This was just going to be a quick edit to get another discussion going, but it's turned into a monster so I'm just going to post it seperately.
Running alternatives to Blood Moon (Damping Sphere) has me thinking: what do you all think of Alpine Moon (M19) as a Moon replacement?
We have a lot of ways to interact with Tron's lands now: Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, Damping Sphere, and Alpine Moon. All of which have advantages and disadvantages.
Edit: I forgot about Magus of the Moon, but it is a creature version of Blood Moon (ignores enchantment hate, dies to removal, can attack/block/be found off Traverse, etc.)
Blood Moon:
Costs 3 mana and needs to be played around in terms of land sequencing
Potentially cuts Tron off of G, making it the most thorough at shutting off their deck (Stirrings and Thragtusk get turned off until they find Forest or an egg). Turns off all Tron lands
Turns off manlands out of midrange/control, Valakut, and other notable non-basics
Can colour-screw opponents (most prominent against midrange/control, but notable against Humans, Ad Naus, Bogles, Eldrazi, Shadow, etc.).
Spreading Seas:
Costs 2 mana
Hits only one land. Tron can get around it either by blowing it up or finding a replacement copy of the land
Targets the land at sorcery speed. Valakut doesn't care unless they are playing the long Valakut trigger game
Can turn basics into Islands to colour screw non-blue decks (most notable against burn)
Draws us a card
Damping Sphere:
Costs 2 mana
Proactively answers lands that produce extra mana (including filter lands if I'm not mistaken). Hits Tron, Eldrazi, and similar decks
Proactively answers certain combo decks that cast many spells in one turn (Ad Naus, KCI, Storm)
Hinders our (and others') ability to cast multiple spells in a turn
Alpine Moon:
Costs 1 mana
Only hits the named land. This turns off all copies of a given Tron land (turning off Tron while it's in play), all copies of a named manland, named Valakut, etc.
Allows the named land to tap for ANY colour of mana (notably, not colourless)
Only affects opponent's lands. This isn't really relevant except for really specific scenarios
They all hit Tron, they do so in varying degrees of effectiveness, and they all come with a bit of matchup overlap.
In terms of targeting Tron (and probably Eldrazi) specifically, I think it goes to Alpine Moon. Costing 1 mana and not affecting us means we can clock about as well as we could if we didn't want to cast it. Playing it and holding up other disruption sounds cool. I think Blood Moon deserves a nod for hurting Tron even more, but it costs us much more to play.
But we board Blood Moon in for a bunch of matchups! Let's look at others.
For Midrange/Control, I think it is a toss up among options not named Damping Sphere. Blood Moon can steal a game, turn off manlands, and act as a threat if they haven't fetched around it (eating a discard spell or Decay). Spreading Seas can hit their mana less effectively (but still slow them down), or hit a manland, and draws a card (especially big in these matchups). Alpine Moon might be the best if you want to get under them, as it turns off all of a given manland, while costing you little tempo (about as much as playing a tapped land cost them). Spreading Seas is kind of a compromise between being a big hit and efficient on mana, so it kind of works in a tempo way too. Blood Moon is bad tempo (unless of course it is great), so probably is better if you want to slam haymakers with them.
Combo/other is broader and harder to peg down. There are a lot of decks that these cards interact with. Blood Moon (and Seas to a small extent) can hurt Ad Naus, and Bogles. Damping Sphere hits Ad Naus, Storm, and KCI with its less land-related ability. The two Moons are fairly good at handling Valakut (Alpine probably being better due to coming down cheaper, but Moon can cut them off for a while and can slow down Rec Sage). Spreading Seas is alone in nearly stone raining Burn.
What's everybody think, and what did I miss? What non-Tron matchups do you want your Tron hate to hit? And how hard?
I have a feeling that playing a 1/2 or 1/1/1 split among these could be better than just picking 3 of one. Something like 1 Alpine/2 Sphere hits Tron harder than 3 Sphere (and can be used against manlands), while only giving up 1 Sphere against Combo. Or maybe you play a Seas to tag manlands and draw against Midrange. Or you could go 2 Alpine/1 Blood to get Tron efficiently while threatening manabases everywhere. There is a lot of customization available with this sideboard slot now.
One of each basic in the newest list hey? 1x unglued mountain 1x unhinged forest 1x unstable island FTW!
I'm anxiously awaiting Chaughys next post. It should be a GOOD one! And I'm definitely expecting to learn a LOT.
RE: Alpine moon - I would be interested in trying one but as many things go with this deck.. I fear it would be in the category of when it's good it's REALLY good.. but when it's bad.. It's awful. I think given a REL Tournament consisting of mtggoldfishes top decks.. I would be inclined to go Blood<Sphere<Alpine...
I don't want to be a broken record but Chaughys Spheres (and total SB) sound like they simply GREATLY hedge what he faces A LOT of..And for myself personally I don't totally think it's the best configuration to take to a big paper tournament. As I play the deck and start to learn it absolutely needs to be approached differently than builds before it.. (Shoal mostly). So the match ups change and thus our SB needs to change to combat that. for example being a little softer to burn than before. And with the rise of Humans and Hollow one.. What would be more appropriate for a big paper tournament?
I'll be honest.. I'm totally just typing out thoughts because I'm bored AF....
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Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan Legacy: RG Lands EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
In the past, my sideboards usually contained several versatile 1-for-1 interactive spells. At the moment, I have none.
Affinity has always favored high-power, specific sideboard cards over low-power, versatile ones. After all, every card you remove from the deck weakens your synergies and the deck’s explosiveness. If you’re cutting engine cards, then you preferably want to get a really powerful card in return, not just a marginal 1-for-1.
This has always been true, but the Modern format has evolved:
There are fewer combos that you can break up with a single interactive spell. In the past, you could stop Deceiver Exarch/Splinter Twin with a single Dismember and Angel’s Grace/Ad Nauseam with a single Stubborn Denial. You’d even net a 2-for-1 in the process. Nowadays, the most popular combo deck is Storm, and Ironworks is gaining a foothold too. Although a single interactive spell is useful against them, they can easily beat it. To stop their combo altogether, you need a card like Rest in Peace or Damping Sphere.
There seem to be fewer hate cards like Stony Silence around. After Bloodbraid Elf prompted Abzan players to switch over to Jund, Ancient Grudge became the most popular artifact hate card in Modern. I always liked Thoughtseize as a proactive way to fight hate cards like Stony Silence, but there seem to be less of a need for that nowadays.
Modern has gotten more powerful as a whole. If you compare Affinity lists from 2018 to lists from 2013, they look very much alike. Meanwhile, all other decks have improved substantially. Whereas in 2013 you merely needed a few low-risk, low-reward sideboard options to compete, you need more high-risk, high-reward cards in 2018. In other words, nowadays I’d rather maximize the number of powerful hate cards that can win the game by themselves.
My decision to cut the 1-for-1s altogether is drastic—perhaps too drastic. I don’t think it’s wrong to keep, say, two Thoughtseize as a versatile catch-all. In fact, versions with lots of main deck Etched Champions and Galvanic Blasts may actually need some to make their sideboard plans work out against decks like Tron. But given that my main deck composition contains almost none of those cards, I have little need for such versatility in my sideboard, and I felt comfortable cutting all 1-for-1s to gain more slots for high-impact hate cards.
I quote a Karsten's article. It talks about affinity, but I think we can take some statements and apply them to any deck in modern (Highlighted in the text).
Obviously our deck is much different from affinity and we need some 1x1 in side. But when we have to choose some sideboard cards we should prefer high impact ones.
From Mnesci's list I'd pick Sphere and blood moon. I currently have a 3 sphere 1 moon split, but I may change the configuration with tests (The most probable will be a 2-2 split). I'd also added the mountain too (I replaced a fetched since with moon post side more basics are needed)
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Decks played: Modern:
0 Affinity;
URG Delver
URGW Countercats
(Here you can find some video contents about Countercats and Temur Delver decks)
@mikefon, I hated Hazoret. It can be great, as all hard-to-kill big things can be in context, but overall I wasn’t pleased and let him go. Pretty much for the exact reasons you stated. And the cost is extreme. I think Hazoret is a fantastic threat in the meta, but plays better in a deck like Mardu Pyromancer, that’s actively playing all of its lands as it prepares for its Bedlam/Looting endgame. It was cut from the board immediately after.
@mnesci, I also missed Firespout. I thought I could get away with one if I played three Forked Bolts, but I was wrong. I cut the Hazoret for the second Firespout to come back. For the exact reasons you said, though I don’t think it’s good enough against Merfolk, which is a match I pretty much just concede out the gate. The rest of them are generally favorable, esp with Forked Bolt+Firespout post board. There are plenty of GWx CompanyX, Humans, Goblins(8Whack), Elves, Affinity et al. online. I also board one in sometimes against Mardu Pyromancer, depending on play or draw, and how aggressively I’ve seen them try to orient the game. Also, on Alpine Moon, I’ve been running one in my board for a few leagues now, and I think I hate it, but I’m not cutting it yet. It’s definitely better than Blood Moon, but really limited in my experience. I like-ish one, but it’s been pretty lame. It may not last long. I just hate losing to Scapeshift so I’m telling myself now it’s worth the diversity, even though in my experience Damping Sphere just covers too much ground to not be favored entirely.
Okay, so now for the report...this is really long so I'll be breaking it down into multiple posts. Sorry it took so long but I hope it was worth the wait! I think in the future I'm just going to do videos because typing ~6,000 words for this was insane, and I was trying to be economical... If I left something unclear or you have further questions than what I describe, please don't hesitate to ask!
So this report is for a 5-0 Competitive Modern League on MtGO. It is with my latest list published online. For reference:
Pretty standard stuff as far as what I’ve been playing lately. Notably I’m trying in this list a basic Mountain to turn on Breeding Pool+Traverse, and trying three Forked Bolts main because I’m in love with it. Hazoret on side for the lulz because I was just curious after seeing it played in Mardu.
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I mulligan a no-lander to six. Scalding Tarn, Wooded Foothills, Delver, Spell Pierce, Forked Bolt, Young Pyromancer. Scry Serum Visions to the top. I was happy to keep a hand with a mix of interaction types with multiple threats and good mana on the draw in the blind. Kept SV on top for extra velocity and to replace/reinforce what was already in my hand. He plays a Temple of Triumph, I play Scalding Tarn for a Steam Vents and play Delver. He cracks an Arid Mesa for a Plains and throws a Helix at my Delver. I draw a Misty Rainforest, and neglect to play Pyromancer, instead holding up mana for Spell Pierce, either to stop the inevitable Blood Moon/etc from coming down, or if not needed to protect Pyromancer. I play Wooded Foothills and pass. Sure enough, his turn three he plays a Plains and casts Blood Moon. I crack my Foothills for my Forest in case he draws more, and Spell Pierce the Blood Moon to the graveyard. For my third turn I draw Delver and play the Misty to crack for an Island. I cast Pyromancer and Serum Visions, drawing a Lightning Bolt, and putting a Bolt and a Faithless Looting on bottom, since at this point I was just looking for Spell Pierces and Mana Leaks to interact with him and didn’t want to spend time Looting. For his fourth turn, Caramel played a Cliftop Retreat into Gideon of the Trials and +1 my Peezy. I draw Misty for the turn, attack him with my single Elemental, play Delver, and Lightning Bolt the Gideon to death, leaving me with Forked Bolt and Misty in hand. I play the Misty and pass with Peezy, Delver and two Elementals on the board. Caramel plays a Field of Ruin for his fifth turn and plays Gideon Jura. He pluses and passes the turn. I don’t flip my Delver, drawing a Hootie, and attack Gideon to three loyalty. His turn he plays a Nahiri, and Rummages, using taking Gideon to one loyalty to destroy the Peez. I flip Delver on a Mana Leak my next turn, attack into Gideon and Nahiri with Delver+Elementals, and finish off the old girl with a Forked Bolt. I might just stabilize! But Caramel rips a Wrath for turn 7 and then proceeds to crush my empty hand/board with a Chandra ToD and Nahiri follow up.
