MTG Salvation

Fplatas21: welcome to the thread! This place is great. Small community but a helpful bunch altogether. Congrats on your tournament. Regarding the matchups, I find 8 Rack and Blue Tron relatively easy, as you say, although maindeck Ensnaring Bridge really complicates the 8 Rack matchup. Fortunately, it seems more versions are on the Smallpox plan, which is easier to deal with.

I agree that Jund is tough, but I think much of the matchup can be solved by playing a different game. I'm never in a rush to land a Delver against them if I have Pierce or Denial in hand T1, and I'm happy to counter the hand disruption early on, and playing around Liliana isn't too difficult if you plan accordingly. The discard is basically irrelevant since it's pretty easy to hold a land. Postboard, Blood Moon and Huntmaster are absolute bombs. I board out all my Shoals, Thought Scours, and sometimes the Tarfire.

Affinity is one of the toughest matchups for me. I'm curious about the ruling you encountered. I'm not familiar with that interaction.

I'm pretty happy playing against Burn, although sometimes they just get one of those hands and crush you by turn 4. I like boarding in a Revelry or two to blow up Eidolon, which is a miserable card. I also tend to board out a pair of Delvers to give them fewer Searing Blaze targets. They used to play Ensnaring Bridge from the side when Eldrazi was big, but I haven't seen it at all recently.

Faeries isn't a matchup I've played much, but it seems good to me. Hooting Mandrills laughs at Bitterblossom, and the counters are good here. Seems a lot like the Jeskai matchup except there's no life gain and fewer ways to kill your creatures.

Grindor: no Sleight of Hand in your list? Unless I'm counting wrong, you posted a 56 card deck list. But yeah, I'm trying out three Sleight for a bit because the selection is better than the velocity of the 4th Scour, I think, and also the card type.

As far as Tron, it's not a matchup I worry about. I wish there was a Tron player or four at my local place, since I like free wins. Blood Moon helps a lot, but Sphere does roughly the same thing. I find the real key to matchup is to aggressively counter Map, Stirrings, and Sylvan Scrying. Even hitting an egg is worth it. For me, Disrupting Shoal and Tarmogoyf are the key cards. Goyf gets huge and they don't really block at all. Shoal gets their Map after you've cast a threat. Personally, I'd probably cut a Prey Upon and the Scavenger from your board to fit two Spheres, but UG is such a different ball game than RUG that I hesitate to even make the suggestion.

HUUUUGE facepalm for not including the Sleight of Hand in the list above haha. I edited it now to show it, but man I feel dumb.

The card has been great because it gets you to increase your spell count and still find threats/lands to still play the game. It digs more than your average cantrip too! It also increased the sorcery count in my list to 8 so I can consistently have a 4/5 Tarmogoyf now. I'd highly recommend it if people are going the shoal and low/aggressive route we are.

I think the decks are pretty comparable, especially cuz you're on shoals as well. My side boarding plan against Tron involved me taking out Disrupting Shoal, but maybe I could be boarding wrong. but if you were to choose a card, it seems it would be the sphere.

FWIW The sideboarding decision for Damping Sphere I landed on was...



Between 4 Stubborn Denial, and 2 Spell Pierce, and 2 Unravel the AEther and whatever amount of Disrupting Shoal I think nabbing artifacts Ceremonious Rejection might not be as necessary as just having the Damping Spheres for Tron. I understand that Rejection can get more than just artifacts, but the majority of the time it'll just be that.

I'd love to hear more about how you came to prey upon and why you choose it over pit fight or other fight cards.

Sure! So I have to preface, being stuck in UG was kinda the point of the build. Mainly to capitalize on Disrupting Shoal without having terrible clocks in Mono U and UR.

So that being said, the problem at hand was "How do I beat Aether Vial/CoCo/Cavern decks without adopting more counter magic in UG?". It's a bad idea to make your deck "lean" one way or another on certain spells without being super vulnerable. Mono U plays against Aether Vial/CoCo/Cavern decks and looses an almost 100% of the time. UR also has a tough time there because they can't represent a respectable clock while trying to manage their board.

I've tried Hornet Sting, Gut Shot, Dismember, and Thing in The Ice; all complete failures. Sting was actually the more promising of the cards haha because it didn't kill me to play it.

Enter: Prey Upon
I landed on this card because it allowed a progressive game of magic to be played on my side while combating the creatures on the other side of the board. My Goyfs/Mandrills are ALWAYS the biggest creatures on the board against those matchups, so I figured the fight mechanic would work fine. Even Delver would be able to have some Prey every now and then. I cannot tell you how back-breaking it is to have your T1 Delver fight your opponents T1 Noble Hierarch.

I chose Prey Upon simply because it was a single mana and does exactly the thing I want it to do with no bull***** attached. Being that my deck is a 16 land deck, everything pretty much needs to be 1cmc unless it's blue so I can pitch it to Shoal.

Shameless plug,

For those following along, I am in the midst of foiling this deck out, After two months of looking through basic lands I've settled on the ones in using for this deck.I'm super happy with them!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/azopozd32796dz8/20190404_213344~01.jpg?dl=0

The islands are super sexy in person. They are 1999 urzas saga "left island" promo misprints on account of not having a set symbol on them.
The forest serves several purposes for me personally, I actually DO like the art, it's easy to find as the symbol is in the bottom corner, This is also the forest played by our good friend and pilot "Haverjak" 2 years ago in that tournament he did very well in. Seeing this forest both makes me feel proud and reminiscent of the good old days with probe so it's neat to pay homage to him and the deck doing well like this.

You can watch that here.

https://youtu.be/oTgvhFazVtM

More to come on that,

@ Grindor : I really like your list! Dare I say it's a very refreshing take! But I feel like I would be cheating on my snapcasters to not play them! And to think they are probably the least appealing creature in the deck! *shrug*

Thanks @ObnixilisNate the lands are super cool. I'm partial to a few lands as well.

It's a ton of fun as well! The more and more I play it, the more and more I like it. I feel like it has game against the entire format. Played it to a few 4-0's, couple 3-1's, and a single 2-2 finish(es) in paper when I have time to play.

As for Snapcaster, I've sleeved all numbers the card in this deck trying to make him work, but he just doesn't. He's too much mana, he doesn't turn sideways for enough damage, and I already have enough redundancy in the deck to make flashing back any particular card just not relevant. It's kind of a harsh reality that other delver players can't get behind. But when they see the deck play, they say it makes sense.

I honestly think Delver lists will shift to be something like this. Not exactly UG per se, but will start getting lower and lower to the ground where it's just a racing game rather than an interactive one. That's probably why the UR wizards list is the most successful Delver deck at the moment because it races with a 12 bolt plan.

Quote from ObnixilisNate »

Shameless plug,

For those following along, I am in the midst of foiling this deck out, After two months of looking through basic lands I've settled on the ones in using for this deck.I'm super happy with them!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/azopozd32796dz8/20190404_213344~01.jpg?dl=0

The islands are super sexy in person. They are 1999 urzas saga "left island" promo misprints on account of not having a set symbol on them.
The forest serves several purposes for me personally, I actually DO like the art, it's easy to find as the symbol is in the bottom corner, This is also the forest played by our good friend and pilot "Haverjak" 2 years ago in that tournament he did very well in. Seeing this forest both makes me feel proud and reminiscent of the good old days with probe so it's neat to pay homage to him and the deck doing well like this.

You can watch that here.

https://youtu.be/oTgvhFazVtM

More to come on that,

@ Grindor : I really like your list! Dare I say it's a very refreshing take! But I feel like I would be cheating on my snapcasters to not play them! And to think they are probably the least appealing creature in the deck! *shrug*

I'm indifferent on the Forest art, though it is a cool story, but I like those Islands quite a bit. I'm actually very slowly pimping my deck, too, prompted by your posts. My basics have been done for a while, and the cheap stuff like Mandrills, Charm, and some sideboard stuff. Next up are the cantrips and counters. I'm after mostly foils, but I'm committed to my Italian Black Border Bolts, Blood Moons from The Dark and will probably end up with signed Rob Alexander shocks rather than foil because I prefer the art. I've also got a Chris Rush signed Mana Leak and will probably find another to match it, but I'm holding off until Horizons gets released.

As far as Snapcaster: it's not much of a clock, but it is a spare Bolt or Stubborn Denial, and those are huge pieces. I've been liking having 2 Snapcasters in the 75, and they've both been in the main for a long while now. I've thought about cutting one for a mainboard Clique or Savage Knuckleblade, but they're so good in the grindy matchups that I see lots of locally.

There may certainly be some merit to dropping red if your results continue and we get counter spell in modern horizons. It'll be so much easier on the mana base. I don't know yet if we can afford to drop mana leak as a straight across trade.. But if it turns out to work I think it makes vapor snag a whole lot better for us too.

Quote from ObnixilisNate »

I don't know yet if we can afford to drop mana leak as a straight across trade.. But if it turns out to work I think it makes vapor snag a whole lot better for us too.

Quote from MikePemulis »

As far as Snapcaster: it's not much of a clock, but it is a spare Bolt or Stubborn Denial, and those are huge pieces.

Great observations! I've came to the conclusion you guys are somewhat eluding to. In both senarios, having Shoal, Denial, and Simic Charm for protection; and Simic Charm and Vapor Snag for bounce; I'm already playing at least 8 copies of any versatile spell. So because don't have bolt, and that Simic Charm can function as pseudo protection+/reach+/removal, it makes cards like Mana Leak and Snapcaster not needed.

Super strange. But it works.

Question: what sideboard and flex slot stuff do you all have in your RUG collections? I'm trying to pick up some stuff that may be useful to me. What are some cards you've played before outside the core of the deck?

I've got mine split into categories.
Burn/removal:
Bolt, Tarfire, Forked Bolt, Flame Slash, Roast, Rending Volley, Dismember, Vapor Snag, Beacon Bolt, Spite of Mogis
Sweepers:
Pyroclasm, Firespout, Anger of the Gods, Engineered Explosives
Creatures/planeswalkers:
Huntmaster of the Fells, Hazoret the Fervent, Savage Knuckleblade, Vendillion Clique, Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Counters:
Stubborn Denial, Spell Pierce, Mana Leak, Disrupting Shoal, Delay, Spell Snare, Deprive, Remand, Ceremonious Rejection, Disdainful Stroke, Turn Aside
Grave hate:
Surgical Extraction, Tormod's Crypt, Ravenous Trap, Grafdigger's Cage
Utility:
Simic Charm, Destructive Revelry, Ancient Grudge, Shatterstorm, Hurkyl's Recall, Blood Moon, Damping Sphere

Am I missing anything?

Also, has anyone experimented with Peek as a 1-of?

Lots of people on the Discord are jumping off of Serum Visions and onto Peek (usually after maxing out on opt and splitting between some number of Thought Scour) actually! They say that they like the information and the instant speed interaction is proving to be more of a benefit than digging cards.

Not sure I agree with them, but they're having positive results so... ?

@Mike I think you pretty much have it covered.. Maybe one or two fringe things like cindervines?

@Grindor Oh we know.... Losing gitaxian probe was back breaking for this deck. It did literally 8 things for us. One of them was giving us a sorcery. If we replace serum with peek we lose our sorcery count for Goyf.

Quote from ObnixilisNate »

@Mike I think you pretty much have it covered.. Maybe one or two fringe things like cindervines?

@Grindor Oh we know.... Losing gitaxian probe was back breaking for this deck. It did literally 8 things for us. One of them was giving us a sorcery. If we replace serum with peek we lose our sorcery count for Goyf.

Yeah... I can't even imagine how powerful my build would be with Gitaxian Probe. If only I got on this a bit sooner. But yeah the sorcery count is a real thing for Goyf. Which is why Sleight of Hand is actually pretty sweet! Faithless Looting isn't terrible either.

We recently tried looting. It was awesome for card selection but the issue wasn't the selection. It was finding a powerful enough payoff to make running looting worth it. We need a new card like an instant speed roast.

Or other criteria that is a good top deck, effects an empty board, and doesn't have a damn draw back like so many of our colours cards always seem to have.

Harvest Pyre is probably as close as it gets! Anyone test this bad boy out?

Yup. But it doesn't play nice with hoots and Goyf.

Dear God I'd kill for an instant speed Roast.

I was so admittedly triggered by collision//collosus. That card without the flying clause would have been the nuts!

damn, so close.