Haven't been active here in a while, but I wanted to leave some thoughts.
First of all it's sweet to see Eternal Command putting up results every once in a (long) while!
Interestingly a 'traditional' RUG list and no BUG or Bant, like many others here are trying out.
I am personally very skeptical regarding the 3x Vials and Goyfs. Vial is at it's absolut best on turn one and gets worse and worse as the game goes on. So you want to maximise the probability of having one in your starting hand (around 40% vs 32% I think). There's a reason every deck that plays Vial plays the complete playset. Vial is similar to mana dorks in that regard and decks that play dorks usually play even more than 4x, to maximise chances of having one in the opener.
Regarding Goyf I could see cutting him down to 3, if I expect a very grindy meta full of Fatal Push decks and Jeskai, but in an open meta? Goyf does way too much for this deck. He's the primary weapon to add pressure against non interactive decks combo/big mana decks a la Storm, Ad Nauseam, GR Valakut and Gx Tron.
He's an important roadblock against aggressive decks like burn and one of our better ways to stall opposing big creatures until we find answers to them. And he's just good in multiples, drawing a second copy rarely feels bad.
I mean it obviously worked out for him but Shouta's list worked out for him too and I think we all agree by now that list wasn't optimal (2x Thirst for Knowledge over the full playset of SV).
On another note I started recording the matches I play about 2 months ago. This includes FNM and matches played against buddies playtesting. I'm at almost 130 matches now, which doesn't leave very big sample sizes for individual MUs, but it indicates trends and we can compare them to subjective MU opinions.
I wanted to share some stuff I found to be interesting so far:
5-5 Grixis Shadow
This solidifies my opinion on this being a very even MU.
8-1 against RG Valakut
Always thought this was a positive MU, this makes it look even better than I thought, but that's possibly due to sample size.
3-6 against Affinity
This surprised me a little, I thought the MU would be even to slightly favorable, since Affinity generally has a tougher time against Bolt/Snap/Bolt decks. Again, might be due to sample size.
Also I'll be bringing RUG EC to FNM again tonight. This is my current list:
As you can see I'm currently running a 3-2 split between SV and Opt, which has felt pretty good so far (being able to play Snap EoT for value with Opt is sweet). How are your opinions on Opt vs. SV by now?
I also still have a flex spot in my SB, any opinions on what to put in there? Thinking about another piece of land hate or a 2nd Surgical Extraction.
Edit: What do you guys think about Pia and Kiran as a third haymaker? Multiple bodies is nice, the reach it provides could be good against Death Shadow decks and I've even seen people bringing it against Affinity.
Throwing excessive Vials at opponent's creatures and faces is a nice bonus.
I can see running a 4/2 split, especially without Traverse. For now I went 3/2 with Traverse and Roast as additional Sorceries.
You make a good point about Extraction. I guess Spreading Seas is the most solid choice. Good against Tron and also solid in grindy MUs (Jund/Junk as well as Colonnade decks).
Brought the deck to FNM on Friday and went 4-0!
Here's a little report:
Match 1: UR Storm 2-0
G1: On the draw my opponent play turn 2 Strategic Planning, so I drop my turn 2 3/4 Goyf, expecting Storm (or some other combo deck). He cantrips through his deck, while I add more pressure with an Ambush Snap. I remand his first attempt to go off without a Mancer/Baral with him on 10. Put him down to 5, lethal next turn. Cryptic his Baral, he plays some rituals into Gifts. With 2 mana left I let him have Grapeshot but put 2 rituals to grave so he can’t cast Past in Flames and go off but let him kill my board.
Can’t go off with no resources left and Scooze and Snap kill him.
G2: Hold him off with Remand and Bolt and start beating down with a vialed in Goyf. Disrupt him with counters and Clique, he tries to buy some time with 6 Goblin tokens but I tap them down with Cryptic for the win.
Match 2: Mono White DnT 2-1
G1: We gets two Vials online, we trade resources back and forth until he sticks an Eldrazi Displacer and outvalues me with an army of Golem tokens while I’m stuck with useless counterspells in hand.
G2: He opens with Vial again, I destroy it with Ancient Grudge. He doesn’t see a second land for the next 3 turns and skoops it up to have enough time for round 3.
G3: He drops a turn 2 Rest in Peace, but I have Natural State in hand. Just so he can drop another one on turn 4. Huntmaster of Fells doesn’t rely on the graveyard though and takes over the game, producing 2/2 tokens and killing opposing creatures left and right.
Winning through RiP is always sweet, winning through two of them is a first I think.
Match 3: Jund
G1: I haven’t played against traditional Jund in a long time, so seeing a turn one Raging Ravine was kinda surprising and I prepared for a long atrocious battle.
And exactly that happened, we spend the early turns trading resources back and forth until 2x Cryptics and another snapcastered Cryptic put me in the driver’s seat. I play conservative but slowly beat him down with Snaps while he struggles to answer bigger threats.
G2: I mull to 6 and my opponent goes turn 1 Thoughtseize, stripping my Spell Snare into turn 2 Goyf. While I can keep his other threats at bay I simply can’t find an answer to the Goyf and find myself chump blocking fast and skoop it up to have enough time for round 3.
G3: That turned out to be a good decision because this game was a grindfest if I have ever seen one, always back and forth.
Fighting through multiple Lilis and a Huntmaster, his Chandra comes in big and nets him like 2-3 cards and a Goyf of mine. But this deck can grind as well and Traverse is a surprisingly potent value engine. After taking out his Chandra he stairs down 3 Snapcasters on my side and doesn’t find any good answers in time. Great and very close match.
Match 4: 5C Shadow
G1: He rips my hand apart with 3 Thoughtseizes/Inquisitions but fails to find a threat to back it up with pressure, which leaves me with enough time to drop some lands and refuel my hand. I proceed to counter his Shadow and burn him out with Bolt/Snap/Bolt and Electrolyze.
G2: He digs 4 cards deep with Street Wraiths/Baubles but stumbles over his second land drop for 2 turns. I draw 2 more Bolts to add to the first one I had in my starting hand and burn him out when he hits 8 life.
Very fun and successful night, deck is still a blast to play!
Questions and recomendations are always welcome.
Hey, all. I love AEther Vial. Merfolk is my primary deck in Modern and I've dipped my toe into Eldrazi and Taxes as well, but what I haven't done is play the sweetest Vial deck in Modern. So here I am, throwing together a build to bring to my LGS. The choice between RUG and BUG was a tough one. I like RUG's burn a lot, but I like BUG's removal much better. Plus...BUG gets Hostage Taker, which I've been wanting to play in Modern since the day it was spoiled, going so far as to brew up an abominable lovechild between a Death and Taxes and Esper Flicker build.