Game 2: On the play. Opponent keeps seven. I mulligan a do-nothing of a few lands, Faithless Looting, a Lightning Bolt, Serum and a Spell Pierce. Generally, on the play against controlling decks, I want to position myself aggressively as early as possible. I keep a riskier, but far more aggressive six of Delver, Misty, Serum, Looting, Bolt and a Stubborn Denial. I scry a Lightning Bolt to the bottom on principle since I’ll be fetching first turn anyways. I kick the game off playing the Scalding Tarn into Vents for a Delver. No playing around Moon here! He drops a Temple and scry to the top. I fail to flip but find a Breeding Pool. I attack for one. I Visions off the Vent and find a second Lightning Bolt. I put a land on bottom and keep a Hootie on top—despite not flipping Delver, it was worth it to add pressure to the board on the cheap since my graveyard was filling up. I shock the Pool untapped to hold up Stubby and pass the turn. My opponent plays Temple, keeping the top card and passing. No flips for Delver as I draw my Hoots for turn three. I attack for one and Loot off the Vents. I draw a Delver and a second Stubbz, discarding the two Bolts in my hand as they were relatively useless with the Stubbz for planeswalkers and Hoots for more damage. I neglect to play the Hootie off my Pool despite having five in the yard because I wanted to hold up for Stubborn if he Blood Moons next turn. EOT he bolts my Delver and I let it go. He plays Sacred Foundry tapped and passes the turn. I draw a Mana Leak for turn and play Hoots, my patience paying off by being able to keep a Loot in the yard with the newly dead Delver joining the yard, passing with Stubborn up off my Vents. He plays another Foundry tapped and passes the turn. I untap and draw an Island. I play a Delver, and when he EOT points a Helix at Delver, I use one of the Stubbz to counter. He untaps, slams Wrath right into my second Stubborn, and I untap to draw a Peezy. I attack him down to nine and pass with Leak up instead of playing Peez. EOT he cracks his fetch down to eight. He cast Chandra on his turn into the Leak. I draw ANOTHER Peez. Attack him down to three. I tap out to flashback a looting in my yard instead of casting Peezy, since my board was already adequate and Peezy was a Goblin Piker at this point, drawing Goyf and the third Stubbz. I ditch the two Pyros. My opponent Angers and casts Lightning Helix at my Hoots, clearing my board and going back to six. I slam a 5/6 Goyf the next turn, holding up Stubbz. He untaps and cast Rest in Peace, but my Stubbz counters and conveniently the enchantment makes my Gofy lethal (creature/land/sorcery/instant/planeswalker/enchantment).
Game 3: On the draw. My opponent mulligans to six, scrys to top. I keep a seven of Wooded, Misty, Bolt, Grudge, and three Goyfs. Goyf is so good in this match I’m loathe to mulligan even if it doesn’t have a counterspell in hand. First turn he casts a Temple tapped, and I draw a Revelry, play a Wooded and pass. He slams Rest in Peace turn two! Oh no! This Goyf hand is going to be much more vulnerable and slow. I draw a hilarious Hoots for the second turn and pass after playing Scalding Tarn. On his turn he plays a Gideon, Ally and +1s my Misty. EOT I crack for a Vents/Forest to play around Moon and Revelry the RIP. I draw a Delver for the turn, play a ½ Goyf, and pass to Caramel. They slam Chandra and +1s both walkers, neutering my Goyf on board. My turn I draw Faithless Looting and immediately cast it off my Steam Vents, finding an Island and Spell Pierce. I ditch a Delver and a Grudge, and decide to jam a second Goyf and hope he didn’t have the Wrath, passing the turn. He uses his Chandra to kill one of the ¾ Goyfs, and Gideon +1 on the remaining. He passes and on my upkeep he Field of Ruins my Steam Vents, which I tap for a red source, throwing a Lightning Bolt to finish Chandra while finding a Mountain. My mana is now Island/Forest/Mountain. I draw Disdainful Stroke and play Hootie and pass with Stroke or Spell Pierce up and a Goyf in hand. Caramel uses the +1 from Gideon to the Goyf on board and passes back with two cards in hand. I draw a Bolt and attack with both creatures at Gideon to play around the Blessed Alliance he might have drawn. He didn’t have it, and I bolted the 7 loyalty walker to death after a hit from Hoots. He untapped and tried to Wrath, but I disdainful Stroked. I drew a Mana Leak and attacked him for seven down to eight. He then tried to cast Nahiri, but I Leaked with him at six mana. Hhe was dead next turn and the match was mine!
Game 1: On the play. Opponent keeps seven. I keep an extremely risky, but aggressive on the play seven of Faithless Looting x2, Goyf x2, Young Pyromancer, Stubborn Denial, Stomping Ground. If I wasn’t on the play and didn’t have two Loots+Goyf, I would have shipped pretty quick. And I wouldn’t criticize anyone for taking a mulligan with the hand, FWiW. So my plan is pretty set and I open the game by Looting off the Stomping Grounds, drawing Tarn and a Misty. I discard the Tarn and the Loot, reasoning I could find my third land eventually, and everything in my hand was cast well enough from two mana, and the second Looting, because I had found what I needed (a second land) and could just use the flashback for later. My opponent for their first turn drops a Blinkmoth Nexus, Memnite, Skirge and a Welding Jar. The Jar probably worried me more than anything else, as the inevitable bomb follow-up (Ravager/Plating/Overseer, etc) was going to be MUCH harder to kill, and I didn’t have removal to begin with…maybe I shouldn’t have discarded that second Looting! For my second turn I draw the punishing third Goyf, and I crack my Misty for an Island and play the Peez, reasoning that I might be able to draw up a quicker clock if I lead with him and draw spells to control his board, as opposed to a singular Goyf who can get stopped up along the way. For their second turn, oxy plays a Spire of Industry and attacks in for two with his Memnite+Skirge. I neglect to throw my Peez at the Menmite, and I drop to 15. Oxy follows up with double Signal Pest for the turn, and the writing is on the wall…I lamely draw a Delver, play a Goyf and keep Peez back, resigning myself to blocking the Memnite and trying to keep the Goyf around at this point. He activates his Blinkmoth for the turn and attack into me with everything but the Memnite (all conveniently evasive…) down to 7. I draw a Misty for the next turn, and that’s all she wrote!
BOARD: -3 Spell Pierce, -1 Pyromancer, -1 Traverse, -1 Mana Leak +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Revelry, +1 Firespout, +1 Stubborn Denial. This strategy is pretty straightforward. Notably, I keep 2 Mana Leaks because they’re on of your only real answers to Champ, and it can stop random stuff like RIP/Aether Grid, etc. And since Affinity can play whatever it wants on its sideboard, its good to have some general “no”, even if it can be inefficient sometimes. I also like Stubbz over Pierce for that reason in this match. It’s more reliable to have a Ferocious creature, and you want it to just cleanly say “no” whenever they draw it.
Game 2: On the play. Opponent mulligans to six and keeps scry on top. I keep a seven of Island, Steam Vents, Pyro, Forked Bolt, Tarmo x2 and a Hootie. This hand is god awful, except for the Forked Bolt, which I think is the best removal besides Ancient Grudge in the match. By keeping his most explosive Pest/Overseer hands in check and the potential to run away with quick aggression (assuming I find a green source…but even then Peez could do it in theory), I reasoned it was worth the risk, even if it was on the medium-to-weak side. Notably, I would have thrown the hand back if that Forked Bolt was a Lightning. My first turn is a simple Vents tapped and pass. He opens on the scary, but not that scary Citadel/Memnite/Drum. Scary because of the possible Champion/Master/Plating plays it enables, not scary because the board was just a 1/1. I draw a Misty for my turn and get a Stomping Ground since I reasoned I’m not totally under the gun yet and was going to try to position myself as the aggro in this match given my hand. I play Goyf and pass. He plays a Spire of Industry, and sure enough drops a Etched Champion to laugh at my Goyf. I draw a second Forked Bolt for my next turn, play the Island and second Goyf, holding up Steam Vents for bluffs. I neglect to attack into his Champ for obvious metalcrafty reasons. For his third turn, he plays a Mox Opal and Duress off the black mana it produced. He swiped one of my Forked Bolts and dropped a Cranial Plating, equipping to the Champ off the Memnite+Drum and attacked me for eight, taking me from 17-to-9 and threatening a turn four kill. Uh-oh! But I draw a Destructive Revelry for my fourth turn! It’s still going to be close, but I’m not auto-dead…I revelry the Plating on my turn to grow the Goyfs into 4/5s, swinging in for eight and taking him to 10. I pass the turn back and he quickly untaps to slam a Master of Etherium. He attacks in with his newly 3/3 Champion, taking me to 6 and holding back Master and Memnite for blocks, passing the turn. For my turn, I rip the sicko Vapor Snag! Would you also believe there wasn’t a creature in the yard yet (sorcery, land, instant, artifact)? I snagged the Master, taking him to 9, and Forked Bolt on the newly 1/1 Memnite and at him for one a piece, taking him to 8. My Goyfs then grew to 5/6s and crashed in with furious vengeance for the win.
Game 3: On the draw. Opponent mulligans to five. I keep a seven of Misty x2, Stubbx, Delver, Peez x2 and a Bolt. This hand is unexciting, and honestly, I maybe should have chose to mulligan. But sometimes you get lucky and at least we had interaction for quick Plating/Overseer, etc. I also think Delver is a great early threat since he flies, but can substitute as an additional removal spell since he blocks/trades most of their deck with ease. What we were really soft to was Ravager, or multiple problems like Signal Pest+anything else. Unfortunately for my opponent, their mulligan was not great against me and fortunes were an inverse of our first game. They opened their turn on Citadel, Vault Skirge, Welding Jar, and Grafdiggers Cage. Theoretically Cage was good against my Grudges, and Welding Jar great protection, and Skirge a decent threat for the lifelink. But he was down to one card! The remainder of the game was academic. I played a Delver, their second turn added a Mox Opal. I flipped my Delver on a Bolt, adding a Peez to the board. Oxy plays Duress for their next turn and sees my hand of Bolt/Bolt/Stubbz and takes a Bolt. He has a Vault Skirge. That’s it. I have a flipped Delver and Peez. I draw Grudge for my turn. What should I use to kill his Skirge (hint: it doesn’t matter)? The game and match are over.
Game 1: On the play. Opponent mulligans to six. I keep a seven of Island, Tarn, Serum, Peezy, Traverse, Looting, Spell Pierce. I wish I had a removal spell to have a solid “A-“ hand, but the cantrips would help and I’m happy to keep a “B+” quality hand in the dark. I open on Scalding Tarn, neglecting to play the Visions or Looting. Since I couldn’t play my threat until turn two anyways, it made no sense to fetch and start cantripping. I didn’t know what I needed, and in my experience, holding up a Pierce for a turn one play is often the difference between winning and losing, so I take the opportunity almost always unless I’m on the play with a Delver. For instance, stopping an early Loot/Inquiry from Hollow One, nailing an Expedition Map from Tron, Amulet against Amulet, the list goes on and on. As it turns out, my opponent plays a Karpulsan Forest and passes the turn. Immediately, I’m cued into what I’m playing against, because I’m pretty sure R/G Eldrazi are the only competitive list that uses that land. I draw a Snapcaster for my turn. I crack the Scalding Tarn for a Breeding Pool and decide to use the Traverse instead of Peezy, reasoning that I would need the third land, wouldn’t need to search for a creature later, and wanted to NOT spend my cantrips looking for the third land while putting action on the bottom. I further reason that playing a Pyromancer with three and getting value is reasonable in concert with my land concerns, since this deck plays Lightning Bolt, unlike most Eldrazi lists. After Traverse, my Serum Visions yields a Hoots (gy at 3 after the Serum) and I put a second Hoots on bottom and Leak on top after scry. Honda drops a Scooze his second turn from a Grove of the Burnwillows and passes back. For my turn, I decide to play the Mountain and eat the 3 in my yard to cast Hootie, tapping out and passing back to him. He plays Cavern naming Eldrazi for his third turn, using his K-Forest and Grove to double bolt my Hootie, and attacking with the Scooze. Honda passes back and I draw a Lightning Bolt for my turn! I Bolt the Scooze and pass the turn back, holding up two for Mana Leak. For his fourth turn, he plays a second Cavern naming Elf (Bloodbraid) and drops a fatty Thought-Knot Seer, laughing at my Leak and eating the Peezy. I draw Wooded Foothills for my fifth turn and decide things are going poorly enough to hit the “Loot Button”. I draw a second Foothills and a Bolt from the Loot, pitching one of the Foothills and the Pierce. I play the Foothills and pass the turn, hoping I can make something out of the Bolt/Snap/Leak in my hand. His turn five he plays Bloodbraid, cascading into a Noble Heirarch. He attacks in with the Bloodbraid and TKS, and I crack my Foothills for a Stomping Ground, shocking so I can play Snapcaster with the Bolt in my yard. I block the TKS, flashback the Bolt, take three from BBE (down to 12) and draw a Goyf from the TKS dying. For my turn I draw a Visions and play it, getting a Looting and putting a Pierce and Delver to the bottom. I then play Goyf, holding my Stomping Grounds+Bolt up and pass the turn back to honda. For their turn, they play a Stomping Ground and a Domri Rade, failing to find a creature up top. I bolt the BBE and he neglects to attack his Heirarch into Goyf. For my turn I draw a Peezy, play it and hit the Loot Button to find a Mandrills and dump the Leak still in hand. I attack in at Domri with Goyf, which gets blocked by Heirarch, and play the Hootie post-combat. He fails to find a creature for his turn or with Domri, and scoops it up while staring longingly across the way at my full board (he’s at 16 and I have 11 coming at him next turn).
