wait, can you commandeer artifact creatures because of the artifact type? O: didn't know that!
argh no, we broke the rules and neither of us caught that interaction. FAIL. I guess it was a friendly at around midnight - we can be forgiven. no rules were broken in the actual tournament.
hopefully i'll get done with the card choices and interactions today.
i don't know maybe you can commandeer it? tried serching some rules about that but got no lock
wait, can you commandeer artifact creatures because of the artifact type? O: didn't know that!
argh no, we broke the rules and neither of us caught that interaction. FAIL. I guess it was a friendly at around midnight - we can be forgiven. no rules were broken in the actual tournament.
hopefully i'll get done with the card choices and interactions today.
i don't know maybe you can commandeer it? tried serching some rules about that but got no lock
nah if it's an artifact creature it's still a creature. same reason why abrupt decay can't kill inkmoth nexus. it's still a land. we totes fluffed the rules, boyo. but like I said, it was midnight, and a friendly, so it didn't matter (I had won anyway, we were just messing around at that point for the 'lolz'). in fact, because it didn't really matter i'll remove it from the comment I made, but include a note in the Primer about Commandeer in the sideboard section, so nobody else makes the same blunderous error while tired and hungry.
[edit] - about 50% of the way through Card Choices in the Primer. gonna go have some food & a house-tidy then do some more. hoping to finish it today.
Tomorrow there's a LARGE Modern event happening near where I live. decent prizes, good competition. I'm going to take Turns along and see how I do. Will be the first time i've taken the deck to a 100+ person event in a while (last time being August).
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
wait, can you commandeer artifact creatures because of the artifact type? O: didn't know that!
argh no, we broke the rules and neither of us caught that interaction. FAIL. I guess it was a friendly at around midnight - we can be forgiven. no rules were broken in the actual tournament.
hopefully i'll get done with the card choices and interactions today.
i don't know maybe you can commandeer it? tried serching some rules about that but got no lock
nah if it's an artifact creature it's still a creature. same reason why abrupt decay can't kill inkmoth nexus. it's still a land. we totes fluffed the rules, boyo. but like I said, it was midnight, and a friendly, so it didn't matter (I had won anyway, we were just messing around at that point for the 'lolz'). in fact, because it didn't really matter i'll remove it from the comment I made, but include a note in the Primer about Commandeer in the sideboard section, so nobody else makes the same blunderous error while tired and hungry.
[edit] - about 50% of the way through Card Choices in the Primer. gonna go have some food & a house-tidy then do some more. hoping to finish it today.
Tomorrow there's a LARGE Modern event happening near where I live. decent prizes, good competition. I'm going to take Turns along and see how I do. Will be the first time i've taken the deck to a 100+ person event in a while (last time being August).
when in the primer you will discuss about the extra turn spells, can you write about trespass' delve ability that cannot remove more than 8 cards from the graveyeard?
edit:
reading the primer! awesome work, good job! a couple of changes i'd made are these:
instead of
"Taking Turns, or just 'Turns' is a control/combo deck, "
i think it is more precise if you edit that in
"Taking Turns, or just 'Turns' is a particular deck with control, combo, tempo and prison strategies "
i think it is important to specify this minor thing because of how the deck works
and when you talk about the splashes maybe you can add a red (blood moon) and a green (rite of flourishes?) cards instead of only white cards
more edits:
maybe in the card choices you can divide the lands and keep them togheter for easier consultation like the old primer also some are missing so since you are working on it this is the lands we usually play:
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 geier reach sanitarium (missing) works as mikokoro 2.0 and also has a reshuffle enabler with emrakul
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 minamo, school at water's edge (missing): same as oboro, works as a non island island
1 gemstone caverns
1 inkmoth nexus
edit x3:
for the temporal mastery section, i think you should add the results i got from the goldfishing tool i scripted. basically playing 4x means in the long run we miracle it at least once per match, and it is important because if done the first turns it becomes a time walk (it doesn't give us a land drop only, but draws as well.) OR helps us cheating another warp effect or a dictate into play it is an important tech.
speaking of this do you like the idea of a "turns techs" section? with stuff like remanding a gigadrowse, miracle + dictate, sanitarium + emrakul for a reshuffle effect and such. would be cool to have and would help new players mastering the deck
Loving the primer so far. The only thing I would add would be under decklists to touch on the UR version which has had success on MTGO lately by Lejay, Truckis and Swansong95.
Also I fully agree with the categorization as a combo-control deck.
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If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
Hey. Long time Turns player here. Started off Mono U, with Ulamog and elixir. Then after a friend of mine moved away, I built this deck myself. I built Reid Duke's U/W version. I notice that you don't really mention crucial cards like ancestral visions, which is a house in our deck. Narset Transcendent, path to exile, as well as premier sideboard options, make unwinnable match ups, winnable.
The main issue I've been finding is trying to get Narset in the deck as more than just a 1 of. I like being able to draw her and player preferably turn 4/5.
You should include Reid's list that 5-0'd a comp online event
Sideboard cards include, Meddling mage as a 2 of. Because of this little guy I managed to beat Adnaus almost every time. 3 wrath effects; 2 verdict, 1 ***, 2 path, 2 celestial purge, 2 blessed alliance - this card wins us the game against burn, and creature decks
Hey guys thanks for the feedback. I'm part-way through so still adding stuff from my computer. Yesterday was a sort of mad dash to get something up between house stuff so there's more to follow.
Specifically:
UR version
UG version
Recent version that did well at a tournament
Cards; basically the ones you listed, plus a load more!
Also yeah, I started grouping it all into sections before I went to bed. It's a quick thing so I'll sort that out over breakfast.
Cheers guys :).
(also I have to add that I dont think we can claim to be a prison deck, insofar as we only temporarily deny resources, and don't run any specific lock-pieces. Exhaustion is the closest we've got - however, due to the unusual playstyle of the deck I might re-word a couple of sentences in order to make it clearer.
Any other suggestions, please PM me with them rather than clog up the thread (just want to make it easier for people to find discussion rather than read through amends and stuff, y'know?)
Later taters
[edit] - re-sleeving Turns for today's event. gotta get that slick fresh shuffle =). today's random tech - 1x howling mine in the main (hedge against Jund) and Meddling Mage in the SB (know a few players who run Ad Nauseam in the area)
When using gigadrowse,I think it's worth noting that with the mine you can tap it down as well as the opponents sources on their upkeep to prevent them from drawing off the howling mine. boseiju,who shelters all I feel is the best colorless mana source.It allows warping without holding up counterspells and makes it impossible for opponent to stop it.
as you may notice, i'm still running Thing in the Ice instead of howling mine in the maindeck. last night, thing won me about 50% of my games, and i've upped it to 3 copies because it's the strongest card (that isn't specific hate) against decks like affinity, who don't pack much removal and tend to try to swarm early. for this, I dropped a single remand, which while amazing against certain slower decks, was getting sided out a LOT. i'm still certain we need the card (it's insane) but i was happy enough to plug a bad-matchup gap by dropping one and putting a third Thing in there.
After jamming with Thing in the Ice for a while, I've moved it to sideboard, but definitely still think it deserves to be in the 75. It's really great mainboard against decks with little/no removal, but I've found when it eats a removal spell, it's really feel bad, especially when you proceed to not draw a Dictate or another Thing for the rest of the game. Think it's meta dependent on whether or not you run it mainboard.
Yeah of course, I'm still adding cards. There's lots of them!
Kinda scrubbed out today at the event. Went a highly disappointing 2-4, because of pilot error. Room was mainly burn and zoo. Very hostile metagame.
Record was:
Win 2-0 - zoo
Win 2-0 - Eldrazi & Taxes
Loss 0-2 - zoo (mana screw & mulligans, only cast a serum visions in the entire match. No hard feelings, nature of the game)
Loss 1-2 - Fairies (was a good match. No hard feelings)
Loss 1-2 - Burn (made a critical misplay game 3 that cost me the match)
Loss 1-2 - Burn (made the same damn misplay in game 3 and threw the match in exactly the same way)
I was OK with the mana-screw and losing to fairies, as this is just the way magic works. However, the misplay made the difference between 2-4 and 4-2. Moreover, if I'd played differently I would genuinely have won. And it was the same misplay both times! Punt-city.
Both times it went like this:
First few turns, decent early disruption, keep my opponent off big threats and preserve my life total. Eventually, get to the point where my opponent is tapped out and I have Exhaustion and Dictate in hand. Bot times I elect (wrongly) to play exhaustion first, and pass. Both times my opponent draws, does something small and passes back. Here's where it falls apart, because if I'd played dictate instead, I would have drawn an extra card on this next turn, putting me one card deeper over the course of the game. As it happens, (and I checked), both games were lost because I needed either a land or a time warp, and in both instances the top card of my deck was what I needed & I just couldn't get there.
Unfortunately for me, this deck lives or dies on how many cards it can rip off the top, & sequencing the way I did today meant the difference between a definite win and a knife-edge loss. Totally my bad!
Anyway I learnt a lot:
- Ghostly prison is kinda rubbish (too slow) without dredge. Moving it out of the sideboard.
- Chalice of the Void was missed greatly today & is a huge play against our trickiest matchups. Bringing it back.
- Commandeer is fun but doesn't actually help the terrible matchups. Taking it out.
- Meddling Mage is pretty sweet and as an experiment, bringing 2 in.
- Howling mine in the maindeck was genuinely a problem card today and I wished I had drawn Thing in the Ice every time I drew mine (which was nearly every game).
It gave me a lot to think on. Zoo and burn are trickier matchups as it is, but until today I hadn't lost a match to burn in a competitive tournament. If the format is full of these decks as a majority, i'd probably have to temporarily put the deck down or consider some spicy changes to combat the trend. I'm hoping the GP environment is less aggro-oriented and more varied.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
didn't do to well either, i went 2-3. i got my two wins against burn. game 2 with leyline was a stroll in the park, but in both rounds I actually manage to win game 1 too. in game 2 of the first round i kept an opening hand with no lands, just because it had leyline. got a land in my first draw, rigged for the second with serum visions and went off from there. hilarious.
lost 2-1 to Tron. in game 3 I didn't draw any of my spreading seas. I have a feeling if I had at least one I would have had a chance.
lost 2-0 to retreat to coralem-reliquary combo.
lost 2-1 against elves. i won game 2 easily, in game 3 i didn't draw any of my 9 counters :/
so yeah i think that mostly I have to learn to draw better
unimpressed with baral, really happy with TiTi
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
In one sense I was lucky in my matches against burn, as I had turn 1 leyline every game, but my opponent also had turn 2 destructive revelry every game, so it sort of didn't matter. Lol. Chalice would have been good for sure. Engineered explosives was decent but not good enough.
It was just one of those days!
Now comes the consideration, how do I run the deck for the next big modern event in April (SCG event)?
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
In one sense I was lucky in my matches against burn, as I had turn 1 leyline every game, but my opponent also had turn 2 destructive revelry every game, so it sort of didn't matter. Lol. Chalice would have been good for sure. Engineered explosives was decent but not good enough.
It was just one of those days!
Now comes the consideration, how do I run the deck for the next big modern event in April (SCG event)?
edit: would you add a "last set worth of consideration cards" kind of category to the primer? with just what cards from the most recent set one should try and such? i think i would like it to have so more players would test that cards and report results here for deck brewing
Hey can I ask a heretical question? I appreciate that Cryptic Command is one of the best blue cards ever printed, but every time I try it out, I usually lose fabulously. In so many matches I end up effectively losing the game at Turn 3 with CC in hand or, with an opponent prepared for my Cryptic when I have 4 lands available.
I get running 1-3, but I'm seeing lists with 4-of and cannot figure out why!...Maybe my meta (friends, the odd Modern FNM, and cockatrice)is particularly unforgiving?
Hey can I ask a heretical question? I appreciate that Cryptic Command is one of the best blue cards ever printed, but every time I try it out, I usually lose fabulously. In so many matches I end up effectively losing the game at Turn 3 with CC in hand or, with an opponent prepared for my Cryptic when I have 4 lands available.
I get running 1-3, but I'm seeing lists with 4-of and cannot figure out why!...Maybe my meta (friends, the odd Modern FNM, and cockatrice)is particularly unforgiving?
4 is definitely wrong. 2-3 is probably the correct amount of Cryptics.
Hey can I ask a heretical question? I appreciate that Cryptic Command is one of the best blue cards ever printed, but every time I try it out, I usually lose fabulously. In so many matches I end up effectively losing the game at Turn 3 with CC in hand or, with an opponent prepared for my Cryptic when I have 4 lands available.
I get running 1-3, but I'm seeing lists with 4-of and cannot figure out why!...Maybe my meta (friends, the odd Modern FNM, and cockatrice)is particularly unforgiving?
3x in some 8-10 extra turn effect lists and 2x in the others usually
Oh and another thought: I've been running Mirrorpool as one of my colorless sources to great effect! I really cannot recommend this card highly enough. As long as it is your only or one of 2 CIPT lands in your maindeck, you wont regret it.
Can be used:
1. To win counter wars
2. As a mana sink
3. Double an extra turn
4. Reactivate Snapcaster in response
Oh and another thought: I've been running Mirrorpool as one of my colorless sources to great effect! I really cannot recommend this card highly enough. As long as it is your only or one of 2 CIPT lands in your maindeck, you wont regret it.
Can be used:
1. To win counter wars
2. As a mana sink
3. Double an extra turn
4. Reactivate Snapcaster in response
we should avoid etbt lands. mirrorpool is very nice if you have another colorless mana producing land and the etbt doesn't cost you the game.
Oh and another thought: I've been running Mirrorpool as one of my colorless sources to great effect! I really cannot recommend this card highly enough. As long as it is your only or one of 2 CIPT lands in your maindeck, you wont regret it.
Can be used:
1. To win counter wars
2. As a mana sink
3. Double an extra turn
4. Reactivate Snapcaster in response
we should avoid etbt lands. mirrorpool is very nice if you have another colorless mana producing land and the etbt doesn't cost you the game.
I originally was trying it out when the card was first released and was afraid of missing a land drop, but since Oath I've been using lots and lots of different lands to help me when I'm topdecking and looking at an empty field full of lands. It's these situations that make Collective Brutality so attractive to splash. Things like Mouth of Ronom and Geier Reach Sanitarium, and occasionally some life-gain as well as Bojuka Bog for Dredge when that was more popular.
I still don't know whichs cards I like the most but I do know which I don't like at all. I've read numerous posts where people suggests some of those cards. I think we should try to focus the testing/development of the deck rather than try "cool" things. The archetype is already established so now let's focus on solving it's weakness! I have now completed almost 1000 sanctioned matches between magic online and irl tournaments both winning and (mostly) losing, sometimes even versus the same decks. It's hard to extract actual data from these matches but they gave me a lot of information about what not to do. For this I don't want to claim a matchup 70/30 just because I have 7 wins and 3 losses. I think the deck is weird, people are unprepared and modern as a whole has been full of very inconsistent but powerful decks. With the introduction of fatal push and the gitaxian probe ban the metagame is hopefully slowing down, and with that our worst matchups are beeing reduced in numbers. I think Turns is one of the most consistent decks and if modern is slowing down then having a consistent deck becomes more important, especially if you are a strong player. Proper sideboarding becomes more relevant in games where you see 30 rather than 7 cards, for example.
Here's my current list which won a side-event at GP Prague a week ago aswell as posting a 5-0 finish in a competetive league online (it also managed to 2-3 once)
CREATURES (6)
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Thing in the Ice
ENCHANTMENTS (4)
4 Dictate of Kruphix
SORCERIES (20)
4 Serum Visions
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
4 Exhaustion
INSTANTS (8)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
LANDS (22)
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
10 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Disrupting Shoal
1 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
2 Pyroclasm
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Spell Pierce
2 Gigadrowse
2 Spellskite
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Day’s Undoing
I will post a deck analysis with focus on which cards are questionable and which cards are not. I will also try to summarize the problems with the deck in it's current form. The constant battle is about balancing my sideboard, reduce the overall cmc of the deck and reduce the number of situational cards (I'm looking at you Exhaustion!).
Exhaustion becomes situational because you dont have gigadrowse
Other than that list seems fine, maybe you can include a oboro and what about cryptic command?
Also What are the cards you call cool that aren't really playable?
I'm off cryptic for that very reason,thats how I squeezed in spreading seas in my MB which I think has been better because the early game is what matters and I always want to draw.I chose seas instead of one drop counters because of chalice and removed serum so I only have two spells affected by chalice on one.(spell pierce) howling mine I also feel is better than dictate because I can tap it down with giga while I tap down their lands and keep them from drawing off of it, which against counter and burn is a big deal.
Boseiju keeps the warps and counterspells from being stopped,added minamo(thanks Blair Phoenix) since it untaps boseiju.
Titi I like(more explosive) but I've pulled it completely,this meta has serious hate and Titi just dies. If it doesn't I was already winning and waterveil would have done it anyways.
Temporal mastery is also gone,the miracle happens to frequently when I don't want it to,usually too early and gets countered and I'm out a warp that would have been relevant when I was ready to go off.Instead I run 4 warps,3 waterveil and two aeons with a single time stretch and I won't be going back.
I tried to go with zero snappy and it wasn't working,I put a single back in and it's perfect with one.
I have been testing numerous ideas and splashes and am currently staying mono blue with the lens and snow lands.
GP in Vancouver is in two weeks,Grixis Delver, Dredge, Living End were all choices but I opted for turns because of no other reason than I love it!Its my favorite deck.I hadn't found anything since twin was banned until this.
So here's what I'm taking if I can make it(8-9hrs away).
Sideboard is getting better, still torn about adding chalice or explosives to SB.
Anyways,if you read through it all I thank you and I'd love to hear any suggestions while I still have time to test them.Ill add in some strategies I have for certain matches later and what I side in,maybe some of you will have some better choices I've overlooked or don't know about.
i don't know maybe you can commandeer it? tried serching some rules about that but got no lock
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
nah if it's an artifact creature it's still a creature. same reason why abrupt decay can't kill inkmoth nexus. it's still a land. we totes fluffed the rules, boyo. but like I said, it was midnight, and a friendly, so it didn't matter (I had won anyway, we were just messing around at that point for the 'lolz'). in fact, because it didn't really matter i'll remove it from the comment I made, but include a note in the Primer about Commandeer in the sideboard section, so nobody else makes the same blunderous error while tired and hungry.
[edit] - about 50% of the way through Card Choices in the Primer. gonna go have some food & a house-tidy then do some more. hoping to finish it today.
Tomorrow there's a LARGE Modern event happening near where I live. decent prizes, good competition. I'm going to take Turns along and see how I do. Will be the first time i've taken the deck to a 100+ person event in a while (last time being August).
when in the primer you will discuss about the extra turn spells, can you write about trespass' delve ability that cannot remove more than 8 cards from the graveyeard?
edit:
reading the primer! awesome work, good job! a couple of changes i'd made are these:
instead of
"Taking Turns, or just 'Turns' is a control/combo deck, "
i think it is more precise if you edit that in
"Taking Turns, or just 'Turns' is a particular deck with control, combo, tempo and prison strategies "
i think it is important to specify this minor thing because of how the deck works
and when you talk about the splashes maybe you can add a red (blood moon) and a green (rite of flourishes?) cards instead of only white cards
more edits:
maybe in the card choices you can divide the lands and keep them togheter for easier consultation like the old primer also some are missing so since you are working on it this is the lands we usually play:
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 geier reach sanitarium (missing) works as mikokoro 2.0 and also has a reshuffle enabler with emrakul
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 minamo, school at water's edge (missing): same as oboro, works as a non island island
1 gemstone caverns
1 inkmoth nexus
edit x3:
for the temporal mastery section, i think you should add the results i got from the goldfishing tool i scripted. basically playing 4x means in the long run we miracle it at least once per match, and it is important because if done the first turns it becomes a time walk (it doesn't give us a land drop only, but draws as well.) OR helps us cheating another warp effect or a dictate into play it is an important tech.
speaking of this do you like the idea of a "turns techs" section? with stuff like remanding a gigadrowse, miracle + dictate, sanitarium + emrakul for a reshuffle effect and such. would be cool to have and would help new players mastering the deck
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Also I fully agree with the categorization as a combo-control deck.
The main issue I've been finding is trying to get Narset in the deck as more than just a 1 of. I like being able to draw her and player preferably turn 4/5.
You should include Reid's list that 5-0'd a comp online event
Sideboard cards include, Meddling mage as a 2 of. Because of this little guy I managed to beat Adnaus almost every time. 3 wrath effects; 2 verdict, 1 ***, 2 path, 2 celestial purge, 2 blessed alliance - this card wins us the game against burn, and creature decks
Specifically:
UR version
UG version
Recent version that did well at a tournament
Cards; basically the ones you listed, plus a load more!
Also yeah, I started grouping it all into sections before I went to bed. It's a quick thing so I'll sort that out over breakfast.
Cheers guys :).
(also I have to add that I dont think we can claim to be a prison deck, insofar as we only temporarily deny resources, and don't run any specific lock-pieces. Exhaustion is the closest we've got - however, due to the unusual playstyle of the deck I might re-word a couple of sentences in order to make it clearer.
Any other suggestions, please PM me with them rather than clog up the thread (just want to make it easier for people to find discussion rather than read through amends and stuff, y'know?)
Later taters
[edit] - re-sleeving Turns for today's event. gotta get that slick fresh shuffle =). today's random tech - 1x howling mine in the main (hedge against Jund) and Meddling Mage in the SB (know a few players who run Ad Nauseam in the area)
boseiju,who shelters all I feel is the best colorless mana source.It allows warping without holding up counterspells and makes it impossible for opponent to stop it.
It's small, but no shout out for Minamo, School at Water's Edge in the primer? Serves the same function as Oboro.
After jamming with Thing in the Ice for a while, I've moved it to sideboard, but definitely still think it deserves to be in the 75. It's really great mainboard against decks with little/no removal, but I've found when it eats a removal spell, it's really feel bad, especially when you proceed to not draw a Dictate or another Thing for the rest of the game. Think it's meta dependent on whether or not you run it mainboard.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Kinda scrubbed out today at the event. Went a highly disappointing 2-4, because of pilot error. Room was mainly burn and zoo. Very hostile metagame.
Record was:
Win 2-0 - zoo
Win 2-0 - Eldrazi & Taxes
Loss 0-2 - zoo (mana screw & mulligans, only cast a serum visions in the entire match. No hard feelings, nature of the game)
Loss 1-2 - Fairies (was a good match. No hard feelings)
Loss 1-2 - Burn (made a critical misplay game 3 that cost me the match)
Loss 1-2 - Burn (made the same damn misplay in game 3 and threw the match in exactly the same way)
I was OK with the mana-screw and losing to fairies, as this is just the way magic works. However, the misplay made the difference between 2-4 and 4-2. Moreover, if I'd played differently I would genuinely have won. And it was the same misplay both times! Punt-city.
Both times it went like this:
First few turns, decent early disruption, keep my opponent off big threats and preserve my life total. Eventually, get to the point where my opponent is tapped out and I have Exhaustion and Dictate in hand. Bot times I elect (wrongly) to play exhaustion first, and pass. Both times my opponent draws, does something small and passes back. Here's where it falls apart, because if I'd played dictate instead, I would have drawn an extra card on this next turn, putting me one card deeper over the course of the game. As it happens, (and I checked), both games were lost because I needed either a land or a time warp, and in both instances the top card of my deck was what I needed & I just couldn't get there.
Unfortunately for me, this deck lives or dies on how many cards it can rip off the top, & sequencing the way I did today meant the difference between a definite win and a knife-edge loss. Totally my bad!
Anyway I learnt a lot:
- Ghostly prison is kinda rubbish (too slow) without dredge. Moving it out of the sideboard.
- Chalice of the Void was missed greatly today & is a huge play against our trickiest matchups. Bringing it back.
- Commandeer is fun but doesn't actually help the terrible matchups. Taking it out.
- Meddling Mage is pretty sweet and as an experiment, bringing 2 in.
- Howling mine in the maindeck was genuinely a problem card today and I wished I had drawn Thing in the Ice every time I drew mine (which was nearly every game).
It gave me a lot to think on. Zoo and burn are trickier matchups as it is, but until today I hadn't lost a match to burn in a competitive tournament. If the format is full of these decks as a majority, i'd probably have to temporarily put the deck down or consider some spicy changes to combat the trend. I'm hoping the GP environment is less aggro-oriented and more varied.
lost 2-1 to Tron. in game 3 I didn't draw any of my spreading seas. I have a feeling if I had at least one I would have had a chance.
lost 2-0 to retreat to coralem-reliquary combo.
lost 2-1 against elves. i won game 2 easily, in game 3 i didn't draw any of my 9 counters :/
so yeah i think that mostly I have to learn to draw better
unimpressed with baral, really happy with TiTi
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
It was just one of those days!
Now comes the consideration, how do I run the deck for the next big modern event in April (SCG event)?
you should try out Authority of the Consuls since you go uw!
edit: would you add a "last set worth of consideration cards" kind of category to the primer? with just what cards from the most recent set one should try and such? i think i would like it to have so more players would test that cards and report results here for deck brewing
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
I get running 1-3, but I'm seeing lists with 4-of and cannot figure out why!...Maybe my meta (friends, the odd Modern FNM, and cockatrice)is particularly unforgiving?
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
3x in some 8-10 extra turn effect lists and 2x in the others usually
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Can be used:
1. To win counter wars
2. As a mana sink
3. Double an extra turn
4. Reactivate Snapcaster in response
we should avoid etbt lands. mirrorpool is very nice if you have another colorless mana producing land and the etbt doesn't cost you the game.
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
I originally was trying it out when the card was first released and was afraid of missing a land drop, but since Oath I've been using lots and lots of different lands to help me when I'm topdecking and looking at an empty field full of lands. It's these situations that make Collective Brutality so attractive to splash. Things like Mouth of Ronom and Geier Reach Sanitarium, and occasionally some life-gain as well as Bojuka Bog for Dredge when that was more popular.
Exhaustion becomes situational because you dont have gigadrowse
Other than that list seems fine, maybe you can include a oboro and what about cryptic command?
Also What are the cards you call cool that aren't really playable?
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
howling mine I also feel is better than dictate because I can tap it down with giga while I tap down their lands and keep them from drawing off of it, which against counter and burn is a big deal.
Boseiju keeps the warps and counterspells from being stopped,added minamo(thanks Blair Phoenix) since it untaps boseiju.
Titi I like(more explosive) but I've pulled it completely,this meta has serious hate and Titi just dies. If it doesn't I was already winning and waterveil would have done it anyways.
Temporal mastery is also gone,the miracle happens to frequently when I don't want it to,usually too early and gets countered and I'm out a warp that would have been relevant when I was ready to go off.Instead I run 4 warps,3 waterveil and two aeons with a single time stretch and I won't be going back.
I tried to go with zero snappy and it wasn't working,I put a single back in and it's perfect with one.
I have been testing numerous ideas and splashes and am currently staying mono blue with the lens and snow lands.
GP in Vancouver is in two weeks,Grixis Delver, Dredge, Living End were all choices but I opted for turns because of no other reason than I love it!Its my favorite deck.I hadn't found anything since twin was banned until this.
So here's what I'm taking if I can make it(8-9hrs away).
Sideboard is getting better, still torn about adding chalice or explosives to SB.
Anyways,if you read through it all I thank you and I'd love to hear any suggestions while I still have time to test them.Ill add in some strategies I have for certain matches later and what I side in,maybe some of you will have some better choices I've overlooked or don't know about.
3 part the waterveil
2 walk the aeons
1 time stretch
4 ancestral vision
4 remand
4 gigadrowse
2 spell pierce
2 exhaustion
4 howling mine
2 extraplanar lens
1 snapcaster mage
1 boseiju, who shelters all
1 minamo, school at water's edge
21 snow-covered islands
1 elixir of immortality
1 dragon's claw
1 ratchet bomb
1 grafdigger's cage
1 spellskite
2 spell snare
1 dispel
2 hurkyl's recall
1 laboratory maniac
4 boomerang