I think Pterry is justified in strictly UR and Mono U builds. Decks that have green or black have access to delve threats and Goyf, which are better. It's because it's a GIANT beater that you really can't get elsewhere. That being said, if you're on an UR build and not playing UR wizards there are probably other decisions that needs to be assessed first haha.
EDIT: Although, I have been entertaining the idea of a deck with Traverse the Ulvenwald and Pteramander. The thought would be that you're simultaneously filling the graveyard with cards by casting traverse to find and fuel Pterry at the same time.
Pteramander looks good on paper... Performs bad in practice
Care to elaborate on this one?
I did some tests, and it looks WAY better to have eight actual cc1 to pressure the opponent. Hooting Mandrills is a card that I love, but it's also by far the worse in the 75. You cannot cast it on turn one, simply put, and it forces you to play subpar cards such as Thought Scour.
I tried a maindeck like this, and it performed quite well. I'm not a sucker for this archetype, but I still hold it dear, and from time to time I experiment a little bit with Delver strategies. It basically outplays Combo&Control strategies (more so the second, now that Crackling Drake is a thing for the sideboard), and can go toe to toe with aggro thanks to Shoals and cc1 removals. It suffers the usual swarm strategies (Humans, Elves, Spirits) and Midrangey stuff.
If I was to cut Pteramander in favor of Mandrills with the same shell (-Opt, +Thought Scour) I'm fairly confident I wouldn't have won the same amount of games versus a lot of decks due to the lack of tempo.
Pteramander looks good on paper... Performs bad in practice
Care to elaborate on this one?
I did some tests, and it looks WAY better to have eight actual cc1 to pressure the opponent. Hooting Mandrills is a card that I love, but it's also by far the worse in the 75. You cannot cast it on turn one, simply put, and it forces you to play subpar cards such as Thought Scour.
....
I tried a maindeck like this, and it performed quite well. I'm not a sucker for this archetype, but I still hold it dear, and from time to time I experiment a little bit with Delver strategies. It basically outplays Combo&Control strategies (more so the second, now that Crackling Drake is a thing for the sideboard), and can go toe to toe with aggro thanks to Shoals and cc1 removals. It suffers the usual swarm strategies (Humans, Elves, Spirits) and Midrangey stuff.
If I was to cut Pteramander in favor of Mandrills with the same shell (-Opt, +Thought Scour) I'm fairly confident I wouldn't have won the same amount of games versus a lot of decks due to the lack of tempo.
Since you're playing a slightly different build than many of of, I'm not going to come out and yell "YOU'RE WRONG!" about everything you say here, but do keep in mind how many of our RUG Delver lists are constructed and why Thought Scour and Mandrills are not simple "subpar" cards in this archetype.
Hooting Mandrills is possible the best creature in our deck. It dodges Fatal Push, can get damage through via trample, and with Thought Scour it can hit the board on turn 2 as a 4/4 Trample, whereas Tarmogoyf can hit the board turn 2, but might be smaller than a 4/5. Also Mandrills doesn't shrink when you lose your graveyard, making it a bit more reliable than Goyf.
As for Thought Scour - it's probably one of the best cantrips in Modern. It fuels Goyf, it fuels Mandrills, it's instant speed, and it can mill unwanted cards into our grave. Since many of us run a pair or more of Snapcaster Mage, often it's fine to mill a spell since we can still get value from it via Snapcaster. In my games last night I cast a ton of Though Scours, and more often than not I was milling over unwanted lands, allowing me to always be digging for gas. Sure, once in a while it might mill a creature that you want, but if we pilot our deck well, we can control the board long enough to find another threat. Don't forget you can always mill your opponent if necessary - especially good if they keep a scry on top, might be setting up for a miracle, or they simply don't interact with their graveyard.
Hooting Mandrills is a subpar card, IMHO. It's played because there isn't anything better. IF you have Scour in hand and the opponent doesn't play grave hate (Relic in Tron, for example), it can be a turn two play. Which is slower than turn one creature anyway, and it makes you spend the entire turn casting it. While, playing critter on turn one, double cantrip on turn two (or cantrip + removal/disruption) feels way better against most decks. If you don't have any Scour in hand, it's a dead card until you hit the requirements.
Pteramander and Tarmogoyf DON'T conflict with each other. It's a thing, yes, don't pretend it isn't. The argument for Fatal Push is also kinda farfetched. All of your other creatures die from it anyway. They are going to find a target for Push, in a way or another. That said, Push isn't superpopular right now. Most decks are running Bolt (Hollow One, UR Phoenix, Jeskai Control...) or different kinds of removals (Walking Ballista, Oblivion Stone, Ugin...). Or directly Path, which hits anything from our maindeck. Flying is, also, usually better compared to trample, which is a plus for Pteramander. When was the last time you faced Lingering Souls in the format?
