Hi Polymorph, thanks for the report. Can you say a little more about how Matter Reshaper performed? Was it awkward having no 2-drop threat? Sculler fills the curve kind of nicely IMO
His general opinions about the list going forward:
- He seems really high on Kalitas! Even wanted to play one main.
- Wanted another Thoughtseize main.
- Wanted to play more Fatal Push but didn't have enough enablers for Revolt. Maybe we can play more Push in the 4 Marsh Flats version of the deck. I have always thought Path is super awkward in midrange decks but you just kinda had to play it if you didn't have access to Terminate. Maybe Push is close enough.
- Likes the Ratchet Bomb as a maindeck out to random nonsense like Blood Moon, but is Cast Out just better?
- Surprisingly cuts Smasher for Kalitas in the midrange matchups, not at all what I would have thought. I just don't see the logic here, anyone have any ideas? Usually you just cut all the discard for threats if you expect to be in the classic midrange topdeck war.
- Feels that the big mana decks are not totally hopeless; Fulminator Mage is in the sideboard!
I'd probably put in another Swamp since you seldom need to find the Wastes off of Path and then with another black source swap the Wraths for Damnations. Fragmentize is probably worse than Disenchant. Sorcery speed hurts a lot versus Affinity, which is its primary use. Maybe cut a Thoughtseize or two for more threats, you already have 8 creatures that disrupt your opponent's hand, and these are the worst topdecks. Otherwise looks more or less fine.
14 black sources is Karsten's minimum recommendation for reliable T1 Thoughtseizes, and BGx has historically run around 16, so 13 is not not super far off. However, I think you are definitely right that I am probably overestimating the importance of playing through Ceremonious Rejection and random other blue permission, but I want at least a couple Caverns to at least make it possible to play around it.
As for fetches/targets, I've almost never found myself in a situation where I had somehow managed to land all my targets and yet was stuck on 4 or 5 lands, nevermind the situation where that happened and 4 or 5 lands was not enough to play out my hand as I wished. I guess I just feel like the marginal value of a useful land over a dead fetch is pretty small when you already have 4-5+ lands, whereas the marginal value of a fetch over a target is very high in the early game. In any case, if I were to add targets, I'd sooner play another basic than a second Shrine. In my years of experience playing BGx midrange decks, I have often found myself in situations where I've drawn early multiple shocks against an aggressive deck and wished the second shock was literally any other land.
Awesome play report, iostream! Thanks. I like your land package, looks like the only barrier to T2 Sculler is having Temple or both Swamps in a two-land keep. Seems to me you could cut Fetid Heath for another dual (a shock maybe?) since you have all those Caverns for C. I agree that threat density is important, though, which is why I like the Mutavaults for now. The fact that Eternal Scourge is so hard to get rid of has also seemed to help me with my threat density. I love Pithing Needle in the side BTW, but I also love having Anguished Unmaking in the 75. Cast Out seems like a reasonable replacement for Unmaking, especially in the main. Both Needle and Cast Out (and O=Ring) seem much worse than Unmaking against UW Control, though, which can bounce with Cryptic Command and also neutralize permanent-based hate with Detention Sphere.
Heath for another dual is probably fine, although I'd really like to squeeze in a Mutavault or two. But I'd like to go on a quick aside about playing multiple shocklands, since I think this is a mistake:
- I don't like the second Godless Shrine. As soon as you have one, the second immediately becomes a painful draw, and in my mana base you have 4 Flats to find it. I really don't think you need 2 of these.
- In general, from playing a ton of Legacy, I strongly prefer to play fewer targets than fetches. Just look at any Legacy land base, there are always at least as many fetches as targets, even in decks that don't run Brainstorm. This is because the fetch is always better to draw than any of its targets since the fetch can get any target, and if you have no targets, it means you have a lot of lands in play.
- I only play 4 targets because I want enough basics to fetch against Path to Exile. If I never had to play through Path, I'd probably cut the second Swamp.
Anyway, about Mutavault:
I was looking through some of my old BW writeups (for instance, this one), and I think we can afford to be somewhat greedier. I'll test the following manabase:
Counting Cavern, there are 17 black sources and 16 white sources, and without Cavern there are 13 black and 12 white sources. A more conservative person might run a split between Cavern and Mutavault instead of Concealed Courtyard and Mutavault, but I really want to cast Reality Smasheron curve. This mana base is a bit greedy for a deck that's trying to cast turn 1 Thoughtseize, but not greedier than what I was playing in February 2016
I'll give this a shot (with Pack Rats!) at a local Modern 1k in a week and a half.
As for Cast Out versus alternatives, I agree that it's not the best type of this effect against UW control, but I think it's the most maindeckable choice since it cycles.
1) Go-wide creature decks like Company, Elves, and Merfolk are currently not addressed adequately by current builds, but I think those matchups are very fixable without conceding too much in other matchups. We just need to run some sweepers.
2) Pure control decks. I know we beat the more midrangy snapcaster decks pretty badly, but it felt awful to look across the table from 6-drop Elspeth or Gideon, AOZ. We need some plan against counterspells-into-planeswalkers, and I think there are many playable options here. Needles, Vindicate effects, O Ring effects, etc. I don't know what is the right idea. Actually Pack Rat maindeck might be very helpful here since it sort of forces them to find Supreme Verdict or bust.
3) Big mana decks. Tron and Valakut have just always been hard matchups for midrange decks and require significant concessions in other matchups since you need to play so many cards to turn those matchups around. Historically, Jund players who really wanted to beat Tron had to play like 4 Fulminators and 2 Slaughter Games. But it's not even clear to me that this is enough since Eldrazi Tron is the most popular big mana deck now. Eldrazi Tron can operate perfectly well without Tron online, so even the traditional choices like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter may not be good, and Karn isn't as good of a name with Slaughter Games (or in our case, Cranial Extraction) as it is against traditional Tron. I have to be honest, I don't know how we would fix that matchup even in principle. I think the strategy is to just strip their hand, race as fast as you can, and hope they draw too many bricks before we kill them.
