MTG Salvation

It's not a common issue, you just experienced bad luck there. Your Ziggurat is still high priority to let you cast FreeB into Mantis, for example.
I've never seen people cut Zigs in the past, but nowadays it might be a way to support, like you said, many more noncreature spells from the SB.
Humans should mostly play creatures in the SB though, the very few other spells should be very cheap, preferably colorless. Even a 2-cmc artifact happens to be stuck in our hand because of Ziggurat, but that's a tiny sacrifice we've always made and it hasn't prevented Humans from being the best deck in the format.
3-cmc noncreature spells are a big NO in this deck. Do you have a link to that list that cut a Zig ?

That’s kind of what I figured, I was just a little irritated by it but it should be a rarity. Here is a list from Jukelox7 that trimmed 2 Ancient Ziggurat and went 5-0. Not sure how I feel about using Gemstone Mine and Mana Confluence though. Wouldn’t Seachrome Coast or Razorverge Thicket be better?

Nothing justifies his choice, besides the idea to test things out. I wouldn't bother too much if I were you, just stick to the conventional manabase.

Personally wouldn’t see the benefit of cutting the ziggurats. However, just due to not having the cards I have been running a razorverge thicket instead of a second Seachrome. Not ideal but I have never come unstuck by it, and on more than a handful of occasions it has helped me cast Hierarchs or Teegs.

I wouldn't worry about the Zigs, Humans plays weird lands and weird cmc's so it's gonna happen sometimes. I lost a game in the finals of a tourney the other day because my lands were 3 Caverns and I couldn't curve Mantis Rider into Deputy, it's just one of those things.

The reason I've seen some people trimming 1 Zigs has been because they have SB Chalice of the Void, and feel they need one extra land to cast it. In that scenario I could see wanting 3 Zigs/1 Confluence or something along those lines, but otherwise don't sweat it IMO.

Ran Humans at a 27 person FNM.

Round 1 vs. Mardu Pyromancer. Hadn't seen this deck in ages. I can now see why. In the first game, I get out a Meddling Mage on Lightning Bolt, then Fatal Push. He doesn't stand a chance. In the next game, he stays alive for a few turns with 2 Young Pyromancer and doing Lingering Souls, blocking 2 Mantis Riders while a Kitesail Freebooter gets through. Eventually he scoops. I had started saving creatures in hand in case a sweeper came. 2-0.

Round 2 vs. RG Breach. I feel like this is better for Humans than Titanshift is because it's very spell based. I got Champ into Thalia. He got Search for Tomorrow through into Anger of the Gods. He lands Prime Time the next turn, but I Reflector Mage it to swing for lethal. I was dead to Breach Titan and then a land drop for the turn, but he didn't get it. In the next game, he has a defensive hand and kills a few creatures before I finally get through. 2-0.

Round 3 vs. Jund. In the first game, I put the pressure and he has Dark Confidant while at 4 life. He reveals Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and we're off to Game 2. This game is closer as he deals with my Riders, but 2 Kitesail Freebooters get it done while he holds me off on the ground. He drew 3 straight Tireless Tracker before scooping at 5 life. He was pretty upset to only have drawn Lightning Bolt and 2 Assassin's Trophies as removal in both games. He did draw 4 Liliana of the Veil though. 2-0.

Round 4 vs. Tron. I really wanted to play out this round, but since 2 friends were also 3-0 at the time and agree to ID if we did, I figured it's the best EV to draw. 0-0-3.

I finish 3-0-1 and got some credit. I nearly ran Bring to Light Gifts Ungiven, but I'm kind of glad I didn't. Next week, I'm pretty sure I'm on Neoform.dec.

I'd call it bad luck on the mulls, with 15 non-ziggurat lands you have a 93% chance of casting vial on one. Bumping that up to 17 gives you a 96% chance, only a 3% increase. On top of that you have to consider how many times you actually get vial in hand turn one. Simply put there isn't much to be gained here. going the other way, with the standard 12 rainbow lands, you only have 90% chance of having 1B on turn 2 and dropping that to 10 gives you an 84% chance. This also drop the chance of a turn 3 mantis rider from 94% to 90% (the math on this one is a bit inaccurate but you get the idea.

My advice is that you decide to cut ziggurat's you probably want to cut black entirely and go 4 color. In this case, you use Territories, Caverns, canopys and then a fetch - shock manabase.

Thank you all for your advice. I stuck with the standard mana base and had no problems Friday night, going 3-1. My one loss was again to Titan Shift. It seems like they always have a timely bolt or just get there a turn sooner than I do. In side boarding, I found that I don’t have much to bring in for them. What is the usual plan?

Again, thanks for the feedback!

Meddling Mage naming their wincons while Freebooter/Thalia/Sin Collector mess with their ability to ramp is generally pretty punishing in my experience. Alternatively, growing some Champions/Lieutenants past Anger range and beating their brains in has also worked for me. My sideboard plan is Sin Collector/Kambal in, Reflector Mage out.

Quote from ascribe »

Thank you all for your advice. I stuck with the standard mana base and had no problems Friday night, going 3-1. My one loss was again to Titan Shift. It seems like they always have a timely bolt or just get there a turn sooner than I do. In side boarding, I found that I don’t have much to bring in for them. What is the usual plan?

Again, thanks for the feedback!

Quote from rothgar13 »

Meddling Mage naming their wincons while Freebooter/Thalia/Sin Collector mess with their ability to ramp is generally pretty punishing in my experience. Alternatively, growing some Champions/Lieutenants past Anger range and beating their brains in has also worked for me. My sideboard plan is Sin Collector/Kambal in, Reflector Mage out.

This is how you beat them.

But I will say something that may not be popular opinion because I've seen statistics show the opposite in the Titanshift vs. Humans matchup. In my opinion, Titanshift is favored. I have played the matchup around 25 matches and I'm nearly 80% in winning them as the Titanshift player. Now there could be some unlucky draws for Titanshift in this matchup that spell doom, but I have luckily found very good draws vs. them and only lost to blazingly fast starts when I slightly stumble. Having a lone Champion of the Parish as bigger than 3/3 makes it tough unless it can be chumped by Sakura Tribe-Elder. I strongly feel that this matchup is in Titanshift's advantage. (The last Staples event that I won with Titanshift, I was lucky enough to face 2 Humans in the top 4 and I slaughtered those matchups. It was a few months ago, but it hasn't changed much.)

*If I were to estimate the Titanshift/Humans matchup, I'd say at least 66/33 for Titanshift. There are more combinations of cards that you can draw with Humans while many of the Titanshift cards simply do the same damn thing!

A lone Sin Collector was indeed what I brought in. The game I did win two weeks ago saw me roll him game 2 with a Champion/Lieutenant/Image draw with Aether Vial that got him Turn 3. Game 3 I had him on the ropes and hellbent. He topdecked a Titan to decimate my board and get back his Scapeshift from Freebooter for the win the following turn. The redundancy is definitely what gets you!

Maybe another Sin Collector is in order. And chalk it up as a bit of a rough match up.

What are your thoughts on him?

Seems bad like the majority of the set so far

The set already has good cards for Modern.
That being said this ranger has no purpose in Humans. It's a bad anti-wrath card.

Why bad tho?

Has nice body, acts as a fifth thalia vs combo decks and delays wrath effects one turn.

Color wise it's easy to cast and you can fetch thraben inspector to build a board anew or a champion of the parish if you kept some gas in hand.

Wonderful card imho in the flex slot

The card is way too cute in my book:

1- Humans want evasion on good bodies, not just good bodies. There's a reason why Anafenza, the Foremost isn't played : big grounders suck in the format, unless they're 7/8 Awoken Horrors or 8/8 Death's Shadows. Even Tarmogoyf is kinda obsolete nowadays.

2- It has to sac itself to protect the board, that's bad. It's gonna eat a spot removal anyway. So what we have here is a worse Selfless Spirit, because it has no evasion, costs more mana and prevents only sorcery speed interaction.

3- You mention Thraben Inspector but this card isn't played in Humans. Overall, what it tutors is what we don't want to topdeck : Champ and Noble. He's worse than Militia Bugler.

Don't let the mythic rarity nor the art on the card seduce you, it's probably garbage for Humans.

While it's a worse selfless spirit and a worse militia bugler, he acts as both and hoses certain deck, like burn, wich can win ignoring the board.

I'm gonna try it since my flex slot is always disappointing anyway

Been testing Bazaar Trademage and have liked it so far. It hits hard, the 4th Toughness is huge, and you tend to have things to discard (extra Vials, Thalias, Reflector Mages vs Control, Thalia in the mirror etc). I'm not saying its the solution to our flex, or even that its great, but its warranted more testing based on the first 10-15 games.

The 3/4 flying body is quite huge, nonetheless.

Unsettled Mariner seems good.
A pseudo Crystalline Sliver, human, that hoses burn, discards, storm, t3 Karns, New wastelands. both Teferi and Valakut, Both lilianas.

Maybe alone, as a protection, is not great. But in the human shell it generates redundancy.
Alongside thalia makes almost impossible to remove our board and helps at keeping our Meddling Mages and Kitesail Freebooters alive

Wat does everybody think of Unsettled Mariner as another Thalia. This looks like it's a sweet addition for a similar effect and could maybe let us trim the Legendary Human, which is awkward in multiples, whereas this one is great in multiples.
Copying this with Phantasmal Image is also sweet vs removal heavy decks. It's a shame the copy can't protect itself.