BOARD: -3 Mana Leak -1 Spell Pierce, +1 Hazoret, +2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Firespout. I think you still want some number of noncreature counters in this match since they play so many annoying things like Relic, Bolt, etc. But obviously Leak is really bad against Cavern decks and we don’t need that many Pierces. Hazoret isn’t great against them at all, but is hard to kill and can tango with their Beefcakes better than Mana Leak stops them, and Grudge can be great at killing Basalisk Collars, Mind Stones, Relics, etc. And then they play a lot of smaller guys like BBE, Reshaper, Heriarch, Obligator, etc, so Firespout actually gets some mileage here.
Game 2: On the draw. My opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Scalding Tarn x2, Misty Rainforest, Bolt, Peezy, Hazoret and Hootie. I keep mainly on the strength of a possibly quick Hootie and an early Bolt for his mana creatures, which are crucial when R/G doesn’t hit Eldrazi Temple. Honda opens the game with a Relic of P off a Karpulsan Forest and passes the turn. The nice thing about this deck is that while graveyard hate hurts, having hands with Peez/Delver, etc. can really mitigate their effectiveness, not to mention how it can be relatively easy to play around relic to fuel things like delve. For my first turn, I decide to crack a Tarn and play Serum Visions, drawing a Delver and putting two lands on bottom. EOT he asks me to eat a Tarn from yard with his Relic. For their second turn, honda played a Wooded Foothills and gobbled up my Serum in yard. For my second turn I played the second Tarn and played Delver off the currently untapped Steam Vents, holding the uncracked Tarn. I pass back. He plays another fetch for his turn and must have had 4+ drops in his hand or no action, because he pops the Relic to draw a card and passes back. I see another Delver on the Delver trigger and draw for turn. I attack for one, crack my Misty and Tarn for a Breeding Pool and Mountain and play the Delver+Peezy before passing back, threatening a very aggressive board. For his turn, he finds his fourth land and plays a TKS, eating my Hazoret, leaving me with Lightning Bolt, and Hooting Mandrills. For my turn I flip the Delvers off a Serum visions and attack in with everything, Peezy included (honda is at 18). He takes the block on the Peez and I Bolt it before damage resolves to get a token. The Delvers connect and bring him to 12. I draw a Firespout off the TKS trigger. I play the Serum Visions and draw Lightning Bolt, putting two lands on the bottom. I play Mandrills and pass the turn back. He plays a Matter Reshaper for his turn and passes. I play a Firespout to clear out the Reshaper while leaving my Delvers+Hootie, losing my Elemental. I attack for 10 with Delvers+Hootie and Bolt for lethal!
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I should start by saying I know what I’m playing against here. Angled is one of the better Lantern players on MTGO and I see them all the time. So while maybe Angled changed up decks since I last saw them, it was unlikely given they’re so closely associated with the archetype online. Therefore, I mulligan a perfectly reasonable hand of Tarn, Vents, Misty, Hoots, Goyf, Lightning Bolt and Forked Bolt, as it’s way too slow and non-interactive to beat Lantern’s quick bridges. I mulligan to a six of Looting, Leak, Serum Visions, Lightning Bolt, Tarn, and Steam Vents. Far from perfect, but with a scry, far more capable of beating the prison menace. Sure enough, I see the pressure I need in keeping a Delver on top. Angled leads on a Glimmervoid into a codex Shredder and Mishra’s Bauble. He cracks the Bauble to look at my top card and passes the turn. I play Delver and pass back. He plays a Lantern of Insight and Academy Ruins, revealing a Serum Vision for my top card and a Glimmervoid for his. He mills the serum visions to prevent a flip and reveals a Spell Pierce instead. Much better! I draw the Pierce and attack in for three with my flipped Delver. I play my Tarn and pass the turn back. He draws for turn and tries to untap and play Bridge. I counter it with the Pierce. He then plays Surgical on my Spell Pierce, taking two life. I draw Hootie, when they neglect to Shred for the turn. I serum visions into a Wooded Foothills, and put two lands on bottom, though it was slightly meaningless given his Lantern+Shredder. I play the Foothills and pass with two mana up after attacking with Delver, to Leak in case he had another Bridge. Instead of using Ruins for turn to get the bridge back, Angled cast Ancient Stirrings and I decide not to Mana Leak it. He revealed a Bridge, but didn’t have the mana to cast it and shipped the turn back. This time after attacking him (down to 9), I play Hootie and hold up Leak. His turn five he goes for the Bridge, I leak, and on my turn five attack for 7 with Hoots and Delver, finishing the game with the Bolt from opener.
BOARD: -4 Vapor Snag, -2 Forked Bolt, +2 Stubborn Denial, +3 Ancient Grudge, +1Destructive Revelry. This sideboard is fairly straightforward—the creature interaction is terrible, the artifact/stack interaction is not! Notably, I didn’t bring in Hazoret despite being able to “burn them out” because the plan is so unrealistic. Between their Pithing Needles/how slow Hazoret is in this deck, it’s not going to be a reliable plan, and Lightning Bolt shaves the clock cheaper/faster.
Game 2: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Tarn, Steam Vents, Misty, Serum Visions x2, Faithless Looting, and Ancient Grudge. Basically, I kept on the strength of Grudge in this match (the best card in the MU) and that I could Loot/Visions for a quick threat to capitalize on the Grudge. Angled opens the match on Blooming Marsh and Codex Shredder. I sac the Tarn for a Breeding Pool and Serum Visions, finding the second Grudge and keeping a Mountain and Mandrills on top, hoping he’d just Shred the Mountain, then think I want him to Shred, then not shred the Hoots (Scrying is SO bad against mill). Sure enough, EOT he mills the Mountain into the graveyard. His turn he drops a Ghost Quarter and plays an Ancient Stirrings off the Blooming Marsh. He reveals Ensnaring Bridge and mills the Hooting Mandrills into the yard, sadly only following ½ of my plan. Angled plays a Welding Jar and passes the turn. I draw a Bolt for the turn and play a Steam Vents untapped and cast Faithless Looting, drawing a Tarn and an Island. I drop the Island and Misty and play a Serum Visions drawing a Traverse, putting a land on bottom and a Goyf on top (I just gotta pray right?). Sure enough, his turn three he plays Bridge (three cards in hand) and mills my Goyf into the yard. For my turn I draw a Pyromancer and play it alongside my Tarn. He untaps and points an Abrupt Decay at my Pyromancer, to which I respond with a Lightning Bolt to make a token. I draw a Delver for my turn, attack for one and play a Traverse for a Hootie and play both the Hoots and Delver. My plan is simple, the execution long and drawn out. He’s at 16, and I have another Bolt+2x Ancient Grudges. He has one Bridge and a Welding Jar. I need to be able to build up enough force to one-shot him through his Bridge, and thank the heavens the Ancient Grudges were in my hand already because it would be have been much harder to win otherwise through Shredder and the eventual Lantern he played. I’m going to summarize the rest like this because describing Lantern matches is incredibly boring. Basically, Delver flipped, Peez kept making tokens over time, I built up a force sufficient to crack through 13 points, and when he eventually got a second bridge down, I went “Grudge (regen with Jar), Grudge, Grudge (the second one). And I won! Yaaaaaay Ancient Grudges in hand!
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent mulligans to six. I keep a risky seven of Wooded Foothills, Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt x2, Serum Visions, Mana Leak, and Hooting Mandrills. I keep mostly for science, and because I was on the draw. It was meaningfully probable to hit our second land within the next 1-3 cards, and with the cantrips I was feeling saucy. My opponent opens on Windswept Heath into Breeding Pool+Heirarch. This tells me either Knightfall or Infect most likely. I draw a Goyf for my turn and despite it not being a land, my hand is stacked for the matchup. Sometimes better lucky than good! I Forked Bolt bbdearen and the Heirarch off a Steam Vents from the Foothills and pass the turn. For his second turn he plays an Inkmoth Nexus, Glistener Elf from the Pool and passes. I draw my own Breeding Pool, bolt the Glistener Elf to no response (only Inkmoth was open for mana) and Serum Visions into a Forest, with a Delver and Spell Pierce on top. I bottom the Delver and keep the Pierce, as I’m want more cheap interactions to stop things like Blossoming, etc. for preventing my lockdown on the Inkmoth. For their turn three, the Inkmoth is activated and goes in for one, missing the third land drop. I draw the Spell Pierce from my scry and drop a 4/5 Goyf, holding Lightning Bolt/Pierce up off the Steam Vents, whichever was necessary. As it turns out, neither was necessary, as they play a Dryad Arbor and pass the turn without attacking with Inkmoth. I draw a Misty for the turn and attack in with my Goyf, bringing bbdearen from 16 to 12 (he fetch-shocked from Breeding Pool and Forked Bolt had dealt him one already). I play the Misty and drop a Hootie off the Forest, holding Steam Venst x2 and an Breeding Pool to threaten my Mana Leak/Bolt/Pierce, and Goyf shrunk to a 2/3 (for now!). Feeling the pressure, they went in on their next turn, activating the inkmoth and attempting a Might of Old Krosa. I Bolt in response, and they respond with a Blossoming Defense. I Pierce the defense and they scoop, no infectors or hand left to dream with.
BOARD: this match up is already pretty favorable (though less so without Shoals), but there’s still plenty to bring in. -3 Mana Leak, -1 Traverse the Ulvenwald, -2 Young Pyromancer, +2 Stubborn Denial, +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Destructive Revelry. Inkmoth is their best creature, so Grudge is a must (+Spellskite/Ichorclaw). Revelry deals with Shaper's Sanctuary and Inkmoth’s too, and you want tempo-hard counters because they bring in Pierce which is live against you pretty much the entire game and is a very easy way to lose. Leak gets wrecked by Pierce/Dispel, and Peez is waaaaaay too slow and unnecessary given they play a couple Dismembers max.
Game 2: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Tarn, Misty, Hootie x2, Serum x2, Forked Bolt. A “fine, not spectacular, but not a mulligan” hand. Plus I had an early stop to Glistener, etc. Bbdearen leads off with a Misty and passes turn. I play a Tarn and fetch a Vents, taking my opportunity to sculpt my hand. I draw a Stomping Grounds and see a Tarn and a Peezy, which I immediately bottom. My opponent cracks Misty EOT for a Breeding Pool. They then untap to play a second Pool untapped, and drop a Glistener Elf, passing back. I draw a Foothills for my turn and attempt to Forked Bolt the Glistener, but they respond with a Vines of the Vastwood. I play and crack a Foothills to Serum Visions into a second Forked Bolt, putting an Island and Mountain on the bottom. His next turn he plays an Inkmoth, Groundswell on his Glistener for +4+4, and drops a Blighted Agent, attacking in for five poison and passing the turn. I cross my fingers and split up the Forked Bolt along the Glistener+Agent. While tapped out, he could still Mutagenic of course. Thankfully that didn’t happen, and the creatures went down, leaving bbdearen with an inkmoth and two other mana to work with. I dropped a Hootie and passed back. They decided against attacking with Inkmoth and played another Blighted Agent. I drew a Vapor Snag and attacked in with Hoots. There were no blocks and they fell to 13. I played my second Hootie and passed the turn, holding up Snag. Sure enough, they put one of their remaining two cards on the Agent (Vines of Vastwood kicked!) and attempted the win. I vapor Snagged the creature back and they cried a little inside, passing the turn back. Attacking them from 12-to-4 with the Hoots (thanks Snag!), I drew the Ancient Grudge so that when bbdearen tried the next turn to salvage the game with Inkmoth, there was to be no deliverance. A really nice match to end a league on, of course. I think Infect is generally favored towards us.
Okay, so that's it! Forgive me if there's typos, I'll be sure to clean it up as I read through it myself, but I'm sure I'll miss something regardless. I have more to share, but here's one league for now!
I defeated:
Burn (2-1), Mono-G Tron (2-1), Ad Naseum (2-0), GW Company(2-0) and UW Control (2-1). The highlight of that league had to be beating Burn in game three. With him on the play turn two he lands a RIP to my hand of double Goyf and Hootie with pretty much nothing else. I get taken to 5 life before playing Saheeli, and draw my third and fourth goyf, plus third Hootie. I assume I'm dead. I proceed to battle back and deal 16 points of damage with Saheeli, Loot and scry into Feed the Clan and Bolts exclusively, and finish him with a bolt on like turn 20. It was madness. That's what burn decks get when they board in RIP and Paths against us though. It can hose, but beware...SAHEEEEEELLLLIIII.
In all seriousness, Saheeli has been bomb. Like, as in, drop a "goyf bomb" on your unsuspecting opponents when they think they're safe at 14 life (this happened against Tron, which I had a 6/7 Goyf, copied it with haste, crashed for 12 and then bolted them for lethal). It's been significantly better than Snapcaster Mage, and fantastic against W/U Control (I won game three of the match by dropping a Hootie Bomb, having him Supreme my board, but with my Saheeli left over and him at low life, I was able to just do it again and then ping them out. Looooooolz). So far Saheeli has been absolutely fantastic and I don't miss Snaps at all. If it didn't cost three, I'd likely replace a Peezy with one. I still may.
As far as the other changes, Hootie was moved back to 4 to max out on Saheeli bombs, and Traverse+Forked Bolt were cut to bring back 2x Thought Scour to support the fourth Hootie. Traverse was a great 19th land, but ultimately just "meh", which is exactly how I feel about Thought Scour except for the Hootie synergy. Forked Bolt going back to two is tragic, but necessary, and with Hootie you're able to achieve similar results by trampling over all their things (i.e. cutting up small dudes). It's not a perfect analogy, but with the second Firespout back on board, I feel fine with it. I also cut the Mountain because of the loss of Traverse, and put in the fourth Wooded Foothills because I think it's better than the second Island and I want more Hootie food/Blood Moon play. A lot of people love that cheese. Finally, I replaced a Mana Leak with a Remand, but I'm not sold on this, I'm just being spicy. And theoretically the velocity can help feed Hootie too. If you can't tell, I'm trying my hardest to squeeze more cards to the yard without playing more Thought Scours. But I value Mana Leak super highly. Only time will tell if it's correct, but either way it's a minimal difference.
My sideboard is becoming fairly stock from league-to-league, though that Alpine Moon could be a second Saheeli, a Revelry, or something else entirely. I'm just trying it out. Saheeli is very quickly winning over my heart though. Them bombs!
I have no idea how to upload or share spreadsheets via this forum, so here's screenshots with at the very least the raw data to look at. Apparently they're saved as attachments to my post when I create it... It's by no means perfect data, the sample size is waaaaaay too small to say anything with 100% certainty, I do this all myself, luck plays a factor in everything, blah blah blah. But what it can hopefully do is give you an idea of how your match-ups should be playing out, how often you win Games 1-3, and what your True Win% is as opposed to its on-face value, so you can have a deeper expectation for the match-ups. My basic assumptions are twofold: Play/Draw works out evenly over time. No need to record that data. Also, mulligans, luck, etc. happen at an equal clip over time, and for every time you won a match because your opponent mulliganed to two, or you ripped the lucky top-deck, so did your opponent. Obviously some decks mulligan more than others, etc. But what I mean to say is, "luck falls within expectations equally for everyone".
Of note on those "Midrange/Control" matches:
You could increase that Abzan sample to 100 matches and it would probably look the same. That match is nearly unwinnable. Thankfully Abzan is pretty terrible against everyone else!
While the Abzan match is miserable, the other "big three" midrange/control matches are better. Jund is 40%, UW 50% and Jeskai at 62%. The blue control decks are easier because we're vastly more efficient and sometimes they don't have Supreme/are counting on a Jace/Teferi and Spell Pierce just laughs. The midrange decks are worse because of Goyf, but in Jund's case, pretty much only Goyf. If they have Confidant/Bolt/Push against a Hootie or Goyf respectively you can run them over pretty quick when their Liliana bailout runs into countermagic. I think Jund will bear out a more 50-50 match over time, while Abzan remains miserable. UW play dynamics tend to be about the roll. If I'm going into game three on the draw, I probably lose. The inverse if on the play. Jeskai does enough damage to itself to be more of a sure thing, and can get stranded with Bolt/Helix hands while we romp with Goyfs and Hoots. It's far from a guarantee, but generally favorable (and trust me the self damage matters! Against a recent UW opponent, game three, I had him at 1 life before he killed me, for many many turns. I agonized, thinking, where did I miss the point?! But I didn't. I looked at his graveyard and exile pile and realized...he had never taken a fetch damage. UW's mana is God, Jeskai's is almost as painful as ours).
Keep in mind these numbers were generated with sideboards that have almost nothing to bring in against the midrange/control matches, as has been commented on before about my lists. If you want to warp your board towards those matches, then you should expect those numbers to go up.
Thanks for sharing all this. It's great.
About side: you should try a basilisk collar replacing a ftc. It gains you an average of 8-12 damage each match letting you be proactive and attack your opponent. And it helps a lot against creatures match ups.
I tried saheeli just when she was printed and didn't dislike her. Always thought she was just too cute though. It may be worth another spin since she can let you win even through bridge and I love pws against midrange control. I miss Chandra torch of defiance from side but I think it's more balanced as is now (3 spheres, 1 blood moon, 2 huntmasters, 1 collar, 2 stubborn, 2 firespouts, 2 grudges, 2 revelries).
I keep preferring blood to alpine moon, since it has many more match ups in which it shines (I love it against burn too and still have to lose when I drop it against them). I think I'm a little bit addicted to that card.
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@Chaughey Thank you so much for your recent contributions to this thread! A good report and an interesting new list. But we certainly don't want you to burn out either! And I'm sure videos will be perfect too!
@Mikefon I think you mentioned Collar a minute ago too and I just forgot about it. It’s a really cool suggestion though and I’ll be trying it out! And in regards to Saheeli, I don’t mean to oversell her, she’s just exceeded my expectations. I actually played her for her scry ability, as I had liked Search for Azcanta but it was too passive to ultimately justify and I was hoping the ping made a difference. In my games so far, it absolutely has. Factor in being resilient to UW Control, which is the control flavor of the moment, and the random "nut draw" element it introduces to the deck, I’m extremely pleased. Also keep in mind that its point of comparison is Snaps/Peezy, who in this deck I find lackluster already.
@MeraSC thank you for the kind words. I’m terrible at self-care, but I’m fueled by and happy to be interacting with a community of dedicated Delvers.
This is the type of stuff that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning! Thank you for typing all this up and for your insight. I love reading your posts. Like MeraSC said, be careful of getting burned out (not by Burn, you know what I mean).
@Mikefon I think you mentioned Collar a minute ago too and I just forgot about it. It’s a really cool suggestion though and I’ll be trying it out! And in regards to Saheeli, I don’t mean to oversell her, she’s just exceeded my expectations. I actually played her for her scry ability, as I had liked Search for Azcanta but it was too passive to ultimately justify and I was hoping the ping made a difference. In my games so far, it absolutely has. Factor in being resilient to UW Control, which is the control flavor of the moment, and the random "nut draw" element it introduces to the deck, I’m extremely pleased. Also keep in mind that its point of comparison is Snaps/Peezy, who in this deck I find lackluster already.
@MeraSC thank you for the kind words. I’m terrible at self-care, but I’m fueled by and happy to be interacting with a community of dedicated Delvers.
I think Lemonbuster was the first to suggest Collar's tech about a year ago if I remember well. Since then I've never taken it out from sideboard. It's definetly one of the most effective sideboard card when brought in and very versatile working as a pseudo removal in addition to life gain.
Agree with all have been said. A video would be enough for next time (if it's faster to do). Maybe you could just type the explanations of your sideboard choices for each match (if not obvious).
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Some thoughts I have on Looting after my experience trying it out:
Card selection is really good (although, we probably already knew that). Being able to dig a couple extra cards deep to find your out has been relevant for me.
Dumping certain cards to feed Goyf (or just dumping cards to slam Mandrills) comes up.
It's nice with Traverse in that you can try to turn on Traverse with it, or dump Traverse when you don't want it.
Dead cards get new life. If you end up with something like Mana Leak in the late game, you are more likely to get a card out of it. Sometimes the opponent taps low enough for Leak to get value, but being able to Loot it away otherwise is nice.
Having RR available is especially important with this build. Looting into a Bolt is important. Especially when it's the Bolt that closes the game or the one that you need to interact. Young Pyromancer makes RR even more relevant.
On that note, hitting 3 lands is more important. Having Pyromancer makes me want to be able to play it on turn 3 and have a spell up. It's almost more important to be able to protect Peezy than my other threats because if I cast a couple spells after untapping, answering Peezy can cost the opponent extra cards. That specifically is most relevant against Midrange/Control, especially if they aren't packing sweepers. Having 3 lands also let's you flashback Looting. In fact, since you can dump unwanted lands with Looting, I might even try a 19th land over something. It makes Delver a bit worse, but stumbling feels a bit worse than flooding here I think.
Looting let's you pay R to take really good partial Paris mulligans. Looting is at it's best when it is drawing cards you need, and discarding ones that you don't. It's primarily a card selection tool that let's you "have it" more often than otherwise. Against Aggro you dig for interaction and dump cantrips or counters you don't have time for. Against Midrange you dig for threats. Against Combo you dig for the specific interaction you need. I don't like Looting T1 on the play because you don't really know what you want. But you can do a neat thing in games 2 and 3 in which you use Looting as a T1 mulligan.
This is probably at its best against Midrange because you want to mulligan as little as possible. If you have a decent but not great hand, you can Loot early to have a chance at finding the cards you need. If you don't like what you find, you just dump the cards. Your mulligan wasn't great, but you are guaranteed a floor of a functional hand (that's the important part: you are basically mulliganing with significantly less risk). If the cards you find are better than what you have, your "mull to six" made your hand better.
Of course, Looting on the draw is probably fine if you can afford the tempo loss and have a decent idea as to what the opponent is on.
The last thing off the top of my head is that Looting changes my play patterns, and I think it's for the better. Looting gives you incentive to hold onto cards. Holding lands to bluff is obviously a thing, but Looting gives even more reason to hold onto cards. This obviously makes Looting better because you discard cards you don't want and hopefully draw ones you do want. But this also helps against discard effects. Kolaghan's Command and Liliana of the Veil are less scary when they take cards you didn't want in the first place. You are still getting 2-for-1'd by Kommand, but I actually laughed at one recently because it just didn't bother me at all.
In terms of negatives, the card disadvantage hasn't really bothered me. I think it's offset by the virtual card advantage, and getting to Loot later with the spell having flashback. The tempo loss I think has been a little more real. Just like other cantrips, you can have too many. Fortunately, you can pitch Looting to itself if it's your worst card. Spending too much mana looking through cards instead of pressuring or interacting can bite you though. This becomes relevant when you need to Loot to find your interaction.
@mnesci looting has definitely breathed a "different" style of life into this deck for moving away from shoal to looting and we are definitely rewarded for the change i think. Regarding your statement on tempo loss because of looting. I have to disagree based on what we are playing around looting. It still powers out mandrills like shoal did plus it's supported by pierce and snag to even out the deficiency I think you are referring to. As you know the deck is extremely intricate and with that in mind, in our deck more so than others we leverage how ALL OF our spells make the deck come together and compliment the other spells we play. That's just my perspective anyway.
@Chaughy thanks for the write up man. It more appreciated then you know.
I'm super interested in sahili tech going forward... As soon as we find or get a card that gives us game against midrange this deck is going to be fire! Too bad we kind squeeze in like 3 leyline of anticipation lol
@Everybody: I'm curious for those playing the looting version of the deck, we know holding back land for looting is the correct line for us but are we supposed to be playing more land vs midrange and control or just stay the course? I wonder if tireless tracker would be a better card then huntmaster. Just brainstorming.
@mnesci Regarding your statement on tempo loss because of looting. I have to disagree based on what we are playing around looting. It still powers out mandrills like shoal did plus it's supported by pierce and snag to even out the deficiency I think you are referring to. As you know the deck is extremely intricate and with that in mind, in our deck more so than others we leverage how ALL OF our spells make the deck come together and compliment the other spells we play. That's just my perspective anyway.
I actually agree with what you said here, so I'm going to try to rephrase my point on Looting having a cost in terms of tempo.
Basically, Looting costs Mana and doesn't directly affect the board. That means that you could fall behind Looting in the early turns if you are cantriping and your opponent is slamming creatures. I guess it's the same with any of our cantrips, but I wanted to not imply that Looting was 100% amazing all the time. Especially when you are operating on one red source, it can be better to save the Looting for later and Bolt their dude. Looting enabling things like Mandrills with interaction up is definitely still awesome tempo.
@Everybody: I'm curious for those playing the looting version of the deck, we know holding back land for looting is the correct line for us but are we supposed to be playing more land vs midrange and control or just stay the course? I wonder if tireless tracker would be a better card then huntmaster. Just brainstorming.
Knowing when to play a land and when to hold is going to be important going forward. I think playing the first three is safe (I've been favouring Vents, Ground, Island if anyone wants to compare preferred setup in this build). That can get you in trouble if you want to play a land and cantrip into Huntmaster against Midrange, so after that it gets iffy. I'm not sure, but I think it's fine to have just a land or two in hand if you don't actually have Looting since you can probably find some questionable cards, and might even Loot into them. I'd totally hold everything if I have four or five in play though. Even if you end up with five or more lands in hand, a single Looting dumps four of them.
On Tracker, I think Mikefon liked it. It could be a nice grind alternative to Huntmaster. I'd probably want the 19th land even more with it. If there is room, I wouldn't mind one of each creature in the board.
Well said.. From my play with the deck so far I agree having double red is something we want to have access to a lot. I'm favoring a mountain MB
Soooooo.... hey guys....
I am just wondering, Traditionally we are more control than beat down vs midrange.. is essence scatter out of the board off the table for our worst matchup? I just feel like we don't have the magic card we want.. but we usually just hedge against flavour of the month via ceramonious rejection, or surgical exraction. so now we have a bunch of creature decks.. so scatter?
I agree that the best land configuration is vents-stomping-Island. If I can I almost always fetch in that order. Vents-forest-vents or vents-vents-forest is also applied sometimes according to having non fetches in opening hand.
I disagree with adding any more lands. The deck works easily with 3 lands. I drop the 4th only if I have 2 more in hand. Why adding something useless? Just to dump it with looting? It's not how looting is supposed to work in my opinion. With all the cantrips we play (10 in last chaughey configuration: the one with saheeli) it's difficult not to see 3-4 lands in first 3 turns.
I loved tracker in traverse list. I don't think it would work in this configuration. It needs as many land drops as possible to work, but with looting you keep them in hand to make it effective. The tension is too high imho. Moreover this configuration relies much more on speed and tempo. That is its strenghth. Tracker is slow. Too slow for this configuration. Huntmaster is the best threat for how versatile it is. If burn wasn't so played I'd play at least 1 chandra for sure though.
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Running alternatives to Blood Moon (Damping Sphere) has me thinking: what do you all think of Alpine Moon (M19) as a Moon replacement?
We have a lot of ways to interact with Tron's lands now: Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, Damping Sphere, and Alpine Moon. All of which have advantages and disadvantages.
Edit: I forgot about Magus of the Moon, but it is a creature version of Blood Moon (ignores enchantment hate, dies to removal, can attack/block/be found off Traverse, etc.)
Blood Moon:
Spreading Seas:
Damping Sphere:
Alpine Moon:
They all hit Tron, they do so in varying degrees of effectiveness, and they all come with a bit of matchup overlap.
In terms of targeting Tron (and probably Eldrazi) specifically, I think it goes to Alpine Moon. Costing 1 mana and not affecting us means we can clock about as well as we could if we didn't want to cast it. Playing it and holding up other disruption sounds cool. I think Blood Moon deserves a nod for hurting Tron even more, but it costs us much more to play.
But we board Blood Moon in for a bunch of matchups! Let's look at others.
For Midrange/Control, I think it is a toss up among options not named Damping Sphere. Blood Moon can steal a game, turn off manlands, and act as a threat if they haven't fetched around it (eating a discard spell or Decay). Spreading Seas can hit their mana less effectively (but still slow them down), or hit a manland, and draws a card (especially big in these matchups). Alpine Moon might be the best if you want to get under them, as it turns off all of a given manland, while costing you little tempo (about as much as playing a tapped land cost them). Spreading Seas is kind of a compromise between being a big hit and efficient on mana, so it kind of works in a tempo way too. Blood Moon is bad tempo (unless of course it is great), so probably is better if you want to slam haymakers with them.
Combo/other is broader and harder to peg down. There are a lot of decks that these cards interact with. Blood Moon (and Seas to a small extent) can hurt Ad Naus, and Bogles. Damping Sphere hits Ad Naus, Storm, and KCI with its less land-related ability. The two Moons are fairly good at handling Valakut (Alpine probably being better due to coming down cheaper, but Moon can cut them off for a while and can slow down Rec Sage). Spreading Seas is alone in nearly stone raining Burn.
What's everybody think, and what did I miss? What non-Tron matchups do you want your Tron hate to hit? And how hard?
I have a feeling that playing a 1/2 or 1/1/1 split among these could be better than just picking 3 of one. Something like 1 Alpine/2 Sphere hits Tron harder than 3 Sphere (and can be used against manlands), while only giving up 1 Sphere against Combo. Or maybe you play a Seas to tag manlands and draw against Midrange. Or you could go 2 Alpine/1 Blood to get Tron efficiently while threatening manabases everywhere. There is a lot of customization available with this sideboard slot now.
Interested in RUG (Temur) Delver in Modern? Find gameplay with live commentary at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8UcKe8jVh1e2N4CHbd3fhg
I'm anxiously awaiting Chaughys next post. It should be a GOOD one! And I'm definitely expecting to learn a LOT.
RE: Alpine moon - I would be interested in trying one but as many things go with this deck.. I fear it would be in the category of when it's good it's REALLY good.. but when it's bad.. It's awful. I think given a REL Tournament consisting of mtggoldfishes top decks.. I would be inclined to go Blood<Sphere<Alpine...
I don't want to be a broken record but Chaughys Spheres (and total SB) sound like they simply GREATLY hedge what he faces A LOT of..And for myself personally I don't totally think it's the best configuration to take to a big paper tournament. As I play the deck and start to learn it absolutely needs to be approached differently than builds before it.. (Shoal mostly). So the match ups change and thus our SB needs to change to combat that. for example being a little softer to burn than before. And with the rise of Humans and Hollow one.. What would be more appropriate for a big paper tournament?
I'll be honest.. I'm totally just typing out thoughts because I'm bored AF....
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I quote a Karsten's article. It talks about affinity, but I think we can take some statements and apply them to any deck in modern (Highlighted in the text).
Obviously our deck is much different from affinity and we need some 1x1 in side. But when we have to choose some sideboard cards we should prefer high impact ones.
From Mnesci's list I'd pick Sphere and blood moon. I currently have a 3 sphere 1 moon split, but I may change the configuration with tests (The most probable will be a 2-2 split). I'd also added the mountain too (I replaced a fetched since with moon post side more basics are needed)
Modern:
@mnesci, I also missed Firespout. I thought I could get away with one if I played three Forked Bolts, but I was wrong. I cut the Hazoret for the second Firespout to come back. For the exact reasons you said, though I don’t think it’s good enough against Merfolk, which is a match I pretty much just concede out the gate. The rest of them are generally favorable, esp with Forked Bolt+Firespout post board. There are plenty of GWx CompanyX, Humans, Goblins(8Whack), Elves, Affinity et al. online. I also board one in sometimes against Mardu Pyromancer, depending on play or draw, and how aggressively I’ve seen them try to orient the game. Also, on Alpine Moon, I’ve been running one in my board for a few leagues now, and I think I hate it, but I’m not cutting it yet. It’s definitely better than Blood Moon, but really limited in my experience. I like-ish one, but it’s been pretty lame. It may not last long. I just hate losing to Scapeshift so I’m telling myself now it’s worth the diversity, even though in my experience Damping Sphere just covers too much ground to not be favored entirely.
So this report is for a 5-0 Competitive Modern League on MtGO. It is with my latest list published online. For reference:
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Hooting Mandrills
3x Young Pyromancer
1x Snapcaster Mage
Instants and Sorceries
4x Serum Visions
4x Faithless Looting
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Vapor Snag
3x Forked Bolt
3x Spell Pierce
1x Stubborn Denial
3x Mana Leak
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Steam Vents
1x Breeding Pool
1x Stomping Ground
1x Mountain
1x Island
1x Forest
2x Stubborn Denial
1x Disdainful Stroke
3x Feed the Clan
3x Damping Sphere
3x Ancient Grudge
1x Destructive Revelry
1x Firespout
1x Hazoret the Fervent
Pretty standard stuff as far as what I’ve been playing lately. Notably I’m trying in this list a basic Mountain to turn on Breeding Pool+Traverse, and trying three Forked Bolts main because I’m in love with it. Hazoret on side for the lulz because I was just curious after seeing it played in Mardu.
Match 1: CaramelDeath, RW SuperMoon (2-1)
Sample Deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37427_Video-Daily-Digest-Giddy-Up
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I mulligan a no-lander to six. Scalding Tarn, Wooded Foothills, Delver, Spell Pierce, Forked Bolt, Young Pyromancer. Scry Serum Visions to the top. I was happy to keep a hand with a mix of interaction types with multiple threats and good mana on the draw in the blind. Kept SV on top for extra velocity and to replace/reinforce what was already in my hand. He plays a Temple of Triumph, I play Scalding Tarn for a Steam Vents and play Delver. He cracks an Arid Mesa for a Plains and throws a Helix at my Delver. I draw a Misty Rainforest, and neglect to play Pyromancer, instead holding up mana for Spell Pierce, either to stop the inevitable Blood Moon/etc from coming down, or if not needed to protect Pyromancer. I play Wooded Foothills and pass. Sure enough, his turn three he plays a Plains and casts Blood Moon. I crack my Foothills for my Forest in case he draws more, and Spell Pierce the Blood Moon to the graveyard. For my third turn I draw Delver and play the Misty to crack for an Island. I cast Pyromancer and Serum Visions, drawing a Lightning Bolt, and putting a Bolt and a Faithless Looting on bottom, since at this point I was just looking for Spell Pierces and Mana Leaks to interact with him and didn’t want to spend time Looting. For his fourth turn, Caramel played a Cliftop Retreat into Gideon of the Trials and +1 my Peezy. I draw Misty for the turn, attack him with my single Elemental, play Delver, and Lightning Bolt the Gideon to death, leaving me with Forked Bolt and Misty in hand. I play the Misty and pass with Peezy, Delver and two Elementals on the board. Caramel plays a Field of Ruin for his fifth turn and plays Gideon Jura. He pluses and passes the turn. I don’t flip my Delver, drawing a Hootie, and attack Gideon to three loyalty. His turn he plays a Nahiri, and Rummages, using taking Gideon to one loyalty to destroy the Peez. I flip Delver on a Mana Leak my next turn, attack into Gideon and Nahiri with Delver+Elementals, and finish off the old girl with a Forked Bolt. I might just stabilize! But Caramel rips a Wrath for turn 7 and then proceeds to crush my empty hand/board with a Chandra ToD and Nahiri follow up.
BOARD: -4 Vapor Snag -2 Forked Bolt, +2 Stubborn, +1 Disdainful Stroke, +1 Hazoret, +1 Destructive Revelry +Ancient Grudge
Game 2: On the play. Opponent keeps seven. I mulligan a do-nothing of a few lands, Faithless Looting, a Lightning Bolt, Serum and a Spell Pierce. Generally, on the play against controlling decks, I want to position myself aggressively as early as possible. I keep a riskier, but far more aggressive six of Delver, Misty, Serum, Looting, Bolt and a Stubborn Denial. I scry a Lightning Bolt to the bottom on principle since I’ll be fetching first turn anyways. I kick the game off playing the Scalding Tarn into Vents for a Delver. No playing around Moon here! He drops a Temple and scry to the top. I fail to flip but find a Breeding Pool. I attack for one. I Visions off the Vent and find a second Lightning Bolt. I put a land on bottom and keep a Hootie on top—despite not flipping Delver, it was worth it to add pressure to the board on the cheap since my graveyard was filling up. I shock the Pool untapped to hold up Stubby and pass the turn. My opponent plays Temple, keeping the top card and passing. No flips for Delver as I draw my Hoots for turn three. I attack for one and Loot off the Vents. I draw a Delver and a second Stubbz, discarding the two Bolts in my hand as they were relatively useless with the Stubbz for planeswalkers and Hoots for more damage. I neglect to play the Hootie off my Pool despite having five in the yard because I wanted to hold up for Stubborn if he Blood Moons next turn. EOT he bolts my Delver and I let it go. He plays Sacred Foundry tapped and passes the turn. I draw a Mana Leak for turn and play Hoots, my patience paying off by being able to keep a Loot in the yard with the newly dead Delver joining the yard, passing with Stubborn up off my Vents. He plays another Foundry tapped and passes the turn. I untap and draw an Island. I play a Delver, and when he EOT points a Helix at Delver, I use one of the Stubbz to counter. He untaps, slams Wrath right into my second Stubborn, and I untap to draw a Peezy. I attack him down to nine and pass with Leak up instead of playing Peez. EOT he cracks his fetch down to eight. He cast Chandra on his turn into the Leak. I draw ANOTHER Peez. Attack him down to three. I tap out to flashback a looting in my yard instead of casting Peezy, since my board was already adequate and Peezy was a Goblin Piker at this point, drawing Goyf and the third Stubbz. I ditch the two Pyros. My opponent Angers and casts Lightning Helix at my Hoots, clearing my board and going back to six. I slam a 5/6 Goyf the next turn, holding up Stubbz. He untaps and cast Rest in Peace, but my Stubbz counters and conveniently the enchantment makes my Gofy lethal (creature/land/sorcery/instant/planeswalker/enchantment).
Game 3: On the draw. My opponent mulligans to six, scrys to top. I keep a seven of Wooded, Misty, Bolt, Grudge, and three Goyfs. Goyf is so good in this match I’m loathe to mulligan even if it doesn’t have a counterspell in hand. First turn he casts a Temple tapped, and I draw a Revelry, play a Wooded and pass. He slams Rest in Peace turn two! Oh no! This Goyf hand is going to be much more vulnerable and slow. I draw a hilarious Hoots for the second turn and pass after playing Scalding Tarn. On his turn he plays a Gideon, Ally and +1s my Misty. EOT I crack for a Vents/Forest to play around Moon and Revelry the RIP. I draw a Delver for the turn, play a ½ Goyf, and pass to Caramel. They slam Chandra and +1s both walkers, neutering my Goyf on board. My turn I draw Faithless Looting and immediately cast it off my Steam Vents, finding an Island and Spell Pierce. I ditch a Delver and a Grudge, and decide to jam a second Goyf and hope he didn’t have the Wrath, passing the turn. He uses his Chandra to kill one of the ¾ Goyfs, and Gideon +1 on the remaining. He passes and on my upkeep he Field of Ruins my Steam Vents, which I tap for a red source, throwing a Lightning Bolt to finish Chandra while finding a Mountain. My mana is now Island/Forest/Mountain. I draw Disdainful Stroke and play Hootie and pass with Stroke or Spell Pierce up and a Goyf in hand. Caramel uses the +1 from Gideon to the Goyf on board and passes back with two cards in hand. I draw a Bolt and attack with both creatures at Gideon to play around the Blessed Alliance he might have drawn. He didn’t have it, and I bolted the 7 loyalty walker to death after a hit from Hoots. He untapped and tried to Wrath, but I disdainful Stroked. I drew a Mana Leak and attacked him for seven down to eight. He then tried to cast Nahiri, but I Leaked with him at six mana. Hhe was dead next turn and the match was mine!
Match 2: oxykenn, Affinity (2-1)
Sample Deck: https://decks.tcgplayer.com/magic/modern/powen/affinity/1327624
Game 1: On the play. Opponent keeps seven. I keep an extremely risky, but aggressive on the play seven of Faithless Looting x2, Goyf x2, Young Pyromancer, Stubborn Denial, Stomping Ground. If I wasn’t on the play and didn’t have two Loots+Goyf, I would have shipped pretty quick. And I wouldn’t criticize anyone for taking a mulligan with the hand, FWiW. So my plan is pretty set and I open the game by Looting off the Stomping Grounds, drawing Tarn and a Misty. I discard the Tarn and the Loot, reasoning I could find my third land eventually, and everything in my hand was cast well enough from two mana, and the second Looting, because I had found what I needed (a second land) and could just use the flashback for later. My opponent for their first turn drops a Blinkmoth Nexus, Memnite, Skirge and a Welding Jar. The Jar probably worried me more than anything else, as the inevitable bomb follow-up (Ravager/Plating/Overseer, etc) was going to be MUCH harder to kill, and I didn’t have removal to begin with…maybe I shouldn’t have discarded that second Looting! For my second turn I draw the punishing third Goyf, and I crack my Misty for an Island and play the Peez, reasoning that I might be able to draw up a quicker clock if I lead with him and draw spells to control his board, as opposed to a singular Goyf who can get stopped up along the way. For their second turn, oxy plays a Spire of Industry and attacks in for two with his Memnite+Skirge. I neglect to throw my Peez at the Menmite, and I drop to 15. Oxy follows up with double Signal Pest for the turn, and the writing is on the wall…I lamely draw a Delver, play a Goyf and keep Peez back, resigning myself to blocking the Memnite and trying to keep the Goyf around at this point. He activates his Blinkmoth for the turn and attack into me with everything but the Memnite (all conveniently evasive…) down to 7. I draw a Misty for the next turn, and that’s all she wrote!
BOARD: -3 Spell Pierce, -1 Pyromancer, -1 Traverse, -1 Mana Leak +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Revelry, +1 Firespout, +1 Stubborn Denial. This strategy is pretty straightforward. Notably, I keep 2 Mana Leaks because they’re on of your only real answers to Champ, and it can stop random stuff like RIP/Aether Grid, etc. And since Affinity can play whatever it wants on its sideboard, its good to have some general “no”, even if it can be inefficient sometimes. I also like Stubbz over Pierce for that reason in this match. It’s more reliable to have a Ferocious creature, and you want it to just cleanly say “no” whenever they draw it.
Game 2: On the play. Opponent mulligans to six and keeps scry on top. I keep a seven of Island, Steam Vents, Pyro, Forked Bolt, Tarmo x2 and a Hootie. This hand is god awful, except for the Forked Bolt, which I think is the best removal besides Ancient Grudge in the match. By keeping his most explosive Pest/Overseer hands in check and the potential to run away with quick aggression (assuming I find a green source…but even then Peez could do it in theory), I reasoned it was worth the risk, even if it was on the medium-to-weak side. Notably, I would have thrown the hand back if that Forked Bolt was a Lightning. My first turn is a simple Vents tapped and pass. He opens on the scary, but not that scary Citadel/Memnite/Drum. Scary because of the possible Champion/Master/Plating plays it enables, not scary because the board was just a 1/1. I draw a Misty for my turn and get a Stomping Ground since I reasoned I’m not totally under the gun yet and was going to try to position myself as the aggro in this match given my hand. I play Goyf and pass. He plays a Spire of Industry, and sure enough drops a Etched Champion to laugh at my Goyf. I draw a second Forked Bolt for my next turn, play the Island and second Goyf, holding up Steam Vents for bluffs. I neglect to attack into his Champ for obvious metalcrafty reasons. For his third turn, he plays a Mox Opal and Duress off the black mana it produced. He swiped one of my Forked Bolts and dropped a Cranial Plating, equipping to the Champ off the Memnite+Drum and attacked me for eight, taking me from 17-to-9 and threatening a turn four kill. Uh-oh! But I draw a Destructive Revelry for my fourth turn! It’s still going to be close, but I’m not auto-dead…I revelry the Plating on my turn to grow the Goyfs into 4/5s, swinging in for eight and taking him to 10. I pass the turn back and he quickly untaps to slam a Master of Etherium. He attacks in with his newly 3/3 Champion, taking me to 6 and holding back Master and Memnite for blocks, passing the turn. For my turn, I rip the sicko Vapor Snag! Would you also believe there wasn’t a creature in the yard yet (sorcery, land, instant, artifact)? I snagged the Master, taking him to 9, and Forked Bolt on the newly 1/1 Memnite and at him for one a piece, taking him to 8. My Goyfs then grew to 5/6s and crashed in with furious vengeance for the win.
Game 3: On the draw. Opponent mulligans to five. I keep a seven of Misty x2, Stubbx, Delver, Peez x2 and a Bolt. This hand is unexciting, and honestly, I maybe should have chose to mulligan. But sometimes you get lucky and at least we had interaction for quick Plating/Overseer, etc. I also think Delver is a great early threat since he flies, but can substitute as an additional removal spell since he blocks/trades most of their deck with ease. What we were really soft to was Ravager, or multiple problems like Signal Pest+anything else. Unfortunately for my opponent, their mulligan was not great against me and fortunes were an inverse of our first game. They opened their turn on Citadel, Vault Skirge, Welding Jar, and Grafdiggers Cage. Theoretically Cage was good against my Grudges, and Welding Jar great protection, and Skirge a decent threat for the lifelink. But he was down to one card! The remainder of the game was academic. I played a Delver, their second turn added a Mox Opal. I flipped my Delver on a Bolt, adding a Peez to the board. Oxy plays Duress for their next turn and sees my hand of Bolt/Bolt/Stubbz and takes a Bolt. He has a Vault Skirge. That’s it. I have a flipped Delver and Peez. I draw Grudge for my turn. What should I use to kill his Skirge (hint: it doesn’t matter)? The game and match are over.
Sample Deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-r-g-eldrazi-45171#paper
Game 1: On the play. Opponent mulligans to six. I keep a seven of Island, Tarn, Serum, Peezy, Traverse, Looting, Spell Pierce. I wish I had a removal spell to have a solid “A-“ hand, but the cantrips would help and I’m happy to keep a “B+” quality hand in the dark. I open on Scalding Tarn, neglecting to play the Visions or Looting. Since I couldn’t play my threat until turn two anyways, it made no sense to fetch and start cantripping. I didn’t know what I needed, and in my experience, holding up a Pierce for a turn one play is often the difference between winning and losing, so I take the opportunity almost always unless I’m on the play with a Delver. For instance, stopping an early Loot/Inquiry from Hollow One, nailing an Expedition Map from Tron, Amulet against Amulet, the list goes on and on. As it turns out, my opponent plays a Karpulsan Forest and passes the turn. Immediately, I’m cued into what I’m playing against, because I’m pretty sure R/G Eldrazi are the only competitive list that uses that land. I draw a Snapcaster for my turn. I crack the Scalding Tarn for a Breeding Pool and decide to use the Traverse instead of Peezy, reasoning that I would need the third land, wouldn’t need to search for a creature later, and wanted to NOT spend my cantrips looking for the third land while putting action on the bottom. I further reason that playing a Pyromancer with three and getting value is reasonable in concert with my land concerns, since this deck plays Lightning Bolt, unlike most Eldrazi lists. After Traverse, my Serum Visions yields a Hoots (gy at 3 after the Serum) and I put a second Hoots on bottom and Leak on top after scry. Honda drops a Scooze his second turn from a Grove of the Burnwillows and passes back. For my turn, I decide to play the Mountain and eat the 3 in my yard to cast Hootie, tapping out and passing back to him. He plays Cavern naming Eldrazi for his third turn, using his K-Forest and Grove to double bolt my Hootie, and attacking with the Scooze. Honda passes back and I draw a Lightning Bolt for my turn! I Bolt the Scooze and pass the turn back, holding up two for Mana Leak. For his fourth turn, he plays a second Cavern naming Elf (Bloodbraid) and drops a fatty Thought-Knot Seer, laughing at my Leak and eating the Peezy. I draw Wooded Foothills for my fifth turn and decide things are going poorly enough to hit the “Loot Button”. I draw a second Foothills and a Bolt from the Loot, pitching one of the Foothills and the Pierce. I play the Foothills and pass the turn, hoping I can make something out of the Bolt/Snap/Leak in my hand. His turn five he plays Bloodbraid, cascading into a Noble Heirarch. He attacks in with the Bloodbraid and TKS, and I crack my Foothills for a Stomping Ground, shocking so I can play Snapcaster with the Bolt in my yard. I block the TKS, flashback the Bolt, take three from BBE (down to 12) and draw a Goyf from the TKS dying. For my turn I draw a Visions and play it, getting a Looting and putting a Pierce and Delver to the bottom. I then play Goyf, holding my Stomping Grounds+Bolt up and pass the turn back to honda. For their turn, they play a Stomping Ground and a Domri Rade, failing to find a creature up top. I bolt the BBE and he neglects to attack his Heirarch into Goyf. For my turn I draw a Peezy, play it and hit the Loot Button to find a Mandrills and dump the Leak still in hand. I attack in at Domri with Goyf, which gets blocked by Heirarch, and play the Hootie post-combat. He fails to find a creature for his turn or with Domri, and scoops it up while staring longingly across the way at my full board (he’s at 16 and I have 11 coming at him next turn).
