for them to kill you with damage (obviously).
Shriez - Dawn Charm I can see uses for all of its modes - what were your plans with it? How did it work out? Did you ever get to land Ajani Vengeant?
Just found this list from a recent mtgo league. Obviously its a bit different than what we typically talk about on this thread, but specifically in regard to Eight-and-a-Half-Tails...has anyone run this before? Interesting that it can save your permanents from Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger triggers in addition to the "normal" uses of giving protection to things. It is somewhat mana intensive but there are so few ways to stop the various on-cast triggers I felt it was worth consideration.
If we're already talking about Planeswalkers we can't cast without oath, why not play Liliana of the Veil? You know, the best 3mana planeswalker? Our hand empties out pretty quickly so that seems decent.
I dont like Lili mostly because I think that her +1 doesn't add much to the plan of resource denial - their hands will be full anyway. Without that, she ends up being a 3 mana edict that probably dies immediately. Her cmc is also right at our "sweet spot" in the 2-3 range.
Oath and planeswalkers make collected company significantly worse, so I'm wondering what matchup you guys feel we really need planeswalkers in as an aggro deck? CC refills the board against removal heavy decks like BGx or control variants, and let's us force them to tap on their own turn against counters. Planeswalkers improve which matchups for us?
Good question. First off I wouldn't be running Collected Company so thats a non-issue to me, personally.
I think my scope for this exercise is going to be along these lines:
Should be CMC > 3 so it doesn't compete with the early plays we have to make to enact the actual game plan. This also "ensures" that we will have an Oath of Nissa on board to be able to cast it on curve.
Must be resilient enough that one copy is "enough". This means it either has to protect itself well and / or have very high starting loyalty. By virtue of the above, it will be Abrupt Decay proof as well.
Should have two generally useful abilities, with at least one that can impact the board immediately. These abilities should lean to things that aren't really in the GW color identity and aren't targeted at any specific matchup.
They should be good cards to bring in when we hit random matchups that we're unprepared for or any of the bad-but-hard-to-hate-out matchups. In my mind I'm thinking of Merfolk here, as an example. I feel that Choke isn't very good against them for various reasons and it is way too limited right now with Twin gone. Jund and Zoo variants would also be in this category to me, to varying degrees.
I'm sorry if this sounds really negative, but do you guys realize that there isn't a deck that plays Venser or Ob Nixilis in Modern? Why would Hatebears play those things just because we can now play Oath of Nissa?
I agree that I wouldn't play Venser, the Sojourner but that's because blinking isn't my thing more than no deck plays it. Until a few weeks ago, no decks played Eldrazi Temple, either. I think if you look at my posts on this thread you'll see I'm open to trying things out if I can make a logical case to do so. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't but I refuse to not play something just because no one else does.
I know you're being the Devil's Advocate and I'm not offended by it or anything: I just wanted to state where I'm coming from. The fact that a card I plan on playing as a four of in my build allows for really weird inclusions regarding planeswalkers in my sideboard to give my color pairing abilities it doesn't normally have certainly warrants testing.
Thanks for some math on the numbers with Oath of Nissa, it seems to support what I've been seeing. The ability to improve chances of getting whatever is critical on turn two -or- being able to find a second land to play that critical bear in hand is incredibly powerful.
It seems to me that Thalia, Guardian of Thraben just makes Oath of Nissa bad after turn 1. Oath also lowers your threat density, and it makes it much harder to mulligan the way Manamorphose makes it hard to mulligan. I have to say I'm not a fan. Wouldn't you rather just drop a Noble Hierarch on T1?
It gives you two good turn one plays between Oath of Nissa and Noble Hierarch. If I have both in hand 9/10 times I would play the Noble first and use the Oath later to "refill" or find a threat. I have to disagree on the impact of Thalia to it as well. Going from 1 to 2 isn't a huge deal given the effect and is much different in going from 4 to 5 in the case of CoCo. I would say that like with many new cards you have to try it to appreciate it.
I'm probably biased because I've never liked Collected Company all that much in this deck and would drop them for Oath of Nissa in a heartbeat.
I can't agree with or emphasize this statement from Caspian more:
"The impact of any particular hatebear is in direct relation to their timing against the opponent's strategy."
CoCo gets you (up to) two creatures instantly but it forces some deck choices around it and you may not find the right bear early enough to make an impact. The 2 CMC slot is critical for the deck to function as most of the early game high impact bears are there and Oath of Nissa helps ensure I'll be able to find that bear if I dont have it in my opener or find the land to cast if I do. Late game it is gas to filter out junk and capitalize on our board state. Even if we have Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on board its still very playable, whereas Collected Company gets that much more difficult to cast due to our liberal use of lands-as-spells. Finally, its static ability could open up some nice flexibility which leads me to...