All things considered, I think you can't gear your deck to beat everything, and right now, I'd rather concede the Etron matchup in the current metagame than the wide creature matchups + dedicated control matchups. That being said, it's possible we can somehow gear the deck to go underneath them better, which should theoretically also help out against Control, but I don't know how to do this well off the top of my head.
As for specific cards:
Have not tested Eternal Scourge. Have looked at Knight of Glory, and it's just worse than Crusader in this build IMO. With my mana base, Crusader is just as castable, it's a slightly faster clock, and it has applications against more traditional BGx decks as well. Reality Smasher is already as big or bigger than everything except a powered up DS, so I'm not sure Exalted really matters.
I think your mana is the best for getting sculler on turn 2. Do you think it's too greedy going down 2 caverns for 2 mutavaults?
In addition, I agree on going up to 4 smashers.
Squeezing in 2 smugglers copters could be really strong. It has great synergy with lingering souls and will help with your dead top decks.
How did you feel about your sideboard? I love mirran crusader but is it really needed in this deck?
As stated before someone was bought Gideon was win more. Would Sorin be more powerful?
Are the additional RIP's needed? Would graffdiggers cage be more versatile?
Also how about ratchet bomb, Lilliana last hope, flaying tendrils to kills tokens and go wide strategies?
Main concern with Copter is that it's such a bad topdeck. It's just the worst on an empty board.
An idea that just came to mind: Pack Rat?! Craig Wescoe beat my ass with Pack Rat + Lingering Souls in day 2 of GP Worcester in 2014, and that's a memory that just bubbled up when I was thinking about this issue. It plays really well with Mutavaults, as well.
Sideboard was just OK, it needs tuning. I basically just made little changes to Braverman's list, but I was not really satisfied. As for specific cards:
- Crusader is an EZ win button versus any black discard deck with Lightning Bolt being so unpopular these days. Loved it.
- Gideon wasn't very good, and Sorin doesn't seem much better. These are cards that made more sense when GBx and blue-based control decks were more prevalent. But now Modern is a format where the best midrange deck is running a pile of one-mana Negates in the maindeck, so I think that's not the angle you want to take. Maybe Blight Herders would be better?
- RiP was my attempt at 100% locking down the graveyard-based matchups and DS matchups since I expected those to be the two most popular kinds of strategies at the GP. Those decks can pace your Relics, especially in post-board games, and I liked having access to them to make sure nothing goes wrong. That being said, they are certainly not addressing weaknesses, and I can understand cutting them if you expect a more diverse field.
- All your sweeper suggestions seem totally reasonable, and I have no idea which is best. I like Liliana, the Last Hope the most since in addition to being a good x/1 killer, I can actually imagine sneaking it under Stubborn Denial to out-grind DS decks. A second Damnation might also be a reasonable choice.
- One thing I felt was missing in the sideboard was some sort of Needle effect. Planeswalkers are really good against us.
EDIT: regarding Mutavault, if I were to make room for 2 Mutavault, I'd probably try cutting 2 Courtyards just because those coming into play tapped as your fourth land sometimes screws you out of an on-curve Smasher, i.e. the drawback is real in this deck.
I scrubbed out really hard in GP Vegas (2-4) playing a deck very close to Michael Braverman's 10th place deck from SCG Charlotte. Frustrating since I was straight crushing it in side events the previous day. I had a bye, beat Burn, and lost to Merfolk, Eldrazi Tron, UW Control, and 8-Rack. Against Merfolk and UW control, in two games each match, I got screwed by multiple Spreading Seas...
The deck felt quite good although a bit threat light. Cavern made Tidehollow Sculler reliably castable, but losing Mutavault made it hard to back up the hand disruption with appropriate pressure. For instance, in a match against 8-rack (traditionally a good matchup for midrange Lingering Souls decks), I just couldn't get there since I didn't draw enough threats to outpace my opponent, and I didn't have Mutavault to fall back on. Similarly, in my match against UW Control, I just didn't have enough ways to pressure his planeswalkers, which seemed completely unbeatable every time they resolved (although in fairness, the Spreading Seas issue I mentioned before definitely was relevant). Some of this can be chalked up to variance, like sometimes you play really tight and your draws just don't come together. But it definitely suggests upping the threat count.
That being said, I think Cavern over Mutavault is right because Tidehollow Sculler is just that good and because Ceremonious Rejection is a real card now. People in this thread seem way too worried about the opponent getting the card back, but that's not the point. They usually have to spend a card to get the card back, and the point is that you get to limit their options by taking the appropriate card. For instance, you will sometimes see a hand with Terminate and Push, and you're supposed to take Push so that they have to Terminate your otherwise-non-threatening 2/2 to get their card back (instead of, say, Terminating a Reality Smasher). Another example: you can usually slow Burn down by a turn by taking the most tempo-positive card in their hand like Boros Charm or Lightning Helix. If they leave the Sculler alone, it's better than an Inquisition, and otherwise they have to burn a Bolt and some tempo to get their card back, which has the same effect overall. Sculler makes it so easy to plan your next few turns, I love it.
I would say that it's probably right to just cut some of the maindeck interaction for more creatures that can beat face. Cast Out was actually fine as a maindeck out to random permanents like Karn, and I'd like to keep playing it. The cycling mode is great when you don't need it. I would probably cut the Dismember and the Collective Brutality for the fourth Reality Smasher and some other threat. Both those cards were pretty medium and seemed more like sideboard material. But it's possible you're supposed to cut all 3 one-of's for more threats.
I don't like Displacer since we don't want to take turns off to flicker stuff. Shriekmaw also seems a bit below curve; 3/2 for 5 is just not where we want to be, and its trigger is not a may ability, which means it might get stranded in hand against Grixis Shadow, which is just unacceptable. Hangarback Walker is an old piece of BR Processors tech that might fit the bill in small numbers. Matter Reshaper? Smuggler's Copter?
On the mana side, I hated Fetid Heath, that card plays so awkwardly when you want to use a colored mana on your turn to cast a discard spell or creature but also want to hold up a colored mana for a removal spell on your opponent's turn. At least once I had to time a removal spell incorrectly. Also makes Spreading Seas better against us. Should have just been the fourth Courtyard. Marsh Flats was also great. With full playsets of Cavern, Flats, Courtyard, and Caves, your mana is 100% pristine, everything is always castable, it's great. Perhaps it's too good, and we should get greedy and cut some of it for Mutavaults?!
Also, note I played the 24th land, I really think it's correct. We're trying to cast 5 drops and get full value out of Souls in the late game...
Overall I feel like the deck is really well-positioned and plays great. It just beats the ***** out of Death's Shadow and all the GY decks. I know that's weird to say having just gotten completely wrecked at Vegas, but sometimes you play well and the draws just don't come together. There's a lot of tuning left to be done with this archetype, and I think it's worth working on with Modern so wide open. I refuse to believe that a format where Taking Turns can top 8 is a format where this deck can't.
Warms my heart to see that he found a way to get through Eldrazi Tron, according to his interview. I basically gave up on this style of deck, either WB or BR, since the Eldrazi Tron matchup was so hopeless. I would not have thought that Tidehollow Sculler would do so much work to turn that matchup around. I'll have to test myself!
I am also curious about those Mutavaults, not because of mana issues, but because I would have imagined that you would have wanted Ghost Quarter instead.
1) I think Lili Mark V could be real good, especially if opposing Lingering Souls decks make an upswing. I also think she supports the crucial card-advantage aspect that is so important for the deck, by getting things back from the yard and by killing small dudes on the other side. My only concern is that lifegain is very important, and Sorin has saved me many time when in the single digits on life. I think that running Lili over Sorin probably means adding more lifegain to the side to compensate.
Completely agree on the lifegain part, and in fact my list has 5 such cards + Vault in the 75 to compensate. Not sure if it's enough.
4) I love the early game discard plan. I have reluctantly shaved those slots over a period of many months, and as you note, I only felt able to do it because of TKS--and because we have had a good T1 play in Relic, and now in Push. Mind Stone is more proactive in ramping threats out, and is better in the late game since it is not a dead draw in a topdeck war, but I do miss my reliable T1 disruption. I think this list is extremely tight--as I mentioned earlier I have not been able to get below 61 in my current build testing Push and a single Extraction in the main.
I agree that the extra discard is much worse in the lategame. My only problem with Mind Stone is that it kind of makes the deck have a lot of early game air. Relic into Mind Stone is a pretty weak opening against most decks, but I felt like I kind of had to make that play more often than I would like. Perhaps the problem was that I wasn't mulliganing enough? It's hard to say.
I've done a fair amount of testing, mostly against the fair decks of the format (Jund, blue control decks, etc), Affinity, and Burn. Here is what I have learned and some ideas that I think might be worth trying:
1) Relative to the BR Processors deck that I described in the previous page, the lack of K-Command and burn spells makes it more likely than the BR deck to run out of gas or fall a few points short of lethal, so I think prioritizing threat density is more important than I had previously realized. For this reason, I think Shambling Vent is indeed something you want, and I'm going to start running it at least as a 2-of. Sorry for doubting you, deaddrift!
A less obvious (and more controversial) change that this logic leads to is running Liliana, the Last Hope instead of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. They're both somewhat-situational value cards, but I think Liliana performs her job a little better in this deck. I know Sorin's anthem is great when you've got tokens, but it's mainly great when you've already established a board presence, whereas a Liliana can claw you back into a game where you've run out of gas by rebuying a Smasher or whatever, whereas I am basically never happy making a Vampire token with Sorin. When you're a ahead on board, the +1 can shut the door in the same way Sorin does by changing a lot of the combat math for your opponent. I know it's not as flashy as dealing 12+ and gaining a pile of life, but I think it might still be good enough. Against aggro decks like Affinity and Infect, it can singlehandedly win the game (even if they pump a Glistener Elf or whatever in response to the +1, it will die on their upkeep since Liliana's effect lasts until the beginning of your next turn, not until the end of turn.). Against other Lingering Souls decks, it just busts open the Spirit subgame in your favor.
It might not work out, but I think it's a logical idea to try.
2) Hangarback Walker is still good, but I think we can do even better. It was really required in BR in order to have some defense against Liliana of the Veil, but in this deck, Lingering Souls performs much of the same work. But what to replace it with? I know the standard reply will be Matter Reshaper, but I think this is too conservative still. My thoughts:
I think our imagination has been restricted a bit because we're afraid of just getting our creatures Fatal Pushed, but the problem is that Fatal Push actually hasn't taken over the format. Look at the top 16 of this weekend's SCG Modern Classic, for instance. Fatal Push is being played, but it isn't something you need to warp your entire gameplan around. i.e. I think it's OK to run some creatures that aren't guaranteed value even if they die to Push. For example, Jund and Abzan aren't unplayable all of a sudden, even though Grim Flayer and Tarmogoyf die to unrevolted Pushes. The key point is that they're very low opportunity-cost cards with very high ceilings. If they stick, they can win the game. Things like Matter Reshaper will almost never cause you to fall behind on cards, but it will rarely actually win you games outright, and there are plenty of board states where casting a Matter Reshaper does nothing.
From this perspective, I think Endless One could actually be good in this deck. You want to block 2/2's out of Zoo and Burn, and Endless One does that on turn 2 even without a Temple. On later turns, it can become even larger than Reality Smasher, and will just Abyss every other midrange deck's threats until they find a non-Bolt removal spell. In draws when you actually do have a Temple but no Relic, it is a play that allows you to hold Wasteland Strangler for later value, or double cast removal and a 2/2 blocker if you have it, which ought to stabilize most boards. It is also castable under Blood Moon, and represents adequate pressure against Sun and Moon decks that attempt to hide behind Blood Moon while playing only a small amount of removal that can deal with huge creatures.
3) Everyone is running 4 Path / 2 Push instead of 4 Push / 2 Path, and I'm not exactly sure why. The deck is trying to stabilize to TKS and Smasher, which means you don't want to be giving aggro decks an extra land's worth of tempo. You'll cast Path early if you have to, but I'd much rather cast Push. You might be worried about high-cmc threats like Tasigur or Angler, but I would argue that you shouldn't be since (a) we run a bunch of creatures that just flat out beat those in combat, and (b) we still have access to some Paths anyway, so it's not like we don't have outs. Push + GQ also allows us to try to get in front of very creature-dense decks like Bant Eldrazi or Naya/Abzan Company (where we're just not going to be able to kill all their threats 90% of the time), whereas Path feels counterproductive (e.g. Path Voice of Resurgence, untap into Collected Company??).
4) Early interaction. I think even though we have a ton of Thought-Knots, it would still be nice to have something closer to the the usual BGx density of discard spells to make it less likely we die in the early game. I think we're the best midrange deck, so let's not die before midgame.
Hangarback Walker seems like it could be pretty good on T2. It would definitely be very good when held back with 1 up--like ideally from an untapped Ghost Quarter--when also threatening a Relic crack. That would be three lines of instant-speed interaction off one mana. It's better than Reshaper under Blood Moon. It would be a great late-game-topdeck-war card, far better than Reshaper. But Walker has a couple caveats, it seems to me. It dies to un-Revolted Push, and doesn't benefit from Cavern of Souls or Temple. It's much slower in the early game, and like Relic, it prioritizes keeping up available mana in a deck that can be mana-hungry as it is, which can lead to playing off-curve. It conflicts with Mind Stone for the T2 play, and unlike Stone it doesn't ramp to Seer, Sorin, and Smasher. (Though, also unlike Stone, it is actually a proactive threat.) It makes Stony Silence and Pithing Needle better against us--not sure if that last actually matters so much, though.
On the caveats:
1) If they kill Walker with a Push, that's positive value for us. It doesn't change the amount of power on our board at all and they're down a card. I hope they blow their removal on that and not TKS. As for Stony Silence and Pithing Needle, I am happy if our opponents bring that in against us. Our artifacts are not our primary threats. I mean, we ourselves are siding in Stony Silence from our own board...
2) Blue control decks are both unpopular and even-to-positive matchups since you have Souls and huge threats that you can pace one at a time. Not super happy about running Cavern at all. No synergy with Temple is a legit concern, but Walker is there to do something when you don't have a Temple. If you do have a Temple, hopefully you have something decent to cast.
3) Playing Walker with Mind Stone seems fine - I think the deck would like more than a few 2's, since you don't have Temple in your opener about half of the time. When Temple is there, you're in business so whatever, and when it's not, you need to do something proactive on turn 2, and I can totally see situations where one or the other is better. Mind Stone is a good plan when you're not being pressured (to set up TKS and so forth) and Walker is a good plan when you're on defense. Here's a line that comes up occasionally. You keep a hand with no Temple, play turn 1 Relic or whatever, and your opponent responds with turn 1 Goblin Guide or Nacatl or Swiftspear or whatever. Hangarback Walker saves you at least 2 life by blocking and possibly more if you follow up with any 3 or 4-drop (which also blocks).
Concealed Courtyard is great, but so is Shambling Vent. Tough call on the right balance. Still not too sold on running Eldrazi Displacer in this build, because it automatically becomes the best target for Bolt in our entire deck. But it's amazing when it sticks, though, it's true.
Vent is definitely a good card, and it could be right to play some, but lists here that run like 0 or 1 Courtyard seem wrong to me, that's all. Untapped dual lands are really good, especially in games where we're just trying to stall to TKS and Smasher.
I'm not sold on Displacer either, this is for sure experimental. I can easily see it being extremely bad just because we usually don't have time to activate it if we play it on t2 or t3, and playing a 3/3 for 3 that often gets no value is definitely not what I'm trying to do with this deck's best draws.
I played Oblivion Ring for quite a while and decided that I wanted the instant speed and protection from Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Qasali Pridemage, etc. But I have definitely found that I couldn't cast Unmaking before, due to either mana availability or life total, so it's a judgment call. Specifically regarding Tron, note that O-Ring is vulnerable to many of their cards, including Oblivion Stone, Karn Liberated, and Nature's Claim out of the side.
Unmaking seems too hard to cast and too slow when you're deploying it as anything except planeswalker removal. I'm pretty happy with Disenchant, to be honest. Our creature and removal suite is already pretty good at battling planeswalkers, and I'm not convinced we need a card specifically for them. I'd rather play Celestial Purge if I were in the market for such a spell since honestly all the commonly-played planeswalkers I'm afraid of are black or red except Karn (and your plan versus Karn is to strip it from hand and/or stop Tron from getting assembled).
Hi everyone! Working on this deck again after almost a year's hiatus. Here are my thoughts. Warning: a lot of text incoming.
I've spent most of that time playing various linear decks, but during Modern PPTQ season, I played to great success a BR Processors deck inspired by the list Joe Soh top 16'd with at GP Guangzhou at the end of August last year. That BR deck was better positioned than BW at the time since Lightning Bolt was generally a lot better against the linear-aggro field I expected at the time - Infect, Affinity, and so on. To give you an idea of what this deck looked like, here's a list that I made the finals of a ~60 person PPTQ with (my carmate was 1st place, so we had a pretty good car!):
Lessons that I think are relevant to this deck from my PPTQ season:
1) Hangarback Walker looks like garbage but it is actually really good, and it gets better in a Fatal Push metagame. The deck is dying for a turn 2 play when you don't have a Temple, and this is a card that buys time in the early game and becomes a ridiculous threat in the late game against any deck that doesn't have access to Path. The reason why we didn't care about having a card like this before Pro Tour OGW broke the format open was as follows: (a) the format was a lot slower since Twin had just been banned and people didn't catch up quite yet (b) 2-3 Eye of Ugin is a lot more than zero.
Anyway, Walker saved my ass again and again versus a huge multitude of aggressive decks. I think this thread's decision to run with Matter Reshaper is not unreasonable, but I think you all should give Walker a try.
2) Smasher > Herder now, and I think this is something you all have agreed on and understood, as far as I can tell.
3) Blackcleave Cliffs is awesome, and we should try to run a lot of Concealed Courtyards now that we have all kinds of 1-cmc spells to cast early on. I know Path isn't the best turn 1 play, but regardless sometimes you need to hold your nose and do it, especially versus the most explosive aggro decks. Legitimately don't understand the complete lack of enthusiasm here! Ghost Quarter is also awesome and solves many problems.
I made some minimal changes to the BR list and went to a 34-person IQ. I scrubbed at 2-3, beating Ponza and Mill, losing to Burn, Affinity, and a BR Boom/Bust deck. My losses to Burn and Affinity were extremely close. I misplayed a few times mainly because I haven't played Modern in a few months (Legacy Champs + GP Louisville put all my MtG time on Legacy), and I think the tournament could have gone much better for me if I were sharper. But regardless it was a very educational tournament. This is what I ran:
1) Fatal Push is not Lightning Bolt. IDK why I thought it was a good idea to run so many removal spells that have no other utility on an empty board, but I routinely found myself with extremely reactive hands that could not appropriately interact with decks like Burn or Affinity. You need to interact on the board; you just can't keep up with mono-removal. Definitely need to cut down to like 6 or so. Maybe -1 Push, -1 Path. I'd like to make room for Displacers in these slots since it's sort of like removal but also a 3/3 and a Revolt enabler if you're really desperate.
2) Smasher looks a lot worse without appropriate creature support, see (1). I think it's still better than Herder but its best when you can bait out some removal spells before you play it. With today's configuration, it looked a little anemic.
3) Mind Stone seems like a good idea to have another good 2 to play (and again, it enables Revolt). I don't know if I want more than 1-2 of this, but I'll certainly try it out. Double and triple Relic hands look a lot more awkward now that Dredge and Become Immense aren't as worrisome, so a Relic is the natural thing to cut to make room for this.
Isn't it going to be too hard to cast the 5-drops with only 4 Sol lands instead of 6? I'm a little worried that the curves people are posting are too high.
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His general opinions about the list going forward:
- He seems really high on Kalitas! Even wanted to play one main.
- Wanted another Thoughtseize main.
- Wanted to play more Fatal Push but didn't have enough enablers for Revolt. Maybe we can play more Push in the 4 Marsh Flats version of the deck. I have always thought Path is super awkward in midrange decks but you just kinda had to play it if you didn't have access to Terminate. Maybe Push is close enough.
- Likes the Ratchet Bomb as a maindeck out to random nonsense like Blood Moon, but is Cast Out just better?
- Surprisingly cuts Smasher for Kalitas in the midrange matchups, not at all what I would have thought. I just don't see the logic here, anyone have any ideas? Usually you just cut all the discard for threats if you expect to be in the classic midrange topdeck war.
- Feels that the big mana decks are not totally hopeless; Fulminator Mage is in the sideboard!
As for fetches/targets, I've almost never found myself in a situation where I had somehow managed to land all my targets and yet was stuck on 4 or 5 lands, nevermind the situation where that happened and 4 or 5 lands was not enough to play out my hand as I wished. I guess I just feel like the marginal value of a useful land over a dead fetch is pretty small when you already have 4-5+ lands, whereas the marginal value of a fetch over a target is very high in the early game. In any case, if I were to add targets, I'd sooner play another basic than a second Shrine. In my years of experience playing BGx midrange decks, I have often found myself in situations where I've drawn early multiple shocks against an aggressive deck and wished the second shock was literally any other land.
- I don't like the second Godless Shrine. As soon as you have one, the second immediately becomes a painful draw, and in my mana base you have 4 Flats to find it. I really don't think you need 2 of these.
- In general, from playing a ton of Legacy, I strongly prefer to play fewer targets than fetches. Just look at any Legacy land base, there are always at least as many fetches as targets, even in decks that don't run Brainstorm. This is because the fetch is always better to draw than any of its targets since the fetch can get any target, and if you have no targets, it means you have a lot of lands in play.
- I only play 4 targets because I want enough basics to fetch against Path to Exile. If I never had to play through Path, I'd probably cut the second Swamp.
Anyway, about Mutavault:
I was looking through some of my old BW writeups (for instance, this one), and I think we can afford to be somewhat greedier. I'll test the following manabase:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mutavault
1 Plains
2 Swamp
Counting Cavern, there are 17 black sources and 16 white sources, and without Cavern there are 13 black and 12 white sources. A more conservative person might run a split between Cavern and Mutavault instead of Concealed Courtyard and Mutavault, but I really want to cast Reality Smasheron curve. This mana base is a bit greedy for a deck that's trying to cast turn 1 Thoughtseize, but not greedier than what I was playing in February 2016
I'll give this a shot (with Pack Rats!) at a local Modern 1k in a week and a half.
As for Cast Out versus alternatives, I agree that it's not the best type of this effect against UW control, but I think it's the most maindeckable choice since it cycles.
1) Go-wide creature decks like Company, Elves, and Merfolk are currently not addressed adequately by current builds, but I think those matchups are very fixable without conceding too much in other matchups. We just need to run some sweepers.
2) Pure control decks. I know we beat the more midrangy snapcaster decks pretty badly, but it felt awful to look across the table from 6-drop Elspeth or Gideon, AOZ. We need some plan against counterspells-into-planeswalkers, and I think there are many playable options here. Needles, Vindicate effects, O Ring effects, etc. I don't know what is the right idea. Actually Pack Rat maindeck might be very helpful here since it sort of forces them to find Supreme Verdict or bust.
