Hey guys. Been lurking around this thread from some time now. Decided to jump in and buy the vials to complete the deck. I was wondering(and looking for ideas) on what is the best way to fight Eldrazi decks(tron and bant)
My initial strategy is extra roasts and spreading seas in the side. Would blood moon be an option by going up to two forests?
Blood moon is probably too greedy in this deck.
Spreading seas, stone rain, molten rain, etc, are reasonable.
Roast is good, as is grim lavamancer (doubles up with bolt to kill big things for no card disadvantage, also kills reshapers/skyspawners, etc)
Something like sower of temptation is also pretty sweet.
Disdainful stroke and ceremonious rejection are good when they don't have cavern of souls.
I feel like going down to 17-18 lands and cutting the cryptic is where you want to be.
With the space you get, I'd play a bit more interaction, another remand, another ruse, etc.
I'd also cut the clique (maybe move it to the board) for another snapcaster.
Otherwise, I like it. I'm not sure if chart a course is actually strong enough for modern, or for this deck, but its definitely tempting.
Hey guys. Been lurking around this thread from some time now. Decided to jump in and buy the vials to complete the deck. I was wondering(and looking for ideas) on what is the best way to fight Eldrazi decks(tron and bant)
My initial strategy is extra roasts and spreading seas in the side. Would blood moon be an option by going up to two forests?
Welcome and awesome to hear you wanna give the deck a spin!
Going up two forests would ruin your chances to cast Cryptic on turn 4 and make stuff like Clique on turn 3 or Snap into any 1cmc blue spell harder as well. This deck is greedy so Blood Moon is not really an option.
Let me tell you up front that the Bant Eldrazi MU is bad...our worst MU bad. They play a playset of Cavern of Souls and are a lot more likely to land turn 2 TKS. Thankfully the deck is not very prevalent right now.
Eldrazi Tron is still not an easy MU but a lot better than Bant Eldrazi. They only play 1-2 Caverns which makes our counters a lot better, barren god hands their manabase is slower than Bant Eldrazi's and it's actually easier to counter their lategame (Karn) for us. Spreading Seas is very good (Caverns are usually top priority, before Temples and Tron lands) and also solid in many other MUs. Ceremonious Rejection is good, you can bring in your Ancient Grudge that you should play at least 1x against Affinity anyway.
Another card I've really found to like is Basilisk Collar.
I don't like Roast against them. TKS will usually strip it away before you cast it and it's aweful against Smasher.
I feel like going down to 17-18 lands and cutting the cryptic is where you want to be.
With the space you get, I'd play a bit more interaction, another remand, another ruse, etc.
I'd also cut the clique (maybe move it to the board) for another snapcaster.
Otherwise, I like it. I'm not sure if chart a course is actually strong enough for modern, or for this deck, but its definitely tempting.
Even with 8 cantrips, 17-18 lands sounds like not enough for me. In general I'm a lot less in favor of that cutting Cryptic and lands idea. We give up one of our best tools that serves CA and tempo purposes and try to play more of a tempo game. Even with the proposed changes the deck's average cmc isn't low enough to effectively run on 2 lands. The turn 1 Vial games will obviously still be sweet but playing Eternal Witness in a 17 or 18 lands deck? That wants to play a tempo game?
I could playtest my 3/3 SV/O split with 2x Pyromancer against a buddy yesterday. It was sweet against Grixis DS, helping to recover from discard, producing tokens to gain time against their beaters, felt rather bad against Burn (the chumpers don't really do that much, more cantrips feel bad with an Eidolon out, but I knew I made that MU weaker by putting out Finks and a Scooze) and was ok against Eldrazi Tron (bad if they have a Chalice out, neat to have tokens against attacking TKS which I could then Bolt).
So I will definitely need more time to come to a conclusion here.
What are your thoughts on Roast in this meta, having another Sorcery to feed Goyf is nice and we have run the card before. I just feel it's bad against Eldrazi Tron (explained that earlier) and is only ok against Grixis DS. I currently run Vapor Snag in it's spot and feels so much more versatile (and being able to hit Celestial Collonade has been huge and won me several games against UW Control).
I like roast to some extent.
Its servicable against eldrazi, as well as shadow.
Being a sorcery is definitely nice, but missing manlands, and huge creatures isnt.
I think its fine, and while it has some drawbacks, vapor snag definitely has some too.
Both are playable right now, IMO, but neither is substantially better than the other.
I've been wanting to play this deck for sometime but been missing on some money cards in Vial and Misty. I have a set of Marsh Flats as trade fodder for Vials. Other substitutes for Misty? I have Verdants from my Jund deck and all the other blue fetches. I supposed an off color blue fetch is more necessary?
As for dropping Cryptics and shaving land, do you guys think its better to go RUG Delver if we are going this route? I think Cryptics allows the deck to grind and push the last amount of damage needed. Even with the soft lock being a secondary option, it is the deck's identity and what Shota built the deck around.
I can see the Turbo Xerox theory in play with Opt. I play Miracle Grow back in extended and what made the deck ticks is the soft lock of Winter Orb plus the free spells in FoW, Gush, Daze and Foil. While a bit of stretch, Cryptic functions similarly in this element with EC.
Please treat whatever I said with a grain of salt as I do not have enough reps with the deck. Thank you everyone for the contributions!
Welcome TheProdigy!
Off color blue fetches are definitely better than green ones. This deck is mostly blue, then green and pretty much only splashes red.
4x Aether Vials don't go well with Delver flips. Even with less lands and more cantrips you'll end up with aruond 22 instants and sorceries, which is on the low end for playing Delver.
Since you are knew to the deck, I'd suggest to try a more established version (if you can actually say that about this deck) first, get a feel for it and then try out different versions.
I wouldn't call the synergy between Ruse and Peezy amazing. The bounce clause is an additional cost. Pyromancer doesn't create the token until you cast the spell, so you already need to have a token in play to get the result you described Kathal.
Re; people testing grow creatures. Is the format really in a place where something like quirion dryad can work?
I'd be over the moon if this was the case, but I'm not entirely convinced. Good in some matchups, I can imagine. Bad against the fatal push decks though for sure.
If you're hurting for a 2 drop that plays into the plan of the deck, maybe it's a spicy one-of.
I've personally been playing 1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
It's been working very well. Often you'll be able to swing in with a witness or snappy and "buy it back" with ninja, as well as draw a card. It opens up some rather sneaky lines of play like bouncing back witness, vialling in witness, getting back spell pierce, pierce their removal. Stuff like that.
I had a bit of a breakthrough with this deck this week. Still needs testing but here's the general idea;
Run four maindeck 1-mana counterspells in 2x spell snare, 1x pierce and 1x dispel.
Also the flex 15th creature that's often a huntmaster or similar, I am running 1x grim lavamancer.
Took this approach after playing UR 'twinless twin' for a while online & it keyed me into the importance of turn 1 interaction if you're on the draw, and also the ability to protect your 'combo' or threats in the mid-game (or just counter an ad nauseam or coco or bolt etc)
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I had a bit of a breakthrough with this deck this week. Still needs testing but here's the general idea;
Run four maindeck 1-mana counterspells in 2x spell snare, 1x pierce and 1x dispel.
Also the flex 15th creature that's often a huntmaster or similar, I am running 1x grim lavamancer.
Took this approach after playing UR 'twinless twin' for a while online & it keyed me into the importance of turn 1 interaction if you're on the draw, and also the ability to protect your 'combo' or threats in the mid-game (or just counter an ad nauseam or coco or bolt etc)
Lavamancer is tech at the moment. Beats a lot of decks by himself but also can render your bolts able to take down a tasigur or something.
Running 4 serum visions and 2 opt.
1 roast maindeck and I'm still playing around with 1x tarfire although this is purely flex and could be vapor snag or something. Tarfire and goyf are amazing tech.
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The first time I saw hostage taker my mind went to this deck. Black is such a hard colour to include though because as you say, the discard isn't at its most effective here. Willing to try it out though because even as a 1-of or 2-of, hostage taker could be great.
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Hey everyone, I threw a 4c Eternal Command list one week ago and tested it a bit, and I really wanted to know your opinion.
The mana base seems a bit clunky but actually worked fine for me... I'm not sure about the 2 abrupt decay , maybe it requires too much black mana.
Also, if you have some suggestions for the sideboardlet me know, for the moment I was thinking about lingering souls, engineered explosives, spreading seas, dispel and natural state.
Thanks
Hey everyone, I threw a 4c Eternal Command list one week ago and tested it a bit, and I really wanted to know your opinion.
The mana base seems a bit clunky but actually worked fine for me... I'm not sure about the 2 abrupt decay , maybe it requires too much black mana.
Also, if you have some suggestions for the sideboardlet me know, for the moment I was thinking about lingering souls, engineered explosives, spreading seas, dispel and natural state.
Thanks
I'd say your curve is too high. You can get away with quite a lot with a turn 1 vial, but without that piece you're scuppered, especially as your one decent removal spell ramps your opponent into their combo or more threats.
I'd suggest giving it a re-think. At the moment you are overloaded on three drops and I would never run more than one 4-drop maindeck unless I had a good reason. Hostage taker is great but not worth it for this kind of build. I could see running it in a more 'normal' lower curve build.
Certainly, you'll want to drop the pulse, 1x decay, some number of queller and probably put reflector mage as one copy rather than two. You probably can't afford to run clique here either do drop that. You want an ideal package of about 15 creatures maindeck.
In the slots you free up (about 7 by my count) you want:
1x extra land (this deck always has a greedy manabase but I'd say 21 is far more acceptable than 20)
1-2x spell snare
1x spell pierce
1x extra remand
1x mana leak
1x whatever one mana interaction spell you fancy
You have to keep your curve low to allow you to use snapcaster mage effectively and interact against quick decks. If you aren't hitting your land drops, snapcaster does nothing. Like trying to flash back pulse is just murder haha.
It's tempting with this deck to overload on all the powerful effects at three mana but it's too easy to go too far down this route and end up with a top-heavy mess that loses before it can 'get there' to decks like affinity and burn.
Good luck!
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Thanks for the answer ! I'll definitely follow your advices
For the record I think hostage taker is a good reason to try black for this deck. For testing purposes you could start with 2 copies to draw it more often and get a decent feel for how the card works. It's a good idea to compare the card to the only other four drop that we usually consider running (huntmaster of the fells). How worthwhile is ticking vial up to four? Do you ever actually want to? It's tough because our deck runs an intentionally low land count and relies on spells like serum visions, remand and electrolyze to filter into more lands
Maybe consider running 1x opt to have a 5th cantrip. Scrying excess vials to the bottom is always a decent option.
There are no definite correct answers here, I can only give general advice and it's up to you to find a groove and a build that works. Bear in mind though that a low-curve and early interaction is essential to this deck.
Actually if I had any advice for your build I'd say maybe pivot more into black and run fatal push instead of path to exile.
Also 1 or 2x collective brutality is probably a great option, it's so versatile (maybe sideboard, maybe 1 maindeck? Experiment!) White is great for spell queller and sideboard options, but fatal push is a better early interaction spell than path, because it doesn't ramp your opponent. We have the late-game covered, so you should worry about the early game and beating decks like affinity, infect, burn, merfolk and so on.
Hope that helps. Ask questions if you have any! It's great that you're testing these colours because there's some really strong options. Have fun most of all
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
My initial strategy is extra roasts and spreading seas in the side. Would blood moon be an option by going up to two forests?
Spreading seas, stone rain, molten rain, etc, are reasonable.
Roast is good, as is grim lavamancer (doubles up with bolt to kill big things for no card disadvantage, also kills reshapers/skyspawners, etc)
Something like sower of temptation is also pretty sweet.
Disdainful stroke and ceremonious rejection are good when they don't have cavern of souls.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
1 Forest
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Vendilion Clique
//stuff
4 Æther Vial
//Counter
2 Spell Pierce
3 Remand
2 Familiar's Ruse
1 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Tarfire
1 Roast
//Cantrips
4 Serum Visions
4 Opt
2 Chart a Course
Not sure at all regarding the Counter set-up + the mana base is just a rough draft :/
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
With the space you get, I'd play a bit more interaction, another remand, another ruse, etc.
I'd also cut the clique (maybe move it to the board) for another snapcaster.
Otherwise, I like it. I'm not sure if chart a course is actually strong enough for modern, or for this deck, but its definitely tempting.
Welcome and awesome to hear you wanna give the deck a spin!
Going up two forests would ruin your chances to cast Cryptic on turn 4 and make stuff like Clique on turn 3 or Snap into any 1cmc blue spell harder as well. This deck is greedy so Blood Moon is not really an option.
Let me tell you up front that the Bant Eldrazi MU is bad...our worst MU bad. They play a playset of Cavern of Souls and are a lot more likely to land turn 2 TKS. Thankfully the deck is not very prevalent right now.
Eldrazi Tron is still not an easy MU but a lot better than Bant Eldrazi. They only play 1-2 Caverns which makes our counters a lot better, barren god hands their manabase is slower than Bant Eldrazi's and it's actually easier to counter their lategame (Karn) for us.
Spreading Seas is very good (Caverns are usually top priority, before Temples and Tron lands) and also solid in many other MUs. Ceremonious Rejection is good, you can bring in your Ancient Grudge that you should play at least 1x against Affinity anyway.
Another card I've really found to like is Basilisk Collar.
I don't like Roast against them. TKS will usually strip it away before you cast it and it's aweful against Smasher.
Even with 8 cantrips, 17-18 lands sounds like not enough for me. In general I'm a lot less in favor of that cutting Cryptic and lands idea. We give up one of our best tools that serves CA and tempo purposes and try to play more of a tempo game. Even with the proposed changes the deck's average cmc isn't low enough to effectively run on 2 lands. The turn 1 Vial games will obviously still be sweet but playing Eternal Witness in a 17 or 18 lands deck? That wants to play a tempo game?
I could playtest my 3/3 SV/O split with 2x Pyromancer against a buddy yesterday. It was sweet against Grixis DS, helping to recover from discard, producing tokens to gain time against their beaters, felt rather bad against Burn (the chumpers don't really do that much, more cantrips feel bad with an Eidolon out, but I knew I made that MU weaker by putting out Finks and a Scooze) and was ok against Eldrazi Tron (bad if they have a Chalice out, neat to have tokens against attacking TKS which I could then Bolt).
So I will definitely need more time to come to a conclusion here.
What are your thoughts on Roast in this meta, having another Sorcery to feed Goyf is nice and we have run the card before. I just feel it's bad against Eldrazi Tron (explained that earlier) and is only ok against Grixis DS. I currently run Vapor Snag in it's spot and feels so much more versatile (and being able to hit Celestial Collonade has been huge and won me several games against UW Control).
Its servicable against eldrazi, as well as shadow.
Being a sorcery is definitely nice, but missing manlands, and huge creatures isnt.
I think its fine, and while it has some drawbacks, vapor snag definitely has some too.
Both are playable right now, IMO, but neither is substantially better than the other.
As for dropping Cryptics and shaving land, do you guys think its better to go RUG Delver if we are going this route? I think Cryptics allows the deck to grind and push the last amount of damage needed. Even with the soft lock being a secondary option, it is the deck's identity and what Shota built the deck around.
I can see the Turbo Xerox theory in play with Opt. I play Miracle Grow back in extended and what made the deck ticks is the soft lock of Winter Orb plus the free spells in FoW, Gush, Daze and Foil. While a bit of stretch, Cryptic functions similarly in this element with EC.
Please treat whatever I said with a grain of salt as I do not have enough reps with the deck. Thank you everyone for the contributions!
Off color blue fetches are definitely better than green ones. This deck is mostly blue, then green and pretty much only splashes red.
4x Aether Vials don't go well with Delver flips. Even with less lands and more cantrips you'll end up with aruond 22 instants and sorceries, which is on the low end for playing Delver.
Since you are knew to the deck, I'd suggest to try a more established version (if you can actually say that about this deck) first, get a feel for it and then try out different versions.
This looks like way too much fun. I think I'm going to play something similar at FNM.
I'd be over the moon if this was the case, but I'm not entirely convinced. Good in some matchups, I can imagine. Bad against the fatal push decks though for sure.
If you're hurting for a 2 drop that plays into the plan of the deck, maybe it's a spicy one-of.
I've personally been playing 1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
It's been working very well. Often you'll be able to swing in with a witness or snappy and "buy it back" with ninja, as well as draw a card. It opens up some rather sneaky lines of play like bouncing back witness, vialling in witness, getting back spell pierce, pierce their removal. Stuff like that.
Run four maindeck 1-mana counterspells in 2x spell snare, 1x pierce and 1x dispel.
Also the flex 15th creature that's often a huntmaster or similar, I am running 1x grim lavamancer.
Took this approach after playing UR 'twinless twin' for a while online & it keyed me into the importance of turn 1 interaction if you're on the draw, and also the ability to protect your 'combo' or threats in the mid-game (or just counter an ad nauseam or coco or bolt etc)
Run four maindeck 1-mana counterspells in 2x spell snare, 1x pierce and 1x dispel.
Also the flex 15th creature that's often a huntmaster or similar, I am running 1x grim lavamancer.
Took this approach after playing UR 'twinless twin' for a while online & it keyed me into the importance of turn 1 interaction if you're on the draw, and also the ability to protect your 'combo' or threats in the mid-game (or just counter an ad nauseam or coco or bolt etc)
Lavamancer is tech at the moment. Beats a lot of decks by himself but also can render your bolts able to take down a tasigur or something.
Running 4 serum visions and 2 opt.
1 roast maindeck and I'm still playing around with 1x tarfire although this is purely flex and could be vapor snag or something. Tarfire and goyf are amazing tech.
The mana base seems a bit clunky but actually worked fine for me... I'm not sure about the 2 abrupt decay , maybe it requires too much black mana.
Also, if you have some suggestions for the sideboardlet me know, for the moment I was thinking about lingering souls, engineered explosives, spreading seas, dispel and natural state.
Thanks
2 Eternal Witness
4 Snapcaster mage
2 Reflector mage
2 Hostage Taker
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vendilion clique
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Spell Queller
Non-creature spells:
3 Cryptic Command
2 Remand
4 Path to exile
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Serum visions
2 Abrupt decay
4 Aether Vial
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded strand
1 Windswept Heath
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Seachrome Coast
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Watery grave
1 Godless Shrine
I'd say your curve is too high. You can get away with quite a lot with a turn 1 vial, but without that piece you're scuppered, especially as your one decent removal spell ramps your opponent into their combo or more threats.
I'd suggest giving it a re-think. At the moment you are overloaded on three drops and I would never run more than one 4-drop maindeck unless I had a good reason. Hostage taker is great but not worth it for this kind of build. I could see running it in a more 'normal' lower curve build.
Certainly, you'll want to drop the pulse, 1x decay, some number of queller and probably put reflector mage as one copy rather than two. You probably can't afford to run clique here either do drop that. You want an ideal package of about 15 creatures maindeck.
In the slots you free up (about 7 by my count) you want:
1x extra land (this deck always has a greedy manabase but I'd say 21 is far more acceptable than 20)
1-2x spell snare
1x spell pierce
1x extra remand
1x mana leak
1x whatever one mana interaction spell you fancy
You have to keep your curve low to allow you to use snapcaster mage effectively and interact against quick decks. If you aren't hitting your land drops, snapcaster does nothing. Like trying to flash back pulse is just murder haha.
It's tempting with this deck to overload on all the powerful effects at three mana but it's too easy to go too far down this route and end up with a top-heavy mess that loses before it can 'get there' to decks like affinity and burn.
Good luck!
For the record I think hostage taker is a good reason to try black for this deck. For testing purposes you could start with 2 copies to draw it more often and get a decent feel for how the card works. It's a good idea to compare the card to the only other four drop that we usually consider running (huntmaster of the fells). How worthwhile is ticking vial up to four? Do you ever actually want to? It's tough because our deck runs an intentionally low land count and relies on spells like serum visions, remand and electrolyze to filter into more lands
Maybe consider running 1x opt to have a 5th cantrip. Scrying excess vials to the bottom is always a decent option.
There are no definite correct answers here, I can only give general advice and it's up to you to find a groove and a build that works. Bear in mind though that a low-curve and early interaction is essential to this deck.
Actually if I had any advice for your build I'd say maybe pivot more into black and run fatal push instead of path to exile.
Also 1 or 2x collective brutality is probably a great option, it's so versatile (maybe sideboard, maybe 1 maindeck? Experiment!) White is great for spell queller and sideboard options, but fatal push is a better early interaction spell than path, because it doesn't ramp your opponent. We have the late-game covered, so you should worry about the early game and beating decks like affinity, infect, burn, merfolk and so on.
Hope that helps. Ask questions if you have any! It's great that you're testing these colours because there's some really strong options. Have fun most of all