Italian , i alredy asked sorry many time for my english man.. But i accept insult on that , not on Molten rain ihihih
Dwarf i Just think that u are really confindent with ur list , And can drive it well.
Unlike my , I pass my nights on work to try starting handa And i changed 2 cards every night.. Basing on 4/5 matches that I play during the day
A suggestion, try to overcompensate on English. Using aolspeak stuff like "ur" and incorrect capitalization just looks lazy and creates an impression that you're not really trying to communicate seriously. When you don't get the easy things right, it's a lot less plausible that ESL is the real barrier.
Yes, it does. Tron wins over control decks by going over-the-top using unfair mana production. When Tron is playing fair, it's in the control deck's favor as the control deck has the inherently more efficient cards to play the fair game more effectively. Resolving a Sowing Salt forces Tron to play fair. The trick, then, is to delay the Tron deck just enough to resolve the Salt. If a control deck can't do that consistently, there's some real fundamental problems with the build. Tron isn't actually that consistent at getting the T3 tron online that they need to really go over-the-top fast enough.
I myself realized a similar thing w.r.t. the desire to interact while tapping out. I love shoals so much, but after playing both Disrupting and Sickening shoals, I ended up settling on sickening. It's a lot less constraining on deckbuilding as sickening only cares that you're pitching an "expensive"(lol, delve, phy mana) black spell, not a spell with a specific CMC like disrupting does. Also, at least locally, I tend not to have to deal with things that don't just Die To Removal, so a counter and a creature kill spell mostly amount to the same thing so Sickening ends up significantly more reliable.
If you are really into the Disrupting Shoal plan, though, I would totally recommend putting in a couple of far//away. It's super sweet to pitch for either 2s or 3s.
IMO I'll reiterate that lightning bolt is secretly the worst card in these decks and I'm far happier having cut them. What makes lightning bolt good for the aggressive tempo decks is when Lava Spike is a legitimate mode for it. For us, it's really win-more, since in classic control deck style we don't really care about our opponent's life total that much. Dismember, dreadbore, and hero's downfall are waaay more effective at actually killing the things we need bolt to kill, whether it's creature or planewalkers.
Something to consider for those that are running EE/Ruins - maybe try trinket mage! Relic of Progenitus is a nice target as well, and Basilisk Collar with Olivia Voldaren is just dirty, though on the mana-heavy side (3+4+1+2+2=12, fortunately can pay them in some nice easy installments while going about the business of not dying).
The problem is most of my deck is still in Russian, which causes quite a bit of stress at my local lgs. Most of these cards are common but sometimes the opponents get a bit griefy having to reconfirm what it is that I'm running.
hah, I use a Japanese foil Consume the Meek. I feel like I'm almost cheating every time I cast it, especially as an Instant. Not the best decision, but I couldn't resist considering how cheap it was to get.
What dou youthink about 1x Rakdos's Return in mainboard?
Rakdos's Return was great for me in standard, but here, Cruel Ult is almost strictly better. If we want an alternate big splashy sorcery that isn't Ult, I like Sorin's Vengeance a lot more. It's also worse than Ult overall, but it could be more valuable for the deck to have a more focused lifedrain spell rather than the mishmash of effects that is Ult.
Where are you getting all this excess mana to feed into a Teachings package?
Yeaaaah. After trying it out, I've cut the one-of experimental Mystical Teachings from my list because I found it win-more. Modern is really too fast to afford taking a turn off to cast a 4-mana spell that doesn't actually *do* anything, and once I can afford to cast it, I generally don't need to.
My hard-on for Sickening Shoal has gotten even bigger and I replaced the Teachings with a 4th copy. I've distinctly felt a strong correlation between hands with Shoal and Winning.
Leyline isn't really that big of a deal, especially for my build that moved away from cruel ultimatum itself. The one-mana discard spells are properly hosed, but in terms of deck slots it tends to be a bit of a wash (4 for 4) and you can either hope to draw them less than your opponent draws leyline or side them out. As for burn, if it's something you want to point upstairs, likely you're just winning more (which is why I did the heretical thing and cut Bolt entirely, as it was mediocre when the Lava Spike mode just isn't part of the fundamental game plan and worse than dreadbore/downfall at dealing with threats). The focus of the deck is to keep the board clean, and leyline doesn't impact that at all.
Speaking of a cantrip-dude in Wall of Omens, we could play our own in the INN/RTR standard all-star Augur of Bolas. I would be so back on board the Cruel train with those guys around. It takes about 20 instant/sorceries to make them reliably hit (~70%), that's no problem for a deck like ours. Sorcery-speed anticipate with a body attached sounds pretty good... It's still very boltable unlike Wall, but that's still a bolt that's not going upstairs. The more annoying aspect here is that it's slightly harder to fill our bin for delve stuff, but it's still probably not that hard really.
We'd rather just straight-up counter the threat and not have to worry about it anymore, not just delay it. The resource we're trying exploit is Cards, where a tempo deck is trying to exploit Mana like other aggressive decks. In an aggressive deck, we are trying to win before our opponent can play out their cards, so how many cards they have is less important. This is where Remand's cantrip shines, as an extra card deeper in the deck is potentially the card to Just Kill Them in one less turn. That is, a random card from the deck is better than permanently answering a threat. However, in a control deck, we need to answer every single threat anyway, so a straight answer is better than a random card from the deck, because that random card would need to also answer the threat. Remand is still not-that-bad in a control deck because a control deck also wants to buy time, but the card doesn't quite line up with the game plan as nicely as when it's in a tempo deck.
haha, yeah, I had thought about pitching extra leylines to shoal like that and will probably try that out too sometime.. I just have a lot more experience with Relic, especially vs. grindier goyf decks where I think leyline is not as great. Against dredge, though, I'd agree that Leyline is the better choice, muliganing into it is almost a 1-card win.
Really, though, on Cruel vs. Bolas in practical terms I think it's mostly irrelevant which way you want to go as they're both just very loud statements that the game ended 5 turns ago, uninstall pls. I just personally think Bolas is the louder (and more flavorful) statement, sitting on board intimidating our opponent rather than allowing the faint hope that we just drew 3 lands and they might draw out of it somehow.
My sideboard is a bit wonky due to local meta (like, almost all BGx and Twin, with more BGx, and only the occasional smattering of the linear decks). Online it's probably best to cut the relics for more anti-burn. One thing about my maindeck is that it effectively totally dodges Abrupt Decay (well, there's snapcaster, but.. that's more Decay dying to snappy).
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is a great card, but in the current meta game you would be a fool to play one for any reason other than flavor.
Infect, Twin, Affinity, Junk and Burn are the current tier one decks. Bolas is only good against Junk, the other four decks will have killed you or have been wrecked before you cast Bolas.
Exact same reasoning applies to Cruel. They're both being run more for flavor than actual utility, but Bolas, again, forces concessions when Cruel does not. The mere fact of casting them is a declaration the game is already over, but Bolas declares that in a more decisive way. Part of my motivation for running Shoal is so that these ridiculous high CMC flavor cards can have some purpose early beyond rotting in hand until the game was already long over anyway.
Cruel Ultimatum does a lot more than drain 5 if you are not on a budget. Getting back Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique or Fulminator Mage is sweet. Drawing three cards is awesome.
I'm not on a budget. I run 7 dudes and that's on the higher end of most lists it seems. There's just not enough to reasonably expect that part of the card to actually do anything. 7 mana just isn't efficient for the effects you actually get, really we should just run 1 white source and put Sphinx's Rev in that spot. Or not care about the lifegain and run a Blue Sun's Zenith that we can keep drawing into. Both those are quite importantly instant, and have a way higher ceiling than Cruel.
Sickening Shoal is a underplayed card, but not correct for a control deck with little card advantage. However, if it works for you keep on doing it and have fun.
Shoal enables using your mana for CA plays earlier (i.e. Jace) and actually moving the game forward rather than just treading water for way too long with just 1-for-1s. It's also quite feasible to hard-cast late game too when mana is no longer at the premium it was earlier. It's really quite similar to how Force of Will enables safer JaceTMS and then JaceTMS catches you back up in CA. Shoal still works as combo-hate too like FoW, because the major combo or combo-ish decks of the format all rely on very killable creatures.
The problem, is people play Nicol Bolas because they like the card, not because it makes the deck better overall. Cruel Ultimatum itself is a better card at 7 mana than Nicol Bolas is at 8 mana. If anything, you would be better playing another copy of cruel in your 75, but you don't need more cruels if built correct.
I disagree entirely. In my experience, Cruel Ultimatum just doesn't do all that much by the time I get around to casting it. The drain for 5 is kinda nice, with the lifegain more important than the life loss. My opponent usually doesn't have a creature out (because I want to kill everything that moves anyway) and no cards in hand (because they've already played everything out and just topdecking). I don't have dudes in my yard to get back. So.. in terms of what we actually care about, Cruel ends up being mostly an overcosted Concentrate with a bit of lifegain. Oh look, a bad Sphinx's Rev. Nicol Bolas, on the other hand, decisively forces concessions in short order.
Seriously people, try out 3x murderous cut + 3x sickening shoal. It makes tapping out for Jace feel a whole lot safer. I've taken over so many games with Jace, it's crazy. He's pretty much our only long-term CA engine (keranos counts a bit too, I suppose) and resolving/protecting Jace really is one of the most important goals of the deck, IMO.
I've been testing Kolaghan's Command as well, but my impressions are kind of skewed by the strange lack of affinity in my local meta, so I never really see it where (I presume) it really shines.
Anyhow, I've gone in kind of a rather different direction with some card choices for my removal package and it's been working pretty well for me:
1. Cut Bolt entirely (blasphemy!)
At first I did have bolt in the deck, but it always felt a tad underwhelming. We're a hard control deck, not an aggressive tempo deck like Twin, so the aggressive bolt-snap-bolt line doesn't fit our game plan. That leaves Bolt doing two other things: killing dudes and chunking planeswalkers. Well, the meta has adapted to play against bolt, so I've often had bolts looking silly in my hand staring down >3 toughness dudes. Both murderous cut and dismember do a better job at killing creatures for just 1 mana (with some caveats bolt doesn't have, but not particularly strenuous conditions). Chunking down a planeswalker is important too, but it often doesn't actually kill it so you still need to invest more to kill it properly. Therefore..
2. Run 1-2 Hero's Downfall
It's ridiculous that this card sees so little play. This card does no-questions-asked what we wish bolt would do, even if it's at a premium 3 mana. Dreadbore is still pretty fine to if the 2 vs 3 mana bothers you more than instant vs. sorcery. When's the last time Terminate's no-regen clause was actually relevant? I think the only creature with regeneration I've seen is Thrun, which obviously can't get hit by targeting removal anyway.
3. Run 3-4 Sickening Shoal
This is sick sick tech that's gotten me out of so many otherwise sure losses. Slaughter Pact is somewhat similar, but Pact has a bunch of annoying targeting qualifications and annoyingly insists you still pay mana for it later. Shoal just asks for a black card with sufficiently large CMC (like, oh, Murderous Cut or Tasigur). We're a naturally mana-hungry deck with good CA, which lines up with Shoal much better than Pact. I half think of it as a modern equivalent to Force of Will.
I just played in our local weekly modern with a version of this featuring 2x Disrupting Shoal and 3x Sickening Shoal. I went 1-2, but it was still super sweet to play, it felt like it just needs tuning and I need to learn the deck better to not misplay and to figure out a more legitimate sideboard.
I ran 2x ultimatums and 1x Nicol Bolas (cause flavor), but they tended to rot in my hand and by the time I could cast them the game was already effectively over. The one time I did cast the ultimatum, it was only really an overcosted concentrate with some incidental life drain. When I'm 95% pitching a card to sickening shoal, and never really excited to actually cast it, something is wrong.
The shoals were great, both pitch-casting and hard-casting. They did a decent FoW impression and allowed me to get proactive while holding up some kind of protection.
The shell is fundamentally UBx, and I suspect that it's stronger to drop R and just go G (replacing Bolt with Decay, mostly).. which is kinda lame as I like Grixis more.
A suggestion, try to overcompensate on English. Using aolspeak stuff like "ur" and incorrect capitalization just looks lazy and creates an impression that you're not really trying to communicate seriously. When you don't get the easy things right, it's a lot less plausible that ESL is the real barrier.
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If you are really into the Disrupting Shoal plan, though, I would totally recommend putting in a couple of far//away. It's super sweet to pitch for either 2s or 3s.
IMO I'll reiterate that lightning bolt is secretly the worst card in these decks and I'm far happier having cut them. What makes lightning bolt good for the aggressive tempo decks is when Lava Spike is a legitimate mode for it. For us, it's really win-more, since in classic control deck style we don't really care about our opponent's life total that much. Dismember, dreadbore, and hero's downfall are waaay more effective at actually killing the things we need bolt to kill, whether it's creature or planewalkers.
Something to consider for those that are running EE/Ruins - maybe try trinket mage! Relic of Progenitus is a nice target as well, and Basilisk Collar with Olivia Voldaren is just dirty, though on the mana-heavy side (3+4+1+2+2=12, fortunately can pay them in some nice easy installments while going about the business of not dying).
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hah, I use a Japanese foil Consume the Meek. I feel like I'm almost cheating every time I cast it, especially as an Instant. Not the best decision, but I couldn't resist considering how cheap it was to get.
Rakdos's Return was great for me in standard, but here, Cruel Ult is almost strictly better. If we want an alternate big splashy sorcery that isn't Ult, I like Sorin's Vengeance a lot more. It's also worse than Ult overall, but it could be more valuable for the deck to have a more focused lifedrain spell rather than the mishmash of effects that is Ult.
Yeaaaah. After trying it out, I've cut the one-of experimental Mystical Teachings from my list because I found it win-more. Modern is really too fast to afford taking a turn off to cast a 4-mana spell that doesn't actually *do* anything, and once I can afford to cast it, I generally don't need to.
My hard-on for Sickening Shoal has gotten even bigger and I replaced the Teachings with a 4th copy. I've distinctly felt a strong correlation between hands with Shoal and Winning.
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Really, though, on Cruel vs. Bolas in practical terms I think it's mostly irrelevant which way you want to go as they're both just very loud statements that the game ended 5 turns ago, uninstall pls. I just personally think Bolas is the louder (and more flavorful) statement, sitting on board intimidating our opponent rather than allowing the faint hope that we just drew 3 lands and they might draw out of it somehow.
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3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Olivia Voldaren
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Enchantments
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
Planeswalkers
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Sorceries
4 Serum Visions
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Damnation
Instants
2 Mana Leak
3 Sickening Shoal
3 Murderous Cut
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Cryptic Command
1 Consume the Meek
1 Mystical Teachings
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Watery Grave
2 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Thoughtseize
3 Dispel
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Spellskite
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Relic of Progenitus
My sideboard is a bit wonky due to local meta (like, almost all BGx and Twin, with more BGx, and only the occasional smattering of the linear decks). Online it's probably best to cut the relics for more anti-burn. One thing about my maindeck is that it effectively totally dodges Abrupt Decay (well, there's snapcaster, but.. that's more Decay dying to snappy).
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Exact same reasoning applies to Cruel. They're both being run more for flavor than actual utility, but Bolas, again, forces concessions when Cruel does not. The mere fact of casting them is a declaration the game is already over, but Bolas declares that in a more decisive way. Part of my motivation for running Shoal is so that these ridiculous high CMC flavor cards can have some purpose early beyond rotting in hand until the game was already long over anyway.
I'm not on a budget. I run 7 dudes and that's on the higher end of most lists it seems. There's just not enough to reasonably expect that part of the card to actually do anything. 7 mana just isn't efficient for the effects you actually get, really we should just run 1 white source and put Sphinx's Rev in that spot. Or not care about the lifegain and run a Blue Sun's Zenith that we can keep drawing into. Both those are quite importantly instant, and have a way higher ceiling than Cruel.
Shoal enables using your mana for CA plays earlier (i.e. Jace) and actually moving the game forward rather than just treading water for way too long with just 1-for-1s. It's also quite feasible to hard-cast late game too when mana is no longer at the premium it was earlier. It's really quite similar to how Force of Will enables safer JaceTMS and then JaceTMS catches you back up in CA. Shoal still works as combo-hate too like FoW, because the major combo or combo-ish decks of the format all rely on very killable creatures.
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I disagree entirely. In my experience, Cruel Ultimatum just doesn't do all that much by the time I get around to casting it. The drain for 5 is kinda nice, with the lifegain more important than the life loss. My opponent usually doesn't have a creature out (because I want to kill everything that moves anyway) and no cards in hand (because they've already played everything out and just topdecking). I don't have dudes in my yard to get back. So.. in terms of what we actually care about, Cruel ends up being mostly an overcosted Concentrate with a bit of lifegain. Oh look, a bad Sphinx's Rev. Nicol Bolas, on the other hand, decisively forces concessions in short order.
Seriously people, try out 3x murderous cut + 3x sickening shoal. It makes tapping out for Jace feel a whole lot safer. I've taken over so many games with Jace, it's crazy. He's pretty much our only long-term CA engine (keranos counts a bit too, I suppose) and resolving/protecting Jace really is one of the most important goals of the deck, IMO.
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Anyhow, I've gone in kind of a rather different direction with some card choices for my removal package and it's been working pretty well for me:
1. Cut Bolt entirely (blasphemy!)
At first I did have bolt in the deck, but it always felt a tad underwhelming. We're a hard control deck, not an aggressive tempo deck like Twin, so the aggressive bolt-snap-bolt line doesn't fit our game plan. That leaves Bolt doing two other things: killing dudes and chunking planeswalkers. Well, the meta has adapted to play against bolt, so I've often had bolts looking silly in my hand staring down >3 toughness dudes. Both murderous cut and dismember do a better job at killing creatures for just 1 mana (with some caveats bolt doesn't have, but not particularly strenuous conditions). Chunking down a planeswalker is important too, but it often doesn't actually kill it so you still need to invest more to kill it properly. Therefore..
2. Run 1-2 Hero's Downfall
It's ridiculous that this card sees so little play. This card does no-questions-asked what we wish bolt would do, even if it's at a premium 3 mana. Dreadbore is still pretty fine to if the 2 vs 3 mana bothers you more than instant vs. sorcery. When's the last time Terminate's no-regen clause was actually relevant? I think the only creature with regeneration I've seen is Thrun, which obviously can't get hit by targeting removal anyway.
3. Run 3-4 Sickening Shoal
This is sick sick tech that's gotten me out of so many otherwise sure losses. Slaughter Pact is somewhat similar, but Pact has a bunch of annoying targeting qualifications and annoyingly insists you still pay mana for it later. Shoal just asks for a black card with sufficiently large CMC (like, oh, Murderous Cut or Tasigur). We're a naturally mana-hungry deck with good CA, which lines up with Shoal much better than Pact. I half think of it as a modern equivalent to Force of Will.
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I ran 2x ultimatums and 1x Nicol Bolas (cause flavor), but they tended to rot in my hand and by the time I could cast them the game was already effectively over. The one time I did cast the ultimatum, it was only really an overcosted concentrate with some incidental life drain. When I'm 95% pitching a card to sickening shoal, and never really excited to actually cast it, something is wrong.
The shoals were great, both pitch-casting and hard-casting. They did a decent FoW impression and allowed me to get proactive while holding up some kind of protection.
The shell is fundamentally UBx, and I suspect that it's stronger to drop R and just go G (replacing Bolt with Decay, mostly).. which is kinda lame as I like Grixis more.
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