I’d go Bant. It plays more powerful cards. Noble Hierarch, CoCo, and knight of autumn sideboard are all very powerful cards that he doesn’t get. Horizon canopy is also very good and coco lets you find sideboard hate cards like knight of autumn, deputy of detention, and even one offs like eidolon of rhetoric. I think Bant is the way to go for a competitive tournament
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I'm planning to build a second modern deck and want to ask your opinion.
Which do you think will be the more powerful deck long term: U/W Spirits or B/W Eldrazi and Taxes?
Bant spirits looks really strong, but its way out of my budget at the moment. I'm leaning towards B/W Eldrazi because of the play style and price, but I have concerns about its speed and competitiveness. Thanks!
I have both decks and originally started out as a Death & Taxes player, so I'll try and do a little blurb on both. Also read the primers for both decks, the two threads have excellent writers, and make sure to watch some YouTube gameplay of both.
Bant Spirits
Pros
+Is easier to pilot than BW Eldrazi Taxes.
+Almost all of the creatures have flying; the natural evasion is VERY difficult for many decks to deal with.
+Manabase is more stable thanks to the ability to fetch all 3 colors and having no colorless mana restrictions.
+With Noble Hierarchs/Birds of Paradise (budget), you can pull off some nutty plays like a turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft or a turn 3 Collected Company.
+The deck plays at instant speed, through Aether Vial, creatures with flash, and Collected Company, making removal and counters much more difficult for your opponent, also lets you bluff or fake out an opponent just by leaving lands/mana up.
+Since most lists runs about 10 or less non-creature spells, Bant Spirits is largely resistant to decks that focus on punishing non-creature spells, and will not necessarily lose if you're unable to play Vial or Company, or one of them gets Surgically Extracted.
+Creatures have powerful abilities that allow for interaction with the opponent or protecting your board state, such as Spell Queller, Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, and Selfless Spirit, while acting as additional threats in the meanwhile.
+The primary lord, Drogskol Captain, is capable of creating a "soft lock" where playing two will give all your spirits Hexproof, making them immune to everything except bigger creatures, sacrifice effects, or boardwipes.
+Playing Green, Blue, and White gives us access to some of the best sideboard cards in the game, such as Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Knight of Autumn, and counterspells such as Ceremonious Rejection, Unified Will, and Disdainful Stroke.
Cons
-Limited interaction with your opponent outside of creatures. Pre-board, there aren't many options for dealing with non-instant/sorcery spells outside of Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention. Furthermore, many of your creatures' interactions occur only once upon ETB, such as Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention, or require sacrifices to be used, such as Mausoleum Wanderer or Selfless Spirit. This can make matchups against big mana decks such as Tron or Amulet Titan, or combo decks like Storm, into races.
-As a creature-based tempo deck, boardwipes can cripple us if we dump everything onto the field or have no means of interacting with them through a Queller.
-In addition to the above point, the strength of the deck is manifested in our board state; if we're unable to maintain a good number of creatures, our deck loses out on power.
-Manabase is three color, therefore you will be pinging yourself through shocks and fetches. Sometimes you might also have a hand you can't play due to color restrictions, and depending on the boardstate/lands we have, a Blood Moon can be crippling.
-$$$$$$$$ - Many of the most important cards in the deck are expensive, such as Noble Hierarch, Aether Vial, Collected Company, and the manabase.
BW Eldrazi and Taxes
Pros
+Has access to some incredibly powerful creatures main deck, such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thought-Knot Seer, Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler. Furthermore, your white creatures serve as taxes that cannot be dodged until said creatures are killed or otherwise dealt with, as opposed to Spirits where their creatures usually only trigger their interaction with the opponent once.
+A lot of the creatures are incredibly synergistic. Tidehollow Sculler can steal a card from your opponent/Flickerwisp can remove a card for a turn, allowing you to process the removed card with Wasteland Strangler. Not only does the exiled card go into the opponent's graveyard, but you've also killed one of their creatures! Using Leonin Arbiter, Path to Exile becomes arguably the best removal spell ever printed in Magic, and Ghost Quarter becomes a better Wasteland.
+Since the deck runs a fair bit of hand disruption, you usually have an idea of what your opponent has in hand; perfect information is one of the most powerful assets in Magic.
+Through Aether Vial allowing instant speed, uncounterable creatures, the deck is able to cripple opponents for making common Modern plays. Flashing in a Leonin Arbiter when they fetch usually means an opponent has time-walked themselves on mana and lost a life to boot. You can also flash in Tidehollow Skuller after they've drawn for the turn and steal their newest card. Another trick is one of the most complicated interactions in the deck, but flickering a Tidehollow Sculler with a vialed in Flickerwisp or through a Restoration Angel allows you to permanently remove one of your opponent's cards and steal another one.
+Has more powerful finishers through Eldrazi than regular Death and Taxes, as Thought-Knot Seer is a 4/4 that can come down on turn 3 or even turn 2 depending on how many Eldrazi Temples you have online. Eldrazi Displacer also allows you to continuously recycle your own ETB effects, which can be incredibly powerful depending on the build you play.
+White has some of the best sideboard cards in Magic, while black offers removal and hand disruption through cards like Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Thoughtseize. Kambal, Consul of Allocation is also an excellent card that punishes a wide range of decks for playing non-creature spells.
Cons
-The manabase. In my opinion, BW Eldrazi & Taxes has one of the worst, if not THE worst manabases in all of Modern. This is compounded by the fact that a good number of your creatures require colorless mana to be played or to activate their effects, and you cannot run fetches due to the nature of Leonin Arbiter. While Aether Vial can alleviate some of this, it also means that losing a Vial can be crippling or even game-ending depending on your mana situation, compared to Spirits or Merfolk where losing a Vial is annoying but not a serious loss. Essentially, you're playing a three color deck with no fetches, mana dorks, or other means of fixing your mana. I've lost games due to not having mana when I've needed it, or drawing it too late. Hitting my own lands with Ghost Quarter to fix mana is not an uncommon situation. Also, Blood Moon can be virtually game-ending, and Merfolk can be considered a poor matchup due to their ability to turn your lands into Islands through Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas, while also becoming unblockable.
-Playing any Taxes style deck requires knowledge about the current metagame, popular decks, and common creatures/spells. The more you make an effort to learn the meta and how Taxes interacts with them, the better you will do. However, the reverse is also true. This is a deck that demands smart decision-making, sequencing, knowledge of triggers and the stack, and match-up knowledge. If you lack any of the aforementioned, matches will be that much more difficult for you.
-Like Bant Spirits, the majority of your interaction and game plan comes from having creatures on the battlefield. This deck shares the same weakness of Spirits, Merfolk, and other creature-based decks to sweepers and mass removal.
-Unlike Spirits or Merfolk, almost none of your creatures have flying or similar means of evasion, and your main win con is still beating your opponent down with creatures. This can lead to stalemates or even losses if your opponent has something like Ensnaring Bridge or an equal number of creatures. Furthermore, your taxes are creature-based, which means chump blocks can significantly hurt you if you use an Arbiter or Thalia to block your opponent's Death's Shadow or Awoken Horror.
-Your creatures also cannot get nearly as huge as Spirits or Merfolk as you possess no lords, which requires smarter decisions about combat.
Hope this helped inform you about the decks! Post in both threads if you need more advice or commentary, and have fun!
Current Modern Decks BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends." BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved." RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros." BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?" C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
Thanks man, cool to see thay gave it a chance and showed what the deck is about. Hopefully someone else will be testing different Esper builts and will bring their contribution to this set of colours.
Thanks man, cool to see thay gave it a chance and showed what the deck is about. Hopefully someone else will be testing different Esper builts and will bring their contribution to this set of colours.
I geeked out when I saw the thumbnail in my feed since I knew you had recently 5-0'd. Congrats again! Been lurking for a long time but I don't think I've ever posted. Running a vial-less build with budget lands at current but I'm about to get some upgrades on the way. Hoping to help contribute to the thread in the relative future. Keep up the great work crew! I'm very interested in a janky Jeskai brew but Esper is definitely my favorite color combination and hoping for the continued success your having Streexit.
Report time again! I had another model tournament at my LGS, with 21 people attending. I made one new adjustment to my sideboard, swapping Unmoored Ego in my sideboard for Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. Ego was there mainly against Tron anyways, and not only can Lavinia be vialed in, but she has really dumb synergy with Spell Queller.
First round was against Bogles, though they never actually played a bogle either game. G1 I was on the play and fetched out a Watery Grave on my opponent's turn in order to Fatal Push her Dryad Arbor. I then began shoving creatures onto the board and beat her down, and even though she was able to get me to 3 with a buffed Kor Spiritdancer, I was able to outrace her.
G2 saw my opponent mulligan to 6, then realize that she'd kept a bad hand because she missed that it didn't have any creatures. This was a pretty boring game, with my opponent doing nothing but playing lands while I swung in for the win.
Round 2 had me playing against the Esper Faeries deck that I'd missed out on seeing in action the last time (since it just looked like U/W Control the last time I played it). My opponent dropped T2 Bitterblossom and played very reactively, but my hand was largely gas, and I just played a waiting game of making profitable blocks while Bitterblossom drained him down. Spell Queller stopped Vendilion Clique and Ojutai's Command got rid of a Mistbind Clique while also bringing back a selfless spirit that had been countered earlier. He bounced Bitterblossom to his hand when he was at 1 life, via a Snapcastered Cryptic Command, but Creeping Tar Pit was good enough to push through for the win.
Game 2 had me clearly on the offensive, beating down on my opponent and forcing him to play to my speed. Eventually, he tried to survive by playing a pair of Spellstutter Sprites as blockers, but I vialed in Deputy of Detention before blockers were declared, and my opponent conceded.
Unfortunately, the rest of my night didn't go so well. Next round, I ended up paired against Dredge, which had an ungodly turn 1 and turn 2. I couldn't even try to keep up and quickly ended up scooping. Game 2 had my sideboard plan come in clutch, with both copies of Rest in Peace being drawn in order for me to secure a quick concession. However, game 3 went horribly, with my opponent getting another explosive start and using multiple copies of conflagrate to kill my board, then to kill me.
Then, Round 4 I ended up paired against the same Izzet Phoenix player I'd played last time. However, this time I got absolutely wrecked, with a bad mulligan to 6 followed by missing a land drop on turn 2, while my opponent pretty much hit what they needed, between Thing in the Ice and Pteramander. Game 2 was looking better, but even with RiP on the board and dealing with an on curve Thing, 3 resolved Crackling Drakes ended up being too much to handle. So, with a final record of 2-2, I ended up placing 8th.
I'm trying not to react too radically or hastily, but I'm finding that Lingering Souls is just a poor card most of the time. It doesn't really trade well given all the recursive creatures around, and I'm rarely eager to see it off the top. At the same time, I'm finding I would really like mainboard GY hate much of the time. Similarly, people are consistently playing multiples of the same creature onto the board early, and Path to Exile isn't all that great. So, I'm thinking of cutting my number of copies of Lingering Souls to 2, and maybe cutting 1 Selfless Spirit for a pair of Remorseful Clerics to give me some extra graveyard hate. I'm also thinking of replacing Path to Exile with Declaration in Stone. While Path is better in an environment that rewards efficient 1/1 trades, it's not great against many of the threats currently being played. Declaration may be sorcery speed and cost 1 more, but it will permanently exile phoenixes, bloodghasts, Prized Amalgams, Champions of the Parish, etc... along with tokens; as an extra benefit, Declaration's downside of giving clues seems preferable to immediately ramping my opponent. What do you guys think about some of these adjustments?
I prefer 2 Dromoka's Command to the 2 PtE in the sideboard, but otherwise that is my exact list. DC is there for Burn, UWR Control and the new BUG combo deck. I just like it's utility a little better.
Yeah seems like a god fit, thx!
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Modern // Legacy // Pauper WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
Current Modern Decks BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends." BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved." RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros." BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?" C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
1) I stopped playingGeist in the main. There are too many decks where you have to take them out ocasionally.I better keep theim in the side against Control and Tron decks
2) 3x Thalia IS A MUST IN THE MAIN!
3) Cut 1x Phantasmal Image, 1 Reflector Mage or a Land and add FOURTH Drogskol Captain! How can you not play a full set of them in a spirit deck????
4) 3x Rest in Peace is too much. 2x is more than enough unless you expect to see many Dredge decks. Cut 1x RiP for an additional Eidolon of Rhetoric. You can also cut 1x Damping Sphere for 1x Grafdigger's Cage. Its very helpful against Phoenix decks and it synergises well with your Moorland Haunt allowing you to spam spirits exiling creatures from your graveyard
[quote from="Aramchik »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/aggro-tempo/792118-modern-spirits?comment=839"]ok, now some serious question guys. How to side against Humans?
What does your list look like?
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Negate
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Damping Sphere
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Current Modern Decks BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends." BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved." RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros." BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?" C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
I'm trying not to react too radically or hastily, but I'm finding that Lingering Souls is just a poor card most of the time. It doesn't really trade well given all the recursive creatures around, and I'm rarely eager to see it off the top. At the same time, I'm finding I would really like mainboard GY hate much of the time. Similarly, people are consistently playing multiples of the same creature onto the board early, and Path to Exile isn't all that great. So, I'm thinking of cutting my number of copies of Lingering Souls to 2, and maybe cutting 1 Selfless Spirit for a pair of Remorseful Clerics to give me some extra graveyard hate. I'm also thinking of replacing Path to Exile with Declaration in Stone. While Path is better in an environment that rewards efficient 1/1 trades, it's not great against many of the threats currently being played. Declaration may be sorcery speed and cost 1 more, but it will permanently exile phoenixes, bloodghasts, Prized Amalgams, Champions of the Parish, etc... along with tokens; as an extra benefit, Declaration's downside of giving clues seems preferable to immediately ramping my opponent. What do you guys think about some of these adjustments?
Well first of all this metagame is being dominated by phoenix, dredge, tron, which are 3 mus we struggle to win in G1. This is worth noting. Other tier decks are burn and Shadow, I mean, this metagame is possibly one of the worse I have seen for Spirits since I ve jumped into modern.
Lingering Souls are still the cards that gives sense to the black splash, I do side them out a lot in a number of games because I need to play at flash speed only, or when I need not to draw clunky cards, but they still are the card you want against Midrange and Control and other GWx decks. There's been a time when I splashed black to see what that could give me and I remember a game where i came not to play souls against blue moon because all of the Spirits I was drawing were more effective. But then you get to play games over games and realize how important is a card that spreads your board and that you get to cast twice. Souls are putting a patch on two of the major issues of tribal decks: the weakness to spot removal density, the need of a critical mass on the board to have your race going.
The card advantage is real and in absence of other non-queller, non-rattlechains CA providers, Souls are the first card to look at when you want to increase that number.
As for PtE, I'm asking myself if one Blessed alliance is actually worse than Path; I'm considering a 1-1 split more precisely. I'll be testing this in the future.
Declaration is OKish, I ve been running this in the side, not a bad card, but then I considered the matchups where it had ad impact, and I ended up swapping it for Worship. I think I ve got enough removals and where my removals fail, I want some other type of effect to keep up with decks drawing 40 cards per game, or doing other degenerate stuff.
[quote from="Aramchik »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/aggro-tempo/792118-modern-spirits?comment=839"]ok, now some serious question guys. How to side against Humans?
What does your list look like?
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Negate
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Damping Sphere
1 Grafdigger's Cage
I would actually bring in Alliance and Kira, that's it. They are both very good and the matchup against Humans has always been good/reasonable, at least from my UW perspective.
I'm not crazy about Declaration in Stone in this format. The extra mana and the clues aren't big deals most of the time, but being a sorcery seriously hurts. It's not great against phoenixes because the birds would have already attacked at least once, and dredge's speed punishes spending 2 mana on your own turn severely. Then you have creatures that demand answers on their controllers' turns, such as Celestial Colonnade, Inkmoth Nexus, and Primeval Titan (in amulet, not shift) in which you really need an instant answer.
Lets not forget his misplays and still going 4-1. He could have even beaten bogles, but forgot to flashback Lingering Souls. That was painful to watch!
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Which do you think will be the more powerful deck long term: U/W Spirits or B/W Eldrazi and Taxes?
Bant spirits looks really strong, but its way out of my budget at the moment. I'm leaning towards B/W Eldrazi because of the play style and price, but I have concerns about its speed and competitiveness. Thanks!
Bant Spirits
Pros
+Is easier to pilot than BW Eldrazi Taxes.
+Almost all of the creatures have flying; the natural evasion is VERY difficult for many decks to deal with.
+Manabase is more stable thanks to the ability to fetch all 3 colors and having no colorless mana restrictions.
+With Noble Hierarchs/Birds of Paradise (budget), you can pull off some nutty plays like a turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft or a turn 3 Collected Company.
+The deck plays at instant speed, through Aether Vial, creatures with flash, and Collected Company, making removal and counters much more difficult for your opponent, also lets you bluff or fake out an opponent just by leaving lands/mana up.
+Since most lists runs about 10 or less non-creature spells, Bant Spirits is largely resistant to decks that focus on punishing non-creature spells, and will not necessarily lose if you're unable to play Vial or Company, or one of them gets Surgically Extracted.
+Creatures have powerful abilities that allow for interaction with the opponent or protecting your board state, such as Spell Queller, Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, and Selfless Spirit, while acting as additional threats in the meanwhile.
+The primary lord, Drogskol Captain, is capable of creating a "soft lock" where playing two will give all your spirits Hexproof, making them immune to everything except bigger creatures, sacrifice effects, or boardwipes.
+Playing Green, Blue, and White gives us access to some of the best sideboard cards in the game, such as Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Knight of Autumn, and counterspells such as Ceremonious Rejection, Unified Will, and Disdainful Stroke.
Cons
-Limited interaction with your opponent outside of creatures. Pre-board, there aren't many options for dealing with non-instant/sorcery spells outside of Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention. Furthermore, many of your creatures' interactions occur only once upon ETB, such as Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention, or require sacrifices to be used, such as Mausoleum Wanderer or Selfless Spirit. This can make matchups against big mana decks such as Tron or Amulet Titan, or combo decks like Storm, into races.
-As a creature-based tempo deck, boardwipes can cripple us if we dump everything onto the field or have no means of interacting with them through a Queller.
-In addition to the above point, the strength of the deck is manifested in our board state; if we're unable to maintain a good number of creatures, our deck loses out on power.
-Manabase is three color, therefore you will be pinging yourself through shocks and fetches. Sometimes you might also have a hand you can't play due to color restrictions, and depending on the boardstate/lands we have, a Blood Moon can be crippling.
-$$$$$$$$ - Many of the most important cards in the deck are expensive, such as Noble Hierarch, Aether Vial, Collected Company, and the manabase.
BW Eldrazi and Taxes
Pros
+Has access to some incredibly powerful creatures main deck, such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thought-Knot Seer, Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler. Furthermore, your white creatures serve as taxes that cannot be dodged until said creatures are killed or otherwise dealt with, as opposed to Spirits where their creatures usually only trigger their interaction with the opponent once.
+A lot of the creatures are incredibly synergistic. Tidehollow Sculler can steal a card from your opponent/Flickerwisp can remove a card for a turn, allowing you to process the removed card with Wasteland Strangler. Not only does the exiled card go into the opponent's graveyard, but you've also killed one of their creatures! Using Leonin Arbiter, Path to Exile becomes arguably the best removal spell ever printed in Magic, and Ghost Quarter becomes a better Wasteland.
+Since the deck runs a fair bit of hand disruption, you usually have an idea of what your opponent has in hand; perfect information is one of the most powerful assets in Magic.
+Through Aether Vial allowing instant speed, uncounterable creatures, the deck is able to cripple opponents for making common Modern plays. Flashing in a Leonin Arbiter when they fetch usually means an opponent has time-walked themselves on mana and lost a life to boot. You can also flash in Tidehollow Skuller after they've drawn for the turn and steal their newest card. Another trick is one of the most complicated interactions in the deck, but flickering a Tidehollow Sculler with a vialed in Flickerwisp or through a Restoration Angel allows you to permanently remove one of your opponent's cards and steal another one.
+Has more powerful finishers through Eldrazi than regular Death and Taxes, as Thought-Knot Seer is a 4/4 that can come down on turn 3 or even turn 2 depending on how many Eldrazi Temples you have online. Eldrazi Displacer also allows you to continuously recycle your own ETB effects, which can be incredibly powerful depending on the build you play.
+White has some of the best sideboard cards in Magic, while black offers removal and hand disruption through cards like Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Thoughtseize. Kambal, Consul of Allocation is also an excellent card that punishes a wide range of decks for playing non-creature spells.
Cons
-The manabase. In my opinion, BW Eldrazi & Taxes has one of the worst, if not THE worst manabases in all of Modern. This is compounded by the fact that a good number of your creatures require colorless mana to be played or to activate their effects, and you cannot run fetches due to the nature of Leonin Arbiter. While Aether Vial can alleviate some of this, it also means that losing a Vial can be crippling or even game-ending depending on your mana situation, compared to Spirits or Merfolk where losing a Vial is annoying but not a serious loss. Essentially, you're playing a three color deck with no fetches, mana dorks, or other means of fixing your mana. I've lost games due to not having mana when I've needed it, or drawing it too late. Hitting my own lands with Ghost Quarter to fix mana is not an uncommon situation. Also, Blood Moon can be virtually game-ending, and Merfolk can be considered a poor matchup due to their ability to turn your lands into Islands through Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas, while also becoming unblockable.
-Playing any Taxes style deck requires knowledge about the current metagame, popular decks, and common creatures/spells. The more you make an effort to learn the meta and how Taxes interacts with them, the better you will do. However, the reverse is also true. This is a deck that demands smart decision-making, sequencing, knowledge of triggers and the stack, and match-up knowledge. If you lack any of the aforementioned, matches will be that much more difficult for you.
-Like Bant Spirits, the majority of your interaction and game plan comes from having creatures on the battlefield. This deck shares the same weakness of Spirits, Merfolk, and other creature-based decks to sweepers and mass removal.
-Unlike Spirits or Merfolk, almost none of your creatures have flying or similar means of evasion, and your main win con is still beating your opponent down with creatures. This can lead to stalemates or even losses if your opponent has something like Ensnaring Bridge or an equal number of creatures. Furthermore, your taxes are creature-based, which means chump blocks can significantly hurt you if you use an Arbiter or Thalia to block your opponent's Death's Shadow or Awoken Horror.
-Your creatures also cannot get nearly as huge as Spirits or Merfolk as you possess no lords, which requires smarter decisions about combat.
Hope this helped inform you about the decks! Post in both threads if you need more advice or commentary, and have fun!
BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends."
BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved."
RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros."
BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?"
C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/modern-mayhem-esperits-modern-magic-online
Thanks man, cool to see thay gave it a chance and showed what the deck is about. Hopefully someone else will be testing different Esper builts and will bring their contribution to this set of colours.
I geeked out when I saw the thumbnail in my feed since I knew you had recently 5-0'd. Congrats again! Been lurking for a long time but I don't think I've ever posted. Running a vial-less build with budget lands at current but I'm about to get some upgrades on the way. Hoping to help contribute to the thread in the relative future. Keep up the great work crew! I'm very interested in a janky Jeskai brew but Esper is definitely my favorite color combination and hoping for the continued success your having Streexit.
Modern:WUSpiritsWU, R12 BoltR
Commander:Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend, Ace of Spades, I Love the Night, The Reaper
~Signature by: Miraculous Recovery Signatures~
Competetive: Lantern Control, MonoR Phoenix, Dredge
Meta-Dependant: Modern Cheeri0s, Esper Spirits, Wilderness Teachings , Modern Elves, All-in Death's Shadow, Aristocrats, BW Death&Taxes
Fun own projects: Spireside Industries, UB Scrapyard, Thundercat Worship, Dirty Kitten, RB Rock, Eternal Toolbox
What does your list look like?
It was me to 5-0 with that list, that guy played the same 75s and went 4-1. Not sure he played friendly or competitive.
First round was against Bogles, though they never actually played a bogle either game. G1 I was on the play and fetched out a Watery Grave on my opponent's turn in order to Fatal Push her Dryad Arbor. I then began shoving creatures onto the board and beat her down, and even though she was able to get me to 3 with a buffed Kor Spiritdancer, I was able to outrace her.
G2 saw my opponent mulligan to 6, then realize that she'd kept a bad hand because she missed that it didn't have any creatures. This was a pretty boring game, with my opponent doing nothing but playing lands while I swung in for the win.
Round 2 had me playing against the Esper Faeries deck that I'd missed out on seeing in action the last time (since it just looked like U/W Control the last time I played it). My opponent dropped T2 Bitterblossom and played very reactively, but my hand was largely gas, and I just played a waiting game of making profitable blocks while Bitterblossom drained him down. Spell Queller stopped Vendilion Clique and Ojutai's Command got rid of a Mistbind Clique while also bringing back a selfless spirit that had been countered earlier. He bounced Bitterblossom to his hand when he was at 1 life, via a Snapcastered Cryptic Command, but Creeping Tar Pit was good enough to push through for the win.
Game 2 had me clearly on the offensive, beating down on my opponent and forcing him to play to my speed. Eventually, he tried to survive by playing a pair of Spellstutter Sprites as blockers, but I vialed in Deputy of Detention before blockers were declared, and my opponent conceded.
Unfortunately, the rest of my night didn't go so well. Next round, I ended up paired against Dredge, which had an ungodly turn 1 and turn 2. I couldn't even try to keep up and quickly ended up scooping. Game 2 had my sideboard plan come in clutch, with both copies of Rest in Peace being drawn in order for me to secure a quick concession. However, game 3 went horribly, with my opponent getting another explosive start and using multiple copies of conflagrate to kill my board, then to kill me.
Then, Round 4 I ended up paired against the same Izzet Phoenix player I'd played last time. However, this time I got absolutely wrecked, with a bad mulligan to 6 followed by missing a land drop on turn 2, while my opponent pretty much hit what they needed, between Thing in the Ice and Pteramander. Game 2 was looking better, but even with RiP on the board and dealing with an on curve Thing, 3 resolved Crackling Drakes ended up being too much to handle. So, with a final record of 2-2, I ended up placing 8th.
I'm trying not to react too radically or hastily, but I'm finding that Lingering Souls is just a poor card most of the time. It doesn't really trade well given all the recursive creatures around, and I'm rarely eager to see it off the top. At the same time, I'm finding I would really like mainboard GY hate much of the time. Similarly, people are consistently playing multiples of the same creature onto the board early, and Path to Exile isn't all that great. So, I'm thinking of cutting my number of copies of Lingering Souls to 2, and maybe cutting 1 Selfless Spirit for a pair of Remorseful Clerics to give me some extra graveyard hate. I'm also thinking of replacing Path to Exile with Declaration in Stone. While Path is better in an environment that rewards efficient 1/1 trades, it's not great against many of the threats currently being played. Declaration may be sorcery speed and cost 1 more, but it will permanently exile phoenixes, bloodghasts, Prized Amalgams, Champions of the Parish, etc... along with tokens; as an extra benefit, Declaration's downside of giving clues seems preferable to immediately ramping my opponent. What do you guys think about some of these adjustments?
Yeah seems like a god fit, thx!
Modern // Legacy // Pauper
WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
3 Drogskol Captain
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Rattlechains
2 Reflector Mage
3 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Supreme Phantom
Lands
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
3 Aether Vial
4 Collected Company
2 Path to Exile
2 Damping Sphere
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Knight of Autumn
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Unified Will
BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends."
BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved."
RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros."
BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?"
C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
2) 3x Thalia IS A MUST IN THE MAIN!
3) Cut 1x Phantasmal Image, 1 Reflector Mage or a Land and add FOURTH Drogskol Captain! How can you not play a full set of them in a spirit deck????
4) 3x Rest in Peace is too much. 2x is more than enough unless you expect to see many Dredge decks. Cut 1x RiP for an additional Eidolon of Rhetoric. You can also cut 1x Damping Sphere for 1x Grafdigger's Cage. Its very helpful against Phoenix decks and it synergises well with your Moorland Haunt allowing you to spam spirits exiling creatures from your graveyard
What does your list look like?
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Negate
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Damping Sphere
1 Grafdigger's Cage
BG Elves // "He's back. And he brought his friends. And their friends."
BG The Rock // "Dwayne Johnson approved."
RU Izzet Phoenix // "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
UGW Bant Spirits // "Super Ghost Bros."
BUG Sultai Wildnerness Teachings // "How many turns did I just take again?"
C Colorless Eldrazi // "Smash you."
Well first of all this metagame is being dominated by phoenix, dredge, tron, which are 3 mus we struggle to win in G1. This is worth noting. Other tier decks are burn and Shadow, I mean, this metagame is possibly one of the worse I have seen for Spirits since I ve jumped into modern.
Lingering Souls are still the cards that gives sense to the black splash, I do side them out a lot in a number of games because I need to play at flash speed only, or when I need not to draw clunky cards, but they still are the card you want against Midrange and Control and other GWx decks. There's been a time when I splashed black to see what that could give me and I remember a game where i came not to play souls against blue moon because all of the Spirits I was drawing were more effective. But then you get to play games over games and realize how important is a card that spreads your board and that you get to cast twice. Souls are putting a patch on two of the major issues of tribal decks: the weakness to spot removal density, the need of a critical mass on the board to have your race going.
The card advantage is real and in absence of other non-queller, non-rattlechains CA providers, Souls are the first card to look at when you want to increase that number.
As for PtE, I'm asking myself if one Blessed alliance is actually worse than Path; I'm considering a 1-1 split more precisely. I'll be testing this in the future.
Declaration is OKish, I ve been running this in the side, not a bad card, but then I considered the matchups where it had ad impact, and I ended up swapping it for Worship. I think I ve got enough removals and where my removals fail, I want some other type of effect to keep up with decks drawing 40 cards per game, or doing other degenerate stuff.
I would actually bring in Alliance and Kira, that's it. They are both very good and the matchup against Humans has always been good/reasonable, at least from my UW perspective.
Lets not forget his misplays and still going 4-1. He could have even beaten bogles, but forgot to flashback Lingering Souls. That was painful to watch!