I would suggest you guys to try this configuration before dismissing it. Mandrills RUG wasn't a good option for the meta. We can talk about this or that, the truth doesn't change. What we can change, though, is the velocity of the deck. Which matters, to say the least, in the current Modern.
What we can change, though, is the velocity of the deck. Which matters, to say the least, in the current Modern.
This brings a tear to my eye. You're so right. Decks right now need to play catch up, and anything for us to gain velocity is probably a positive right now. It's worth at least a bit of exploration
I have a ton of experience with Hooting Mandrills from the old days and none with Pteramander.
Hooting Mandrills is often a turn 2 play. Just drop it on the field forget about it. He's hearty, doesn't need as much protection as other threats since he dodges Push/Bolt/Aburpt Decay. He also always turns on Stubborn Denial. His anti-synergy with Goyf is rarely an issue, since you often only need 1 threat to win and Goyf doesn't need a lot of cards in the grave, just ones of different types. It's not actually hard to facilitate both cards in the deck, despite how it appears on paper. He has trample, which isn't trivial either. His primary downsides are 1) that he gets outclassed by cards like Gurmag Angler, Death's Shadow, most of the Eldrazi and a handful of other commonly played threats, and 2) well time grave nukes can make him nearly impossible to cast.
All in all, I think he's better than you give him credit for. Is he better than Pteramander? That's definitely up for debate. Pteramander has some unique qualities that make him an attractive option, but I haven't done any testing with him yet.
The positives in favor of him seem to be his potential 5/5 body with flying is bombastic. A 4 turn unblockable clock is a bit better than a 5 turn clock with pseudo evasion (trample). He can come down on turn 1 without any setup. He seems like a solid top deck. He's blue, so he pitches to Shoal if you're going that route. His potential problems are that he's a base 1/1 flyer for 1, so even if you play him on turn 1, if you fail to Adapt him in a timely manner, he's kind of a dud. He's also vulnerable to every removal in the format without protection/setup.
I think how good Pteramander is all depends on how quickly you're able to Adapt him. If you can Adapt him quickly, I think he could be a decent choice over Hooty. If not, I'd rather stick with Hooty because he doesn't require much babysitting. I haven't tested Pteramander at all yet, but I definitely would like to give him a whirl to see what his potential is. The maindeck would probably need more ways to burn through instants and sorceries.
I think how good Pteramander is all depends on how quickly you're able to Adapt him. If you can Adapt him quickly, I think he could be a decent choice over Hooty. If not, I'd rather stick with Hooty because he doesn't require much babysitting. I haven't tested Pteramander at all yet, but I definitely would like to give him a whirl to see what his potential is. The maindeck would probably need more ways to burn through instants and sorceries.
I think there's also some consideration to the spell suite too. Even though my build is just UG, the fact that I'm on a set of Stubborn Denial is huge. Sure Stubborn Denial can be replaced with Spell Pierce, but the Pierce is just worse. That card puts in a hell of amount of work.
Again, I'm in favor of optimizing things, but it seems like there's a lot of give and take between the Pterry and Monkeys debate. Not just 100% benefit.
I played with pteramander. The problem is that it's terribly slow. It doesn't grow until turn 4 on average. So all in all mandrills are faster. And it's graveyard dependant as our other threats (except for pyromancer for people who play it).
I wasn't satisfied and got back to mandrills quickly.
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I played with pteramander. The problem is that it's terribly slow. It doesn't grow until turn 4 on average. So all in all mandrills are faster. And it's graveyard dependant as our other threats (except for pyromancer for people who play it).
I wasn't satisfied and got back to mandrills quickly.
Pteramander and Tarmogoyf DON'T conflict with each other. It's a thing, yes, don't pretend it isn't. The argument for Fatal Push is also kinda farfetched. All of your other creatures die from it anyway. They are going to find a target for Push, in a way or another. That said, Push isn't superpopular right now. Most decks are running Bolt (Hollow One, UR Phoenix, Jeskai Control...) or different kinds of removals (Walking Ballista, Oblivion Stone, Ugin...). Or directly Path, which hits anything from our maindeck. Flying is, also, usually better compared to trample, which is a plus for Pteramander. When was the last time you faced Lingering Souls in the format?
I would suggest you guys to try this configuration before dismissing it. Mandrills RUG wasn't a good option for the meta. We can talk about this or that, the truth doesn't change. What we can change, though, is the velocity of the deck. Which matters, to say the least, in the current Modern.
Dodging push and bolt is very important. According to mtgtop8's 2019 data push has been in 17.6% of decks and is the 3rd most played instant behind bolt and opt. Also turn 2 hooty while holding up stubborn denial or spell pierce is one of the decks strongest early plays. That play alone can win games.
I'm a stick in the mud about cards I like, and I like Mandrills. I think Mandrills into Stubborn Denial on T2 is the best thing this deck can do. Pteremander is a fine card, but let's not pretend that it's a 1-drop threat. It takes time to flip it, and if you're committed to flipping it, you have to play Thought Scour anyway.
Mandrills dodging Bolt and Push is huge, since those are the most common removal spells in the format.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Yeah, the best part about Hooting Mandrills is just how little you have to babysit him. Pteramander seems like a better threat once you can Adapt, but the big problem is that I can't see that happening feasibly until turn 4 or later. So, he's a "1 drop," but having Flying Men out for 4 turns before it turns into a Tombstalker seems kind of 'meh'.
There's a guy at my LGS who's been rocking RUG Delver. He runs a playset of Pteramander and Light up the Stage, along with a couple copies of Curious Obsession swears by it. It makes sense to me, since he's trying to keep Spectacle active every turn, but I'm not sure whether it's the best way to go in RUG.
Yeah, the best part about Hooting Mandrills is just how little you have to babysit him. Pteramander seems like a better threat once you can Adapt, but the big problem is that I can't see that happening feasibly until turn 4 or later. So, he's a "1 drop," but having Flying Men out for 4 turns before it turns into a Tombstalker seems kind of 'meh'.
There's a guy at my LGS who's been rocking RUG Delver. He runs a playset of Pteramander and Light up the Stage, along with a couple copies of Curious Obsession swears by it. It makes sense to me, since he's trying to keep Spectacle active every turn, but I'm not sure whether it's the best way to go in RUG.
This is rather interesting... I'm curious what his deck list looks like.. Seems strange to both show your opponent counter spells and risk losing them altogether after that next turn for the benefit of digging into your deck. Very interesting...
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Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan Legacy: RG Lands EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I've played against him a few times while on GDS. From the limited experience I had playing against it, I notice that the deck moves through cards fast. With 8 turn one plays, the chances of landing a turn 1 threat is pretty high. That means he's almost always on the attack by turn 2.
Seeing the counterspells in exile from a Light Up the Stage actually gained him a little tempo, since it forced me to hold back cards because I knew they would get met with a Mana Leak. The downside to that is that the "card advantage" generated by LutS goes away after the next turn… so, sometimes you can just wait out the cards in exile. It also forced him to make some tough/strange decisions when cards like Lightning Bolt and Serum Visions were revealed from a LutS.
So far, I've won all the games against him, primarily because Fatal Push/Snap Push wrecked his creatures and Shadow turns a game around real fast… especially with a TBR.
Ultimately, I think LutS can give extra gas, but the tradeoff is that you end up having to make some suboptimal plays to accommodate it, which is why I don't like it. RUG Delver has generally been about squeezing out every drop of efficiency you can get out of every single card. I think there's definitely something there… but I just don't think it pairs with the "protect the queen" style tempo that RUG does.
What are you guys's thoughts on a card like Deprive over Simic Charm's in a list? I kinda like the idea of having Force of Will in the form of Shoal and Counterspell in the form of Deprive. I just don't wanna lean too hard on counter magic...
Our mana base is REALLY fragile... Until it's established late game it's very difficult to afford which can make it a bad top deck in the first few turns. It's better as a sideboard card for grindy games but the match ups we grind with usually have a better card for us to play instead.
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Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan Legacy: RG Lands EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
I'm suspicious of UU costs, especially on counters. I'm not even sure I'll run Counterspell if we get it in Horizons.
Also, Nate: you've inspired me to start blinging the deck. I'm not going for 100% foil because I love my OG Blood Moons, shocklands, FBB Bolts, and Chris Rush signed Mana Leak, but I'm working on it. Maindeck, I'm up to these foils: 3 Island, 1 Forest, 4 Mandrills, 4 Shoal, 3 Stubborn Denial, 2 Simic Charm, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Chart a Course. Sideboard, I've got 1 Dispel, 2 Revelry, 1 signed foil Anger of the Gods, 1 Beacon Bolt, and 1 Savage Knuckleblade. The fetchlands and Goyfs are going to be tougher, and I may just end up getting the fetches signed if I feel compelled.
I'm holding off on getting the old FNM promo Serum Visions because I'm perpetually holding out hope for a better cantrip, and we might get it in Horizons. Scry 1, draw a card, scry 1. If Preordain is too much for Modern, surely that isn't.
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
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Shame that most people won't understand this
---
What do you guys think about Pteramander? It seems like the final additional cc1 most player were expecting. What about something like this:
4x Pteramander
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Young Pyromancer
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
EDIT: Although, I have been entertaining the idea of a deck with Traverse the Ulvenwald and Pteramander. The thought would be that you're simultaneously filling the graveyard with cards by casting traverse to find and fuel Pterry at the same time.
Care to elaborate on this one?
I did some tests, and it looks WAY better to have eight actual cc1 to pressure the opponent. Hooting Mandrills is a card that I love, but it's also by far the worse in the 75. You cannot cast it on turn one, simply put, and it forces you to play subpar cards such as Thought Scour.
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Serum Visions
4 Opt
2 Sleight of Hand
2 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
1 Deprive
2 Chart a Course
3 Tarfire
Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Pteramander
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
Lands
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
2 Stomping Ground
4 Scalding Tarn
3 misty rainforest
2 Wooded foothills
2 island
1 forest
I tried a maindeck like this, and it performed quite well. I'm not a sucker for this archetype, but I still hold it dear, and from time to time I experiment a little bit with Delver strategies. It basically outplays Combo&Control strategies (more so the second, now that Crackling Drake is a thing for the sideboard), and can go toe to toe with aggro thanks to Shoals and cc1 removals. It suffers the usual swarm strategies (Humans, Elves, Spirits) and Midrangey stuff.
If I was to cut Pteramander in favor of Mandrills with the same shell (-Opt, +Thought Scour) I'm fairly confident I wouldn't have won the same amount of games versus a lot of decks due to the lack of tempo.
Since you're playing a slightly different build than many of of, I'm not going to come out and yell "YOU'RE WRONG!" about everything you say here, but do keep in mind how many of our RUG Delver lists are constructed and why Thought Scour and Mandrills are not simple "subpar" cards in this archetype.
Hooting Mandrills is possible the best creature in our deck. It dodges Fatal Push, can get damage through via trample, and with Thought Scour it can hit the board on turn 2 as a 4/4 Trample, whereas Tarmogoyf can hit the board turn 2, but might be smaller than a 4/5. Also Mandrills doesn't shrink when you lose your graveyard, making it a bit more reliable than Goyf.
As for Thought Scour - it's probably one of the best cantrips in Modern. It fuels Goyf, it fuels Mandrills, it's instant speed, and it can mill unwanted cards into our grave. Since many of us run a pair or more of Snapcaster Mage, often it's fine to mill a spell since we can still get value from it via Snapcaster. In my games last night I cast a ton of Though Scours, and more often than not I was milling over unwanted lands, allowing me to always be digging for gas. Sure, once in a while it might mill a creature that you want, but if we pilot our deck well, we can control the board long enough to find another threat. Don't forget you can always mill your opponent if necessary - especially good if they keep a scry on top, might be setting up for a miracle, or they simply don't interact with their graveyard.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Pteramander and Tarmogoyf DON'T conflict with each other. It's a thing, yes, don't pretend it isn't. The argument for Fatal Push is also kinda farfetched. All of your other creatures die from it anyway. They are going to find a target for Push, in a way or another. That said, Push isn't superpopular right now. Most decks are running Bolt (Hollow One, UR Phoenix, Jeskai Control...) or different kinds of removals (Walking Ballista, Oblivion Stone, Ugin...). Or directly Path, which hits anything from our maindeck. Flying is, also, usually better compared to trample, which is a plus for Pteramander. When was the last time you faced Lingering Souls in the format?
I would suggest you guys to try this configuration before dismissing it. Mandrills RUG wasn't a good option for the meta. We can talk about this or that, the truth doesn't change. What we can change, though, is the velocity of the deck. Which matters, to say the least, in the current Modern.
This brings a tear to my eye. You're so right. Decks right now need to play catch up, and anything for us to gain velocity is probably a positive right now. It's worth at least a bit of exploration
Hooting Mandrills is often a turn 2 play. Just drop it on the field forget about it. He's hearty, doesn't need as much protection as other threats since he dodges Push/Bolt/Aburpt Decay. He also always turns on Stubborn Denial. His anti-synergy with Goyf is rarely an issue, since you often only need 1 threat to win and Goyf doesn't need a lot of cards in the grave, just ones of different types. It's not actually hard to facilitate both cards in the deck, despite how it appears on paper. He has trample, which isn't trivial either. His primary downsides are 1) that he gets outclassed by cards like Gurmag Angler, Death's Shadow, most of the Eldrazi and a handful of other commonly played threats, and 2) well time grave nukes can make him nearly impossible to cast.
All in all, I think he's better than you give him credit for. Is he better than Pteramander? That's definitely up for debate. Pteramander has some unique qualities that make him an attractive option, but I haven't done any testing with him yet.
The positives in favor of him seem to be his potential 5/5 body with flying is bombastic. A 4 turn unblockable clock is a bit better than a 5 turn clock with pseudo evasion (trample). He can come down on turn 1 without any setup. He seems like a solid top deck. He's blue, so he pitches to Shoal if you're going that route. His potential problems are that he's a base 1/1 flyer for 1, so even if you play him on turn 1, if you fail to Adapt him in a timely manner, he's kind of a dud. He's also vulnerable to every removal in the format without protection/setup.
I think how good Pteramander is all depends on how quickly you're able to Adapt him. If you can Adapt him quickly, I think he could be a decent choice over Hooty. If not, I'd rather stick with Hooty because he doesn't require much babysitting. I haven't tested Pteramander at all yet, but I definitely would like to give him a whirl to see what his potential is. The maindeck would probably need more ways to burn through instants and sorceries.
I think there's also some consideration to the spell suite too. Even though my build is just UG, the fact that I'm on a set of Stubborn Denial is huge. Sure Stubborn Denial can be replaced with Spell Pierce, but the Pierce is just worse. That card puts in a hell of amount of work.
Again, I'm in favor of optimizing things, but it seems like there's a lot of give and take between the Pterry and Monkeys debate. Not just 100% benefit.
I wasn't satisfied and got back to mandrills quickly.
Modern:
You mean pterribly slow?
Dodging push and bolt is very important. According to mtgtop8's 2019 data push has been in 17.6% of decks and is the 3rd most played instant behind bolt and opt. Also turn 2 hooty while holding up stubborn denial or spell pierce is one of the decks strongest early plays. That play alone can win games.
Mandrills dodging Bolt and Push is huge, since those are the most common removal spells in the format.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
There's a guy at my LGS who's been rocking RUG Delver. He runs a playset of Pteramander and Light up the Stage, along with a couple copies of Curious Obsession swears by it. It makes sense to me, since he's trying to keep Spectacle active every turn, but I'm not sure whether it's the best way to go in RUG.
This is rather interesting... I'm curious what his deck list looks like.. Seems strange to both show your opponent counter spells and risk losing them altogether after that next turn for the benefit of digging into your deck. Very interesting...
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Seeing the counterspells in exile from a Light Up the Stage actually gained him a little tempo, since it forced me to hold back cards because I knew they would get met with a Mana Leak. The downside to that is that the "card advantage" generated by LutS goes away after the next turn… so, sometimes you can just wait out the cards in exile. It also forced him to make some tough/strange decisions when cards like Lightning Bolt and Serum Visions were revealed from a LutS.
So far, I've won all the games against him, primarily because Fatal Push/Snap Push wrecked his creatures and Shadow turns a game around real fast… especially with a TBR.
Ultimately, I think LutS can give extra gas, but the tradeoff is that you end up having to make some suboptimal plays to accommodate it, which is why I don't like it. RUG Delver has generally been about squeezing out every drop of efficiency you can get out of every single card. I think there's definitely something there… but I just don't think it pairs with the "protect the queen" style tempo that RUG does.
Our mana base is REALLY fragile... Until it's established late game it's very difficult to afford which can make it a bad top deck in the first few turns. It's better as a sideboard card for grindy games but the match ups we grind with usually have a better card for us to play instead.
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Also, Nate: you've inspired me to start blinging the deck. I'm not going for 100% foil because I love my OG Blood Moons, shocklands, FBB Bolts, and Chris Rush signed Mana Leak, but I'm working on it. Maindeck, I'm up to these foils: 3 Island, 1 Forest, 4 Mandrills, 4 Shoal, 3 Stubborn Denial, 2 Simic Charm, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Chart a Course. Sideboard, I've got 1 Dispel, 2 Revelry, 1 signed foil Anger of the Gods, 1 Beacon Bolt, and 1 Savage Knuckleblade. The fetchlands and Goyfs are going to be tougher, and I may just end up getting the fetches signed if I feel compelled.
I'm holding off on getting the old FNM promo Serum Visions because I'm perpetually holding out hope for a better cantrip, and we might get it in Horizons. Scry 1, draw a card, scry 1. If Preordain is too much for Modern, surely that isn't.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered