I picked this deck up again last night and ran a hodge podge list that I sort of just thought up in the moment. It crushed delver and was about 40/60 against eldrazi&taxes, which I think overall is a tricky matchup.
The deck felt loose, but with potential. Some choices seemed reasonable, some not. I chose to run 2 vesuva which worked surprisingly well.
Is there a consensus build at the moment what with the deck getting some more publicity recently?
Also, have we got anywhere close to solving the issue of running both chalice and map at the same time? Last night I ran maps in the main and sided in the chalices, but i can see a lot of benefit from running chalice main. Do we then run maps from the side to combat midrange matchups that may target our mana, and allow us to go big with ulamog in game 2, with our maindeck being a lower curve? I like how that sounds but it's tricky.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I was surprised when I saw hangarback walker in the deck tech. immediately I was worried how the deck would perform.
It'd be great to sit down with the guy and talk through the deck, honetly. I feel like maybe he should have crowd-sourced some of his reads on how the deck can be built.
btw i've rebuilt the deck myself and will be playing it tonight =)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I've just been playing Stompy, after a long time on BW Processors. I like it, but I have a few reservations which would seem like they might apply to the Tron build too.
The deck is powerful but inconsistent. It can stall on lands pretty badly on occasion, and it has inherent card disadvantage in SSG and in Gemstone Caverns which is only partly set off by Eternal Scourge. Drawing Serum Powder, SSG, Caverns, or even Chalice in the mid- or late-game can be pretty bad news. But Smasher, Endless One, and even Seer are all great mid to late topdecks. It's easy for Scourge to get stuck in the graveyard, though Relic in the side helps. Chalice obviously acts as a game ender a high percentage of the time, which is a big deal for this deck. Sea Gate Wreckage does a good job increasing number of cards seen during a game, but basically sometimes this deck draws the half of its cards that are enablers instead of threats and it just bogs down in a big pile of nothing.
The answer then is clearly; don't play cards like serum powder in your aggro deck... Right? Like; what's it even there for. If it was good in an aggro or disruptive-aggro shell at all, people would run it already. Realistically it's a do nothing card that makes you feel psychologically better about mulligans and some niche (not very powerful) synergy with eternal scourge.
Scourge also rings some alarm bells. Is that really what the deck wants to be doing? It's cool. But is it as inherently powerful as reshaper? I can't answer this question without testing, but my gut reaction is that it provides less value overall. Could be wrong.
Drop powder though man it's a trap.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Just started playing this deck. I'm trying to decide if I'm taking it to the gp in Dallas in November. How does the deck feel right now? What are the strengths and weaknesses?
the deck feels very strong against any midrange strategies, due to outclassing them in terms of threats and board interaction. they have 1-for-1s and medium sized creatures, we have big sweepers and huge threats.
the deck feels miserable against scapeshift or any valakut strategy.
it feels powerful at the moment. i'm honestly having a hard time playing GR Tron when I know i could be smashing with TKS and reality smasher all the time, and rounding out my top-end with endbringer and ulamog.
for reference, I've taken to running 2x Ugin in the sideboard to deal with tricky matchups like dredge/merfolk/abzan/kiki, and i'd strongly recommend running 4x of a combination of relic of progenitus and grafdigger's cage in the board, to round off the graveyard hate.
i'd also recommend a full 4x oblivion stone in the main. it's such a powerful card, and it's one of the main reasons you have solid game against the bigger decks of the format. ratchet bomb may come down quicker but it does less and can completely hamstring you when what you need is a big answer to all your opponent's stuff. if dredge becomes really popular, however, I could definitely see Ugin being put in the maindeck.
as for whether the deck is competitive enough to deal with the big hitters, it's close. I seem to win about 75-80% of all my matches (bear in mind i'm running full 4x chalice of the void maindeck), regardless of who i'm playing against, but I've noticed that the deck does suffer from some pretty dodgy consistency issues. What i'm feeling is that the deck probably wants to go down the route of combining GR Tron and Trondrazi together into a powerful package. the problem with this though is that you lose the power of chalice, and at the moment I feel like that's what's winning me a lot of my games.
ultimate the deck is a very powerful over-the-top disruptive aggro deck, but there's some issues regarding how we aim to disrupt the opponent, or whether we just concentrate on ramping/fixing our lands. until those issues are resolved, I feel a bit reluctant to commit completely to the deck, even despite winning all the time. maybe I should just suck it up and keep playing with the deck that seems to win, despite the flaws it has.... i'm honestly a bit torn on the whole idea, haha.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Good points above. I'd just add that you can run Conduit of Ruin over Endbringer to tutor Ulamog or Emrakul to your hand a lot faster than relying on top decking it. With Conduit I can hit a turn 4 Ulamog a decent amount of the time and it can basically be lights out. A lot of people don't run a single copy let alone 4 like myself but the tutor ability AND 2 mana discount for ANY creature is a real thing. I'd encourage those to give it a bit more play if possible. Thanks for the write up.
Before, conduit seemed kinda bad, but now I'm tempted. Main issue is path to exile.
Actually I was thinking:
Back in drazi winter I ran Oblivion sower, and it occurred to me. sower was originally there to help break the mirror and maybe switch on eye of ugin, but 90% of the time I was playing against normal non-eldrazi decks and the card was still excellent.
More than that, there are actually *more* eldrazi players on ground level FNMs running eldrazi now that it's a "safe" deck to buy into. It's become the new Jund or whatever. Remember, during eldrazi winter, the problem wasn't truly felt at a grand roots level, just big tournaments.
I'm wondering if sower could still be decent. The body is huge and the ability is still good.
Endbringer is pretty boss though. Hmm.
I'll try all three. Conduit first.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Yeah vesuva's a funny one. Was testing it in modern for the first time. Cavern of souls is probably better but who knows. I've got both, so just testing it out.
I did, however, previously get to test vesuva out in the most extreme way by running it in the legacy version of this deck, and for the most part it was fine (even as a playset)
Last night I think it came up in about 50% of games, and I never got hamstringed by the tapped clause. Nearly every time it was a second temple. Once it was a second tower. Once it was a ghost quarter. I found I was able to prioritise other lands first if I needed a quick-n-dirty start. Spirit guide helped to iron out the kinks here as well.
I had an all is dust with me for testing, but decided to try ugin instead. I do really like that you can cast it off temple on the cheap though, so I'll probably Re-work the sideboard to include one (or maybe the maindeck)
I'm also concerned about the pre-sideboard curve, so I'm considering putting ulamog and a couple of the endbringer in the side, for a straight swap for 3 Dismember. It means the maindeck has an overall lower curve and some spot removal (currently lacking) and then the deck can go mega-big post board against any sort of midrange/control/big deck. Against the fast decks all i'd have to do is swap out some o-stones for gut shots and bob's your uncle.
I feel like I'm approaching something close to crudely optimal. Lots of testing to do but once I've tweaked the curve around a bit, I think I'll have something that can strike up a good matchup against quite a few of the top tier modern decks right now.
Tested the deck tonight with 4 chalices maindeck and maps in the sideboard.
Loved it. Was still able to snipe game 1s against the powerful grindy abzan deck, and the 3x endbringer was relevant.
Importantly though chalices helped to take the all-important game 1 against decks like infect. It's so important to be up a game going into sideboards, because infect (and similarly fast decks) can so easily nut-draw you in game 2 (or 3) that your chances of beating them from down a game are virtually nil.
In matches, Beat abzan 5-0, beat infect 4-2. Infect still has the ability to go under what you're doing, and certain sideboard cards can crush you (such as Wild Defiance).
I did make a mistake though. I was running a version with no Dismember in the 75, contrary to my current up-to-date list which contains 3 in the 75. Despite missing Dismember, I found the gut shots, chalices to be strong. With a couple of extra pieces of spot removal you're looking good.
Sideboard is a complete mish-mash mess, thrown together in 10 minutes, but for the most part it's there for bringing in specific removal packages, some light disruption or going full "big game" on the midrange decks with maps, ugin and an extra ulamog.
I'm not going to say that this version is definitively good, but it works. You HAVE to find a way to somehow get a leg up on the really fast "combo aggro" decks of the format like zoo and infect, and I reckon this is the best way to hedge against the aggressive meta while still retaining a good endgame.
I will be swapping everything back the other way round next week and comparing chalice in the board to see if it's as good. Bear in mind I didn't drop a single game against abzan tonight despite not running map maindeck. It didn't seem to matter. Ugin out of the board was the best card in the deck in that matchup.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
So from a quick glance at your list i'd say yes; Oblivion Stone is definitely the card you want, over all the other colourless sweepers you're running.
I have also been interested in chalice maindeck and map in the board. It's a weird idea (I suggested it on the previous page) but it shuts off the quicker decks to an absolute crawl and removes path and bolt from the equation, making your threats more threatening. I quite like the idea.
I'll test it tonight against Infect and abzan (two current biggest players in the format), and let you know how it plays out.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
i haven't changed my deck much, since i took it to a 300 person tournament a month or two ago (back then i was running 3 caverns, and loved it)
but last night i was pushing cards around on my coffee table and trying to solve the issue of the manabase, if we want to include chalice maindeck (i still don't like maindeck chalice alongside map, there has to be a better way around the problem)
honestly (and i don't like to admit this as a self-proclaimed deckbuilding expert) i couldn't come up with a solution. at one point I dropped all the way down to 1 Caverns, but then I seemed to settle on 2.
either way, when *actually playing* with the deck, I have found caverns to be excellent and well worth the spot in the deck. numerous times i've had the pleasure of a turn 1 thought-knot seer, and turn 2 seers are made much more frequent an occurrence when you run caverns.
that said - i also run simian spirit guide. I find guide to be the glue that holds the deck together, and it also sits well with chalice (either from the board or maindeck). either way, it just gives the deck back the speed it needs in order to "return" to the eye of ugin days (which, let's face it, we need in order for the deck to actually have a chance at winning some matches at a tournament)
I just started running Gemstone Caverns with Simian Spirit Guide and have found it great so far. It really helps with the speed.
yeah that's my take on it as well. most of what the deck suffers from is a lack of speed against decks where it really matters (and people overloading the mana curve by living in magical christmasland and assuming you'll make your land drops every game - i see that too). the chalice argument is to slow down and disrupt other decks to the point where a couple of early threats is generally enough to seal the deal.
i love the colourless chalice builds. and i love the trondrazi build. but you can't feasibly drop map and it's not even slightly competitive to run both map+chalice together. ultimately, chalice might just have to go in the board. if that's a concession i have to make then so be it, but it feels like a huge shame because game 1 chalice on turn 1 is an absolute beating.
i'm going to do some testing tomorrow with a fellow modern player (every thursday is modern testing day) so we'll see how it plays. next week i'll be taking it to a large FNM at Manaleak, so we'll also see how it goes there. anything i learn i'll share.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
i haven't changed my deck much, since i took it to a 300 person tournament a month or two ago (back then i was running 3 caverns, and loved it)
but last night i was pushing cards around on my coffee table and trying to solve the issue of the manabase, if we want to include chalice maindeck (i still don't like maindeck chalice alongside map, there has to be a better way around the problem)
honestly (and i don't like to admit this as a self-proclaimed deckbuilding expert) i couldn't come up with a solution. at one point I dropped all the way down to 1 Caverns, but then I seemed to settle on 2.
either way, when *actually playing* with the deck, I have found caverns to be excellent and well worth the spot in the deck. numerous times i've had the pleasure of a turn 1 thought-knot seer, and turn 2 seers are made much more frequent an occurrence when you run caverns.
that said - i also run simian spirit guide. I find guide to be the glue that holds the deck together, and it also sits well with chalice (either from the board or maindeck). either way, it just gives the deck back the speed it needs in order to "return" to the eye of ugin days (which, let's face it, we need in order for the deck to actually have a chance at winning some matches at a tournament)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
pretty sure i said exactly the same re; Endbringer waayyyyy back when the deck first appeared. glad to see you have the same observations.
i don't think i've lost many games to burn. Chalice and Thought-Knot are the big cards there. i haven't tried a green splash, although i get the distinct feeling that if we did have a green splash, we'd want ancient stirrings in the main (like no doubt, card is busted with the whole deck being colourless)
Burn with Chalices is probably a great match-up. Unfortunately I don't have any copy of Chalice so I have to suffer :P.
And yeah I play the green splash and Ancient Stirrings is a fantastic card. It helps in early game to find you a missing TRON land. It helps you in late game to fight the card you need. I often have to side some copies out though because I have nothing else to side out.
Will swap the 2x Ghost Quarter for Warping Wail next time.
Of course like always Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a fantastic card and it wins 90% of match-ups alone. I really strongly suggest using at least 2 of them in the main.
your list is very close to Tron-levels of high-CMC cards, but you only run map/stirrings as a way of filtering and tutoring for the lands you need. this seems to be counter to the premise of the deck, so i'd like to see how it performs in a larger tournament setting rather than an FNM (which is fairly easy to spike even with suboptimal brews)
even when eye of ugin was legal, it was really only safe to run 3x endbringer and 1x ulamog as the high-end cards. how have you reconciled this need for a proper curve and consistent plays with your lack of land-fetching? I feel like what you really want to be doing is running *actual* tron and just slamming Karns on turn 3, right?
props though, it seems to be working for you - I just question the ability of a list like this to transition into the competitive sphere.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Won another modern FNM (that would be my 4th in row) and I am now more than sure that Endbringer is the most important creature for us. This guy single-handedly wins games.
Also managed to beat burn for the first time I think. Feed the Clan after sideboarding was just too much.
pretty sure i said exactly the same re; Endbringer waayyyyy back when the deck first appeared. glad to see you have the same observations.
i don't think i've lost many games to burn. Chalice and Thought-Knot are the big cards there. i haven't tried a green splash, although i get the distinct feeling that if we did have a green splash, we'd want ancient stirrings in the main (like no doubt, card is busted with the whole deck being colourless)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
It's quite good against Jund (game 1) because of their playsets of bolt and discard. A topdecked chalice in the mid game can be used to shut off goyf, scooze, bob and grim flayer. They run abrupt decay but it's still OK. They really want to be casting decay on your creatures.
Obviously side them out for gane 2.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
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That was a quick rise to popularity, for sure.
Luckily I already had the deck built!
The deck felt loose, but with potential. Some choices seemed reasonable, some not. I chose to run 2 vesuva which worked surprisingly well.
Is there a consensus build at the moment what with the deck getting some more publicity recently?
Also, have we got anywhere close to solving the issue of running both chalice and map at the same time? Last night I ran maps in the main and sided in the chalices, but i can see a lot of benefit from running chalice main. Do we then run maps from the side to combat midrange matchups that may target our mana, and allow us to go big with ulamog in game 2, with our maindeck being a lower curve? I like how that sounds but it's tricky.
It'd be great to sit down with the guy and talk through the deck, honetly. I feel like maybe he should have crowd-sourced some of his reads on how the deck can be built.
btw i've rebuilt the deck myself and will be playing it tonight =)
The answer then is clearly; don't play cards like serum powder in your aggro deck... Right? Like; what's it even there for. If it was good in an aggro or disruptive-aggro shell at all, people would run it already. Realistically it's a do nothing card that makes you feel psychologically better about mulligans and some niche (not very powerful) synergy with eternal scourge.
Scourge also rings some alarm bells. Is that really what the deck wants to be doing? It's cool. But is it as inherently powerful as reshaper? I can't answer this question without testing, but my gut reaction is that it provides less value overall. Could be wrong.
Drop powder though man it's a trap.
the deck feels very strong against any midrange strategies, due to outclassing them in terms of threats and board interaction. they have 1-for-1s and medium sized creatures, we have big sweepers and huge threats.
the deck feels fine against infect/affinity, due to chalice of the void and gut shot doing some real work.
the deck feels miserable against scapeshift or any valakut strategy.
it feels powerful at the moment. i'm honestly having a hard time playing GR Tron when I know i could be smashing with TKS and reality smasher all the time, and rounding out my top-end with endbringer and ulamog.
for reference, I've taken to running 2x Ugin in the sideboard to deal with tricky matchups like dredge/merfolk/abzan/kiki, and i'd strongly recommend running 4x of a combination of relic of progenitus and grafdigger's cage in the board, to round off the graveyard hate.
i'd also recommend a full 4x oblivion stone in the main. it's such a powerful card, and it's one of the main reasons you have solid game against the bigger decks of the format. ratchet bomb may come down quicker but it does less and can completely hamstring you when what you need is a big answer to all your opponent's stuff. if dredge becomes really popular, however, I could definitely see Ugin being put in the maindeck.
as for whether the deck is competitive enough to deal with the big hitters, it's close. I seem to win about 75-80% of all my matches (bear in mind i'm running full 4x chalice of the void maindeck), regardless of who i'm playing against, but I've noticed that the deck does suffer from some pretty dodgy consistency issues. What i'm feeling is that the deck probably wants to go down the route of combining GR Tron and Trondrazi together into a powerful package. the problem with this though is that you lose the power of chalice, and at the moment I feel like that's what's winning me a lot of my games.
ultimate the deck is a very powerful over-the-top disruptive aggro deck, but there's some issues regarding how we aim to disrupt the opponent, or whether we just concentrate on ramping/fixing our lands. until those issues are resolved, I feel a bit reluctant to commit completely to the deck, even despite winning all the time. maybe I should just suck it up and keep playing with the deck that seems to win, despite the flaws it has.... i'm honestly a bit torn on the whole idea, haha.
Before, conduit seemed kinda bad, but now I'm tempted. Main issue is path to exile.
Actually I was thinking:
Back in drazi winter I ran Oblivion sower, and it occurred to me. sower was originally there to help break the mirror and maybe switch on eye of ugin, but 90% of the time I was playing against normal non-eldrazi decks and the card was still excellent.
More than that, there are actually *more* eldrazi players on ground level FNMs running eldrazi now that it's a "safe" deck to buy into. It's become the new Jund or whatever. Remember, during eldrazi winter, the problem wasn't truly felt at a grand roots level, just big tournaments.
I'm wondering if sower could still be decent. The body is huge and the ability is still good.
Endbringer is pretty boss though. Hmm.
I'll try all three. Conduit first.
I did, however, previously get to test vesuva out in the most extreme way by running it in the legacy version of this deck, and for the most part it was fine (even as a playset)
Last night I think it came up in about 50% of games, and I never got hamstringed by the tapped clause. Nearly every time it was a second temple. Once it was a second tower. Once it was a ghost quarter. I found I was able to prioritise other lands first if I needed a quick-n-dirty start. Spirit guide helped to iron out the kinks here as well.
I had an all is dust with me for testing, but decided to try ugin instead. I do really like that you can cast it off temple on the cheap though, so I'll probably Re-work the sideboard to include one (or maybe the maindeck)
I'm also concerned about the pre-sideboard curve, so I'm considering putting ulamog and a couple of the endbringer in the side, for a straight swap for 3 Dismember. It means the maindeck has an overall lower curve and some spot removal (currently lacking) and then the deck can go mega-big post board against any sort of midrange/control/big deck. Against the fast decks all i'd have to do is swap out some o-stones for gut shots and bob's your uncle.
I feel like I'm approaching something close to crudely optimal. Lots of testing to do but once I've tweaked the curve around a bit, I think I'll have something that can strike up a good matchup against quite a few of the top tier modern decks right now.
Loved it. Was still able to snipe game 1s against the powerful grindy abzan deck, and the 3x endbringer was relevant.
Importantly though chalices helped to take the all-important game 1 against decks like infect. It's so important to be up a game going into sideboards, because infect (and similarly fast decks) can so easily nut-draw you in game 2 (or 3) that your chances of beating them from down a game are virtually nil.
In matches, Beat abzan 5-0, beat infect 4-2. Infect still has the ability to go under what you're doing, and certain sideboard cards can crush you (such as Wild Defiance).
I did make a mistake though. I was running a version with no Dismember in the 75, contrary to my current up-to-date list which contains 3 in the 75. Despite missing Dismember, I found the gut shots, chalices to be strong. With a couple of extra pieces of spot removal you're looking good.
Tonight's testing list for reference:
4x matter reshaper
4x thought-knot seer
4x reality Smasher
4x endless one
3x endbringer
1x ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
4x Oblivion Stone
4x chalice of the Void
4x simian spirit guide
12x tron
2x gemstone caverns
2x vesuva
1x ghost quarter
1x sanctum of ugin
1x sea gate wreckage
1x wastes
2x ugin, the spirit dragon
4x expedition map
1x ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
3x gut shot
1x Warping wail
1x ghost quarter
3x Dismember
Sideboard is a complete mish-mash mess, thrown together in 10 minutes, but for the most part it's there for bringing in specific removal packages, some light disruption or going full "big game" on the midrange decks with maps, ugin and an extra ulamog.