If we're considering Domri Rade as playable in an Oath of Nissa deck (and I think it is) then we should explore all planeswalkers and what they can bring. This ability essentially breaks the color identity of green-white and would allow us to have any of the below in the 75.
Of those I like the idea of Ob Nixilis Reignited, Sorin, Solemn Visitor , Ajani Vengeant, and Chandra, Pyromaster the most. They're high impact cards that give us abilities that GW realy can't get such as card draw and targeted removal while being Abrupt Decay proof and entering with a high starting loyalty. Their CMC doesn't conflict with the core of the deck and allows you time to set up the board and get an Oath of Nissa in play - not only allowing you to cast them but finding them in the process.
Unless my testing proves way better than anticipated I'm currently looking at this approach as sideboard "surprise" slots for grindy or control type decks. I'll let you know how it works out.
My sideboards in general are typically a bunch of singletons that have overlap in many matches rather than multiple copies of specific cards. When using Oath of Nissa and/or Collected Company to dig for your cards you dont have to have so many copies of each, and I always have something that I can bring in for any given match in a tournament. The first Stony Silence is great, but in most cases I never want to see more than one copy in a game... yet I could still bring in 5 cards from the board for Affinity if I wanted in addition to having the main deck Qasali Pridemage for artifact destruction, Blade Splicer for dealing with Etched Champion, and Archangel of Tithes for handling their swarm.
That said - I have tested Selesnya Charm off and on over the last few years and found it helps mostly as a fifth "removal" spell in some non-conventional ways.
Obviously, the exile mode is great against Tron's wurmcoils and other large creatures in the format.
The "flash" 2/2 Knight mode I've used as a surprise chump blocker against agro decks to remove things like Goblin Guide or just as another creature to attack with in matches where I need to race.
The third mode is a nice combat trick or the last 2 points of (trampling) damage.
Overall I think it is a pretty flexible spell considering the lack of efficient removal in these colors in Modern. Given what I'm expecting to see over the next few weeks, I think it will work out well. If not, its probably one of the first in the sideboard I would look to swapping out.
I replaced Cannonist with Eidolon of Rhetoric and never looked back. The ability to survive an anger or bolt is huge. It single handedly won me a tournament yesterday since I was vs Grishoal in the finals.
Sunlance may be a fine card to start playing again depending on how popular URX delver becomes. I played it 1 main 1 side when TC was legal and it was great then.
Good point on Eidolon of Rhetoric, not sure how I missed that over Ethersworn Canonist. I guess the question becomes "is the difference between playing this effect a turn later a game loss". I think its possible but probably negligible, so Eidolon gets the nod.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is great to contain the Elves decks and to a lesser extent some of Affinity like Arcbound Ravager and Steel Overseer. Use your Ghost Quarter on the Inkmoth nexus like Cosmo mentioned; additionally Qasali Pridemage to take out the Cranial Plating Steel Overseer (and Nexus in a pinch). Both of these matchups (like most swarm decks) will require some careful use of your Path to Exile and creative use of your Aven Mindcensor and or Hushwing Gryff as surprive "removal" when warranted.
Rancor
I have tried this before. You basically end up removing arbiters as to reliably have blue mana you need to be fetching and then why not add Geist of Saint Traft or Snapcaster Mage or Meddling Mage or.... While in theory I love Bant I have never been able to find a build I really liked. It always feels as it it is missing something and/or ran kind of clunky but that could totally be a result of how I constructed it.
I ran Sea Gate Wreckage this weekend and while I liked it I found that having the mana to use it was sometimes difficult. Getting the colorless requirement isn't terribly hard but I felt I had other things I had or wanted to be doing with 3 mana. I realize Eldrazi Displacer is a different card - but it has the same activation cost and isn't free to get on the board to begin with. I'm sure that it is completely oppressive when it gets going (like most blink effects) but I probably wouldn't run it. I've run Restoration Angel for myriad reasons before and I'd probably just run 1-2 of those for the blink effect and have the additional abilities of flash, flying, and four toughness to boot. Flash casting a Serendib Efreet is pretty solid.
Archangel of Tithes is great at offense and defense and is still in my 75 right now. I'm constantly moving her in and out of the board and can't figure out a) where I want her to live and b) how many copies (0-2) I would run total. I would run her in the board as a Ghostly Prison of sorts that I can Oath of Nissa for in game two against swarm strategies or decks that rely on lots of token / wall type blockers to push through my own damage. Obviously again, flying...five toughness, etc is worth it in modern.
All of the Jaces cost UU as far as I recall and Narset does nothing for us. I have used Kiora, the Crashing Wave in scapeshift builds before and found her to be subtly powerful. She does a decent job of protecting herself and can ultimate pretty quickly. The look on people's faces is kind of priceless. I haven't tried the newer version of her but I could assume it would be similar.
Lands
We run a similar manabase. I haven't had any issues in casting the cards you were concerned about. Agree that while in theory you could drop a land because of Oath of Nissa we are sacrificing lands all over the place so the count of 23 is somewhat deceptive.
Creatures
Agree with your expectations of the format in the short term. Being able to play a three drop on turn three and not worry too much about losing to twin really opens up their use quite a bit. Add that to the influx of agro strategies of different flavors and I'm all about maximizing the slot. I don't run Loxodon Smiter anymore for reasons stated earlier in the thread. To replace him I knew I wanted a good creature on both offense and defense that will in most situations force some kind of two for one in my favor.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos: He's a great combination of threat and stabilizing force in one. If he weren't legendary it would be a four of for me. Has to attack or block to get that 2-for-1 but being 4 toughness passes the bolt test.
Eternal Witness: Not the most exciting of creatures but being able to buy back critical cards from the graveyard has been helping a ton. Recent addition to the build this week, so time will tell if she makes the cut for the long term.
Kitchen Finks: Obviously good against agro decks and Liliana of the Veil. Once Gavony Township is online becomes difficult to get off the board for a lot of decks.
Blade Splicer: Hands down this is the card that is performing well above my expectations. The token is excellent for stabilizing as well as a great carrier of exalted triggers - first strike is a very powerful ability that is somewhat hard to find in modern. He can block Etched Champion and if the golem eats a bolt I still have a 1/1 to chump block for a turn. Overall, 4 power spread across two bodies is a great deal for the casting cost.
Regarding your question - I see moving any one of the three cards you're debating out of the main and in to the board as viable depending on your local scene. I dont think Thrun, the Last Troll is particularly good right now but I've always loved Restoration Angel. Ultimately I think Linvala, Keeper of Silence wins the four cmc slot for me as her ability shuts down so many random things and makes life difficult for the other side. Flying is huge in modern as many decks have little to no way to block it.
Enchantments
Still loving the four Oath of Nissa plan here. Don't see that changing soon.
Planeswalkers
I tried out the off-color planeswalker idea this weekend at the LGS, with Ajani Vengeant main and Chandra, Pyromaster and Ob Nixilis Reignited in the side. In short - the strategy works overall but its certainly risky for the reasons you stated. If any of those stay it would be Ob Nixilis because his abilities are really good and at 5 cmc I will typically have an Oath in play by the time I have mana to cast him.
This experiment did show me how planeswalkers in general are definitely more viable in a twin-free world. To that end I'll be running Elspeth, Knight-Errant in the main this week and Gideon Jura in the side. I feel like those two give the deck the ability to play the aggressor or defender pretty well.
2x Aven Mindcensor
2x Blade Splicer
2x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1x Eternal Witness
2x Kitchen Finks
4x Leonin Arbiter
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Voice of Resurgence
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
2x Forest
1x Gavony Township
4x Ghost Quarter
4x Horizon Canopy
2x Plains
4x Razorverge Thicket
2x Stirring Wildwood
1x Tectonic Edge
3x Temple Garden
4x Path to Exile
Enchantment (4)
4x Oath of Nissa
Planeswalker (1)
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Gideon Jura has many more applications than just against Eldrazi style decks.
I agree that the deck needs more recurring removal in general. Between the two I'd probably take Gideon Jura because he can at least kill something tapped when he etb and is more resilient than Intrepid Hero. Gideon Jura has the added benefit of also being a win con.
Does it? I am not so sure anymore. My reasoning pretty closely aligns with this post over on the Zoo thread.
I swapped my Loxodon Smiter out to a mix of Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Kitchen Finks and Blade Splicer once twin was banned. The improvement against other agro strategies is noticeable and they're all equal to or better against targeted removal spells compared to Loxodon Smiter.
More specifically, the decks you mention are three color decks by nature more susceptible to the mana denial that we run than twin. As long as I get around 3-4 power in this slot I'm ok with trying to race them.
I've run Melira, Sylvok Outcast when I know I'll face it and it works like a charm. They typically don't have any creature removal to get her off the board and its much harder for them to kill you with damage (obviously).
Shriez - Dawn Charm I can see uses for all of its modes - what were your plans with it? How did it work out? Did you ever get to land Ajani Vengeant?
Just found this list from a recent mtgo league. Obviously its a bit different than what we typically talk about on this thread, but specifically in regard to Eight-and-a-Half-Tails...has anyone run this before? Interesting that it can save your permanents from Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger triggers in addition to the "normal" uses of giving protection to things. It is somewhat mana intensive but there are so few ways to stop the various on-cast triggers I felt it was worth consideration.
This exactly.
I dont like Lili mostly because I think that her +1 doesn't add much to the plan of resource denial - their hands will be full anyway. Without that, she ends up being a 3 mana edict that probably dies immediately. Her cmc is also right at our "sweet spot" in the 2-3 range.
Good question. First off I wouldn't be running Collected Company so thats a non-issue to me, personally.
I think my scope for this exercise is going to be along these lines:
Its for (mostly) those reasons I initially was thinking of some locus of Ob Nixilis Reignited, Sorin, Solemn Visitor , Ajani Vengeant, and Chandra, Pyromaster from the board as "catchalls". Again, I don't like targeting my sideboard cards to anything in particular if I can get away with it.
I agree that I wouldn't play Venser, the Sojourner but that's because blinking isn't my thing more than no deck plays it. Until a few weeks ago, no decks played Eldrazi Temple, either. I think if you look at my posts on this thread you'll see I'm open to trying things out if I can make a logical case to do so. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't but I refuse to not play something just because no one else does.
I know you're being the Devil's Advocate and I'm not offended by it or anything: I just wanted to state where I'm coming from. The fact that a card I plan on playing as a four of in my build allows for really weird inclusions regarding planeswalkers in my sideboard to give my color pairing abilities it doesn't normally have certainly warrants testing.
Thanks for some math on the numbers with Oath of Nissa, it seems to support what I've been seeing. The ability to improve chances of getting whatever is critical on turn two -or- being able to find a second land to play that critical bear in hand is incredibly powerful.
It gives you two good turn one plays between Oath of Nissa and Noble Hierarch. If I have both in hand 9/10 times I would play the Noble first and use the Oath later to "refill" or find a threat. I have to disagree on the impact of Thalia to it as well. Going from 1 to 2 isn't a huge deal given the effect and is much different in going from 4 to 5 in the case of CoCo. I would say that like with many new cards you have to try it to appreciate it.
I can't agree with or emphasize this statement from Caspian more: CoCo gets you (up to) two creatures instantly but it forces some deck choices around it and you may not find the right bear early enough to make an impact. The 2 CMC slot is critical for the deck to function as most of the early game high impact bears are there and Oath of Nissa helps ensure I'll be able to find that bear if I dont have it in my opener or find the land to cast if I do. Late game it is gas to filter out junk and capitalize on our board state. Even if we have Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on board its still very playable, whereas Collected Company gets that much more difficult to cast due to our liberal use of lands-as-spells. Finally, its static ability could open up some nice flexibility which leads me to...
If we're considering Domri Rade as playable in an Oath of Nissa deck (and I think it is) then we should explore all planeswalkers and what they can bring. This ability essentially breaks the color identity of green-white and would allow us to have any of the below in the 75.
Planeswalker Considerations
Of those I like the idea of Ob Nixilis Reignited, Sorin, Solemn Visitor , Ajani Vengeant, and Chandra, Pyromaster the most. They're high impact cards that give us abilities that GW realy can't get such as card draw and targeted removal while being Abrupt Decay proof and entering with a high starting loyalty. Their CMC doesn't conflict with the core of the deck and allows you time to set up the board and get an Oath of Nissa in play - not only allowing you to cast them but finding them in the process.
Unless my testing proves way better than anticipated I'm currently looking at this approach as sideboard "surprise" slots for grindy or control type decks. I'll let you know how it works out.
My sideboards in general are typically a bunch of singletons that have overlap in many matches rather than multiple copies of specific cards. When using Oath of Nissa and/or Collected Company to dig for your cards you dont have to have so many copies of each, and I always have something that I can bring in for any given match in a tournament. The first Stony Silence is great, but in most cases I never want to see more than one copy in a game... yet I could still bring in 5 cards from the board for Affinity if I wanted in addition to having the main deck Qasali Pridemage for artifact destruction, Blade Splicer for dealing with Etched Champion, and Archangel of Tithes for handling their swarm.
That said - I have tested Selesnya Charm off and on over the last few years and found it helps mostly as a fifth "removal" spell in some non-conventional ways.
Good point on Eidolon of Rhetoric, not sure how I missed that over Ethersworn Canonist. I guess the question becomes "is the difference between playing this effect a turn later a game loss". I think its possible but probably negligible, so Eidolon gets the nod.