BOARD: -3 Mana Leak -1 Spell Pierce, +1 Hazoret, +2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Firespout. I think you still want some number of noncreature counters in this match since they play so many annoying things like Relic, Bolt, etc. But obviously Leak is really bad against Cavern decks and we don’t need that many Pierces. Hazoret isn’t great against them at all, but is hard to kill and can tango with their Beefcakes better than Mana Leak stops them, and Grudge can be great at killing Basalisk Collars, Mind Stones, Relics, etc. And then they play a lot of smaller guys like BBE, Reshaper, Heriarch, Obligator, etc, so Firespout actually gets some mileage here.
Game 2: On the draw. My opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Scalding Tarn x2, Misty Rainforest, Bolt, Peezy, Hazoret and Hootie. I keep mainly on the strength of a possibly quick Hootie and an early Bolt for his mana creatures, which are crucial when R/G doesn’t hit Eldrazi Temple. Honda opens the game with a Relic of P off a Karpulsan Forest and passes the turn. The nice thing about this deck is that while graveyard hate hurts, having hands with Peez/Delver, etc. can really mitigate their effectiveness, not to mention how it can be relatively easy to play around relic to fuel things like delve. For my first turn, I decide to crack a Tarn and play Serum Visions, drawing a Delver and putting two lands on bottom. EOT he asks me to eat a Tarn from yard with his Relic. For their second turn, honda played a Wooded Foothills and gobbled up my Serum in yard. For my second turn I played the second Tarn and played Delver off the currently untapped Steam Vents, holding the uncracked Tarn. I pass back. He plays another fetch for his turn and must have had 4+ drops in his hand or no action, because he pops the Relic to draw a card and passes back. I see another Delver on the Delver trigger and draw for turn. I attack for one, crack my Misty and Tarn for a Breeding Pool and Mountain and play the Delver+Peezy before passing back, threatening a very aggressive board. For his turn, he finds his fourth land and plays a TKS, eating my Hazoret, leaving me with Lightning Bolt, and Hooting Mandrills. For my turn I flip the Delvers off a Serum visions and attack in with everything, Peezy included (honda is at 18). He takes the block on the Peez and I Bolt it before damage resolves to get a token. The Delvers connect and bring him to 12. I draw a Firespout off the TKS trigger. I play the Serum Visions and draw Lightning Bolt, putting two lands on the bottom. I play Mandrills and pass the turn back. He plays a Matter Reshaper for his turn and passes. I play a Firespout to clear out the Reshaper while leaving my Delvers+Hootie, losing my Elemental. I attack for 10 with Delvers+Hootie and Bolt for lethal!
Match 4: Angled Luffa, Lantern Control, (2-0)
Sample Deck (Angled Luffa's List): https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1189583#paper
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I should start by saying I know what I’m playing against here. Angled is one of the better Lantern players on MTGO and I see them all the time. So while maybe Angled changed up decks since I last saw them, it was unlikely given they’re so closely associated with the archetype online. Therefore, I mulligan a perfectly reasonable hand of Tarn, Vents, Misty, Hoots, Goyf, Lightning Bolt and Forked Bolt, as it’s way too slow and non-interactive to beat Lantern’s quick bridges. I mulligan to a six of Looting, Leak, Serum Visions, Lightning Bolt, Tarn, and Steam Vents. Far from perfect, but with a scry, far more capable of beating the prison menace. Sure enough, I see the pressure I need in keeping a Delver on top. Angled leads on a Glimmervoid into a codex Shredder and Mishra’s Bauble. He cracks the Bauble to look at my top card and passes the turn. I play Delver and pass back. He plays a Lantern of Insight and Academy Ruins, revealing a Serum Vision for my top card and a Glimmervoid for his. He mills the serum visions to prevent a flip and reveals a Spell Pierce instead. Much better! I draw the Pierce and attack in for three with my flipped Delver. I play my Tarn and pass the turn back. He draws for turn and tries to untap and play Bridge. I counter it with the Pierce. He then plays Surgical on my Spell Pierce, taking two life. I draw Hootie, when they neglect to Shred for the turn. I serum visions into a Wooded Foothills, and put two lands on bottom, though it was slightly meaningless given his Lantern+Shredder. I play the Foothills and pass with two mana up after attacking with Delver, to Leak in case he had another Bridge. Instead of using Ruins for turn to get the bridge back, Angled cast Ancient Stirrings and I decide not to Mana Leak it. He revealed a Bridge, but didn’t have the mana to cast it and shipped the turn back. This time after attacking him (down to 9), I play Hootie and hold up Leak. His turn five he goes for the Bridge, I leak, and on my turn five attack for 7 with Hoots and Delver, finishing the game with the Bolt from opener.
BOARD: -4 Vapor Snag, -2 Forked Bolt, +2 Stubborn Denial, +3 Ancient Grudge, +1Destructive Revelry. This sideboard is fairly straightforward—the creature interaction is terrible, the artifact/stack interaction is not! Notably, I didn’t bring in Hazoret despite being able to “burn them out” because the plan is so unrealistic. Between their Pithing Needles/how slow Hazoret is in this deck, it’s not going to be a reliable plan, and Lightning Bolt shaves the clock cheaper/faster.
Game 2: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Tarn, Steam Vents, Misty, Serum Visions x2, Faithless Looting, and Ancient Grudge. Basically, I kept on the strength of Grudge in this match (the best card in the MU) and that I could Loot/Visions for a quick threat to capitalize on the Grudge. Angled opens the match on Blooming Marsh and Codex Shredder. I sac the Tarn for a Breeding Pool and Serum Visions, finding the second Grudge and keeping a Mountain and Mandrills on top, hoping he’d just Shred the Mountain, then think I want him to Shred, then not shred the Hoots (Scrying is SO bad against mill). Sure enough, EOT he mills the Mountain into the graveyard. His turn he drops a Ghost Quarter and plays an Ancient Stirrings off the Blooming Marsh. He reveals Ensnaring Bridge and mills the Hooting Mandrills into the yard, sadly only following ½ of my plan. Angled plays a Welding Jar and passes the turn. I draw a Bolt for the turn and play a Steam Vents untapped and cast Faithless Looting, drawing a Tarn and an Island. I drop the Island and Misty and play a Serum Visions drawing a Traverse, putting a land on bottom and a Goyf on top (I just gotta pray right?). Sure enough, his turn three he plays Bridge (three cards in hand) and mills my Goyf into the yard. For my turn I draw a Pyromancer and play it alongside my Tarn. He untaps and points an Abrupt Decay at my Pyromancer, to which I respond with a Lightning Bolt to make a token. I draw a Delver for my turn, attack for one and play a Traverse for a Hootie and play both the Hoots and Delver. My plan is simple, the execution long and drawn out. He’s at 16, and I have another Bolt+2x Ancient Grudges. He has one Bridge and a Welding Jar. I need to be able to build up enough force to one-shot him through his Bridge, and thank the heavens the Ancient Grudges were in my hand already because it would be have been much harder to win otherwise through Shredder and the eventual Lantern he played. I’m going to summarize the rest like this because describing Lantern matches is incredibly boring. Basically, Delver flipped, Peez kept making tokens over time, I built up a force sufficient to crack through 13 points, and when he eventually got a second bridge down, I went “Grudge (regen with Jar), Grudge, Grudge (the second one). And I won! Yaaaaaay Ancient Grudges in hand!
Match 5: bbdearen, UG Infect, (2-0)
Sample Deck: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19578&d=325333&f=MO
Game 1: On the draw. Opponent mulligans to six. I keep a risky seven of Wooded Foothills, Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt x2, Serum Visions, Mana Leak, and Hooting Mandrills. I keep mostly for science, and because I was on the draw. It was meaningfully probable to hit our second land within the next 1-3 cards, and with the cantrips I was feeling saucy. My opponent opens on Windswept Heath into Breeding Pool+Heirarch. This tells me either Knightfall or Infect most likely. I draw a Goyf for my turn and despite it not being a land, my hand is stacked for the matchup. Sometimes better lucky than good! I Forked Bolt bbdearen and the Heirarch off a Steam Vents from the Foothills and pass the turn. For his second turn he plays an Inkmoth Nexus, Glistener Elf from the Pool and passes. I draw my own Breeding Pool, bolt the Glistener Elf to no response (only Inkmoth was open for mana) and Serum Visions into a Forest, with a Delver and Spell Pierce on top. I bottom the Delver and keep the Pierce, as I’m want more cheap interactions to stop things like Blossoming, etc. for preventing my lockdown on the Inkmoth. For their turn three, the Inkmoth is activated and goes in for one, missing the third land drop. I draw the Spell Pierce from my scry and drop a 4/5 Goyf, holding Lightning Bolt/Pierce up off the Steam Vents, whichever was necessary. As it turns out, neither was necessary, as they play a Dryad Arbor and pass the turn without attacking with Inkmoth. I draw a Misty for the turn and attack in with my Goyf, bringing bbdearen from 16 to 12 (he fetch-shocked from Breeding Pool and Forked Bolt had dealt him one already). I play the Misty and drop a Hootie off the Forest, holding Steam Venst x2 and an Breeding Pool to threaten my Mana Leak/Bolt/Pierce, and Goyf shrunk to a 2/3 (for now!). Feeling the pressure, they went in on their next turn, activating the inkmoth and attempting a Might of Old Krosa. I Bolt in response, and they respond with a Blossoming Defense. I Pierce the defense and they scoop, no infectors or hand left to dream with.
BOARD: this match up is already pretty favorable (though less so without Shoals), but there’s still plenty to bring in. -3 Mana Leak, -1 Traverse the Ulvenwald, -2 Young Pyromancer, +2 Stubborn Denial, +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Destructive Revelry. Inkmoth is their best creature, so Grudge is a must (+Spellskite/Ichorclaw). Revelry deals with Shaper's Sanctuary and Inkmoth’s too, and you want tempo-hard counters because they bring in Pierce which is live against you pretty much the entire game and is a very easy way to lose. Leak gets wrecked by Pierce/Dispel, and Peez is waaaaaay too slow and unnecessary given they play a couple Dismembers max.