I'm not going to say that this version is definitively good, but it works. You HAVE to find a way to somehow get a leg up on the really fast "combo aggro" decks of the format like zoo and infect, and I reckon this is the best way to hedge against the aggressive meta while still retaining a good endgame.
I will be swapping everything back the other way round next week and comparing chalice in the board to see if it's as good. Bear in mind I didn't drop a single game against abzan tonight despite not running map maindeck. It didn't seem to matter. Ugin out of the board was the best card in the deck in that matchup.
I have also been interested in chalice maindeck and map in the board. It's a weird idea (I suggested it on the previous page) but it shuts off the quicker decks to an absolute crawl and removes path and bolt from the equation, making your threats more threatening. I quite like the idea.
I'll test it tonight against Infect and abzan (two current biggest players in the format), and let you know how it plays out.
yeah that's my take on it as well. most of what the deck suffers from is a lack of speed against decks where it really matters (and people overloading the mana curve by living in magical christmasland and assuming you'll make your land drops every game - i see that too). the chalice argument is to slow down and disrupt other decks to the point where a couple of early threats is generally enough to seal the deal.
i love the colourless chalice builds. and i love the trondrazi build. but you can't feasibly drop map and it's not even slightly competitive to run both map+chalice together. ultimately, chalice might just have to go in the board. if that's a concession i have to make then so be it, but it feels like a huge shame because game 1 chalice on turn 1 is an absolute beating.
i'm going to do some testing tomorrow with a fellow modern player (every thursday is modern testing day) so we'll see how it plays. next week i'll be taking it to a large FNM at Manaleak, so we'll also see how it goes there. anything i learn i'll share.
good question.
i haven't changed my deck much, since i took it to a 300 person tournament a month or two ago (back then i was running 3 caverns, and loved it)
but last night i was pushing cards around on my coffee table and trying to solve the issue of the manabase, if we want to include chalice maindeck (i still don't like maindeck chalice alongside map, there has to be a better way around the problem)
honestly (and i don't like to admit this as a self-proclaimed deckbuilding expert) i couldn't come up with a solution. at one point I dropped all the way down to 1 Caverns, but then I seemed to settle on 2.
either way, when *actually playing* with the deck, I have found caverns to be excellent and well worth the spot in the deck. numerous times i've had the pleasure of a turn 1 thought-knot seer, and turn 2 seers are made much more frequent an occurrence when you run caverns.
that said - i also run simian spirit guide. I find guide to be the glue that holds the deck together, and it also sits well with chalice (either from the board or maindeck). either way, it just gives the deck back the speed it needs in order to "return" to the eye of ugin days (which, let's face it, we need in order for the deck to actually have a chance at winning some matches at a tournament)
your list is very close to Tron-levels of high-CMC cards, but you only run map/stirrings as a way of filtering and tutoring for the lands you need. this seems to be counter to the premise of the deck, so i'd like to see how it performs in a larger tournament setting rather than an FNM (which is fairly easy to spike even with suboptimal brews)
even when eye of ugin was legal, it was really only safe to run 3x endbringer and 1x ulamog as the high-end cards. how have you reconciled this need for a proper curve and consistent plays with your lack of land-fetching? I feel like what you really want to be doing is running *actual* tron and just slamming Karns on turn 3, right?
props though, it seems to be working for you - I just question the ability of a list like this to transition into the competitive sphere.
pretty sure i said exactly the same re; Endbringer waayyyyy back when the deck first appeared. glad to see you have the same observations.
i don't think i've lost many games to burn. Chalice and Thought-Knot are the big cards there. i haven't tried a green splash, although i get the distinct feeling that if we did have a green splash, we'd want ancient stirrings in the main (like no doubt, card is busted with the whole deck being colourless)
Will be experimenting with Chalice mainboard. Let's see how it goes, eh?
Obviously side them out for gane 2.