So, here's the list I came up with. It's based on Todd Steven's list from above, but adding some of the stuff from more traditional RUG builds that he eschewed (Remands and Scooze and Opt) as well as trimming down on the Eternal Command package. What do you guys think? The sideboard still needs work, but it's a suitable placeholder until I get my 60 worked out a bit.
Hey, all. I love AEther Vial. Merfolk is my primary deck in Modern and I've dipped my toe into Eldrazi and Taxes as well, but what I haven't done is play the sweetest Vial deck in Modern. So here I am, throwing together a build to bring to my LGS. The choice between RUG and BUG was a tough one. I like RUG's burn a lot, but I like BUG's removal much better. Plus...BUG gets Hostage Taker, which I've been wanting to play in Modern since the day it was spoiled, going so far as to brew up an abominable lovechild between a Death and Taxes and Esper Flicker build.
So, here's the list I came up with. It's based on Todd Steven's list from above, but adding some of the stuff from more traditional RUG builds that he eschewed (Remands and Scooze and Opt) as well as trimming down on the Eternal Command package. What do you guys think? The sideboard still needs work, but it's a suitable placeholder until I get my 60 worked out a bit.
I love seeing variations of this deck splashing black instead of red, but I don't think this list is strong enough. Namely the fact that Lightning bolt is pretty much the most versatile card that also functions as a win condition. Bolt -> EWit -> bolt -> snap -> bolt is 9 damage from 1 bolt alone. Replacing red removal with black removal leaves you with no other win conditions other than board state.
The second drawback is the side boarding. Huntmaster of the fells is such a ridiculously, ridiculously good card in this deck, because it helps your life total (which usually is an issue with this deck) + board state. You can control it's triggers so much more easily with vial. In comparison, black's side board is kind of lacking. You need cards that can potentially "make up" for the holes in this deck, which are:
1) Its slow start
2) Its aggressive use of life total being a resource (for land fetching and taking free hits early game).
Huntmaster fixes this problem so nicely that it's even being main boarded now.
In comparison, damnation is the closest fix, however it doesn't stick, AND its symmetrical board wipe. Maelstrom Pulse can situationally be efficient. Thoughtseize is great, at the cost of exacerbating your life total. One suggestion for sure is to sideboard fulminator mage (tron is one of the hardest matchups vs vial). That being said, I really like your balance of spells here, and am very curious how your results fair !
Hey, all. I love AEther Vial. Merfolk is my primary deck in Modern and I've dipped my toe into Eldrazi and Taxes as well, but what I haven't done is play the sweetest Vial deck in Modern. So here I am, throwing together a build to bring to my LGS. The choice between RUG and BUG was a tough one. I like RUG's burn a lot, but I like BUG's removal much better. Plus...BUG gets Hostage Taker, which I've been wanting to play in Modern since the day it was spoiled, going so far as to brew up an abominable lovechild between a Death and Taxes and Esper Flicker build.
So, here's the list I came up with. It's based on Todd Steven's list from above, but adding some of the stuff from more traditional RUG builds that he eschewed (Remands and Scooze and Opt) as well as trimming down on the Eternal Command package. What do you guys think? The sideboard still needs work, but it's a suitable placeholder until I get my 60 worked out a bit.
Personally I think the RUG version is the better one, but both have it's merits. I would definitely advise you to give it a run on cockatrice/proxy it up before you buy pricy pieces.
All that said the list looks pretty solid from what I can tell. I'd probably be greedy and try to cut a land for another SV. And cut the Rain of Tears for Spreading Seas in the SB. You will not always have doube black on turn 3 and SS costing 1 mana less can be pretty relevant.
Have there been any thoughts to add Baral, Chief of Compliance to this deck? The more I think of it, the more I see a 1-of being completely and totally worth it. Remands are suddenly U, mana leaks are only U, cryptic are UUU, electrolyze is only UR, this can help with side board too.
With vial, mana organizing can be tight, which is why some control matchups can be tough (even though eternal command overall has a pretty big advantage vs control).
Plus, this guy does a free optional loot, which is RIDICULOUS.
It can be really good in clutch situations where you're sitting on 1 blue, and you can vial this in and pull off a remand, or a mana leak.
Has anyone tried/thought of trying this combo or the similar familiar's ruseeternal witness combo in a more delveresque shell? I've been toying with the concept because I can't afford aether vials and that variant of the deck probably wouldn't use them. You could run 12 cantrips (opt,serum visions, and thought scour) to help negate the possibility of drawing the wrong half of the deck, and for threats you could use hooting mandrils and young pyromancer (alongside delver of course), both of which benefit greatly from the high cantrip count. The downside of having too much air in the deck could largely be mitigated by the endgame the softlock would provide as well.
Has anyone tried/thought of trying this combo or the similar familiar's ruseeternal witness combo in a more delveresque shell? I've been toying with the concept because I can't afford aether vials and that variant of the deck probably wouldn't use them. You could run 12 cantrips (opt,serum visions, and thought scour) to help negate the possibility of drawing the wrong half of the deck, and for threats you could use hooting mandrils and young pyromancer (alongside delver of course), both of which benefit greatly from the high cantrip count. The downside of having too much air in the deck could largely be mitigated by the endgame the softlock would provide as well.
Hmmmm, unfortunately this is one of the pricier decks in modern, with 4 tarmogoyfs, 4 snaps, 4 aethervials. If you're not running aethervial, it really cuts the power of eternal witness. Sometimes I like to think of this deck as a "birthing pod" deck, that lets you deploy any/all ETB tools from your hand. Without that "cheat into play" mechanic, eWit and most of the other ETB creatures lose power.
But none the less, if you want to try it out, I'd suggest swapping the vials with manlands and go the control route (though jeskai control would probably be objectively better).
I love seeing variations of this deck splashing black instead of red, but I don't think this list is strong enough. Namely the fact that Lightning bolt is pretty much the most versatile card that also functions as a win condition. Bolt -> EWit -> bolt -> snap -> bolt is 9 damage from 1 bolt alone. Replacing red removal with black removal leaves you with no other win conditions other than board state.
The second drawback is the side boarding. Huntmaster of the fells is such a ridiculously, ridiculously good card in this deck, because it helps your life total (which usually is an issue with this deck) + board state. You can control it's triggers so much more easily with vial. In comparison, black's side board is kind of lacking. You need cards that can potentially "make up" for the holes in this deck, which are:
1) Its slow start
2) Its aggressive use of life total being a resource (for land fetching and taking free hits early game).
Huntmaster fixes this problem so nicely that it's even being main boarded now.
In comparison, damnation is the closest fix, however it doesn't stick, AND its symmetrical board wipe. Maelstrom Pulse can situationally be efficient. Thoughtseize is great, at the cost of exacerbating your life total. One suggestion for sure is to sideboard fulminator mage (tron is one of the hardest matchups vs vial). That being said, I really like your balance of spells here, and am very curious how your results fair !
Yeah, I really like all the great removal in BUG, but losing the reach is a very real deal. That said, the allure of Hostage Taker is going to guarantee I play this list at least once or twice at the FLGS before going to a more traditional RUG list lol.
Personally I think the RUG version is the better one, but both have it's merits. I would definitely advise you to give it a run on cockatrice/proxy it up before you buy pricy pieces.
All that said the list looks pretty solid from what I can tell. I'd probably be greedy and try to cut a land for another SV. And cut the Rain of Tears for Spreading Seas in the SB. You will not always have doube black on turn 3 and SS costing 1 mana less can be pretty relevant.
Thankfully budget isn't a big concern for me since I already have all the money cards in paper. From my initial goldfishing, I don't think I wanna cut a land. The mana is already greedy and it really sucks to hold onto a Cryptic and 3 lands or have to play a naked Snapcaster with a Remand in your yard because you're shy on lands. I'm definitely on board with turning Tears to Seas. I kept the Rain of Tears because I wanted to get some more value out of the Surgicals in matchups like Tron and TitanShift, but that's probably getting pretty greedy. Plus, I already love Spreading Seas from playing Merfolk.
I think I'm really pushing for some experimentation here, but I can't be sure if I'm getting any really good results. So far T1 seems SUPER important. And I'm basically cantripping my way through the game. It doesn't feel too right with the deck, but what do you guys think?
Sideboard stretched too thin? Main decklist stretched too thin? I figured I could get away with 20 lands because of Baral, Chief of Compliance as well as extra digging (2 Opt, 3 Serum Visions, 1 Thirst + potential from Baral)
I think I'm really pushing for some experimentation here, but I can't be sure if I'm getting any really good results. So far T1 seems SUPER important. And I'm basically cantripping my way through the game. It doesn't feel too right with the deck, but what do you guys think?
Sideboard stretched too thin? Main decklist stretched too thin? I figured I could get away with 20 lands because of Baral, Chief of Compliance as well as extra digging (2 Opt, 3 Serum Visions, 1 Thirst + potential from Baral)
2 copies of Flooded Grove seems ambitious, especially considering you yourself talk about turn 1 being so important. Those guys do nothing on turn 1. Thassa seems a little cute here. The upkeep scry doesn't seem entirely worth 3 mana and you're not heavy enough into devotion to reliably get her rumbling into the redzone. The idea of making a Goyf unblockable does have its appeal, but I'm not sure that's worth the card and all the mana it takes to activate it, ya know?
Is Thirst for Knowledge with only 4 artifacts the best thing to be doing with 3 mana? Discarding an excess Vial with Baral on the battlefield seems absolutely ludicrous, but it also seems somewhat Christmas Landy. Chart a Course might be a better way to draw cards, especially if you get to do it for 1 mana from time-to-time.
That said, I love the 1-of Baral. Cryptic, Electrolyze, Remand, and Mana Leak all make him look real good. Remand puts the card back in their hand, draws you two cards, discards 1 card, and does it all for 1 blue mana. Pretty sweet.
I love Fulminator Mage as a card, but I'm not sure this is the deck for him. It's an extra colored mana in a greedy mana base and it can't be recurred unlike Stone Rain. Spreading Seas is also something to look into. It costs 1 less, draws you a card, and is easier to cast, at the cost of not permanently getting rid of the land.
All that said, I'm really intrigued by the idea of a really draw-heavy build like this. Let us know how testing goes.
2 copies of Flooded Grove seems ambitious, especially considering you yourself talk about turn 1 being so important. Those guys do nothing on turn 1. Thassa seems a little cute here. The upkeep scry doesn't seem entirely worth 3 mana and you're not heavy enough into devotion to reliably get her rumbling into the redzone. The idea of making a Goyf unblockable does have its appeal, but I'm not sure that's worth the card and all the mana it takes to activate it, ya know?
Is Thirst for Knowledge with only 4 artifacts the best thing to be doing with 3 mana? Discarding an excess Vial with Baral on the battlefield seems absolutely ludicrous, but it also seems somewhat Christmas Landy. Chart a Course might be a better way to draw cards, especially if you get to do it for 1 mana from time-to-time.
That said, I love the 1-of Baral. Cryptic, Electrolyze, Remand, and Mana Leak all make him look real good. Remand puts the card back in their hand, draws you two cards, discards 1 card, and does it all for 1 blue mana. Pretty sweet.
I love Fulminator Mage as a card, but I'm not sure this is the deck for him. It's an extra colored mana in a greedy mana base and it can't be recurred unlike Stone Rain. Spreading Seas is also something to look into. It costs 1 less, draws you a card, and is easier to cast, at the cost of not permanently getting rid of the land.
All that said, I'm really intrigued by the idea of a really draw-heavy build like this. Let us know how testing goes.
The 2 copies of flooded grove have been okay thus far. I've been able to play aether vial from them T1, which is better than a tapped land/burn land.
You're totally right about Thassa being a cute pick. The main reason I'm running it, is that a LOT of jeskai/esper control decks manage to get Search for Azcanta out before I have 2 mana up for a counter (I cast vial for t1). Once its on the board, I just start falling behind very quickly.
With Thirst for Knowledge, ... you know you're totally right. I'm being too greedy with that card. In hindsight, Remand is a MUCH better slot than Thirst. Same with Fulminator Mage, I'll just cut it down to 1 and bring Stone Rain up to 2. Having to wait for vial to tick up to 3 just to play it, is way too slow against tron. Plus, Stone Rain has more synergy with Snap Caster, AND I can use it against Forest with a bunch of Utopia Sprawl + Overgrowth ramp. +1
So far my results have been okay. I'm really liking baral for the reasons you mentioned. But if I'm not on the play, I really struggle what to do on turn 1. Do I cast vial t1, and not have Spell Snare up for their t2? And then on t2, do I not cast again so that I can Remand or Mana Leak ? Playing Vial on T3 feels straight up awful, and these tempo decisions I feel could lose me out midgame. This also plays poorly into T1 discards like Thoughtseize and Inquisition.
Against control matchups, I feel out-grinded. Search for Azcanta, just makes their lategame card quality so much better than mine. Yes I have the soft-lock with eWit + cryptic, but my opponent has straight up more mana to counter my counters. Mana Leak becomes useless, as does Remand. I usually find myself stuck around 4-6 lands, to their 7-8, and they will grind out until they can smash face with Celestial Colonnade with a backup plan.
I'm going to take out Thassa into the sideboard, put in scooze, and overall un-thin this deck. It feels a bit airy at the moment when I'd prefer to always be doing something each turn for tempo.
While I generally think experimenting with new cards is a good thing, I don't see how Thassa has a place in this list. She will never be a creature, which makes her a bad 3cmc enchantment, with the only upside being you can vial her in. Just go with another Huntmaster for grindy MUs.
I generally prefer Stone Rain over Fulminator Mage because you can go T3 Stone Rain into T4 vial in Snap/E-Wit and play Stone Rain again, which usually wrecks Tron. Overall Spreading Seas has been better than Stone Rain though, simply because it's cheaper to cast, being able to flash back SR can be backbreaking though.
Regarding UW Control:
I haven't seen many version with Search for Azcanta yet, but find the MU to be quite good (just looked, currently 5-1 according to my recorded matches).
Game 1 we try to tempo them out because we besides Vapor Snag we don't have good answers to their lategame Colonnades.
G2 and G3 I go full value though. sb out Goyfs (no net value, get completely hosed by RiP) and get in some Spreading Seas, Huntmasters, Natural State to deal with incoming RiPs or Detention Speres.
I don't play Mana Leak, Remand stays relevant until the lategame though. It's awesome against opposing Snaps and remanding your own Cryptic, which they attempted to counter with their own Crpytic is a brutal value play in this MU.
When it comes to what to play on turn 1, it's pretty much always Vial if you have that in your opening hand. You keep Spell Snare up when you have reason to expect devastating cards like Rest in Piece. Other exemptions I could think of would be against Affinity (especially game 1, as they have a lot of devastating two drops that are hard to interact with) or possibly decks like griselshoalbrand if they put their namesake card in the bin on their turn 1.
They all have in common that their important play has cmc 2, which means we can still easily roll out Vial on turn 2 while still holding a relevant counter up.
Since I hit the 150 matches mark I'd thought I'd give another update on my tracked match results:
First of all the most impressive thing:
I'm 110 wins vs. 45 losses so far. That's a 71% win percentage and quite a bit higher than I thought it would be.
Sample is still not huge though and the matches I play are either FNMs or testing with buddies, which can include playing against people who are not very experienced with their decks. I still think that this speaks quite a bit about the viability of this deck.
Some more detailed stuff:
I'm 10-3 against Jeskai Control/Tempo. That's even a little bit better than I expected but overall reflects my feeling for the MU. Vials come in huge here and we are usually able to outvalue them unless they manage to outplay us with multiple Spell Quellers or we can't answer Search for Azcanta (I'm happy to have the 3rd Spreading Seas in the board now).
6-5 against Burn. Always felt like a very even MU to me, so it's nice to see this fits my feeling. Goyf pulls a lot of weight as an early blocker here, Vial and Cryptic make Eidolon less aweful and our big amount of counterspells and recursion as well as Scooze help to stabilize.
7-3 against Death and Taxes. This includes all DnT variants (Eldrazi, GW, Mono W) although most matches I played where against the Eldrazi Version. I thought this one would be closer to be honest, because sometimes they just get their value chain rolling and we just get outtempoed. But they don't always get rolling very fast and Bolt/Snap/Bolt are pretty damn good then. Also Goyfs provides a serious roadblock and Electrolyze is just pure value here. 3 sweepers and Huntermasters out of the board are very relevant here too (I've won multiple games through Rest in Piece thanks to Huntmaster now, card is a beast in these creature MUs).
I'm pretty sure I'll remove Roast from the maindeck again. Card is really only ok against Jund/Junk and Grixis Shadow, but wasn't very useful against Eldrazi Tron or 5 color Shadow and it feels really awkward against Jeskai, which got a lot of traction in my LGS lately.
Option for replacement are: Dismember I never really liked this card in our deck because recasting it is a very steep cost, but maybe it's time to give it another try. Engineered Explosives. The was a RUG Midrange list that won an SCG event like a week ago and it played 3x EE maindeck. It can be awkward with our own Vials but offers a lot of flexibility, being obviously awesome against go wide strategies while also handy to remove troubling permanents (Death's Shadow). Spreading Seas/Ghost Quarter: I really like Seas in the meta right now and having some maindeck land destruction comes in handy in a lot of MUs. Shadow of Doubt: Old pet card of mine, but between Storm, Eldrazi Tron, RG Valakut and Shadow decks the meta could be fine to let it blow out some people again. Tarfire: Getting Goyf to be a 5/6 is super relevant against Eldrazi Tron and having another removal spell against deck like DnT, Humans or Affinity can't be bad.
Any opinions or other suggestions are very welcome!
How do you reliably get RRR on turn 5?
Even more so if you wanna be able to hit the 5th land on turn 5, I think 20 lands is greedy even with 2x Traverse.
How are the 2x Huntmaster maindeck? I've been playing with the thought of maindecking one.
So I just watched Gerard Fabiano playing his RUG Moon list (this one). He won some SCG event recently with a similar list.
Playing this card could easily improve some of our rather bad MUs like EldraziTron, Gx Tron and Bant Eldrazi and blow out people on 3 colour decks, because they would never expect it.
The problem is obviously our own manabase. So the question is can we tweak to accomodate Blood Moon? Maybe I'm totally crazy here but I was always surprised on how much I didn't care about Moons from decks like Skred Red or RG Ponza if I had one basic Island and a threat or Vial out.
Against decks like EldraziTron, Gx Tron and Bant Eldrazi it seems reasonable to me to side out E-Wits and Scoozes if that means I can side in Blood Moons.
Add some tweaks in our manabase (go up to 21 lands to add another basic island and replace another land with a 9th fetch) and maybe, maybe we can support Blood Moon.
What do you think? Is it worth trying it out? Is it better than simply going with 3x Spreading Seas in the board? Does it make sense to side out E-Wits against decks like Abzan (where Moon definitely shines, but so does E-Wit)?
Anybody of you got some experience with Moon in RUG shells?
Would love to hear some opinions before I invest the time and money to try that out.
It seems like I didn't make that clear:
I don't want to play Blood Moon maindeck but in the SB. I don't think we can support him while also playing E-Wit.
Supposed changes would probably look like this:
MD:
-1x Scooze, -1x Lumbering Falls
+1x Island, +1x Wooded Foothills
SB:
-3x Spreading Seas
+3x Blood Moon
The questions is how good is Moon against Decks like Gx Tron or Eldrazi Tron?
And does it actually make sense to board out awesome grindy cards like E-Wit to be able to bring in Moon against decks like Abzan (where Moon definitely shines, but Seas is also very solid).
I have tried both Fulminator Mage and Stone Rain. Didn't really like Mage because it's hard to cast and hard to recurr. Stone Rain is definitely very good against Gx Tron, but can be simply too slow against Eldrazi Tron and Bant Eldrazi. I also like Seas a lot against decks with manlands. Could see replacing 1x Seas with a Stone Rain though, since Gx Tron seems to be on the uptick right now (if I'm not completely switching to Moons to try that out).
Spell Snare is great if you expext Affinity, Storm and Goyfs. If your meta is full of Grixis Shadow, Gx Tron and EldraziTron Spell Pierce tends to be the better card. I'm happy with my 1/1 split currently.
Just lurking here, as I've yet to play the deck (but I'm gathering up the remaining pieces, maybe in a couple month, I'll be able to give it a try ).
Definitely not an expert then but I can at least give you an opinion on Blood Moon in RUG shells since, before switching to my current deck, Counter-Cat, I used to play a lot of Monkey-Grow. Completely different decks obviously but at least they share the tempo aspect (even though it's much more integral to Monkey Grow's gameplan).
Anyway, MG plays 3 Blood Moon side which are absolutely crucial in a lot of matchups. Almost has 0 impact on the deck manabase, flat out wins the game sometimes and is just very good, even when people know you'r playing it, expect it and fetch accordingly. Was bringing it in against anything linear (Infect, Bogles), Celestial Colonnades deck, 3 colors deck, Tron, etc.
But the thing is, the 0 impact on the manabase, it definitely isn't true here. Casting Cryptic Command under Blood Moon seems like a tall order. And generally speaking, the more you wait to drop it (if you have to wait your basics), the less impact it has.
Regarding Blood Moon against Tron (regular version, I had already stopped playing the deck when Eldrazi emerged), it is defnitely very good but it's far from game winning. You absolutely need a quick clock because they will get rid of it (Oblivion Stone destroyed mines quite a few times)
Just the opinion of someone who doesn't play Eternal Command, take it with a grain of salt
No love for savage knuckleblade? When I was running this deck he was always a 2-3 of. He's Amazing with vial on 3 which you want for witness loops - clique also gets down w vial on 3.
Vial clique eot, untap vial knuckleblade give haste and swing holding up cryptic mana is quite good.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Thanks for the input MeraSC!
After some more thinking about it and paying more attention to how I usually fetched during my matches, I think I'll postpone testing it out for a little longer. Seas have been very solid and unless Bant Eldrazi emerges as a topdeck again (where Blood Moon really shines and one of our worst MUs) I'm not sure Moon's risk is worth it.
@BadMcFadden
Knuckleblade has usually simply been another, worse Goyf in my experience. Sure he has some upside, especially with Vial, but his abilities are just a tad too expensive and he gets a lot worse without Vial.
My list is also heavy on the 2 drop slot, which means I usually only uptick Vial to 3 later in the game (if at all).
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First of all it's sweet to see Eternal Command putting up results every once in a (long) while!
Interestingly a 'traditional' RUG list and no BUG or Bant, like many others here are trying out.
I am personally very skeptical regarding the 3x Vials and Goyfs. Vial is at it's absolut best on turn one and gets worse and worse as the game goes on. So you want to maximise the probability of having one in your starting hand (around 40% vs 32% I think). There's a reason every deck that plays Vial plays the complete playset. Vial is similar to mana dorks in that regard and decks that play dorks usually play even more than 4x, to maximise chances of having one in the opener.
Regarding Goyf I could see cutting him down to 3, if I expect a very grindy meta full of Fatal Push decks and Jeskai, but in an open meta? Goyf does way too much for this deck. He's the primary weapon to add pressure against non interactive decks combo/big mana decks a la Storm, Ad Nauseam, GR Valakut and Gx Tron.
He's an important roadblock against aggressive decks like burn and one of our better ways to stall opposing big creatures until we find answers to them. And he's just good in multiples, drawing a second copy rarely feels bad.
I mean it obviously worked out for him but Shouta's list worked out for him too and I think we all agree by now that list wasn't optimal (2x Thirst for Knowledge over the full playset of SV).
On another note I started recording the matches I play about 2 months ago. This includes FNM and matches played against buddies playtesting. I'm at almost 130 matches now, which doesn't leave very big sample sizes for individual MUs, but it indicates trends and we can compare them to subjective MU opinions.
I wanted to share some stuff I found to be interesting so far:
5-5 Grixis Shadow
This solidifies my opinion on this being a very even MU.
8-1 against RG Valakut
Always thought this was a positive MU, this makes it look even better than I thought, but that's possibly due to sample size.
3-6 against Affinity
This surprised me a little, I thought the MU would be even to slightly favorable, since Affinity generally has a tougher time against Bolt/Snap/Bolt decks. Again, might be due to sample size.
Also I'll be bringing RUG EC to FNM again tonight. This is my current list:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Eternal Witness
2x Scavenginz Ooze
2x Vendillion Clique
4x Aether Vial
3x Remand
3x Cryptic Command
3x Serum Visions
2x Opt
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Familiar's Ruse
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
1x Electrolyze
1x Vapor Snag
1x Spell Pierce
1x Spell Snare
1x Roast
1x Forest
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
2x Breeding Pool
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Spirebluff Canal
1x Flooded Grove
1x Lumbering Falls
2x Spreading Seas
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Kozilek's Return
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Dispel
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Natural State
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x flex
As you can see I'm currently running a 3-2 split between SV and Opt, which has felt pretty good so far (being able to play Snap EoT for value with Opt is sweet). How are your opinions on Opt vs. SV by now?
I also still have a flex spot in my SB, any opinions on what to put in there? Thinking about another piece of land hate or a 2nd Surgical Extraction.
Edit: What do you guys think about Pia and Kiran as a third haymaker? Multiple bodies is nice, the reach it provides could be good against Death Shadow decks and I've even seen people bringing it against Affinity.
Throwing excessive Vials at opponent's creatures and faces is a nice bonus.
You make a good point about Extraction. I guess Spreading Seas is the most solid choice. Good against Tron and also solid in grindy MUs (Jund/Junk as well as Colonnade decks).
Brought the deck to FNM on Friday and went 4-0!
Here's a little report:
Match 1: UR Storm 2-0
G1: On the draw my opponent play turn 2 Strategic Planning, so I drop my turn 2 3/4 Goyf, expecting Storm (or some other combo deck). He cantrips through his deck, while I add more pressure with an Ambush Snap. I remand his first attempt to go off without a Mancer/Baral with him on 10. Put him down to 5, lethal next turn. Cryptic his Baral, he plays some rituals into Gifts. With 2 mana left I let him have Grapeshot but put 2 rituals to grave so he can’t cast Past in Flames and go off but let him kill my board.
Can’t go off with no resources left and Scooze and Snap kill him.
G2: Hold him off with Remand and Bolt and start beating down with a vialed in Goyf. Disrupt him with counters and Clique, he tries to buy some time with 6 Goblin tokens but I tap them down with Cryptic for the win.
Match 2: Mono White DnT 2-1
G1: We gets two Vials online, we trade resources back and forth until he sticks an Eldrazi Displacer and outvalues me with an army of Golem tokens while I’m stuck with useless counterspells in hand.
G2: He opens with Vial again, I destroy it with Ancient Grudge. He doesn’t see a second land for the next 3 turns and skoops it up to have enough time for round 3.
G3: He drops a turn 2 Rest in Peace, but I have Natural State in hand. Just so he can drop another one on turn 4. Huntmaster of Fells doesn’t rely on the graveyard though and takes over the game, producing 2/2 tokens and killing opposing creatures left and right.
Winning through RiP is always sweet, winning through two of them is a first I think.
Match 3: Jund
G1: I haven’t played against traditional Jund in a long time, so seeing a turn one Raging Ravine was kinda surprising and I prepared for a long atrocious battle.
And exactly that happened, we spend the early turns trading resources back and forth until 2x Cryptics and another snapcastered Cryptic put me in the driver’s seat. I play conservative but slowly beat him down with Snaps while he struggles to answer bigger threats.
G2: I mull to 6 and my opponent goes turn 1 Thoughtseize, stripping my Spell Snare into turn 2 Goyf. While I can keep his other threats at bay I simply can’t find an answer to the Goyf and find myself chump blocking fast and skoop it up to have enough time for round 3.
G3: That turned out to be a good decision because this game was a grindfest if I have ever seen one, always back and forth.
Fighting through multiple Lilis and a Huntmaster, his Chandra comes in big and nets him like 2-3 cards and a Goyf of mine. But this deck can grind as well and Traverse is a surprisingly potent value engine. After taking out his Chandra he stairs down 3 Snapcasters on my side and doesn’t find any good answers in time. Great and very close match.
Match 4: 5C Shadow
G1: He rips my hand apart with 3 Thoughtseizes/Inquisitions but fails to find a threat to back it up with pressure, which leaves me with enough time to drop some lands and refuel my hand. I proceed to counter his Shadow and burn him out with Bolt/Snap/Bolt and Electrolyze.
G2: He digs 4 cards deep with Street Wraiths/Baubles but stumbles over his second land drop for 2 turns. I draw 2 more Bolts to add to the first one I had in my starting hand and burn him out when he hits 8 life.
Very fun and successful night, deck is still a blast to play!
Questions and recomendations are always welcome.
So, here's the list I came up with. It's based on Todd Steven's list from above, but adding some of the stuff from more traditional RUG builds that he eschewed (Remands and Scooze and Opt) as well as trimming down on the Eternal Command package. What do you guys think? The sideboard still needs work, but it's a suitable placeholder until I get my 60 worked out a bit.
2x Eternal Witness
2x Hostage Taker
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Vendilion Clique
Instants (15)
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Cryptic Command
1x Familiar's Ruse
4x Fatal Push
2x Opt
3x Remand
Sorceries (5)
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Serum Visions
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
4x AEther Vial
Lands (21)
1x Breeding Pool
1x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
1x Flooded Grove
1x Forest
3x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
1x Watery Grave
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2x Damnation
1x Golgari Charm
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Rain of Tears
3x Surgical Extraction
4x Thoughtseize
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
I love seeing variations of this deck splashing black instead of red, but I don't think this list is strong enough. Namely the fact that Lightning bolt is pretty much the most versatile card that also functions as a win condition. Bolt -> EWit -> bolt -> snap -> bolt is 9 damage from 1 bolt alone. Replacing red removal with black removal leaves you with no other win conditions other than board state.
The second drawback is the side boarding. Huntmaster of the fells is such a ridiculously, ridiculously good card in this deck, because it helps your life total (which usually is an issue with this deck) + board state. You can control it's triggers so much more easily with vial. In comparison, black's side board is kind of lacking. You need cards that can potentially "make up" for the holes in this deck, which are:
1) Its slow start
2) Its aggressive use of life total being a resource (for land fetching and taking free hits early game).
Huntmaster fixes this problem so nicely that it's even being main boarded now.
In comparison, damnation is the closest fix, however it doesn't stick, AND its symmetrical board wipe. Maelstrom Pulse can situationally be efficient. Thoughtseize is great, at the cost of exacerbating your life total. One suggestion for sure is to sideboard fulminator mage (tron is one of the hardest matchups vs vial). That being said, I really like your balance of spells here, and am very curious how your results fair !
Personally I think the RUG version is the better one, but both have it's merits. I would definitely advise you to give it a run on cockatrice/proxy it up before you buy pricy pieces.
All that said the list looks pretty solid from what I can tell. I'd probably be greedy and try to cut a land for another SV. And cut the Rain of Tears for Spreading Seas in the SB. You will not always have doube black on turn 3 and SS costing 1 mana less can be pretty relevant.
With vial, mana organizing can be tight, which is why some control matchups can be tough (even though eternal command overall has a pretty big advantage vs control).
Plus, this guy does a free optional loot, which is RIDICULOUS.
It can be really good in clutch situations where you're sitting on 1 blue, and you can vial this in and pull off a remand, or a mana leak.
Hmmmm, unfortunately this is one of the pricier decks in modern, with 4 tarmogoyfs, 4 snaps, 4 aethervials. If you're not running aethervial, it really cuts the power of eternal witness. Sometimes I like to think of this deck as a "birthing pod" deck, that lets you deploy any/all ETB tools from your hand. Without that "cheat into play" mechanic, eWit and most of the other ETB creatures lose power.
But none the less, if you want to try it out, I'd suggest swapping the vials with manlands and go the control route (though jeskai control would probably be objectively better).
Very recently there was a decklist VERY similar to this, but running blood moon: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=117667
^ This went 5th place.
Now, you could argue this works only because of Bloodmoon, but hope it'll help you reconsider!
Yeah, I really like all the great removal in BUG, but losing the reach is a very real deal. That said, the allure of Hostage Taker is going to guarantee I play this list at least once or twice at the FLGS before going to a more traditional RUG list lol.
Thankfully budget isn't a big concern for me since I already have all the money cards in paper. From my initial goldfishing, I don't think I wanna cut a land. The mana is already greedy and it really sucks to hold onto a Cryptic and 3 lands or have to play a naked Snapcaster with a Remand in your yard because you're shy on lands. I'm definitely on board with turning Tears to Seas. I kept the Rain of Tears because I wanted to get some more value out of the Surgicals in matchups like Tron and TitanShift, but that's probably getting pretty greedy. Plus, I already love Spreading Seas from playing Merfolk.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
3x Eternal witness
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
1x Thassa, God of the Sea
2x Vendilion Clique
Instants (19)
2x Opt
2x Spell Snare
1x Vapor Snag
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Mana Leak
3x Remand
1x Electrolyze
1x Thirst for Knowledge
3x Cryptic Command
3x Serum Visions
Artifacts (4)
4x AEther Vial
Lands (20)
2x Breeding Pool
2x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
2x Flooded Grove
1x Spirebluff Canal
1x Forest
4x Island
1x Mountain
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Dispel
1x Negate
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Stone Rain
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
I think I'm really pushing for some experimentation here, but I can't be sure if I'm getting any really good results. So far T1 seems SUPER important. And I'm basically cantripping my way through the game. It doesn't feel too right with the deck, but what do you guys think?
Sideboard stretched too thin? Main decklist stretched too thin? I figured I could get away with 20 lands because of Baral, Chief of Compliance as well as extra digging (2 Opt, 3 Serum Visions, 1 Thirst + potential from Baral)
2 copies of Flooded Grove seems ambitious, especially considering you yourself talk about turn 1 being so important. Those guys do nothing on turn 1. Thassa seems a little cute here. The upkeep scry doesn't seem entirely worth 3 mana and you're not heavy enough into devotion to reliably get her rumbling into the redzone. The idea of making a Goyf unblockable does have its appeal, but I'm not sure that's worth the card and all the mana it takes to activate it, ya know?
Is Thirst for Knowledge with only 4 artifacts the best thing to be doing with 3 mana? Discarding an excess Vial with Baral on the battlefield seems absolutely ludicrous, but it also seems somewhat Christmas Landy. Chart a Course might be a better way to draw cards, especially if you get to do it for 1 mana from time-to-time.
That said, I love the 1-of Baral. Cryptic, Electrolyze, Remand, and Mana Leak all make him look real good. Remand puts the card back in their hand, draws you two cards, discards 1 card, and does it all for 1 blue mana. Pretty sweet.
I love Fulminator Mage as a card, but I'm not sure this is the deck for him. It's an extra colored mana in a greedy mana base and it can't be recurred unlike Stone Rain. Spreading Seas is also something to look into. It costs 1 less, draws you a card, and is easier to cast, at the cost of not permanently getting rid of the land.
All that said, I'm really intrigued by the idea of a really draw-heavy build like this. Let us know how testing goes.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
The 2 copies of flooded grove have been okay thus far. I've been able to play aether vial from them T1, which is better than a tapped land/burn land.
You're totally right about Thassa being a cute pick. The main reason I'm running it, is that a LOT of jeskai/esper control decks manage to get Search for Azcanta out before I have 2 mana up for a counter (I cast vial for t1). Once its on the board, I just start falling behind very quickly.
With Thirst for Knowledge, ... you know you're totally right. I'm being too greedy with that card. In hindsight, Remand is a MUCH better slot than Thirst. Same with Fulminator Mage, I'll just cut it down to 1 and bring Stone Rain up to 2. Having to wait for vial to tick up to 3 just to play it, is way too slow against tron. Plus, Stone Rain has more synergy with Snap Caster, AND I can use it against Forest with a bunch of Utopia Sprawl + Overgrowth ramp. +1
So far my results have been okay. I'm really liking baral for the reasons you mentioned. But if I'm not on the play, I really struggle what to do on turn 1. Do I cast vial t1, and not have Spell Snare up for their t2? And then on t2, do I not cast again so that I can Remand or Mana Leak ? Playing Vial on T3 feels straight up awful, and these tempo decisions I feel could lose me out midgame. This also plays poorly into T1 discards like Thoughtseize and Inquisition.
Against control matchups, I feel out-grinded. Search for Azcanta, just makes their lategame card quality so much better than mine. Yes I have the soft-lock with eWit + cryptic, but my opponent has straight up more mana to counter my counters. Mana Leak becomes useless, as does Remand. I usually find myself stuck around 4-6 lands, to their 7-8, and they will grind out until they can smash face with Celestial Colonnade with a backup plan.
I'm going to take out Thassa into the sideboard, put in scooze, and overall un-thin this deck. It feels a bit airy at the moment when I'd prefer to always be doing something each turn for tempo.
I generally prefer Stone Rain over Fulminator Mage because you can go T3 Stone Rain into T4 vial in Snap/E-Wit and play Stone Rain again, which usually wrecks Tron. Overall Spreading Seas has been better than Stone Rain though, simply because it's cheaper to cast, being able to flash back SR can be backbreaking though.
Regarding UW Control:
I haven't seen many version with Search for Azcanta yet, but find the MU to be quite good (just looked, currently 5-1 according to my recorded matches).
Game 1 we try to tempo them out because we besides Vapor Snag we don't have good answers to their lategame Colonnades.
G2 and G3 I go full value though. sb out Goyfs (no net value, get completely hosed by RiP) and get in some Spreading Seas, Huntmasters, Natural State to deal with incoming RiPs or Detention Speres.
I don't play Mana Leak, Remand stays relevant until the lategame though. It's awesome against opposing Snaps and remanding your own Cryptic, which they attempted to counter with their own Crpytic is a brutal value play in this MU.
When it comes to what to play on turn 1, it's pretty much always Vial if you have that in your opening hand. You keep Spell Snare up when you have reason to expect devastating cards like Rest in Piece. Other exemptions I could think of would be against Affinity (especially game 1, as they have a lot of devastating two drops that are hard to interact with) or possibly decks like griselshoalbrand if they put their namesake card in the bin on their turn 1.
They all have in common that their important play has cmc 2, which means we can still easily roll out Vial on turn 2 while still holding a relevant counter up.
First of all the most impressive thing:
I'm 110 wins vs. 45 losses so far. That's a 71% win percentage and quite a bit higher than I thought it would be.
Sample is still not huge though and the matches I play are either FNMs or testing with buddies, which can include playing against people who are not very experienced with their decks. I still think that this speaks quite a bit about the viability of this deck.
Some more detailed stuff:
I'm 10-3 against Jeskai Control/Tempo. That's even a little bit better than I expected but overall reflects my feeling for the MU. Vials come in huge here and we are usually able to outvalue them unless they manage to outplay us with multiple Spell Quellers or we can't answer Search for Azcanta (I'm happy to have the 3rd Spreading Seas in the board now).
6-5 against Burn. Always felt like a very even MU to me, so it's nice to see this fits my feeling. Goyf pulls a lot of weight as an early blocker here, Vial and Cryptic make Eidolon less aweful and our big amount of counterspells and recursion as well as Scooze help to stabilize.
7-3 against Death and Taxes. This includes all DnT variants (Eldrazi, GW, Mono W) although most matches I played where against the Eldrazi Version. I thought this one would be closer to be honest, because sometimes they just get their value chain rolling and we just get outtempoed. But they don't always get rolling very fast and Bolt/Snap/Bolt are pretty damn good then. Also Goyfs provides a serious roadblock and Electrolyze is just pure value here. 3 sweepers and Huntermasters out of the board are very relevant here too (I've won multiple games through Rest in Piece thanks to Huntmaster now, card is a beast in these creature MUs).
I'm pretty sure I'll remove Roast from the maindeck again. Card is really only ok against Jund/Junk and Grixis Shadow, but wasn't very useful against Eldrazi Tron or 5 color Shadow and it feels really awkward against Jeskai, which got a lot of traction in my LGS lately.
Option for replacement are:
Dismember I never really liked this card in our deck because recasting it is a very steep cost, but maybe it's time to give it another try.
Engineered Explosives. The was a RUG Midrange list that won an SCG event like a week ago and it played 3x EE maindeck. It can be awkward with our own Vials but offers a lot of flexibility, being obviously awesome against go wide strategies while also handy to remove troubling permanents (Death's Shadow).
Spreading Seas/Ghost Quarter: I really like Seas in the meta right now and having some maindeck land destruction comes in handy in a lot of MUs.
Shadow of Doubt: Old pet card of mine, but between Storm, Eldrazi Tron, RG Valakut and Shadow decks the meta could be fine to let it blow out some people again.
Tarfire: Getting Goyf to be a 5/6 is super relevant against Eldrazi Tron and having another removal spell against deck like DnT, Humans or Affinity can't be bad.
Any opinions or other suggestions are very welcome!
Even more so if you wanna be able to hit the 5th land on turn 5, I think 20 lands is greedy even with 2x Traverse.
How are the 2x Huntmaster maindeck? I've been playing with the thought of maindecking one.
Playing this card could easily improve some of our rather bad MUs like EldraziTron, Gx Tron and Bant Eldrazi and blow out people on 3 colour decks, because they would never expect it.
The problem is obviously our own manabase. So the question is can we tweak to accomodate Blood Moon? Maybe I'm totally crazy here but I was always surprised on how much I didn't care about Moons from decks like Skred Red or RG Ponza if I had one basic Island and a threat or Vial out.
Against decks like EldraziTron, Gx Tron and Bant Eldrazi it seems reasonable to me to side out E-Wits and Scoozes if that means I can side in Blood Moons.
Add some tweaks in our manabase (go up to 21 lands to add another basic island and replace another land with a 9th fetch) and maybe, maybe we can support Blood Moon.
What do you think? Is it worth trying it out? Is it better than simply going with 3x Spreading Seas in the board? Does it make sense to side out E-Wits against decks like Abzan (where Moon definitely shines, but so does E-Wit)?
Anybody of you got some experience with Moon in RUG shells?
Would love to hear some opinions before I invest the time and money to try that out.
I don't want to play Blood Moon maindeck but in the SB. I don't think we can support him while also playing E-Wit.
Supposed changes would probably look like this:
MD:
-1x Scooze, -1x Lumbering Falls
+1x Island, +1x Wooded Foothills
SB:
-3x Spreading Seas
+3x Blood Moon
The questions is how good is Moon against Decks like Gx Tron or Eldrazi Tron?
And does it actually make sense to board out awesome grindy cards like E-Wit to be able to bring in Moon against decks like Abzan (where Moon definitely shines, but Seas is also very solid).
I have tried both Fulminator Mage and Stone Rain. Didn't really like Mage because it's hard to cast and hard to recurr. Stone Rain is definitely very good against Gx Tron, but can be simply too slow against Eldrazi Tron and Bant Eldrazi. I also like Seas a lot against decks with manlands. Could see replacing 1x Seas with a Stone Rain though, since Gx Tron seems to be on the uptick right now (if I'm not completely switching to Moons to try that out).
Spell Snare is great if you expext Affinity, Storm and Goyfs. If your meta is full of Grixis Shadow, Gx Tron and EldraziTron Spell Pierce tends to be the better card. I'm happy with my 1/1 split currently.
Definitely not an expert then but I can at least give you an opinion on Blood Moon in RUG shells since, before switching to my current deck, Counter-Cat, I used to play a lot of Monkey-Grow. Completely different decks obviously but at least they share the tempo aspect (even though it's much more integral to Monkey Grow's gameplan).
Anyway, MG plays 3 Blood Moon side which are absolutely crucial in a lot of matchups. Almost has 0 impact on the deck manabase, flat out wins the game sometimes and is just very good, even when people know you'r playing it, expect it and fetch accordingly. Was bringing it in against anything linear (Infect, Bogles), Celestial Colonnades deck, 3 colors deck, Tron, etc.
But the thing is, the 0 impact on the manabase, it definitely isn't true here. Casting Cryptic Command under Blood Moon seems like a tall order. And generally speaking, the more you wait to drop it (if you have to wait your basics), the less impact it has.
Regarding Blood Moon against Tron (regular version, I had already stopped playing the deck when Eldrazi emerged), it is defnitely very good but it's far from game winning. You absolutely need a quick clock because they will get rid of it (Oblivion Stone destroyed mines quite a few times)
Just the opinion of someone who doesn't play Eternal Command, take it with a grain of salt
Vial clique eot, untap vial knuckleblade give haste and swing holding up cryptic mana is quite good.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
After some more thinking about it and paying more attention to how I usually fetched during my matches, I think I'll postpone testing it out for a little longer. Seas have been very solid and unless Bant Eldrazi emerges as a topdeck again (where Blood Moon really shines and one of our worst MUs) I'm not sure Moon's risk is worth it.
@BadMcFadden
Knuckleblade has usually simply been another, worse Goyf in my experience. Sure he has some upside, especially with Vial, but his abilities are just a tad too expensive and he gets a lot worse without Vial.
My list is also heavy on the 2 drop slot, which means I usually only uptick Vial to 3 later in the game (if at all).