Game 2: On the draw. Opponent keeps seven. I keep a seven of Tarn, Misty, Hootie x2, Serum x2, Forked Bolt. A “fine, not spectacular, but not a mulligan” hand. Plus I had an early stop to Glistener, etc. Bbdearen leads off with a Misty and passes turn. I play a Tarn and fetch a Vents, taking my opportunity to sculpt my hand. I draw a Stomping Grounds and see a Tarn and a Peezy, which I immediately bottom. My opponent cracks Misty EOT for a Breeding Pool. They then untap to play a second Pool untapped, and drop a Glistener Elf, passing back. I draw a Foothills for my turn and attempt to Forked Bolt the Glistener, but they respond with a Vines of the Vastwood. I play and crack a Foothills to Serum Visions into a second Forked Bolt, putting an Island and Mountain on the bottom. His next turn he plays an Inkmoth, Groundswell on his Glistener for +4+4, and drops a Blighted Agent, attacking in for five poison and passing the turn. I cross my fingers and split up the Forked Bolt along the Glistener+Agent. While tapped out, he could still Mutagenic of course. Thankfully that didn’t happen, and the creatures went down, leaving bbdearen with an inkmoth and two other mana to work with. I dropped a Hootie and passed back. They decided against attacking with Inkmoth and played another Blighted Agent. I drew a Vapor Snag and attacked in with Hoots. There were no blocks and they fell to 13. I played my second Hootie and passed the turn, holding up Snag. Sure enough, they put one of their remaining two cards on the Agent (Vines of Vastwood kicked!) and attempted the win. I vapor Snagged the creature back and they cried a little inside, passing the turn back. Attacking them from 12-to-4 with the Hoots (thanks Snag!), I drew the Ancient Grudge so that when bbdearen tried the next turn to salvage the game with Inkmoth, there was to be no deliverance. A really nice match to end a league on, of course. I think Infect is generally favored towards us.
Okay, so that's it! Forgive me if there's typos, I'll be sure to clean it up as I read through it myself, but I'm sure I'll miss something regardless. I have more to share, but here's one league for now!
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Hooting Mandrills
2x Young Pyromancer
1x Saheeli Rai
Instants and Sorceries
4x Serum Visions
4x Faithless Looting
2x Thought Scour
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Vapor Snag
2x Forked Bolt
4x Spell Pierce
1x Remand
2x Mana Leak
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Steam Vents
1x Breeding Pool
1x Stomping Ground
1x Island
1x Forest
2x Stubborn Denial
1x Disdainful Stroke
3x Feed the Clan
3x Damping Sphere
3x Ancient Grudge
1x Alpine Moon
2x Firespout
I defeated:
Burn (2-1), Mono-G Tron (2-1), Ad Naseum (2-0), GW Company(2-0) and UW Control (2-1). The highlight of that league had to be beating Burn in game three. With him on the play turn two he lands a RIP to my hand of double Goyf and Hootie with pretty much nothing else. I get taken to 5 life before playing Saheeli, and draw my third and fourth goyf, plus third Hootie. I assume I'm dead. I proceed to battle back and deal 16 points of damage with Saheeli, Loot and scry into Feed the Clan and Bolts exclusively, and finish him with a bolt on like turn 20. It was madness. That's what burn decks get when they board in RIP and Paths against us though. It can hose, but beware...SAHEEEEEELLLLIIII.
In all seriousness, Saheeli has been bomb. Like, as in, drop a "goyf bomb" on your unsuspecting opponents when they think they're safe at 14 life (this happened against Tron, which I had a 6/7 Goyf, copied it with haste, crashed for 12 and then bolted them for lethal). It's been significantly better than Snapcaster Mage, and fantastic against W/U Control (I won game three of the match by dropping a Hootie Bomb, having him Supreme my board, but with my Saheeli left over and him at low life, I was able to just do it again and then ping them out. Looooooolz). So far Saheeli has been absolutely fantastic and I don't miss Snaps at all. If it didn't cost three, I'd likely replace a Peezy with one. I still may.
As far as the other changes, Hootie was moved back to 4 to max out on Saheeli bombs, and Traverse+Forked Bolt were cut to bring back 2x Thought Scour to support the fourth Hootie. Traverse was a great 19th land, but ultimately just "meh", which is exactly how I feel about Thought Scour except for the Hootie synergy. Forked Bolt going back to two is tragic, but necessary, and with Hootie you're able to achieve similar results by trampling over all their things (i.e. cutting up small dudes). It's not a perfect analogy, but with the second Firespout back on board, I feel fine with it. I also cut the Mountain because of the loss of Traverse, and put in the fourth Wooded Foothills because I think it's better than the second Island and I want more Hootie food/Blood Moon play. A lot of people love that cheese. Finally, I replaced a Mana Leak with a Remand, but I'm not sold on this, I'm just being spicy. And theoretically the velocity can help feed Hootie too. If you can't tell, I'm trying my hardest to squeeze more cards to the yard without playing more Thought Scours. But I value Mana Leak super highly. Only time will tell if it's correct, but either way it's a minimal difference.
My sideboard is becoming fairly stock from league-to-league, though that Alpine Moon could be a second Saheeli, a Revelry, or something else entirely. I'm just trying it out. Saheeli is very quickly winning over my heart though. Them bombs!
Of note on those "Midrange/Control" matches:
About side: you should try a basilisk collar replacing a ftc. It gains you an average of 8-12 damage each match letting you be proactive and attack your opponent. And it helps a lot against creatures match ups.
I tried saheeli just when she was printed and didn't dislike her. Always thought she was just too cute though. It may be worth another spin since she can let you win even through bridge and I love pws against midrange control. I miss Chandra torch of defiance from side but I think it's more balanced as is now (3 spheres, 1 blood moon, 2 huntmasters, 1 collar, 2 stubborn, 2 firespouts, 2 grudges, 2 revelries).
I keep preferring blood to alpine moon, since it has many more match ups in which it shines (I love it against burn too and still have to lose when I drop it against them). I think I'm a little bit addicted to that card.
Modern:
@MeraSC thank you for the kind words. I’m terrible at self-care, but I’m fueled by and happy to be interacting with a community of dedicated Delvers.
This is the type of stuff that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning! Thank you for typing all this up and for your insight. I love reading your posts. Like MeraSC said, be careful of getting burned out (not by Burn, you know what I mean).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF6VX3ZsK-8
Ross Merriam vs Goblins
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I think Lemonbuster was the first to suggest Collar's tech about a year ago if I remember well. Since then I've never taken it out from sideboard. It's definetly one of the most effective sideboard card when brought in and very versatile working as a pseudo removal in addition to life gain.
Agree with all have been said. A video would be enough for next time (if it's faster to do). Maybe you could just type the explanations of your sideboard choices for each match (if not obvious).
Modern:
Card selection is really good (although, we probably already knew that). Being able to dig a couple extra cards deep to find your out has been relevant for me.
Dumping certain cards to feed Goyf (or just dumping cards to slam Mandrills) comes up.
It's nice with Traverse in that you can try to turn on Traverse with it, or dump Traverse when you don't want it.
Dead cards get new life. If you end up with something like Mana Leak in the late game, you are more likely to get a card out of it. Sometimes the opponent taps low enough for Leak to get value, but being able to Loot it away otherwise is nice.
Having RR available is especially important with this build. Looting into a Bolt is important. Especially when it's the Bolt that closes the game or the one that you need to interact. Young Pyromancer makes RR even more relevant.
On that note, hitting 3 lands is more important. Having Pyromancer makes me want to be able to play it on turn 3 and have a spell up. It's almost more important to be able to protect Peezy than my other threats because if I cast a couple spells after untapping, answering Peezy can cost the opponent extra cards. That specifically is most relevant against Midrange/Control, especially if they aren't packing sweepers. Having 3 lands also let's you flashback Looting. In fact, since you can dump unwanted lands with Looting, I might even try a 19th land over something. It makes Delver a bit worse, but stumbling feels a bit worse than flooding here I think.
Looting let's you pay R to take really good partial Paris mulligans. Looting is at it's best when it is drawing cards you need, and discarding ones that you don't. It's primarily a card selection tool that let's you "have it" more often than otherwise. Against Aggro you dig for interaction and dump cantrips or counters you don't have time for. Against Midrange you dig for threats. Against Combo you dig for the specific interaction you need. I don't like Looting T1 on the play because you don't really know what you want. But you can do a neat thing in games 2 and 3 in which you use Looting as a T1 mulligan.
This is probably at its best against Midrange because you want to mulligan as little as possible. If you have a decent but not great hand, you can Loot early to have a chance at finding the cards you need. If you don't like what you find, you just dump the cards. Your mulligan wasn't great, but you are guaranteed a floor of a functional hand (that's the important part: you are basically mulliganing with significantly less risk). If the cards you find are better than what you have, your "mull to six" made your hand better.
Of course, Looting on the draw is probably fine if you can afford the tempo loss and have a decent idea as to what the opponent is on.
The last thing off the top of my head is that Looting changes my play patterns, and I think it's for the better. Looting gives you incentive to hold onto cards. Holding lands to bluff is obviously a thing, but Looting gives even more reason to hold onto cards. This obviously makes Looting better because you discard cards you don't want and hopefully draw ones you do want. But this also helps against discard effects. Kolaghan's Command and Liliana of the Veil are less scary when they take cards you didn't want in the first place. You are still getting 2-for-1'd by Kommand, but I actually laughed at one recently because it just didn't bother me at all.
In terms of negatives, the card disadvantage hasn't really bothered me. I think it's offset by the virtual card advantage, and getting to Loot later with the spell having flashback. The tempo loss I think has been a little more real. Just like other cantrips, you can have too many. Fortunately, you can pitch Looting to itself if it's your worst card. Spending too much mana looking through cards instead of pressuring or interacting can bite you though. This becomes relevant when you need to Loot to find your interaction.
Interested in RUG (Temur) Delver in Modern? Find gameplay with live commentary at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8UcKe8jVh1e2N4CHbd3fhg
@Chaughy thanks for the write up man. It more appreciated then you know.
I'm super interested in sahili tech going forward... As soon as we find or get a card that gives us game against midrange this deck is going to be fire! Too bad we kind squeeze in like 3 leyline of anticipation lol
@Everybody: I'm curious for those playing the looting version of the deck, we know holding back land for looting is the correct line for us but are we supposed to be playing more land vs midrange and control or just stay the course? I wonder if tireless tracker would be a better card then huntmaster. Just brainstorming.
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I actually agree with what you said here, so I'm going to try to rephrase my point on Looting having a cost in terms of tempo.
Basically, Looting costs Mana and doesn't directly affect the board. That means that you could fall behind Looting in the early turns if you are cantriping and your opponent is slamming creatures. I guess it's the same with any of our cantrips, but I wanted to not imply that Looting was 100% amazing all the time. Especially when you are operating on one red source, it can be better to save the Looting for later and Bolt their dude. Looting enabling things like Mandrills with interaction up is definitely still awesome tempo.
Knowing when to play a land and when to hold is going to be important going forward. I think playing the first three is safe (I've been favouring Vents, Ground, Island if anyone wants to compare preferred setup in this build). That can get you in trouble if you want to play a land and cantrip into Huntmaster against Midrange, so after that it gets iffy. I'm not sure, but I think it's fine to have just a land or two in hand if you don't actually have Looting since you can probably find some questionable cards, and might even Loot into them. I'd totally hold everything if I have four or five in play though. Even if you end up with five or more lands in hand, a single Looting dumps four of them.
On Tracker, I think Mikefon liked it. It could be a nice grind alternative to Huntmaster. I'd probably want the 19th land even more with it. If there is room, I wouldn't mind one of each creature in the board.
Interested in RUG (Temur) Delver in Modern? Find gameplay with live commentary at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8UcKe8jVh1e2N4CHbd3fhg
Soooooo.... hey guys....
I am just wondering, Traditionally we are more control than beat down vs midrange.. is essence scatter out of the board off the table for our worst matchup? I just feel like we don't have the magic card we want.. but we usually just hedge against flavour of the month via ceramonious rejection, or surgical exraction. so now we have a bunch of creature decks.. so scatter?
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I disagree with adding any more lands. The deck works easily with 3 lands. I drop the 4th only if I have 2 more in hand. Why adding something useless? Just to dump it with looting? It's not how looting is supposed to work in my opinion. With all the cantrips we play (10 in last chaughey configuration: the one with saheeli) it's difficult not to see 3-4 lands in first 3 turns.
I loved tracker in traverse list. I don't think it would work in this configuration. It needs as many land drops as possible to work, but with looting you keep them in hand to make it effective. The tension is too high imho. Moreover this configuration relies much more on speed and tempo. That is its strenghth. Tracker is slow. Too slow for this configuration. Huntmaster is the best threat for how versatile it is. If burn wasn't so played I'd play at least 1 chandra for sure though.
Modern: