Saw this on the discord! Congrats again!
How did you feel about Dragonmaster? And what matchups did you bring him in against? I imagine it presents a very fast clock since we always have all of our lands and have a lot of upkeeps lol
I've been experimenting with Geist of St Traft and love it so far... I have sort of developed a similar strategy to Daniel in that after side boarding the deck becomes less of a combo and more of an aggressive beat down.. Turn 3 geist into turn 4 anything usually is hard to beat for a lot of the decks that bringing in creatures is good against.
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I only got to SB the outcast in vs Grixis control. The intention is that I can play him and timewarp in a single turn which lets me generate a super fast clock postboard rather then tapping out for a drake and hoping to untap with him. Thing is we are pretty favored against control and midrange decks so he may be unneeded. I wanted chalice in a lot of matchups but theres more tension now with 4 lightning bolt than mono blue/uw lists.
Blood moon was great every time. It can be awkward with your gigadrowse and mikikoro but it puts the opp way behind.
Definitely agreed with the blood moon. I only tested it a few weeks at FNMs but it seemed to shut people out quite often..
I have a big store tournament coming up this weekend that I'm hoping to try Jeskai out. It's fun to play against friends but I haven't really gotten in any actual testing yet.
And I totally agree with Chalice.. it stinks because it did a really nice job in UW at tilting the scales in our bad matchups.
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I saw that! Not sure how to build simic turns.. green was never a color I splashed
I imagine if you lowered the curve you could run an interesting Thing in the Ice style taking turns combo deck
Like: Remand, Gigadrowse, Serum Visions/Opt, Mission Briefing, etc..
The only problem with the card is that turn two you cast it on their end step or something so you go from 2 to 3 mana but 2 of which are tapped
That being said I could see that playing in a few nice ways:
A) You could run like mainboard spell pierce or something so that you could in response cast growth spiral put a land in play and then counter their spell
or; B) Turn 3 Jace seems kind of nice or Howling mine & leave up remand on turn 3
Idk if i'm convinced on the idea yet...
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I cried and cried to wizards for an instant speed rampant growth. Merry Xmas! Draw is better than search anyway.
Why even run dictate when there's stuff like opt, remand, cryptic, and this. Those are all nice instant speed cantrips for temporal mastery. Which Jace can enable very quickly if you get unlucky.
Just a stupid amount of draw. It's only a rough draft but it's been decent. Leaving up fog Mana for Jace on turn 4 while leaving up counter Mana leading up to it is a strong effect to go off on turn 5 while having disruption. And when I say go off I mean take 3 turns in a row with a bunch of scry and draw
Congrats on the finish, and thanks for posting! Dragonmaster Outcast is quite the spicy inclusion. I'd like to offer a dissenting opinion about this though:
Blood moon was great every time. It can be awkward with your gigadrowse and mikikoro but it puts the opp way behind.
I admit that I only tested Blood Moon out briefly, but for me it was extremely terrible. My opponents often had enough basics to operate on (just 1 or 2 was fine for them), so I couldn't actually color screw them, and the negative interaction with Gigadrowse, Cryptic Command, and Snapcaster (its not easy to get 2UUUU for Snap-Cryptic) was worse than the impact it had on my opponents, in my opinion. One example is this match against Grishoalbrand. While not the best example, here is Blood Moon immediately eating a Nature's Claim against Scapeshift in a sideboard game because that's a card they're bringing in against us anyway. Last example is getting killed through a Blood Moon by Pyromancer Ascension storm while we were shields down because we only had two Islands and a Cryptic in hand. I fully admit that I haven't played it much other than this, but this experience is still enough that I have huge doubts about how effective Blood Moon really is.
I cried and cried to wizards for an instant speed rampant growth. Merry Xmas! Draw is better than search anyway.
Why even run dictate when there's stuff like opt, remand, cryptic, and this. Those are all nice instant speed cantrips for temporal mastery. Which Jace can enable very quickly if you get unlucky.
Just a stupid amount of draw. It's only a rough draft but it's been decent. Leaving up fog Mana for Jace on turn 4 while leaving up counter Mana leading up to it is a strong effect to go off on turn 5 while having disruption. And when I say go off I mean take 3 turns in a row with a bunch of scry and draw
I can't tell if the "Why even run dictate" was rhetorical or not, but I'll assume it wasn't. The reason for Dictate is to draw a card not once, but every time you take an extra turn. In a deck with this many Time Walks, you need to be doing something productive on those extra turns, otherwise you're just casting expensive Explores. I suppose that having a Planeswalker like Nissa or Jace fills that role, but Planeswalkers tend to die a lot more easily than Enchantments. In this particular build, you'd probably rather spend turn 3 holding up either Remand or Dictate, rather than on your turn choosing between Nissa and Remand.
As for a green splash in general, it looks reasonably powerful, but with the same weakness as mono-blue: you just don't have good interaction for things on board. If the opponent resolves something like Thalia, or Mausoleum Wanderer, or Meddling Mage, there's just not a lot you can do about it. In particular, the counterspells in Remand and Cryptic Command line up particularly poorly against decks running both Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial. Splashing red or black or white lets you solve that issue with Bolt or Push or Path, but green gives you no such interaction. I definitely think it's worth testing out, and it's really cool that Growth Spiral lets you go off a turn earlier, but overall I think it's unlikely that a green splash will prove to be more powerful than any other splash.
I use command as a tap effect often enough. Generally not concerned with the size of their board. The point isn't to get a Jace out on turn 3. The point is to get him out on turn 4, with green open, and ride fog/gigadrowse and command to victory. I've been playing 4 dictates lately in place of a fog, Nissa, and whatever else I cut, and I don't use a sideboard. I'm not worrying about that until I have maindeck right. It has a lot of potential, but I'm just an average deck builder. I've had a few compliments from opponents on both wins and losses.
I haven't experimented with courser of kruphix. The reveal is troublesome, but the library manipulation is beyond absurd with him if he sticks. Moreover, growth Spiral and courser is never draw a land. Though that reveal could present positive and negative opportunities with mastery.
Green offers spiral and fog. Fog can be the cheapest form of take an extra turn depending on opponent. It can also get scryed away if you don't need it. Gigadrowse is a distinctly different use but offers some consistency for it and flat out beats control/Tron builds along with a few others. Fog don't care about bogles. White has fog too, so does black, so there's plenty of colors you can splash. Spiral is really good though. Worst case scenario it's simply a cycler. But you can make some bomb plays and even opens up holding lands as bluffs, or sneaking in a man land or whatever. Simic wants to ramp, and it wants to draw. This does both, while you can leave counters up.
The whole premise is to combine taking turns with turbofog. Both of which like howling effects.
I have to do more research before I can tweak it more.
I like the spicy effect of a simic turns deck... I could see it just being big mana
Like the hidden gem: Plasm Capture
In essence you could turn 3 dictate, turn 4 leave up plasm capture and then counter a big play and use that mana on your precombat main phase to go nuts lol
I think Daniel was absolutely on point though with green lacking strong answers in the sideboard... but if you are working on ironing the mainboard first, you can worry about that later on. I imagine it would look identical to a mono blue list but would have access to Nature's Claim and Thrun for control matchups I guess?
Definitely keep us updated though! Obviously anything has potential in modern! lol
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Just played a super FNM tonight with Jeskai turns for the first time
Went really well!
I lost to spirits but only because the guy cheated in the first round and I didn't catch it... he spell queller'd my time warp and I didn't catch it -_-
But I won the other match extremely well... Having access to bolt and terminus makes it a lot easier
The land base also felt perfect! I found myself taking very limited damage from shocking but always had access to the needed colors!
Can't wait to continue experimenting with it
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Definitely true! it's like a swan song for permanents lol
Btw does anyone have any advice for the KCI matchup other than hope your opponent loses their deck before the round starts?
I feel like with the diversity of the format you don't really want to be running stony silence since it really only affects that matchup.. but at the same time.. I have found that surgical extraction and other cards that target are easily maneuvered around..
I was contemplating running like 1-2 ceremonious rejection in the sideboard now; just because going up against the deck was awful the other night.. I literally just sat there for like twenty five minutes as he monotonously said "sac an engineered explosives - produce two mana" blah blah blah lol
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For the UR turns, will Magmatic Insight be good as serum #5~8 or even as a mine replacement? UR turns seems to be more tempo than combo and having more cards earlier seems to be better. Or is it on par with AV and thus not needed for the deck?
Btw does anyone have any advice for the KCI matchup other than hope your opponent loses their deck before the round starts?
I feel like with the diversity of the format you don't really want to be running stony silence since it really only affects that matchup.. but at the same time.. I have found that surgical extraction and other cards that target are easily maneuvered around..
I was contemplating running like 1-2 ceremonious rejection in the sideboard now; just because going up against the deck was awful the other night.. I literally just sat there for like twenty five minutes as he monotonously said "sac an engineered explosives - produce two mana" blah blah blah lol
Remove all but 2 dictates. Mull for SB hate cards (hurkyls, discard, stony, artifact destruction) depend on what splash you play or counters (aim for stirrings or KCI only). Out grind them while hoping you draw better. Know when to concede due to time pressure.
So I adjusted my sideboard a little bit
Added +1 ceremonious rejection, +2 negate
Also I'm trying out 2 sideboard Spell Queller - it doesn't have the raw power of Geist or Thing in the Ice; however, it allows for turn 3 leaving it up to counter on their turn if needed and then dictate if not
I forgot the wording on ceremonious rejection and thought it only countered artifacts but it hits all colorless permanents which is good against Tron with their planeswalkers and whatnot
I expect to see a lot of Tron and KCI most likely at Starcity Worcester in January so I may move it up to 2 ceremonious
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Hey Zach, since you have access to white mana cards like RIP and Stony will do a lot of work against KCI (and a ton of meta). Keep in mind that they can get through it with their explosives but this slows them down a ton which gives you the time needed to go off.
Yeah! I've went to 2 stony silence and like it... despite having the ability to cast rest in peace; I actually decided I don't like it that much
I prefer Surgical Extraction as targeted graveyard removal..
For those graveyard creature strategies like phoenix and dredge I have found that Terminus is a lot better
I'm not too much of a fan of Thing since im running terminus and it seems counterintuitive. I actually am leaning towards Geist but would like some feedback from everyone!
Hi zcowan! I have trying to figure out which versions of turns I want to play for scg worcester. If I was doing UW turns, I'd lean more on Geist or Thing in the Ice. Game two the other player might take out their removal (keep bolts though?)and Thing in the Ice and Geist require sweepers to remove them. Im currently leaning towards UB turns with Thing in the Ice and a Vendilion Clique.
Nice! I'll be at Worcester also! Would be cool to have a taking turns mirror lol
UB is really good! Fatal push is really strong as well as thoughtseize/inquisition
I think I may go with geist!
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How did you feel about Dragonmaster? And what matchups did you bring him in against? I imagine it presents a very fast clock since we always have all of our lands and have a lot of upkeeps lol
I've been experimenting with Geist of St Traft and love it so far... I have sort of developed a similar strategy to Daniel in that after side boarding the deck becomes less of a combo and more of an aggressive beat down.. Turn 3 geist into turn 4 anything usually is hard to beat for a lot of the decks that bringing in creatures is good against.
Blood moon was great every time. It can be awkward with your gigadrowse and mikikoro but it puts the opp way behind.
I have a big store tournament coming up this weekend that I'm hoping to try Jeskai out. It's fun to play against friends but I haven't really gotten in any actual testing yet.
And I totally agree with Chalice.. it stinks because it did a really nice job in UW at tilting the scales in our bad matchups.
Growth Spiral
Instant
UG
Draw a card. You may put a land from hand on to battlefield. Literally the perfect compliment to remand.
I imagine if you lowered the curve you could run an interesting Thing in the Ice style taking turns combo deck
Like: Remand, Gigadrowse, Serum Visions/Opt, Mission Briefing, etc..
The only problem with the card is that turn two you cast it on their end step or something so you go from 2 to 3 mana but 2 of which are tapped
That being said I could see that playing in a few nice ways:
A) You could run like mainboard spell pierce or something so that you could in response cast growth spiral put a land in play and then counter their spell
or; B) Turn 3 Jace seems kind of nice or Howling mine & leave up remand on turn 3
Idk if i'm convinced on the idea yet...
Why even run dictate when there's stuff like opt, remand, cryptic, and this. Those are all nice instant speed cantrips for temporal mastery. Which Jace can enable very quickly if you get unlucky.
It's not very tuned at all, but here's a list.
4 fog
3 gigadrowse
4 remand
4 growth Spiral
3 cryptic command
3 Nissa, Steward of Elements
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
Just a stupid amount of draw. It's only a rough draft but it's been decent. Leaving up fog Mana for Jace on turn 4 while leaving up counter Mana leading up to it is a strong effect to go off on turn 5 while having disruption. And when I say go off I mean take 3 turns in a row with a bunch of scry and draw
I can't tell if the "Why even run dictate" was rhetorical or not, but I'll assume it wasn't. The reason for Dictate is to draw a card not once, but every time you take an extra turn. In a deck with this many Time Walks, you need to be doing something productive on those extra turns, otherwise you're just casting expensive Explores. I suppose that having a Planeswalker like Nissa or Jace fills that role, but Planeswalkers tend to die a lot more easily than Enchantments. In this particular build, you'd probably rather spend turn 3 holding up either Remand or Dictate, rather than on your turn choosing between Nissa and Remand.
As for a green splash in general, it looks reasonably powerful, but with the same weakness as mono-blue: you just don't have good interaction for things on board. If the opponent resolves something like Thalia, or Mausoleum Wanderer, or Meddling Mage, there's just not a lot you can do about it. In particular, the counterspells in Remand and Cryptic Command line up particularly poorly against decks running both Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial. Splashing red or black or white lets you solve that issue with Bolt or Push or Path, but green gives you no such interaction. I definitely think it's worth testing out, and it's really cool that Growth Spiral lets you go off a turn earlier, but overall I think it's unlikely that a green splash will prove to be more powerful than any other splash.
I haven't experimented with courser of kruphix. The reveal is troublesome, but the library manipulation is beyond absurd with him if he sticks. Moreover, growth Spiral and courser is never draw a land. Though that reveal could present positive and negative opportunities with mastery.
Green offers spiral and fog. Fog can be the cheapest form of take an extra turn depending on opponent. It can also get scryed away if you don't need it. Gigadrowse is a distinctly different use but offers some consistency for it and flat out beats control/Tron builds along with a few others. Fog don't care about bogles. White has fog too, so does black, so there's plenty of colors you can splash. Spiral is really good though. Worst case scenario it's simply a cycler. But you can make some bomb plays and even opens up holding lands as bluffs, or sneaking in a man land or whatever. Simic wants to ramp, and it wants to draw. This does both, while you can leave counters up.
The whole premise is to combine taking turns with turbofog. Both of which like howling effects.
I have to do more research before I can tweak it more.
Like the hidden gem: Plasm Capture
In essence you could turn 3 dictate, turn 4 leave up plasm capture and then counter a big play and use that mana on your precombat main phase to go nuts lol
I think Daniel was absolutely on point though with green lacking strong answers in the sideboard... but if you are working on ironing the mainboard first, you can worry about that later on. I imagine it would look identical to a mono blue list but would have access to Nature's Claim and Thrun for control matchups I guess?
Definitely keep us updated though! Obviously anything has potential in modern! lol
Went really well!
I lost to spirits but only because the guy cheated in the first round and I didn't catch it... he spell queller'd my time warp and I didn't catch it -_-
But I won the other match extremely well... Having access to bolt and terminus makes it a lot easier
The land base also felt perfect! I found myself taking very limited damage from shocking but always had access to the needed colors!
Can't wait to continue experimenting with it
Btw does anyone have any advice for the KCI matchup other than hope your opponent loses their deck before the round starts?
I feel like with the diversity of the format you don't really want to be running stony silence since it really only affects that matchup.. but at the same time.. I have found that surgical extraction and other cards that target are easily maneuvered around..
I was contemplating running like 1-2 ceremonious rejection in the sideboard now; just because going up against the deck was awful the other night.. I literally just sat there for like twenty five minutes as he monotonously said "sac an engineered explosives - produce two mana" blah blah blah lol
Remove all but 2 dictates. Mull for SB hate cards (hurkyls, discard, stony, artifact destruction) depend on what splash you play or counters (aim for stirrings or KCI only). Out grind them while hoping you draw better. Know when to concede due to time pressure.
Added +1 ceremonious rejection, +2 negate
Also I'm trying out 2 sideboard Spell Queller - it doesn't have the raw power of Geist or Thing in the Ice; however, it allows for turn 3 leaving it up to counter on their turn if needed and then dictate if not
I forgot the wording on ceremonious rejection and thought it only countered artifacts but it hits all colorless permanents which is good against Tron with their planeswalkers and whatnot
I expect to see a lot of Tron and KCI most likely at Starcity Worcester in January so I may move it up to 2 ceremonious
I prefer Surgical Extraction as targeted graveyard removal..
For those graveyard creature strategies like phoenix and dredge I have found that Terminus is a lot better
So one last question for the group! I wish I could make it a poll - which of the following seems like the best sideboard creature?
Geist of Saint Traft
Thing in the Ice
Crackling Drake
Spell Queller
Young Pyromancer
Monastery Mentor
I'm not too much of a fan of Thing since im running terminus and it seems counterintuitive. I actually am leaning towards Geist but would like some feedback from everyone!
UB is really good! Fatal push is really strong as well as thoughtseize/inquisition
I think I may go with geist!
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U