3) Big mana decks. Tron and Valakut have just always been hard matchups for midrange decks and require significant concessions in other matchups since you need to play so many cards to turn those matchups around. Historically, Jund players who really wanted to beat Tron had to play like 4 Fulminators and 2 Slaughter Games. But it's not even clear to me that this is enough since Eldrazi Tron is the most popular big mana deck now. Eldrazi Tron can operate perfectly well without Tron online, so even the traditional choices like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter may not be good, and Karn isn't as good of a name with Slaughter Games (or in our case, Cranial Extraction) as it is against traditional Tron. I have to be honest, I don't know how we would fix that matchup even in principle. I think the strategy is to just strip their hand, race as fast as you can, and hope they draw too many bricks before we kill them.
All things considered, I think you can't gear your deck to beat everything, and right now, I'd rather concede the Etron matchup in the current metagame than the wide creature matchups + dedicated control matchups. That being said, it's possible we can somehow gear the deck to go underneath them better, which should theoretically also help out against Control, but I don't know how to do this well off the top of my head.
As for specific cards:
Have not tested Eternal Scourge. Have looked at Knight of Glory, and it's just worse than Crusader in this build IMO. With my mana base, Crusader is just as castable, it's a slightly faster clock, and it has applications against more traditional BGx decks as well. Reality Smasher is already as big or bigger than everything except a powered up DS, so I'm not sure Exalted really matters.
Main concern with Copter is that it's such a bad topdeck. It's just the worst on an empty board.
An idea that just came to mind: Pack Rat?! Craig Wescoe beat my ass with Pack Rat + Lingering Souls in day 2 of GP Worcester in 2014, and that's a memory that just bubbled up when I was thinking about this issue. It plays really well with Mutavaults, as well.
Sideboard was just OK, it needs tuning. I basically just made little changes to Braverman's list, but I was not really satisfied. As for specific cards:
- Crusader is an EZ win button versus any black discard deck with Lightning Bolt being so unpopular these days. Loved it.
- Gideon wasn't very good, and Sorin doesn't seem much better. These are cards that made more sense when GBx and blue-based control decks were more prevalent. But now Modern is a format where the best midrange deck is running a pile of one-mana Negates in the maindeck, so I think that's not the angle you want to take. Maybe Blight Herders would be better?
- RiP was my attempt at 100% locking down the graveyard-based matchups and DS matchups since I expected those to be the two most popular kinds of strategies at the GP. Those decks can pace your Relics, especially in post-board games, and I liked having access to them to make sure nothing goes wrong. That being said, they are certainly not addressing weaknesses, and I can understand cutting them if you expect a more diverse field.
- All your sweeper suggestions seem totally reasonable, and I have no idea which is best. I like Liliana, the Last Hope the most since in addition to being a good x/1 killer, I can actually imagine sneaking it under Stubborn Denial to out-grind DS decks. A second Damnation might also be a reasonable choice.
- One thing I felt was missing in the sideboard was some sort of Needle effect. Planeswalkers are really good against us.
EDIT: regarding Mutavault, if I were to make room for 2 Mutavault, I'd probably try cutting 2 Courtyards just because those coming into play tapped as your fourth land sometimes screws you out of an on-curve Smasher, i.e. the drawback is real in this deck.
My decklist was:
4 Caves of Koilos
3 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Cast Out
1 Dismember
2 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Lingering Souls
3 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Wasteland Strangler
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disenchant
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
The deck felt quite good although a bit threat light. Cavern made Tidehollow Sculler reliably castable, but losing Mutavault made it hard to back up the hand disruption with appropriate pressure. For instance, in a match against 8-rack (traditionally a good matchup for midrange Lingering Souls decks), I just couldn't get there since I didn't draw enough threats to outpace my opponent, and I didn't have Mutavault to fall back on. Similarly, in my match against UW Control, I just didn't have enough ways to pressure his planeswalkers, which seemed completely unbeatable every time they resolved (although in fairness, the Spreading Seas issue I mentioned before definitely was relevant). Some of this can be chalked up to variance, like sometimes you play really tight and your draws just don't come together. But it definitely suggests upping the threat count.
That being said, I think Cavern over Mutavault is right because Tidehollow Sculler is just that good and because Ceremonious Rejection is a real card now. People in this thread seem way too worried about the opponent getting the card back, but that's not the point. They usually have to spend a card to get the card back, and the point is that you get to limit their options by taking the appropriate card. For instance, you will sometimes see a hand with Terminate and Push, and you're supposed to take Push so that they have to Terminate your otherwise-non-threatening 2/2 to get their card back (instead of, say, Terminating a Reality Smasher). Another example: you can usually slow Burn down by a turn by taking the most tempo-positive card in their hand like Boros Charm or Lightning Helix. If they leave the Sculler alone, it's better than an Inquisition, and otherwise they have to burn a Bolt and some tempo to get their card back, which has the same effect overall. Sculler makes it so easy to plan your next few turns, I love it.
I would say that it's probably right to just cut some of the maindeck interaction for more creatures that can beat face. Cast Out was actually fine as a maindeck out to random permanents like Karn, and I'd like to keep playing it. The cycling mode is great when you don't need it. I would probably cut the Dismember and the Collective Brutality for the fourth Reality Smasher and some other threat. Both those cards were pretty medium and seemed more like sideboard material. But it's possible you're supposed to cut all 3 one-of's for more threats.
I don't like Displacer since we don't want to take turns off to flicker stuff. Shriekmaw also seems a bit below curve; 3/2 for 5 is just not where we want to be, and its trigger is not a may ability, which means it might get stranded in hand against Grixis Shadow, which is just unacceptable. Hangarback Walker is an old piece of BR Processors tech that might fit the bill in small numbers. Matter Reshaper? Smuggler's Copter?
On the mana side, I hated Fetid Heath, that card plays so awkwardly when you want to use a colored mana on your turn to cast a discard spell or creature but also want to hold up a colored mana for a removal spell on your opponent's turn. At least once I had to time a removal spell incorrectly. Also makes Spreading Seas better against us. Should have just been the fourth Courtyard. Marsh Flats was also great. With full playsets of Cavern, Flats, Courtyard, and Caves, your mana is 100% pristine, everything is always castable, it's great. Perhaps it's too good, and we should get greedy and cut some of it for Mutavaults?!
Also, note I played the 24th land, I really think it's correct. We're trying to cast 5 drops and get full value out of Souls in the late game...
Overall I feel like the deck is really well-positioned and plays great. It just beats the ***** out of Death's Shadow and all the GY decks. I know that's weird to say having just gotten completely wrecked at Vegas, but sometimes you play well and the draws just don't come together. There's a lot of tuning left to be done with this archetype, and I think it's worth working on with Modern so wide open. I refuse to believe that a format where Taking Turns can top 8 is a format where this deck can't.
Surprising that he thinks the deck is well positioned against Eldrazi Tron but not against normal Tron.
I am also curious about those Mutavaults, not because of mana issues, but because I would have imagined that you would have wanted Ghost Quarter instead.
Completely agree on the lifegain part, and in fact my list has 5 such cards + Vault in the 75 to compensate. Not sure if it's enough.
I agree that the extra discard is much worse in the lategame. My only problem with Mind Stone is that it kind of makes the deck have a lot of early game air. Relic into Mind Stone is a pretty weak opening against most decks, but I felt like I kind of had to make that play more often than I would like. Perhaps the problem was that I wasn't mulliganing enough? It's hard to say.
1) Relative to the BR Processors deck that I described in the previous page, the lack of K-Command and burn spells makes it more likely than the BR deck to run out of gas or fall a few points short of lethal, so I think prioritizing threat density is more important than I had previously realized. For this reason, I think Shambling Vent is indeed something you want, and I'm going to start running it at least as a 2-of. Sorry for doubting you, deaddrift!
A less obvious (and more controversial) change that this logic leads to is running Liliana, the Last Hope instead of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. They're both somewhat-situational value cards, but I think Liliana performs her job a little better in this deck. I know Sorin's anthem is great when you've got tokens, but it's mainly great when you've already established a board presence, whereas a Liliana can claw you back into a game where you've run out of gas by rebuying a Smasher or whatever, whereas I am basically never happy making a Vampire token with Sorin. When you're a ahead on board, the +1 can shut the door in the same way Sorin does by changing a lot of the combat math for your opponent. I know it's not as flashy as dealing 12+ and gaining a pile of life, but I think it might still be good enough. Against aggro decks like Affinity and Infect, it can singlehandedly win the game (even if they pump a Glistener Elf or whatever in response to the +1, it will die on their upkeep since Liliana's effect lasts until the beginning of your next turn, not until the end of turn.). Against other Lingering Souls decks, it just busts open the Spirit subgame in your favor.
It might not work out, but I think it's a logical idea to try.
2) Hangarback Walker is still good, but I think we can do even better. It was really required in BR in order to have some defense against Liliana of the Veil, but in this deck, Lingering Souls performs much of the same work. But what to replace it with? I know the standard reply will be Matter Reshaper, but I think this is too conservative still. My thoughts:
I think our imagination has been restricted a bit because we're afraid of just getting our creatures Fatal Pushed, but the problem is that Fatal Push actually hasn't taken over the format. Look at the top 16 of this weekend's SCG Modern Classic, for instance. Fatal Push is being played, but it isn't something you need to warp your entire gameplan around. i.e. I think it's OK to run some creatures that aren't guaranteed value even if they die to Push. For example, Jund and Abzan aren't unplayable all of a sudden, even though Grim Flayer and Tarmogoyf die to unrevolted Pushes. The key point is that they're very low opportunity-cost cards with very high ceilings. If they stick, they can win the game. Things like Matter Reshaper will almost never cause you to fall behind on cards, but it will rarely actually win you games outright, and there are plenty of board states where casting a Matter Reshaper does nothing.
From this perspective, I think Endless One could actually be good in this deck. You want to block 2/2's out of Zoo and Burn, and Endless One does that on turn 2 even without a Temple. On later turns, it can become even larger than Reality Smasher, and will just Abyss every other midrange deck's threats until they find a non-Bolt removal spell. In draws when you actually do have a Temple but no Relic, it is a play that allows you to hold Wasteland Strangler for later value, or double cast removal and a 2/2 blocker if you have it, which ought to stabilize most boards. It is also castable under Blood Moon, and represents adequate pressure against Sun and Moon decks that attempt to hide behind Blood Moon while playing only a small amount of removal that can deal with huge creatures.
3) Everyone is running 4 Path / 2 Push instead of 4 Push / 2 Path, and I'm not exactly sure why. The deck is trying to stabilize to TKS and Smasher, which means you don't want to be giving aggro decks an extra land's worth of tempo. You'll cast Path early if you have to, but I'd much rather cast Push. You might be worried about high-cmc threats like Tasigur or Angler, but I would argue that you shouldn't be since (a) we run a bunch of creatures that just flat out beat those in combat, and (b) we still have access to some Paths anyway, so it's not like we don't have outs. Push + GQ also allows us to try to get in front of very creature-dense decks like Bant Eldrazi or Naya/Abzan Company (where we're just not going to be able to kill all their threats 90% of the time), whereas Path feels counterproductive (e.g. Path Voice of Resurgence, untap into Collected Company??).
4) Early interaction. I think even though we have a ton of Thought-Knots, it would still be nice to have something closer to the the usual BGx density of discard spells to make it less likely we die in the early game. I think we're the best midrange deck, so let's not die before midgame.
Here's a list that I'd like to kick around:
2 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Shambling Vent
2 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Endless One
4 Lingering Souls
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Path to Exile
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disenchant
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
3 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
On the caveats:
1) If they kill Walker with a Push, that's positive value for us. It doesn't change the amount of power on our board at all and they're down a card. I hope they blow their removal on that and not TKS. As for Stony Silence and Pithing Needle, I am happy if our opponents bring that in against us. Our artifacts are not our primary threats. I mean, we ourselves are siding in Stony Silence from our own board...
2) Blue control decks are both unpopular and even-to-positive matchups since you have Souls and huge threats that you can pace one at a time. Not super happy about running Cavern at all. No synergy with Temple is a legit concern, but Walker is there to do something when you don't have a Temple. If you do have a Temple, hopefully you have something decent to cast.
3) Playing Walker with Mind Stone seems fine - I think the deck would like more than a few 2's, since you don't have Temple in your opener about half of the time. When Temple is there, you're in business so whatever, and when it's not, you need to do something proactive on turn 2, and I can totally see situations where one or the other is better. Mind Stone is a good plan when you're not being pressured (to set up TKS and so forth) and Walker is a good plan when you're on defense. Here's a line that comes up occasionally. You keep a hand with no Temple, play turn 1 Relic or whatever, and your opponent responds with turn 1 Goblin Guide or Nacatl or Swiftspear or whatever. Hangarback Walker saves you at least 2 life by blocking and possibly more if you follow up with any 3 or 4-drop (which also blocks).
Vent is definitely a good card, and it could be right to play some, but lists here that run like 0 or 1 Courtyard seem wrong to me, that's all. Untapped dual lands are really good, especially in games where we're just trying to stall to TKS and Smasher.
I'm not sold on Displacer either, this is for sure experimental. I can easily see it being extremely bad just because we usually don't have time to activate it if we play it on t2 or t3, and playing a 3/3 for 3 that often gets no value is definitely not what I'm trying to do with this deck's best draws.
Unmaking seems too hard to cast and too slow when you're deploying it as anything except planeswalker removal. I'm pretty happy with Disenchant, to be honest. Our creature and removal suite is already pretty good at battling planeswalkers, and I'm not convinced we need a card specifically for them. I'd rather play Celestial Purge if I were in the market for such a spell since honestly all the commonly-played planeswalkers I'm afraid of are black or red except Karn (and your plan versus Karn is to strip it from hand and/or stop Tron from getting assembled).
I've spent most of that time playing various linear decks, but during Modern PPTQ season, I played to great success a BR Processors deck inspired by the list Joe Soh top 16'd with at GP Guangzhou at the end of August last year. That BR deck was better positioned than BW at the time since Lightning Bolt was generally a lot better against the linear-aggro field I expected at the time - Infect, Affinity, and so on. To give you an idea of what this deck looked like, here's a list that I made the finals of a ~60 person PPTQ with (my carmate was 1st place, so we had a pretty good car!):
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Mountain
4 Sulfurous Springs
2 Swamp
3 Hangarback Walker
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Terminate
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
2 Blight Herder
2 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
2 Duress
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Slaughter Games
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vandalblast
Lessons that I think are relevant to this deck from my PPTQ season:
1) Hangarback Walker looks like garbage but it is actually really good, and it gets better in a Fatal Push metagame. The deck is dying for a turn 2 play when you don't have a Temple, and this is a card that buys time in the early game and becomes a ridiculous threat in the late game against any deck that doesn't have access to Path. The reason why we didn't care about having a card like this before Pro Tour OGW broke the format open was as follows: (a) the format was a lot slower since Twin had just been banned and people didn't catch up quite yet (b) 2-3 Eye of Ugin is a lot more than zero.
Anyway, Walker saved my ass again and again versus a huge multitude of aggressive decks. I think this thread's decision to run with Matter Reshaper is not unreasonable, but I think you all should give Walker a try.
2) Smasher > Herder now, and I think this is something you all have agreed on and understood, as far as I can tell.
3) Blackcleave Cliffs is awesome, and we should try to run a lot of Concealed Courtyards now that we have all kinds of 1-cmc spells to cast early on. I know Path isn't the best turn 1 play, but regardless sometimes you need to hold your nose and do it, especially versus the most explosive aggro decks. Legitimately don't understand the complete lack of enthusiasm here! Ghost Quarter is also awesome and solves many problems.
I made some minimal changes to the BR list and went to a 34-person IQ. I scrubbed at 2-3, beating Ponza and Mill, losing to Burn, Affinity, and a BR Boom/Bust deck. My losses to Burn and Affinity were extremely close. I misplayed a few times mainly because I haven't played Modern in a few months (Legacy Champs + GP Louisville put all my MtG time on Legacy), and I think the tournament could have gone much better for me if I were sharper. But regardless it was a very educational tournament. This is what I ran:
4 Lingering Souls
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Blight Herder
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disenchant
2 Duress
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Stony Silence
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Things I learned:
1) Fatal Push is not Lightning Bolt. IDK why I thought it was a good idea to run so many removal spells that have no other utility on an empty board, but I routinely found myself with extremely reactive hands that could not appropriately interact with decks like Burn or Affinity. You need to interact on the board; you just can't keep up with mono-removal. Definitely need to cut down to like 6 or so. Maybe -1 Push, -1 Path. I'd like to make room for Displacers in these slots since it's sort of like removal but also a 3/3 and a Revolt enabler if you're really desperate.
2) Smasher looks a lot worse without appropriate creature support, see (1). I think it's still better than Herder but its best when you can bait out some removal spells before you play it. With today's configuration, it looked a little anemic.
3) Mind Stone seems like a good idea to have another good 2 to play (and again, it enables Revolt). I don't know if I want more than 1-2 of this, but I'll certainly try it out. Double and triple Relic hands look a lot more awkward now that Dredge and Become Immense aren't as worrisome, so a Relic is the natural thing to cut to make room for this.
Going forward, here's what I'd like to try:
3 Hangarback Walker
4 Lingering Souls
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Wasteland Strangler
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Mind Stone
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Blight Herder
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disenchant
2 Duress
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Stony Silence
1 Liliana, the Last Hope