Hmm, also removed the guide for Mardu Pyro, as that deck is not really around anymore.
Oh, have you played against Urza? We still don't have a guide for playing vs. Urza decks in the primer.
If you've played against them. Maybe you could write a short guide for playing against that deck too?
I have not considered Mardu Pyromancer a relevant deck since the banning of Faithless Looting, and although it is still possible to play all the cards in some shells, the inconsistency inherent in losing their card selection and one of their best attrition plays is a telling blow to the archetype. I found it to be a strongly favourable matchup for Emeria, so I am sad to see it go, but such are the vagaries of the metagame.
I have only played a few playtest games against Urza, and none in sanctioned match play, so I would not feel comfortable with giving my opinion on the matchup just yet. On the other hand, I notice that the guide for Burn is a very short sentence. If you are interested in an in-depth analysis of the dynamics as I have found them, I posted an analysis very similar to the one I gave you on Dredge for someone asking for advice. The breakdown is found on the ninth post of Page 66 of this thread, staring with the second paragraph which reads "Blessed Alliance dovetails nicely from the discussion on Burn", and continuing over the following five paragraphs until just before I sign off with the last relevant information being the words "extra coverage". To complete the whole perspective, I would recommend adding the words "Post-sideboard" to begin a new section which would lift the last two paragraphs from the post immediately following that one, going directly through from the words "The curve" to the words "losses in combat".
In addition, I would be comfortable sharing my experience against Death and Taxes and Infect to get those decks on the guide, which are both found in the second post from the bottom of page 66 as well. The discussion of Deflecting Palm from round 1 is potentially a useful one against Burn, but the Infect advice starts after the words "Round 2" in bold, and runs straight through to "the rebound of Distortion Strike", with the only necessary change being that the first line of the fourth paragraph should read "an Emeria and a Sun Titan" instead of the Charming Prince that I recommended the poster in question remove to make sideboard space.
The Taxes strategy begins following the bold "Round 3" and goes until "lead to a win", and again the Charming Prince I speak of in the second sentence of the last paragraph should be replaced to match the list on the front page, this time by substituting the words "two Mortarpod and an Emeria". I would wrap things up by adding "Be sure to play around Reality Smasher triggers by knowing what you will discard if you might have to target one with Path to Exile, but Detention Sphere and Wrath of God are excellent answers for them if you can afford to wait."
Finally, I also wrote a breakdown of the Amulet Titan matchup which you could point Fincown to, just to see if he might want to add any of it to his take on the dynamics involved (his strategy advice is good, but assumes access to the Flickerwisp version's cards, and if you both feel it to be helpful you could render out any significant information out of what I wrote in the third post down on page 67).
I appreciate the help. But there are too many conversations on page 66, hard for me to find the things you said.
Maybe you could just copy paste a summary of relevant information against Burn + others to a new post on this page?
So it would be easier to put into the primer.
Hello again, Fluff; if following the threads is too onerous, then the following posts should consolidate things a little. on Amulet Titan:
This is a highly intricate matchup, and depends a lot on the sequence of draws both players get, but is very skill-intensive for Emeria regardless. If I won game 1, I would remove all 4 Wrath effects and a Teferi, Time Raveler, then trim 2 Stoneforge Mystic and a Batterskull to bring in 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Aven Mindcensor, 1 Damping Sphere, 1 Aura of Silence, 1 Disenchant, and 1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. They go through a good deal of their deck in most games against us, so it will be possible to get a good idea of whether they brought out Sakura-tribe Scout if you lose game 2. If you determine this, or if you lost game 1, then I typically trim 2 Mortarpod instead of 2 Stoneforge Mystic to have the option for more pressure on turns 2 and 3 on the play. If the pilot is poor or inexperienced, they will allow Emeria a lot of value by pushing too aggressively. Their ability to resolve the first Titan early is the biggest factor to consider, since the amount of advantage they can gain with a trigger or two can be mitigated when Emeria is set up, but they are a very consistent deck at finding their flagship creature, so their major synergies are all relevant eventually.
In game 1, we have a fair amount of interaction for the one-shot Primeval Titan kills in Path to exile plus Ghost Quarter, and later on withField of Ruin and Settle the Wreckage, so they are on their backup plan very early on. This is the more threatening avenue, and involves grinding card advantage by continually bouncing Tolaria West with Simic Growth Chamber to set up a stream of Titans that continuously trigger Field of the Dead. Their manabase is very greedy, so games can often hinge on which lands they are forced to play to get up and running. If they expose their 1 maindeck Field of the Dead too early, that is a huge piece of their gameplan to eliminate. Slayers' Stronghold and Vesuva are also high-priority targets, and Bojuka Bog can also eventually be relevant, but the real calculations only begin with those if they manage to get a Tolaria West back to their hand. This opens up Pacts, and therefore more Titan triggers, which leads to even more decision trees which all depend on the board state. Try to prioritize an active Ghost Quarter effect to prevent this by killing the Transmute land while the bounce trigger is on the stack, but know that they are also playing the Ghost Quarter game (both mentally, and with their own literal copy). They typically have 3 or fewer basics, though, so be aggressive with these where you can.
Post board, things are just as murky, if not more so. Pithing Needle has an abundance of targets, but common ones are both the Transmute on their 2 or 3 Tolaria West, and the 1 or 2 Engineered Explosives which they are often sent to fetch. Tectonic Edge or Ghost Quarter are also possible names (the latter remembering that the effect is symmetrical), and Sakura-Tribe Scout is again, not a mana ability. Note that they will probably have access to 1 more Field of the Dead after sideboarding. Generally, ignore their snake if you can, since their explosiveness is usually much less relevant post-board, but instant-speed bouncelands can be a headache for Field of Ruin so at least 1 Mortarpod always stays in. Damping Sphere is excellent in many ways here since it often cuts them off of several colours in their bouceland manabase in addition to severely inhibiting the quantity of mana they can produce. Aven Mindcensor is the nearest thing to an "easy mode" card for Emeria in the matchup, and it is often difficult for them to deal with flying creatures, so it is almost realistic to expect the bird wizard to go all the way on his own. Generally, he needs some support and so this is not true, but the fact that he sometimes pecks for the full 20 unassisted should tell you how valuable his effect is.
The Disenchant effects are generally aimed at Amulet of Vigor, but Aura of Silence also has very strange interactions with Engineered Explosives. They can announce X (as a cost) to be 0, but they must pay at least 2 mana for it due to the tax effect of the Aura. This is sometimes added to by Damping Sphere such that they literally have to spend 3 or more mana to get it into play, and at that point it may not be able to kill the Pithing Needle they are aiming for. Killing colourless mana sources makes this especially tricky for them to play around, but since Damping Sphere gives them several free sources in the first place, that is often inadviseable. The trick with Detention Sphere and its ETB ability is relevant here as well, since they often have Krosan Grip or Beast Within to get their cards back, but having the Aura sit in play is quite valuable in this matchup. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is also very good here, even in the lategame, since she first forces them to play somewhat fair, then counters Pacts for the remainder of the game. (This is unless they are able to awkwardly play a spell into an onboard Damping Sphere first, using its tax effect to spend at least one mana on their "free" Summoner's Pact, but this makes their tutored Titan cost a minimum of 8 mana, in addition to the 1+? they already paid. Because of this interaction, though, I would try to use Teferi to bounce the Damping Sphere if I was starting to rely on Lavinia.)
There are also sometimes openings to knock them off of the ability to pay for Pacts for free wins, which means I pay exceptionally close attention to their lands. Usually, their diverse array of land-based threats makes this a challenging prospect, but as mentioned before, their manabase is built about as sturdily as a Jenga tower. The most common feature of all these games is that you must keep track of a great deal of variables, including the numbers of each Pact and Titan you have dealt with. Knowing how many threats are left to them is very important, since once their Titans are gone the deck is just a pile of random land-based synergy which Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan will eventually grind away to powder. Ramunap Excavator is an avenue for them to rebuild, but Path to Exile steps in there as well to shut the card down relatively easily if that is their only plan. Mistveil Plains does a lot of work in the longer games here by recycling non-permanents in between shuffles, leading to a higher density of interactive spells as the manabase begins to expand out of the 2-4 mana "danger" range. Settle The Wreckage is a very important effect to keep access to through Bojuka Bog with Mistveil, because it is virtually always a clean answer to both a single Titan and a horde of zombies. A huge advantage over Scapeshift is that they have no fetchlands, so it is possible to see everything coming once Slayers' Stronghold is under control.
Infect is one of the best match-ups this deck has. It is very difficult for them to win through 4 colours' worth of creatures (counting Pilgrim's Eye), five functional Ghost Quarter effects, flying blockers, 1-mana instant-speed removal, Teferi, Time Raveler, on-board pings, and Supreme Verdict. If I make it past turn 4, I believe I have never lost a single game. Their best way to win is by going all-in on a turn-2 Glistener Elf attack, which we should discourage by representing Path to Exile with any untapped white source on turn one. The times when they have exactly 10 Infect damage line up a non-zero amount with the times we DO have the answer at the ready, but on of the only official match losses I have had to the deck was a "good beats" story from back when they had Gitaxian Probe, and had the turn 2 kill in both games after a free Peek. These days, it takes a good bit more bravery to pull the trigger.
The sweepers are completely unavoidable for them in game 1, barring a rogue maindeck Spell Pierce on specifically Wrath of God, so you should essentially never open the door to that interaction when you have so many other good options. This is the reason the card comes out in games 2 and 3. Allow them to attack first, and use removal on their end step to avoid losing games needlessly to extra damage from Blossoming Defense and Vines of Vastwood. The exception is with Settle the Wreckage, which you should cast after damage has been dealt while their creatures are technically still "attackers" in the combat step. That way, they cannot use countermagic as better than a 1-for-1 even if they have it.
Inkmoth Nexus and Pendelhaven are ways for them to work around Supreme Verdict and Mortarpod, respectively, so Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter are important to find with Court Hussar. Their activation should follow the same principles as above, except when you would like to force them to expend extra mana by having to animate their nexus again when they might have Vines or Defenses. The wasteland effects can team up with other cards against Inkmoth Nexus to act as a "double removal spell" when you want them to dump their hand on an attack that is doomed to fail. They will invariably build up many cards between threats, but none of them have haste so you can safely ping, Path, or Wasteland their new attacker on their turn, then untap and Supreme Verdict if it survived.
I have removed both Batterskull, the Wrath of God, an Emeria, the Sky Ruin, and a Sun Titan for two Pithing Needle, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Blessed Alliance, Disenchant, and Aura of Silence. If they are not on the Become Immense plan, one of the two Batterskull can stay in over Lavinia to give a faster option for closing the game, but in any event Stoneforge Mystic is mostly just a way to get access to the best card in the matchup: Mortarpod. Blocking their creature, then pinging it after you are certain it cannot get through for damage is good enough on its own, but after that it turns every creature you draw into almost a free Terminate. If you like, you can also bring in 2 Aven Mindcensor for 2 Detention Sphere, but I like making sure to cover my bases against strange sideboard plans when almost nothing else can go wrong. We have over three times as many answers as they have threats, and so choosing the best one to cut off their best outs to the current situation is likely your most difficult decision.
Their countermagic is generally completely outclassed by Supreme Verdict and Teferi, Time Raveler, and so you should use this recommended sideboard plan to be ready for them to bring in literally anything they have access to in a desperate bid to win any post-sideboard games. Teferi in particular is almost unfair, as a safety blanket made of reinforced titanium in a matchup that is already abysmal for them. Disenchantcan kill both Inkmoth Nexus and Spellskite, while covering against Shapers' Sanctuary or graveyard hate. I believe they can also do the trick with two Spellskite where they bounce the target of a spell between the two to draw a dozen or more cards, so make sure they are not trying to set that up. Aura of Silence is simply a better Disenchant that they can't even counter, but mind that you use Ghost Quarter and not it if you want to kill a Nexus. They can redirect Shatter effects to their 0/4, but not Strip Mine.
Pithing Needle should start by stopping them from animating Nexi so that Supreme Verdict does not open the door to a counterattack, but you should still use Field of Ruin to get them off the table in case they draw a Nature's Claim. Speaking of Disenchant effects, you should avoid giving them any value on theirs by stacking the ETB trigger of Detention Sphere, then killing it with Aura of Silence to trigger the "leaves the battlefield" ability so that their cards are permanently exiled. This is best used with a Sun Titan in hand to bring back the Aura of Silence tax effect as soon as possible. Finally, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade counters each Mutagenic Growth that they pay life for, but you will probably never get more than one this way. Her true purpose is to make Become Immense completely unworkeable, although she also counters the rebound of Distortion Strike.
Death and Taxes is another extremely good pairing, since they are a creature deck with no real late-game reach, but they can sometimes have synergies that will force tempo loss until losing is a real possiblity. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is particularly good at messing up the curve if our draw relies on either Path to Exile or a sweeper. This is another matchup where extra copies of Mortarpod and Pithing Needle in the 75 cover a lot of ground. The main dynamic of Wall of Omens forcing them to overextend into Wrath of God is still the defining feature of this matchup, though, and they are stuck ramping us with every one of the atrocious maindeck Path to Exile that they draw, while ours are some of the best cards we have against them. Locking them out of colourless sources is sometimes possible, and if they are W/b it often leads to running them out of basic lands in any case, so if they do not have Aether Vial their draws can be very difficult to sequence well.
Their utility lands are kept in check by Field of Ruin, but their Aven Mindcensor and particularly their Leonin Arbiter create strange wrinkles. The Arbiter's tax on library searches is symmetrical, and so it often grants Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter effects some extra power. Timing your fetchlands and deck thinning is often critical around an Aether Vial at 2 or 3 counters; the correct sequence is frequently to wait until they activate it, so that you can safely search in response when they have it tapped. There is usually no rush to thin the deck in these games, so assume all search effects are shut off by a Mindlock Orb for your fetchlands if you can, and wait to draw your mana naturally whenever you suspect foul play.
Pilgrim's Eye is sorcery-speed, and therefore much weaker to this angle of attack, but trades cleanly with x-1's and fliers under most circumstances anyway, so they are a good way to check if the coast is clear. If they are playing the Eldrazi package, Thought-Knot Seer with Eldrazi Displacer is sometimes awkward, but overall they match up poorly with Supreme Verdict, so unless they can take a stabilizing play away, the inevitability is still ours. Mistveil Plains cannot be taken, and neither can Emeria, the Sky Ruin, so as long as you have a graveyard you can beat the "lock" provided that you have so much as a Wall of Omens with a Mortarpod on it and a Stoneforge Mystic. If you ever get into an attrition game where this is your only out, start building up only lands in your hand until you have seven of them. The eighth land you find gets discarded to maximum hand size, and the Mistveil Plains returns it to your (empty) library so that they can never force you to draw your deck while Emeria will continue to trigger every upkeep for an eventual Mortarpod win.
Post sideboard, this scenario becomes more likely if they bring in Ensnaring Bridge to disrupt Sun Titan, but unless they can leverage Rest in Peace as a tempo play, they put themselves down cards for no value against a vigilant threat that still dominates their entire board. I would have removed two Mortarpod plus an Emeria, the Sky Ruin and the Settle the Wreckage for the two Pithing Needle, the Disenchant, and the Aura of Silence to manage Aether Vial, and because they are liable to cast Thought-Knot Seer pre-combat if we rely on Settle as a sweeper. Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull are a winning threat, but one that is vulnerable to their taxing of search effects and their hand disruption, plus some artifact removal. Overall, their most disruptive draws are required to stop the raw card quality from becoming a telling factor, but their disruptive creatures are also the most vulnerable to Wall of Omens. A high basic land count for Emeria is an advantage long-term, and as long as the basic Island is still accessible, the rock-solid manabase should lead to a win.
Emeria's stance in the matchup is much more subtle than it would at first appear. Emeria, the Sky Ruin triggers rarely occur early enough to matter in the absence of significant low-curve help, and I will typically sideboard one copy out if I have enough to bring in. Field of Ruin and Ghost quarter are on the lookout to cut off any splash colour if they have not yet cast a spell that their nonbasic land could represent, and Ghost Quarter in particular should be used on your own fetchlands aggressively to save a point of life. Otherwise, both pre- and post-sideboard, the puzzle is solved the same way; if they draw creatures, the odds of winning the game go up dramatically when blockers can turn them into blank draws. When their creatures have dealt ZERO damage by the final turn of a game, I am satisfied that I have put myself in the best possible position to win the match.
They will nearly always have time to play their entire hand, so I typically use Path to Exile as early and as often as possible on haste creatures. A single hit with Batterskull is very difficult to overcome, and I am happy even if Stoneforge Mystic dies immediately to a Lightning Bolt or Rift Bolt because the spells are the real battle here. I will also chump block with it quite frequently to extend the game if I am in position to hardcast Batterskull without it, since this prevents exposing anything to a value-added Searing Blaze or Searing Blood, which becomes far more likely after they gain access to their sideboard.
Post-sideboard on our end, I take out Crucible of Worlds and all of the Wrath effects other than Settle the Wreckage (and maybe a single Wrath of God if I see them keep Eidolon of the Great Revel in for game two) for Celestial Purge, Blessed Alliance, Lone Missionary, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, and Stonecloaker or Glen Elendra Archmage if I have them. The gameplan is the same as above: stop the haste creatures from getting in every single point of combat damage you can, and give them every incentive to use their burn on anything other than life total. I also take out all the gold 3-drops other than a lone Teferi, Time Raveler, if I have it, as a hedge against Ensnaring Bridge. Aura of Silence can also hit Eidolon while being recurred with Sun Titan, so if I don't happen to have a Teferi, an Archmage, or a D-Sphere, this is the most reasonable singleton to replace the already suboptimal Wrath of God mentioned above, but a random creature is better than everything but Teferi if I see nothing strange.
This is generally one of the matchups where I will sideboard in either Aven Mindcensor or Remorseful Cleric to get the Wraths out of my deck, since they have the option of stopping haste damage, and can also threaten to end the game if the opponent tries to stop interacting with the board. In this matchup, Emeria is still an excellent attrition deck, but they can sometimes choose to ignore the value we generate. It is therefore incumbent on the Emeria player to do everything possible to trade card-for-card. Lone Missionary is an absolutely invaluable tool on this front, because 4 life gains traction over their average draw of output of 3 damage, and forces them to have Boros Charm or Skullcrack to trade with it evenly. Even when they do, it still leaves behind a 2/1 body that can help your calculations on whether to try locking them under their own Eidolon of the Great Revel. This last strategy is a viable one to look out for if they do leave that card in, since its symmetrical effect leaves them powerless to remove it when it is opposed by a Wall of Omens or a Court Hussar. Given infinite time, either a Pilgrim's Eye or Mortarpod discarded to maximum hand size is sufficient to close out such a game when Emeria eventually gets online to recur a Sun titan, and Mistveil Plains will typically prompt a concession if two white permanents are already in play.
Blessed Alliance is (eventually) functionally identical to Lone Missionary, but offers both sideboard and timing flexibility. I am a fan of some amount of burst lifegain to bridge the gap before Batterskull hits, but one of these should be creature-based to force them to have Skullcrack in response to Sun Titan. If I were playing in a field where I expected Geist of Saint Traft out of Jeskai, plus a lot of Burn, I might choose to run 2 Lone Missionary and a Blessed Alliance in the sideboard. There was also a time when I ran 3 Lone Missionary in the maindeck, which turned Burn into as good a matchup as Jund, and maybe even better, but this was a heavy concession to make unless the rest of the field was decidedly aggro-centric. My current build has been good enough against burn generally that I would be willing to cut the Blessed Alliance at the moment, but since I have yet to play the matchup against a really good GP-level opponent while relying on the various Stoneforge Mystic dynamics, I have it included as extra coverage.
The importance of the mana curve is revealed since our deck replaces a land, two 3-drops, and five 4-drops, with five 2-drops and three 3-drops here. The net effect is to go up to sixteen 2-mana plays from eleven, and up to nine 3-mana plays from eight. The instant-speed interaction also jumps from five to eleven cards, of which all but the Path to Exile effects can cleanly trade with a lethal Goblin Guide after allowing its trigger. Speaking of Path to Exile, the moment I feel that the ground is locked up with enough blockers that their path to victory is through direct damage alone, these should be used as Rampant Growth on every extra Germ token or irrelevant blocker to accelerate the lategame. Settle the Wreckage is harder to do this with, but can also have this mode with proper timing. Holding Lavinia, Azorius Renegade until a Rift Bolt is in suspend can be backbreaking, but must sometimes be weighed against delaying Skewer the Critics or blocking.
If room is required for one more advantageous component not mentioned here, a Sun Titan can also be trimmed to lower the curve even further, but Titan is typically good enough to provoke desperation plays from Burn. As a final tip, Emeria wants to encourage Burn to spend its removal on potential blockers, so if I do have an extra flash sequence to mess up combat, I try to make attacks and plays that appear to leave me exposed to an on-board Soul-Scar Mage or the like so that I can tempt them to kill the apparent lone line of defense. An infrequent interaction illustrating this is if I Path to Exile my own Wall of Omens to leave me with just a Court Hussar on defense, which might allow me to Celestial Purge their attacker if they spew a Shard Volley on it along with other spells with the expectation of recouping their losses in combat. Other examples of this philosophy occur when Celestial Purge and other ways to remove creatures are used to fizzle Searing Blood, although the same trick does not work with Searing Blaze. With no card selection, they can do no more than hope that their draws line up well with yours, so respect their bluffs and expose your curve to their hand judiciously, taking whatever extra seconds you need to think. Consider the possible consequences of your plays! The clock is your ally in this matchup; you will almost never go to time.
Amulet Titan, sorry can't touch what Fincown wrote there until he comes back. However, I have added your entire post there too. People who use Fincown's list can check his guide. While people who use a Stoneforge list can get help from your guide.
Two quick notes, hopefully they can be fixed relatively easily. First, I had missed a typo in my third paragraph into the Amulet breakdown, where I omitted the first "N" of "bounceland". Second, it seems as though the hyperlinks for the section of the Infect guide that was hidden behind the spoiler button have not been preserved, I assume just as a copy/paste oversight.
Other than that, I think that stylistically I would try to keep only the first paragraph of the breakdowns on Infect and Burn visible to reduce the size of the primer page, since the other paragraphs are advice that refers to match-specific play. If people want more information, having those under the expanded section will allow them to see how the match differs from game 1 to games 2 and 3 if want to satisfy further curiosity, but will allow for ease of scrolling if they do not.
I think that is it, and I thank you for your work!
looking at the primer, I have played enough games against a few other decks that I would give my advice on them, if you want it. Here are my thoughts on Jund:
The existence of this kind of strategy is precisely the reason for Emeria's viability in Modern as a format, and they should be the primary bellwether by which any new inclusion to the deck is measured, since they will be Emeria's main competition in metagames where attrition is rewarded. The disruptive midrange decks which emphasize the sweet spot of power and efficiency on the 1-4 mana curve are at a distinct strategic disadvantage in the head-to-head comparison, though, since Emeria is far more consistent in its draw steps and can cleanly go over the top of their best endgames if left to its own devices. The majority of games will be won by this telling advantage, and it is up to the pilot to know what the Jund opponent can leverage to create openings that their cards can shine in.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin essentially bullies every Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt they draw, and Abrupt Decay or Terminate are little better for them. Once hands are relatively empty in the midgame, Inquisition of Kozilek becomes downright embarassing, since Emeria can choose to play almost everything it draws straight to the board for advantage, which leaves few openings for it and the only slightly less awful Thoughtseize. Kolaghan's Command is a potentially strong effect, but with so many chump blockers around the Raise Dead half of the card is very difficult to push for advantage. Add this to the fact that Emeria can always choose when to deploy its sweepers to punish overextension, and the combat step is only easy for them if they manage to piece together a perfect mix of threat+disruption+removal +attrition or advantage spell. Even then, the card equity involved in such a sequence generally has them out of gas early, and vulnerable to any number of Emeria's stabilizing plays.
Dark Confidant seems to be getting less popular than it was, which is a pity for Jund because it was sometimes able to take over games in which Mortarpod did not make a timely appearance. Speaking of the Living Weapon, it is an important tool for controlling loyalty, and the 0/0 germ can either provide a layer of defense from sacrifice effects, or simply chump-block the Tarmogoyf which frequently becomes large enough to threaten a quick clock. The current alternative card draw for them appears to be a mixture of Wrenn and Six and Tireless Tracker, which are both far less likely to provide a steady stream of new threats. The animated lands which are such a huge part of Jund's lategame are easily controlled by Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter, and the card Emeria itself is a countdown to a game loss for them whenever it appears without the opposition of their best card in the matchup; Scavenging Ooze. This creature should be killed on sight whenever possible, since it reduces the ability of Sun Titan to build a commanding lead, shuts down recursion, and grows into a lethal thrrat surprisingly quickly.
Jund is a 70% matchup or better for the Stoneforge Mystic version of the list, since so many of the cards replace themselves. If I could choose to play this deck into a field full of Jund, I would jump at the chance. The topdeck wars which define the matchup are heavily skewed towards Emeria, which is exemplified in one of the defining cards of their strategy: Liliana of the Veil. If not complemented by a draw engine, using her +1 ability is a liability for them in the attrition battle, since they have to choose between holding up removal or throwing it away. A quick ultimate is possible, but not decisive. The matchup is so strongly tilted towards what Emeria wants to do that I have even recovered from several of these in the same game. In the sideboarded games Fulminator Mage leaves them down a card for no advantage unless they are already winning, and Celestial Purge covers the rest of the common issues.
The trick to sequencing here is to continue to focus on your manabase. Playing one new land per turn is the goal, since casting the curve smoothly is so strong. At the point where they are trading down cards by using their removal on cantrip creatures just to press an advantage, the game is almost over. Once the topdeck war has begun, Bloodbraid Elf can be good at compounding advantages, but Wall of Omens is excellent at holding the body back, so their Cascades have to be very strong to gain ground on stable boards. Batterskull is a must-answer threat for them which their K-Command can hit cleanly, but most other ways to deal with it leave them concerned about the possibility of re-equipping on any given turn. in sideboarding, I would remove the Settle the Wreckage and the Crucible of Worlds because they can be liabilities to hold for value if they keep in some amount of discard, and I would bring in two Celestial Purge to replace them.
first, as you requested. I have corrected the letter n in the bounceland typo. Then I have put inside the spoiler tag some parts of burn and infect, only showing the first paragraph. You can check it out, tell me if it's already ok.
Jund - sure, I put your guide into the primer. It's more in depth than the one I wrote anyway. Yeah, scavenging ooze is a real pain. It mess up our plan if that creature lives a long time.
Infect - surprisingly, this deck seems to be being played a lot again these days. Have you encountered infect players who save their inkmoth nexus by turning it to creature, then cast blossoming defense on inkmoth to save it from our field of ruin?
Stoneforge Mystic - I'm thinking of adding her as one of the primary card choices for Emeria, since you seem to be doing well on your list. My questions to you.. last year when you got 4th place in the tourney... sfm was not yet legal. But if sfm was already legal that time, would you have used sfm? Do you think the kor adds a lot more power to our deck? Personally, I think it gives us another angle of attack that does not rely on yard, so the card is good.
I have three simple edits to suggest for the Jund breakdown. The first is avoiding the awkward repetition of the visible portion by eliminating everything but the first sentence from the first paragraph in the hidden section, and splicing this remaining sentence (beginning with the words "The majority") directly into the second paragraph. The second is another typographical error, this one in the last sentence of the third-last paragraph where I had not noticed the "E" of "threat" had been replaced by a second "R". Finally, in almost the exact middle of the last paragraph I would add the word "these" after the word "compounding" and before the word "advantages" to make my point a little more clear.
With respect to your question about Infect and their Inkmoth Nexus, that play is certainly possible, but it costs a large amount of mana for their land-light deck, and this often makes them unable to threaten lethal. The timing on such a sequence frequently comes too late at any rate, since it is opposed by any number of additional variables, including an extra Ghost Quarter, a Path to Exile, a Mortarpod, and most particularly by Pilgrim's Eye. With the latter, they cannot attack unless they have a buff for the Nexus, and unless this is a Pendelhaven or a Noble Hierarch they are putting themselves down a resource regardless as soon as blockers are declared. Post-sideboard, any Pithing Needle effect means that the layers of protection against such plays stack up incredibly quickly.
As for your interest in Stoneforge Mystic, I believe that at the very least the card deserves to be addressed in the primer. There is clearly room for real arguments against it, but we are a base-white deck in Modern where the cards are available to the strategy, so people will probably wonder if the subject of its inclusion isn't brought up. For last year's tournament in specific, I was anticipating a lot of Burn and Jeskai, plus Hogaak, Jund, Phoenix, Shadow, Affinity, and Humans, so I can't say for certain whether I would have played the card over the set of Lone Missionary and Geist-Honored Monk, which are better topdecks for buying time against ground attackers and delaying fliers and burn. The equipment package taking up an extra slot also would not allow me to run the sixth sweeper in my second copy of Wrath of God, which would have been a large concession at the time.
My instinct is that I would have been hesitant to make the change and give up all my hard-won edges in the sideboard plans I had prepared, but the Missionaries lost me game three of the semi-finals against my control opponent because they did not gain an advantage over Electrolyze, so it would have been a very close decision to make in retrospect. The final would have then been against another deck where their clock would have been relevant, so I have no clear answer there either, but in the dark I am very confident that Stoneforge Mystic is the better card overall purely because it replaces itself more reliably. There is always something to be said for easy wins over Burn, though.
First, a note on the sideboard, specifically with regards to Shadowspear. While I am uncertain if it is truly good yet, my inclination is that it is not. It does fit in an extra lifegain effect against Burn, while allowing combinations of cards to interact with Heliod, Sun-crowned, Darksteel Citadel, Lotus Field and Selfless Spirit, in addition to covering a few other things, but the problem is that I am not keen to bring in an equipment which could be dead when drawn normally post-sweeper against any of the decks that play these cards. I think at this point that it should probably be either the third Aven Mindcensor or the first Forsake the Worldly.
When it comes to the last card, I have had very positive results with the new Seal of Cleansing and Aura of Silence split, allowing smoother curving and a greater amount of utility on the lategame Sun Titan. In one game, however, my opponent had two copies of Rest in Peace one after the other out of an U/W control deck. This has historically not been a problem, but the fact that sacrificing the Seal or the Aura is part of the cost (and not the resolution) of removing such enchantments meant that I was unable to have an avenue to prevent decking, and my artifact/enchantment removal was now single-use only. Given this, and the fact that a diversity of instant-speed singletons keeps unfair strategies honest for longer, I am likely returning to Forsake as a third piece of noncreature disruption.
On to the tournament! I went 2-1 in matches, but my teammates and I took down the opposition when it counted in the last round, so we were able to tie for first place for another nominal amount of store credit. My breakdowns were as follows:
ROUND 1: Counters Company 1-0 win (1-0 overall)
This was an interesting one. I was very solidly advantaged for almost the entire game after I swept three of his creatures on turn 4, and then another two on turn 6. His Shalai, Voice of Plenty made my Settle the wreckage obsolete until I could deal with it, however, and this was complicated by the fact that I stopped drawing spells for 14 consecutive draws starting on turn 5. The good news was that I had gotten a Crucible of Worlds on the table and activated my Emeria, the Sky Ruin to return a Stoneforge Mystic, which led to a multiple-turn face-off between my Batterskull and his Angel, both of us on two-turn clocks, (his flier had picked up two +1/+1 counters from the Heliod, Sun-Crowned which I had hidden under a Detention Sphere). All this came to a head when I finally drew a Field of Ruin to start cutting him off of white mana over the course of a few turns, but he drew a Knight of Autumn to release Heliod, then an Eternal Witness just in time to threaten lethal by returning a Walking Ballista with six mana in play. On my turn, I drew my first spell in what seemed like years in Mortarpod, and thought for a long time before playing another land from my graveyard and passing. On his turn, he presented the combo by announcing Ballista for x=2, and I thought I had him, but then he asked for the oracle text on Mortarpod and clearly realized that my active Stoneforge represented state-based disruption if he activated the ability of Heliod, because I would ping his construct in response. Figuring he was certain to win after he untapped, he passed the turn. I needed removal of any kind to survive, and I found it in Wrath of God off the top. The final flurry, as time was being called, had me announce the wrath and hold it hovering on the stack to force his attempt to combo, which I was finally able to respond to by activating Stoneforge Mystic for the the Mortarpod I had drawn the previous turn. Since I had around 17 mana, Batterskull was then returned to hand and re-cast, and cleanly took the game during turns as I locked him out of white mana.
A good match-up that nearly got out of hand, but my poor draws meant that the entertainment value was sky-high. I was on the edge of my seat for the final few turns, and felt very happy to cobble together a win after a game that looked to be an early blowout.
ROUND 2: Boros Burn 0-2 loss (1-1 overall)
This one was unfortunate. On the draw in the dark against a new opponent, I mulliganed a hand of six low-impact lands (two Field of Ruin, three Plains, one Island) and a Court Hussar. The next hand contained only two land but a good mix of spells, and I chose to put back the most expensive card in a Batterskull, which I had a twinge of regret for when my opponent opened on turn one Monastery Swiftspear. I had to use my fetchland to cast a Path to Exile on it the next turn, but then had no answer for his Eidolon of the Great Revel, which made my Stoneforge Mystic brutally painful off of the Hallowed Fountain that I was forced to play untapped. The extra land I had given him was all the leverage he needed, since he got an attack in with the Eidolon (that I chose not to block, with the intention of lifelinking for the win) before emptying his hand, showing me four Lightning Bolt effects off of his four land for an exact turn-three kill on the play. For game two, I had stabilized his early aggression at 6 life, and was facing off an Aven Mindcensor against his Goblin Guide and single card in hand, needing to find a lifegain trigger of any kind to start pulling things out of reach. I drew a Stoneforge Mystic on five mana, and with a Batterskull already in hand I cast it and grabbed the Shadowspear, equipped it to my Bird Wizard, and attacked, going to 9. On my end step, he cast Boros Charm and dropped me back to 5, but as my Mystic was still on defense all the pressure was on him to find a way out. His draw step was a fourth land in Sunbaked Canyon, which was his only live out and turned into exact lethal once again when he drew the Searing Blaze (now with landfall) to clear my 1/2 and swing with the Guide for the last two points.
Well played by my opponent, and poor luck for me that I hadn't won the die roll or avoided taking a single extra point somewhere in either game, but such is the nature of the taxman. It is, however, possible that I could have ambushed his Goblin Guide in game two if I had kept my Mindcensor back when he sacrificed his Arid Mesa. The potential of cutting him off of Boros Charm and Lightning Helix was too tempting for me at the time, though.
ROUND 3: Jund, 2-1 win (2-1 overall)
This was a welcome return to midrange battles, but one in which I had to fight back from down a game because I never found an Emeria, the Sky Ruin in game one. On a stable board at 12 life, I eventually lost to a Wrenn and Six emblem recurring a Lightning Bolt four times over the course of several turns. Sadly, I had not been able to connect with a Batterskull at any point. Game two was much better, however, as turn one I played the namesake card of the deck, and was able to activate it after buying many turns of tempo by using Teferi, Time Raveler and ETB creatures to continually bounce and block his attackers. Game three was the tightest of the match, highlighted by fightbacks from an early Fulminator Mage in order to cast Detention Sphere removing an enormous Scavenging Ooze from play for a few key turns, which was then countered on his side by an Ashiok, Dream Render managing to exile all three of my Sun Titan. Mortarpod made an appearance to take the Planeswalker out, then Pilgrim's Eye kept my Batterskull safe from his Liliana of the Veil by leaving an extra land in hand to avoid the +1 ability, then leaving an extra body in play to avoid the -2 ability. Eventually his Maelstrom Pulse released his Ooze, but since I had always kept mana open and extra cards in hand he could not deal with my recurring Germ. At this point the key factor became the fact that graveyards were very thin, and my lifelinking 4/4 was ultimately able to force a trade before reappearing to take the game and the match.
More or less as expected, but the point about Wrenn and Six that was made on the last page is still niggling at me. I do not wish to put in a third Celestial Purge in the Shadowspear slot, but perhaps this matchup requires the extra exile effect at this point.
Quite poor draw steps today, but a positive result despite this, and my sideboarding may become more obvious in light of potential bannings tomorrow.
nice tourney report. And congrats on being able to tie for first place.
you're really adept at beating jund with this deck.
oh, seal of cleansing?? I think that is not modern legal?
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Hmm, do you play a lot against Humans? We still don't have a guide for that match-up.
If you like, you can write a guide how to play vs. that deck. Will add it to the primer, and write you as the contributor.
Thank you, I used some of the credit to get other sideboard cards I might test, notably Cerulean Drake as a poor alternative to Glen Elendra Archmage, but at less than half the cost. Sideboard cards tend to be more effective when cheaper, and this 2-mana flier might prove useful enough to matter.
The way I have built the deck, Jund is good in the same metagames as this version is, and so I make it my first priority to evaluate every card against the matchup whenever I try to add something new. They can win if they know what to prioritize, but it is a reasonably tall order for them, and the play patterns are quite a bit different than against other decks with Hallowed Fountain, so my record is somewhat inflated here because I typically get at least some amount of blind unintentional value from them in the first three or four turns.
On the subject of Seal of Cleansing, I was also under the impression that it was last legal in Nemesis, but then my friend told me that it had been printed in a Modern-legal set. I got a copy of the new-bordered version, just to resolve this question if it came up, but I see now after checking your comment that it was from ETERNAL Masters, not MODERN Masters! I will have to tell the store owner what happened, and it is justice that the only time I have sideboarded it in during a sanctioned match so far was during the loss against the U/W opponent that I mentioned above. I will remove it right away, thank you very much for the catch.
As for humans, I will be happy to post a guide based off of advice I have given previously; it will follow this post directly.
Humans is one of the bread-and butter pairings for Emeria control in any variant, and this list is no exception. Because of a combination of playing to the board with multiple x-1's, very little haste or evasion, a near-total lack of card advantage, and a manabase reliant on Gold lands and dreams, this is almost as good a matchup as Infect, and ranks alongside the far less popular B/W tokens in terms of decks that I am hoping to be paired against in any round. Wall of Omens is as good as advertised, and Pilgrim's Eye performs at above-average rates to encourage the overextended boardstates that they are so desperate to be caught in. At this point, the sweepers take over, and can lead to blowouts beginning from a minimum of 3-for-1 rates and going all the way to my current record of 14-for-1.
Even given all of this, however, it is not impossible to lose. Virtually their only way to achieve a win is to press their disruption with Meddling Mage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Kitesail Freebooter, but the diversity of board control Emeria presents is a huge obstacle for this strategy to overcome. Around 25% of the time, the deck's draws will afford them a chance to do this, but the problem they then face is that these disruptive creatures are particularly poor at applying significant pressure, so their best sequence is narrowed to a turn-one play followed by two (or more often three) layers of disruption, which must be capped off by either Thalia's Lieutenant or Mantis Rider to deny Emeria draw steps. The reason for this is that the average card quality for W/u is extremely high, and it is virtually impossible for Humans to achieve an actual lock on the 5 relevant sweeper effects through Detention Sphere, Path to Exile, and Mortarpod. The last of these is particularly frustrating for them, since Stoneforge Mystic can simply put it (or Batterskull, for that matter) into play through a Meddling Mage, and the targeting of the Germ's sacrifice is often all that is required to kill a key Phantasmal image.
Additionally, their primary interactive pieces in Deputy of Detention and Reflector Mage are downright embarrassing in the face of mass removal and ETB creatures, giving W/u supplemental value in the lategame, which then becomes completely backbreaking. From the sideboard Collector Ouphe does virtually nothing, while Sin Collector and Knight of Autumn are slow and weak to Mortarpod at 3 mana, so their most significant upgrade is found in Gaddock Teeg. Unfortunately for them, the card is a Kithkin Advisor, which is almost totally monopolizing on their Cavern of Souls and Unclaimed Territory. This usually leaves them struggling to provide the necessary pressure to follow up, and exposes their manabase even more to Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter. Speaking of which, the basic land count in most Humans lists is sometimes 0, often only 1 or 2, and generally 3 at maximum, so the Jeskai colours needed for the hasty flier that is most important for them to cast post-Wrath of God are highly susceptible to disruption on their Red source.
Nevertheless, the Mantis Rider and Kitesail Freebooter interactions are important enough that Celestial Purge is a desireable effect to have access to post-sideboard. Crucible of Worlds is unnecessary here, and Teferi, Time Raveler is mediocre in wide board states, while a single Batterskull is all that is needed to win. These three cards therefore come out to make room for the Purges and a single Pithing Needle. The Needle is because Humans makes excellent use of Aether Vial in perfect draws, and the primary angle that tribal decks without reach can use to outmaneuver Emeria is by controlling their exposure to play around Wrath effects. Against Humans the only real threat is their ability to play a "flash" game, and Needle is therefore a very effective card to draw in many midgame situations as insurance that can also disrupt, since if they can choose what to commit and when they can sometimes steal games that would be locked up otherwise.
Beyond that logic, a turn-one Vial can sometimes grow Champion of the Parish fast enough on the play that a single Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter can be used to put off a sweeper for the one turn they need to win. Their normal goldfish gets pushed back by half a turn or more for every weak soft-lock creature they play, though, which means this is rarely possible unless they accelerate. Aether Vial counts as acceleration for this purpose, since it can essentially tap for 6 mana or more in their best draws, and so access to more than four pieces of 1-mana interaction is important for the greatest operational threat they can leverage.
One last relevant question is why in normal circumstances only a single copy of this effect is good against them. The answer is because Aether Vial is a poor topdeck, and can be sideboarded out by some opponents. Creature-centric decks are frequently desperate for either pressure or space post-board against Emeria, and they sometimes will conclude that Vial is to be cut, but until this is certain, the Pithing Needle does its job very well. A single card can turn 4 of theirs into completely dead draws unless they choose to slow themselves down again, creating positive strategic dynamics for Emeria. The risk that they might win the staring contest over whether Needle can name Vial profitably leads one copy only being brought in until the presence of their artifact is confirmed, since after the backup target of Horizon Canopy, they may literally have no other activated abilities to prevent.
added the Humans guide to the primer. I put it below the Infect guide. thanks again.
oh, and you were able to 14 for 1 a Humans player? haha, that's brutal.
well, they're probably one of the strongest tribal decks in modern.. so it's good that we now have a guide for playing vs them.
Thank you for letting me write the update on Humans, and I once more have a couple of edits to mention. First, I had forgotten the very important word "not" in the opening paragraph, just after the word "desperate". Second, I believe that the formatting error has cropped up again where the hyperlinks are non-functional in the section that starts off hidden.
In addition to this, I have one minor and one major omission to report in the Jund primer. The minor issue is a missed capital "i" at the beginning of the very last sentence of the guide. The more serious concern is that I forgot to mention a critical piece of advice in playing the matchup. To fit it in, I would add the following two phrases immediately after the sentence ending with the hyperlinked words "Liliana of the Veil" in the second to last paragraph:
"The card quality that she and Jund's natural draws provide is much more difficult for them to press when lower on resources, and the lack of an overwhelming clock combines with this such that it is vital to be aware of the importance of Mulligans. Keeping any reasonable hand is imperative, and Liliana is also much more frequently beatable if she is made to discard their resources early, which means that choosing to draw against the deck is often a valid choice."
I am somewhat puzzled that I missed this, since I think it is a big part of my own win percentage against the deck. On the subject of humans, however, yes; things can sometimes turn truly awful for them. The disruptive creatures are very fragile, and often cannot attack into a board containing (for example) a Court Hussar and a Mortarpod. They are therefore stuck making copies of their Meddling Mage to try to lock out sweepers while going wide, and in the meantime Emeria is free to run out self-replacing blockers and Batterskull to maintain parity.
These board stalls sometimes extend into as long as they can keep topdecking more Phantasmal Image, Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Kitesail Freebooter, but eventually they will either draw a land to let Emeria get ahead on creatures (unlocking 'Pod based removal), or they will hit a string of "power" threats to try to turn the corner. At this point, Emeria usually gets multiple chances to use relevant removal on one of the "lock" creatures, which in turn releases a sweeper to knock down the entire house of cards they have built.
Once again, I appreciate your attention!
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Hmm, also removed the guide for Mardu Pyro, as that deck is not really around anymore.
Oh, have you played against Urza? We still don't have a guide for playing vs. Urza decks in the primer.
If you've played against them. Maybe you could write a short guide for playing against that deck too?
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I have not considered Mardu Pyromancer a relevant deck since the banning of Faithless Looting, and although it is still possible to play all the cards in some shells, the inconsistency inherent in losing their card selection and one of their best attrition plays is a telling blow to the archetype. I found it to be a strongly favourable matchup for Emeria, so I am sad to see it go, but such are the vagaries of the metagame.
I have only played a few playtest games against Urza, and none in sanctioned match play, so I would not feel comfortable with giving my opinion on the matchup just yet. On the other hand, I notice that the guide for Burn is a very short sentence. If you are interested in an in-depth analysis of the dynamics as I have found them, I posted an analysis very similar to the one I gave you on Dredge for someone asking for advice. The breakdown is found on the ninth post of Page 66 of this thread, staring with the second paragraph which reads "Blessed Alliance dovetails nicely from the discussion on Burn", and continuing over the following five paragraphs until just before I sign off with the last relevant information being the words "extra coverage". To complete the whole perspective, I would recommend adding the words "Post-sideboard" to begin a new section which would lift the last two paragraphs from the post immediately following that one, going directly through from the words "The curve" to the words "losses in combat".
In addition, I would be comfortable sharing my experience against Death and Taxes and Infect to get those decks on the guide, which are both found in the second post from the bottom of page 66 as well. The discussion of Deflecting Palm from round 1 is potentially a useful one against Burn, but the Infect advice starts after the words "Round 2" in bold, and runs straight through to "the rebound of Distortion Strike", with the only necessary change being that the first line of the fourth paragraph should read "an Emeria and a Sun Titan" instead of the Charming Prince that I recommended the poster in question remove to make sideboard space.
The Taxes strategy begins following the bold "Round 3" and goes until "lead to a win", and again the Charming Prince I speak of in the second sentence of the last paragraph should be replaced to match the list on the front page, this time by substituting the words "two Mortarpod and an Emeria". I would wrap things up by adding "Be sure to play around Reality Smasher triggers by knowing what you will discard if you might have to target one with Path to Exile, but Detention Sphere and Wrath of God are excellent answers for them if you can afford to wait."
Finally, I also wrote a breakdown of the Amulet Titan matchup which you could point Fincown to, just to see if he might want to add any of it to his take on the dynamics involved (his strategy advice is good, but assumes access to the Flickerwisp version's cards, and if you both feel it to be helpful you could render out any significant information out of what I wrote in the third post down on page 67).
Hope the update goes well,
-Stéphane
I appreciate the help. But there are too many conversations on page 66, hard for me to find the things you said.
Maybe you could just copy paste a summary of relevant information against Burn + others to a new post on this page?
So it would be easier to put into the primer.
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This is a highly intricate matchup, and depends a lot on the sequence of draws both players get, but is very skill-intensive for Emeria regardless. If I won game 1, I would remove all 4 Wrath effects and a Teferi, Time Raveler, then trim 2 Stoneforge Mystic and a Batterskull to bring in 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Aven Mindcensor, 1 Damping Sphere, 1 Aura of Silence, 1 Disenchant, and 1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. They go through a good deal of their deck in most games against us, so it will be possible to get a good idea of whether they brought out Sakura-tribe Scout if you lose game 2. If you determine this, or if you lost game 1, then I typically trim 2 Mortarpod instead of 2 Stoneforge Mystic to have the option for more pressure on turns 2 and 3 on the play. If the pilot is poor or inexperienced, they will allow Emeria a lot of value by pushing too aggressively. Their ability to resolve the first Titan early is the biggest factor to consider, since the amount of advantage they can gain with a trigger or two can be mitigated when Emeria is set up, but they are a very consistent deck at finding their flagship creature, so their major synergies are all relevant eventually.
In game 1, we have a fair amount of interaction for the one-shot Primeval Titan kills in Path to exile plus Ghost Quarter, and later on withField of Ruin and Settle the Wreckage, so they are on their backup plan very early on. This is the more threatening avenue, and involves grinding card advantage by continually bouncing Tolaria West with Simic Growth Chamber to set up a stream of Titans that continuously trigger Field of the Dead. Their manabase is very greedy, so games can often hinge on which lands they are forced to play to get up and running. If they expose their 1 maindeck Field of the Dead too early, that is a huge piece of their gameplan to eliminate. Slayers' Stronghold and Vesuva are also high-priority targets, and Bojuka Bog can also eventually be relevant, but the real calculations only begin with those if they manage to get a Tolaria West back to their hand. This opens up Pacts, and therefore more Titan triggers, which leads to even more decision trees which all depend on the board state. Try to prioritize an active Ghost Quarter effect to prevent this by killing the Transmute land while the bounce trigger is on the stack, but know that they are also playing the Ghost Quarter game (both mentally, and with their own literal copy). They typically have 3 or fewer basics, though, so be aggressive with these where you can.
Post board, things are just as murky, if not more so. Pithing Needle has an abundance of targets, but common ones are both the Transmute on their 2 or 3 Tolaria West, and the 1 or 2 Engineered Explosives which they are often sent to fetch. Tectonic Edge or Ghost Quarter are also possible names (the latter remembering that the effect is symmetrical), and Sakura-Tribe Scout is again, not a mana ability. Note that they will probably have access to 1 more Field of the Dead after sideboarding. Generally, ignore their snake if you can, since their explosiveness is usually much less relevant post-board, but instant-speed bouncelands can be a headache for Field of Ruin so at least 1 Mortarpod always stays in. Damping Sphere is excellent in many ways here since it often cuts them off of several colours in their bouceland manabase in addition to severely inhibiting the quantity of mana they can produce. Aven Mindcensor is the nearest thing to an "easy mode" card for Emeria in the matchup, and it is often difficult for them to deal with flying creatures, so it is almost realistic to expect the bird wizard to go all the way on his own. Generally, he needs some support and so this is not true, but the fact that he sometimes pecks for the full 20 unassisted should tell you how valuable his effect is.
The Disenchant effects are generally aimed at Amulet of Vigor, but Aura of Silence also has very strange interactions with Engineered Explosives. They can announce X (as a cost) to be 0, but they must pay at least 2 mana for it due to the tax effect of the Aura. This is sometimes added to by Damping Sphere such that they literally have to spend 3 or more mana to get it into play, and at that point it may not be able to kill the Pithing Needle they are aiming for. Killing colourless mana sources makes this especially tricky for them to play around, but since Damping Sphere gives them several free sources in the first place, that is often inadviseable. The trick with Detention Sphere and its ETB ability is relevant here as well, since they often have Krosan Grip or Beast Within to get their cards back, but having the Aura sit in play is quite valuable in this matchup. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is also very good here, even in the lategame, since she first forces them to play somewhat fair, then counters Pacts for the remainder of the game. (This is unless they are able to awkwardly play a spell into an onboard Damping Sphere first, using its tax effect to spend at least one mana on their "free" Summoner's Pact, but this makes their tutored Titan cost a minimum of 8 mana, in addition to the 1+? they already paid. Because of this interaction, though, I would try to use Teferi to bounce the Damping Sphere if I was starting to rely on Lavinia.)
There are also sometimes openings to knock them off of the ability to pay for Pacts for free wins, which means I pay exceptionally close attention to their lands. Usually, their diverse array of land-based threats makes this a challenging prospect, but as mentioned before, their manabase is built about as sturdily as a Jenga tower. The most common feature of all these games is that you must keep track of a great deal of variables, including the numbers of each Pact and Titan you have dealt with. Knowing how many threats are left to them is very important, since once their Titans are gone the deck is just a pile of random land-based synergy which Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan will eventually grind away to powder. Ramunap Excavator is an avenue for them to rebuild, but Path to Exile steps in there as well to shut the card down relatively easily if that is their only plan. Mistveil Plains does a lot of work in the longer games here by recycling non-permanents in between shuffles, leading to a higher density of interactive spells as the manabase begins to expand out of the 2-4 mana "danger" range. Settle The Wreckage is a very important effect to keep access to through Bojuka Bog with Mistveil, because it is virtually always a clean answer to both a single Titan and a horde of zombies. A huge advantage over Scapeshift is that they have no fetchlands, so it is possible to see everything coming once Slayers' Stronghold is under control.
Infect is one of the best match-ups this deck has. It is very difficult for them to win through 4 colours' worth of creatures (counting Pilgrim's Eye), five functional Ghost Quarter effects, flying blockers, 1-mana instant-speed removal, Teferi, Time Raveler, on-board pings, and Supreme Verdict. If I make it past turn 4, I believe I have never lost a single game. Their best way to win is by going all-in on a turn-2 Glistener Elf attack, which we should discourage by representing Path to Exile with any untapped white source on turn one. The times when they have exactly 10 Infect damage line up a non-zero amount with the times we DO have the answer at the ready, but on of the only official match losses I have had to the deck was a "good beats" story from back when they had Gitaxian Probe, and had the turn 2 kill in both games after a free Peek. These days, it takes a good bit more bravery to pull the trigger.
The sweepers are completely unavoidable for them in game 1, barring a rogue maindeck Spell Pierce on specifically Wrath of God, so you should essentially never open the door to that interaction when you have so many other good options. This is the reason the card comes out in games 2 and 3. Allow them to attack first, and use removal on their end step to avoid losing games needlessly to extra damage from Blossoming Defense and Vines of Vastwood. The exception is with Settle the Wreckage, which you should cast after damage has been dealt while their creatures are technically still "attackers" in the combat step. That way, they cannot use countermagic as better than a 1-for-1 even if they have it.
Inkmoth Nexus and Pendelhaven are ways for them to work around Supreme Verdict and Mortarpod, respectively, so Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter are important to find with Court Hussar. Their activation should follow the same principles as above, except when you would like to force them to expend extra mana by having to animate their nexus again when they might have Vines or Defenses. The wasteland effects can team up with other cards against Inkmoth Nexus to act as a "double removal spell" when you want them to dump their hand on an attack that is doomed to fail. They will invariably build up many cards between threats, but none of them have haste so you can safely ping, Path, or Wasteland their new attacker on their turn, then untap and Supreme Verdict if it survived.
I have removed both Batterskull, the Wrath of God, an Emeria, the Sky Ruin, and a Sun Titan for two Pithing Needle, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Blessed Alliance, Disenchant, and Aura of Silence. If they are not on the Become Immense plan, one of the two Batterskull can stay in over Lavinia to give a faster option for closing the game, but in any event Stoneforge Mystic is mostly just a way to get access to the best card in the matchup: Mortarpod. Blocking their creature, then pinging it after you are certain it cannot get through for damage is good enough on its own, but after that it turns every creature you draw into almost a free Terminate. If you like, you can also bring in 2 Aven Mindcensor for 2 Detention Sphere, but I like making sure to cover my bases against strange sideboard plans when almost nothing else can go wrong. We have over three times as many answers as they have threats, and so choosing the best one to cut off their best outs to the current situation is likely your most difficult decision.
Their countermagic is generally completely outclassed by Supreme Verdict and Teferi, Time Raveler, and so you should use this recommended sideboard plan to be ready for them to bring in literally anything they have access to in a desperate bid to win any post-sideboard games. Teferi in particular is almost unfair, as a safety blanket made of reinforced titanium in a matchup that is already abysmal for them. Disenchantcan kill both Inkmoth Nexus and Spellskite, while covering against Shapers' Sanctuary or graveyard hate. I believe they can also do the trick with two Spellskite where they bounce the target of a spell between the two to draw a dozen or more cards, so make sure they are not trying to set that up. Aura of Silence is simply a better Disenchant that they can't even counter, but mind that you use Ghost Quarter and not it if you want to kill a Nexus. They can redirect Shatter effects to their 0/4, but not Strip Mine.
Pithing Needle should start by stopping them from animating Nexi so that Supreme Verdict does not open the door to a counterattack, but you should still use Field of Ruin to get them off the table in case they draw a Nature's Claim. Speaking of Disenchant effects, you should avoid giving them any value on theirs by stacking the ETB trigger of Detention Sphere, then killing it with Aura of Silence to trigger the "leaves the battlefield" ability so that their cards are permanently exiled. This is best used with a Sun Titan in hand to bring back the Aura of Silence tax effect as soon as possible. Finally, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade counters each Mutagenic Growth that they pay life for, but you will probably never get more than one this way. Her true purpose is to make Become Immense completely unworkeable, although she also counters the rebound of Distortion Strike.
Death and Taxes is another extremely good pairing, since they are a creature deck with no real late-game reach, but they can sometimes have synergies that will force tempo loss until losing is a real possiblity. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is particularly good at messing up the curve if our draw relies on either Path to Exile or a sweeper. This is another matchup where extra copies of Mortarpod and Pithing Needle in the 75 cover a lot of ground. The main dynamic of Wall of Omens forcing them to overextend into Wrath of God is still the defining feature of this matchup, though, and they are stuck ramping us with every one of the atrocious maindeck Path to Exile that they draw, while ours are some of the best cards we have against them. Locking them out of colourless sources is sometimes possible, and if they are W/b it often leads to running them out of basic lands in any case, so if they do not have Aether Vial their draws can be very difficult to sequence well.
Their utility lands are kept in check by Field of Ruin, but their Aven Mindcensor and particularly their Leonin Arbiter create strange wrinkles. The Arbiter's tax on library searches is symmetrical, and so it often grants Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter effects some extra power. Timing your fetchlands and deck thinning is often critical around an Aether Vial at 2 or 3 counters; the correct sequence is frequently to wait until they activate it, so that you can safely search in response when they have it tapped. There is usually no rush to thin the deck in these games, so assume all search effects are shut off by a Mindlock Orb for your fetchlands if you can, and wait to draw your mana naturally whenever you suspect foul play.
Pilgrim's Eye is sorcery-speed, and therefore much weaker to this angle of attack, but trades cleanly with x-1's and fliers under most circumstances anyway, so they are a good way to check if the coast is clear. If they are playing the Eldrazi package, Thought-Knot Seer with Eldrazi Displacer is sometimes awkward, but overall they match up poorly with Supreme Verdict, so unless they can take a stabilizing play away, the inevitability is still ours. Mistveil Plains cannot be taken, and neither can Emeria, the Sky Ruin, so as long as you have a graveyard you can beat the "lock" provided that you have so much as a Wall of Omens with a Mortarpod on it and a Stoneforge Mystic. If you ever get into an attrition game where this is your only out, start building up only lands in your hand until you have seven of them. The eighth land you find gets discarded to maximum hand size, and the Mistveil Plains returns it to your (empty) library so that they can never force you to draw your deck while Emeria will continue to trigger every upkeep for an eventual Mortarpod win.
Post sideboard, this scenario becomes more likely if they bring in Ensnaring Bridge to disrupt Sun Titan, but unless they can leverage Rest in Peace as a tempo play, they put themselves down cards for no value against a vigilant threat that still dominates their entire board. I would have removed two Mortarpod plus an Emeria, the Sky Ruin and the Settle the Wreckage for the two Pithing Needle, the Disenchant, and the Aura of Silence to manage Aether Vial, and because they are liable to cast Thought-Knot Seer pre-combat if we rely on Settle as a sweeper. Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull are a winning threat, but one that is vulnerable to their taxing of search effects and their hand disruption, plus some artifact removal. Overall, their most disruptive draws are required to stop the raw card quality from becoming a telling factor, but their disruptive creatures are also the most vulnerable to Wall of Omens. A high basic land count for Emeria is an advantage long-term, and as long as the basic Island is still accessible, the rock-solid manabase should lead to a win.
Emeria's stance in the matchup is much more subtle than it would at first appear. Emeria, the Sky Ruin triggers rarely occur early enough to matter in the absence of significant low-curve help, and I will typically sideboard one copy out if I have enough to bring in. Field of Ruin and Ghost quarter are on the lookout to cut off any splash colour if they have not yet cast a spell that their nonbasic land could represent, and Ghost Quarter in particular should be used on your own fetchlands aggressively to save a point of life. Otherwise, both pre- and post-sideboard, the puzzle is solved the same way; if they draw creatures, the odds of winning the game go up dramatically when blockers can turn them into blank draws. When their creatures have dealt ZERO damage by the final turn of a game, I am satisfied that I have put myself in the best possible position to win the match.
They will nearly always have time to play their entire hand, so I typically use Path to Exile as early and as often as possible on haste creatures. A single hit with Batterskull is very difficult to overcome, and I am happy even if Stoneforge Mystic dies immediately to a Lightning Bolt or Rift Bolt because the spells are the real battle here. I will also chump block with it quite frequently to extend the game if I am in position to hardcast Batterskull without it, since this prevents exposing anything to a value-added Searing Blaze or Searing Blood, which becomes far more likely after they gain access to their sideboard.
Post-sideboard on our end, I take out Crucible of Worlds and all of the Wrath effects other than Settle the Wreckage (and maybe a single Wrath of God if I see them keep Eidolon of the Great Revel in for game two) for Celestial Purge, Blessed Alliance, Lone Missionary, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, and Stonecloaker or Glen Elendra Archmage if I have them. The gameplan is the same as above: stop the haste creatures from getting in every single point of combat damage you can, and give them every incentive to use their burn on anything other than life total. I also take out all the gold 3-drops other than a lone Teferi, Time Raveler, if I have it, as a hedge against Ensnaring Bridge. Aura of Silence can also hit Eidolon while being recurred with Sun Titan, so if I don't happen to have a Teferi, an Archmage, or a D-Sphere, this is the most reasonable singleton to replace the already suboptimal Wrath of God mentioned above, but a random creature is better than everything but Teferi if I see nothing strange.
This is generally one of the matchups where I will sideboard in either Aven Mindcensor or Remorseful Cleric to get the Wraths out of my deck, since they have the option of stopping haste damage, and can also threaten to end the game if the opponent tries to stop interacting with the board. In this matchup, Emeria is still an excellent attrition deck, but they can sometimes choose to ignore the value we generate. It is therefore incumbent on the Emeria player to do everything possible to trade card-for-card. Lone Missionary is an absolutely invaluable tool on this front, because 4 life gains traction over their average draw of output of 3 damage, and forces them to have Boros Charm or Skullcrack to trade with it evenly. Even when they do, it still leaves behind a 2/1 body that can help your calculations on whether to try locking them under their own Eidolon of the Great Revel. This last strategy is a viable one to look out for if they do leave that card in, since its symmetrical effect leaves them powerless to remove it when it is opposed by a Wall of Omens or a Court Hussar. Given infinite time, either a Pilgrim's Eye or Mortarpod discarded to maximum hand size is sufficient to close out such a game when Emeria eventually gets online to recur a Sun titan, and Mistveil Plains will typically prompt a concession if two white permanents are already in play.
Blessed Alliance is (eventually) functionally identical to Lone Missionary, but offers both sideboard and timing flexibility. I am a fan of some amount of burst lifegain to bridge the gap before Batterskull hits, but one of these should be creature-based to force them to have Skullcrack in response to Sun Titan. If I were playing in a field where I expected Geist of Saint Traft out of Jeskai, plus a lot of Burn, I might choose to run 2 Lone Missionary and a Blessed Alliance in the sideboard. There was also a time when I ran 3 Lone Missionary in the maindeck, which turned Burn into as good a matchup as Jund, and maybe even better, but this was a heavy concession to make unless the rest of the field was decidedly aggro-centric. My current build has been good enough against burn generally that I would be willing to cut the Blessed Alliance at the moment, but since I have yet to play the matchup against a really good GP-level opponent while relying on the various Stoneforge Mystic dynamics, I have it included as extra coverage.
The importance of the mana curve is revealed since our deck replaces a land, two 3-drops, and five 4-drops, with five 2-drops and three 3-drops here. The net effect is to go up to sixteen 2-mana plays from eleven, and up to nine 3-mana plays from eight. The instant-speed interaction also jumps from five to eleven cards, of which all but the Path to Exile effects can cleanly trade with a lethal Goblin Guide after allowing its trigger. Speaking of Path to Exile, the moment I feel that the ground is locked up with enough blockers that their path to victory is through direct damage alone, these should be used as Rampant Growth on every extra Germ token or irrelevant blocker to accelerate the lategame. Settle the Wreckage is harder to do this with, but can also have this mode with proper timing. Holding Lavinia, Azorius Renegade until a Rift Bolt is in suspend can be backbreaking, but must sometimes be weighed against delaying Skewer the Critics or blocking.
If room is required for one more advantageous component not mentioned here, a Sun Titan can also be trimmed to lower the curve even further, but Titan is typically good enough to provoke desperation plays from Burn. As a final tip, Emeria wants to encourage Burn to spend its removal on potential blockers, so if I do have an extra flash sequence to mess up combat, I try to make attacks and plays that appear to leave me exposed to an on-board Soul-Scar Mage or the like so that I can tempt them to kill the apparent lone line of defense. An infrequent interaction illustrating this is if I Path to Exile my own Wall of Omens to leave me with just a Court Hussar on defense, which might allow me to Celestial Purge their attacker if they spew a Shard Volley on it along with other spells with the expectation of recouping their losses in combat. Other examples of this philosophy occur when Celestial Purge and other ways to remove creatures are used to fizzle Searing Blood, although the same trick does not work with Searing Blaze. With no card selection, they can do no more than hope that their draws line up well with yours, so respect their bluffs and expose your curve to their hand judiciously, taking whatever extra seconds you need to think. Consider the possible consequences of your plays! The clock is your ally in this matchup; you will almost never go to time.
Amulet Titan, sorry can't touch what Fincown wrote there until he comes back. However, I have added your entire post there too. People who use Fincown's list can check his guide. While people who use a Stoneforge list can get help from your guide.
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Two quick notes, hopefully they can be fixed relatively easily. First, I had missed a typo in my third paragraph into the Amulet breakdown, where I omitted the first "N" of "bounceland". Second, it seems as though the hyperlinks for the section of the Infect guide that was hidden behind the spoiler button have not been preserved, I assume just as a copy/paste oversight.
Other than that, I think that stylistically I would try to keep only the first paragraph of the breakdowns on Infect and Burn visible to reduce the size of the primer page, since the other paragraphs are advice that refers to match-specific play. If people want more information, having those under the expanded section will allow them to see how the match differs from game 1 to games 2 and 3 if want to satisfy further curiosity, but will allow for ease of scrolling if they do not.
I think that is it, and I thank you for your work!
looking at the primer, I have played enough games against a few other decks that I would give my advice on them, if you want it. Here are my thoughts on Jund:
The existence of this kind of strategy is precisely the reason for Emeria's viability in Modern as a format, and they should be the primary bellwether by which any new inclusion to the deck is measured, since they will be Emeria's main competition in metagames where attrition is rewarded. The disruptive midrange decks which emphasize the sweet spot of power and efficiency on the 1-4 mana curve are at a distinct strategic disadvantage in the head-to-head comparison, though, since Emeria is far more consistent in its draw steps and can cleanly go over the top of their best endgames if left to its own devices. The majority of games will be won by this telling advantage, and it is up to the pilot to know what the Jund opponent can leverage to create openings that their cards can shine in.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin essentially bullies every Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt they draw, and Abrupt Decay or Terminate are little better for them. Once hands are relatively empty in the midgame, Inquisition of Kozilek becomes downright embarassing, since Emeria can choose to play almost everything it draws straight to the board for advantage, which leaves few openings for it and the only slightly less awful Thoughtseize. Kolaghan's Command is a potentially strong effect, but with so many chump blockers around the Raise Dead half of the card is very difficult to push for advantage. Add this to the fact that Emeria can always choose when to deploy its sweepers to punish overextension, and the combat step is only easy for them if they manage to piece together a perfect mix of threat+disruption+removal +attrition or advantage spell. Even then, the card equity involved in such a sequence generally has them out of gas early, and vulnerable to any number of Emeria's stabilizing plays.
Dark Confidant seems to be getting less popular than it was, which is a pity for Jund because it was sometimes able to take over games in which Mortarpod did not make a timely appearance. Speaking of the Living Weapon, it is an important tool for controlling loyalty, and the 0/0 germ can either provide a layer of defense from sacrifice effects, or simply chump-block the Tarmogoyf which frequently becomes large enough to threaten a quick clock. The current alternative card draw for them appears to be a mixture of Wrenn and Six and Tireless Tracker, which are both far less likely to provide a steady stream of new threats. The animated lands which are such a huge part of Jund's lategame are easily controlled by Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter, and the card Emeria itself is a countdown to a game loss for them whenever it appears without the opposition of their best card in the matchup; Scavenging Ooze. This creature should be killed on sight whenever possible, since it reduces the ability of Sun Titan to build a commanding lead, shuts down recursion, and grows into a lethal thrrat surprisingly quickly.
Jund is a 70% matchup or better for the Stoneforge Mystic version of the list, since so many of the cards replace themselves. If I could choose to play this deck into a field full of Jund, I would jump at the chance. The topdeck wars which define the matchup are heavily skewed towards Emeria, which is exemplified in one of the defining cards of their strategy: Liliana of the Veil. If not complemented by a draw engine, using her +1 ability is a liability for them in the attrition battle, since they have to choose between holding up removal or throwing it away. A quick ultimate is possible, but not decisive. The matchup is so strongly tilted towards what Emeria wants to do that I have even recovered from several of these in the same game. In the sideboarded games Fulminator Mage leaves them down a card for no advantage unless they are already winning, and Celestial Purge covers the rest of the common issues.
The trick to sequencing here is to continue to focus on your manabase. Playing one new land per turn is the goal, since casting the curve smoothly is so strong. At the point where they are trading down cards by using their removal on cantrip creatures just to press an advantage, the game is almost over. Once the topdeck war has begun, Bloodbraid Elf can be good at compounding advantages, but Wall of Omens is excellent at holding the body back, so their Cascades have to be very strong to gain ground on stable boards. Batterskull is a must-answer threat for them which their K-Command can hit cleanly, but most other ways to deal with it leave them concerned about the possibility of re-equipping on any given turn. in sideboarding, I would remove the Settle the Wreckage and the Crucible of Worlds because they can be liabilities to hold for value if they keep in some amount of discard, and I would bring in two Celestial Purge to replace them.
I hope this helps!
first, as you requested. I have corrected the letter n in the bounceland typo. Then I have put inside the spoiler tag some parts of burn and infect, only showing the first paragraph. You can check it out, tell me if it's already ok.
Jund - sure, I put your guide into the primer. It's more in depth than the one I wrote anyway. Yeah, scavenging ooze is a real pain. It mess up our plan if that creature lives a long time.
Infect - surprisingly, this deck seems to be being played a lot again these days. Have you encountered infect players who save their inkmoth nexus by turning it to creature, then cast blossoming defense on inkmoth to save it from our field of ruin?
Stoneforge Mystic - I'm thinking of adding her as one of the primary card choices for Emeria, since you seem to be doing well on your list. My questions to you.. last year when you got 4th place in the tourney... sfm was not yet legal. But if sfm was already legal that time, would you have used sfm? Do you think the kor adds a lot more power to our deck? Personally, I think it gives us another angle of attack that does not rely on yard, so the card is good.
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I have three simple edits to suggest for the Jund breakdown. The first is avoiding the awkward repetition of the visible portion by eliminating everything but the first sentence from the first paragraph in the hidden section, and splicing this remaining sentence (beginning with the words "The majority") directly into the second paragraph. The second is another typographical error, this one in the last sentence of the third-last paragraph where I had not noticed the "E" of "threat" had been replaced by a second "R". Finally, in almost the exact middle of the last paragraph I would add the word "these" after the word "compounding" and before the word "advantages" to make my point a little more clear.
With respect to your question about Infect and their Inkmoth Nexus, that play is certainly possible, but it costs a large amount of mana for their land-light deck, and this often makes them unable to threaten lethal. The timing on such a sequence frequently comes too late at any rate, since it is opposed by any number of additional variables, including an extra Ghost Quarter, a Path to Exile, a Mortarpod, and most particularly by Pilgrim's Eye. With the latter, they cannot attack unless they have a buff for the Nexus, and unless this is a Pendelhaven or a Noble Hierarch they are putting themselves down a resource regardless as soon as blockers are declared. Post-sideboard, any Pithing Needle effect means that the layers of protection against such plays stack up incredibly quickly.
As for your interest in Stoneforge Mystic, I believe that at the very least the card deserves to be addressed in the primer. There is clearly room for real arguments against it, but we are a base-white deck in Modern where the cards are available to the strategy, so people will probably wonder if the subject of its inclusion isn't brought up. For last year's tournament in specific, I was anticipating a lot of Burn and Jeskai, plus Hogaak, Jund, Phoenix, Shadow, Affinity, and Humans, so I can't say for certain whether I would have played the card over the set of Lone Missionary and Geist-Honored Monk, which are better topdecks for buying time against ground attackers and delaying fliers and burn. The equipment package taking up an extra slot also would not allow me to run the sixth sweeper in my second copy of Wrath of God, which would have been a large concession at the time.
My instinct is that I would have been hesitant to make the change and give up all my hard-won edges in the sideboard plans I had prepared, but the Missionaries lost me game three of the semi-finals against my control opponent because they did not gain an advantage over Electrolyze, so it would have been a very close decision to make in retrospect. The final would have then been against another deck where their clock would have been relevant, so I have no clear answer there either, but in the dark I am very confident that Stoneforge Mystic is the better card overall purely because it replaces itself more reliably. There is always something to be said for easy wins over Burn, though.
Thanks for your interest!
raised the rating of pilgrim's eye and mortarpod to 3. These two cards are still good.
added Stoneforge Mystic to "creatures" in card choices, and added Batterskull in "Other spells" in card choices.
I would like to thank you for all the help updating the primer. I feel this deck is still competitve in modern.
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In return. The tournament reports section of the nexus primer go to mtgs, so mtgs get something too.
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I was able to attend another small team trios event again today. Here was my list:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Court Hussar
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Batterskull
3 Sun Titan
3 Mortarpod
2 Detention Sphere
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
4 Path to Exile
7 Plains
3 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
1 Island
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Remorseful Cleric
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Shadowspear
1 Lone Missionary
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Pithing Needle
2 Celestial Purge
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
First, a note on the sideboard, specifically with regards to Shadowspear. While I am uncertain if it is truly good yet, my inclination is that it is not. It does fit in an extra lifegain effect against Burn, while allowing combinations of cards to interact with Heliod, Sun-crowned, Darksteel Citadel, Lotus Field and Selfless Spirit, in addition to covering a few other things, but the problem is that I am not keen to bring in an equipment which could be dead when drawn normally post-sweeper against any of the decks that play these cards. I think at this point that it should probably be either the third Aven Mindcensor or the first Forsake the Worldly.
When it comes to the last card, I have had very positive results with the new Seal of Cleansing and Aura of Silence split, allowing smoother curving and a greater amount of utility on the lategame Sun Titan. In one game, however, my opponent had two copies of Rest in Peace one after the other out of an U/W control deck. This has historically not been a problem, but the fact that sacrificing the Seal or the Aura is part of the cost (and not the resolution) of removing such enchantments meant that I was unable to have an avenue to prevent decking, and my artifact/enchantment removal was now single-use only. Given this, and the fact that a diversity of instant-speed singletons keeps unfair strategies honest for longer, I am likely returning to Forsake as a third piece of noncreature disruption.
On to the tournament! I went 2-1 in matches, but my teammates and I took down the opposition when it counted in the last round, so we were able to tie for first place for another nominal amount of store credit. My breakdowns were as follows:
ROUND 1: Counters Company 1-0 win (1-0 overall)
This was an interesting one. I was very solidly advantaged for almost the entire game after I swept three of his creatures on turn 4, and then another two on turn 6. His Shalai, Voice of Plenty made my Settle the wreckage obsolete until I could deal with it, however, and this was complicated by the fact that I stopped drawing spells for 14 consecutive draws starting on turn 5. The good news was that I had gotten a Crucible of Worlds on the table and activated my Emeria, the Sky Ruin to return a Stoneforge Mystic, which led to a multiple-turn face-off between my Batterskull and his Angel, both of us on two-turn clocks, (his flier had picked up two +1/+1 counters from the Heliod, Sun-Crowned which I had hidden under a Detention Sphere). All this came to a head when I finally drew a Field of Ruin to start cutting him off of white mana over the course of a few turns, but he drew a Knight of Autumn to release Heliod, then an Eternal Witness just in time to threaten lethal by returning a Walking Ballista with six mana in play. On my turn, I drew my first spell in what seemed like years in Mortarpod, and thought for a long time before playing another land from my graveyard and passing. On his turn, he presented the combo by announcing Ballista for x=2, and I thought I had him, but then he asked for the oracle text on Mortarpod and clearly realized that my active Stoneforge represented state-based disruption if he activated the ability of Heliod, because I would ping his construct in response. Figuring he was certain to win after he untapped, he passed the turn. I needed removal of any kind to survive, and I found it in Wrath of God off the top. The final flurry, as time was being called, had me announce the wrath and hold it hovering on the stack to force his attempt to combo, which I was finally able to respond to by activating Stoneforge Mystic for the the Mortarpod I had drawn the previous turn. Since I had around 17 mana, Batterskull was then returned to hand and re-cast, and cleanly took the game during turns as I locked him out of white mana.
A good match-up that nearly got out of hand, but my poor draws meant that the entertainment value was sky-high. I was on the edge of my seat for the final few turns, and felt very happy to cobble together a win after a game that looked to be an early blowout.
ROUND 2: Boros Burn 0-2 loss (1-1 overall)
This one was unfortunate. On the draw in the dark against a new opponent, I mulliganed a hand of six low-impact lands (two Field of Ruin, three Plains, one Island) and a Court Hussar. The next hand contained only two land but a good mix of spells, and I chose to put back the most expensive card in a Batterskull, which I had a twinge of regret for when my opponent opened on turn one Monastery Swiftspear. I had to use my fetchland to cast a Path to Exile on it the next turn, but then had no answer for his Eidolon of the Great Revel, which made my Stoneforge Mystic brutally painful off of the Hallowed Fountain that I was forced to play untapped. The extra land I had given him was all the leverage he needed, since he got an attack in with the Eidolon (that I chose not to block, with the intention of lifelinking for the win) before emptying his hand, showing me four Lightning Bolt effects off of his four land for an exact turn-three kill on the play. For game two, I had stabilized his early aggression at 6 life, and was facing off an Aven Mindcensor against his Goblin Guide and single card in hand, needing to find a lifegain trigger of any kind to start pulling things out of reach. I drew a Stoneforge Mystic on five mana, and with a Batterskull already in hand I cast it and grabbed the Shadowspear, equipped it to my Bird Wizard, and attacked, going to 9. On my end step, he cast Boros Charm and dropped me back to 5, but as my Mystic was still on defense all the pressure was on him to find a way out. His draw step was a fourth land in Sunbaked Canyon, which was his only live out and turned into exact lethal once again when he drew the Searing Blaze (now with landfall) to clear my 1/2 and swing with the Guide for the last two points.
Well played by my opponent, and poor luck for me that I hadn't won the die roll or avoided taking a single extra point somewhere in either game, but such is the nature of the taxman. It is, however, possible that I could have ambushed his Goblin Guide in game two if I had kept my Mindcensor back when he sacrificed his Arid Mesa. The potential of cutting him off of Boros Charm and Lightning Helix was too tempting for me at the time, though.
ROUND 3: Jund, 2-1 win (2-1 overall)
This was a welcome return to midrange battles, but one in which I had to fight back from down a game because I never found an Emeria, the Sky Ruin in game one. On a stable board at 12 life, I eventually lost to a Wrenn and Six emblem recurring a Lightning Bolt four times over the course of several turns. Sadly, I had not been able to connect with a Batterskull at any point. Game two was much better, however, as turn one I played the namesake card of the deck, and was able to activate it after buying many turns of tempo by using Teferi, Time Raveler and ETB creatures to continually bounce and block his attackers. Game three was the tightest of the match, highlighted by fightbacks from an early Fulminator Mage in order to cast Detention Sphere removing an enormous Scavenging Ooze from play for a few key turns, which was then countered on his side by an Ashiok, Dream Render managing to exile all three of my Sun Titan. Mortarpod made an appearance to take the Planeswalker out, then Pilgrim's Eye kept my Batterskull safe from his Liliana of the Veil by leaving an extra land in hand to avoid the +1 ability, then leaving an extra body in play to avoid the -2 ability. Eventually his Maelstrom Pulse released his Ooze, but since I had always kept mana open and extra cards in hand he could not deal with my recurring Germ. At this point the key factor became the fact that graveyards were very thin, and my lifelinking 4/4 was ultimately able to force a trade before reappearing to take the game and the match.
More or less as expected, but the point about Wrenn and Six that was made on the last page is still niggling at me. I do not wish to put in a third Celestial Purge in the Shadowspear slot, but perhaps this matchup requires the extra exile effect at this point.
Quite poor draw steps today, but a positive result despite this, and my sideboarding may become more obvious in light of potential bannings tomorrow.
Let me know if you have any questions!
nice tourney report. And congrats on being able to tie for first place.
you're really adept at beating jund with this deck.
oh, seal of cleansing?? I think that is not modern legal?
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Hmm, do you play a lot against Humans? We still don't have a guide for that match-up.
If you like, you can write a guide how to play vs. that deck. Will add it to the primer, and write you as the contributor.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Thank you, I used some of the credit to get other sideboard cards I might test, notably Cerulean Drake as a poor alternative to Glen Elendra Archmage, but at less than half the cost. Sideboard cards tend to be more effective when cheaper, and this 2-mana flier might prove useful enough to matter.
The way I have built the deck, Jund is good in the same metagames as this version is, and so I make it my first priority to evaluate every card against the matchup whenever I try to add something new. They can win if they know what to prioritize, but it is a reasonably tall order for them, and the play patterns are quite a bit different than against other decks with Hallowed Fountain, so my record is somewhat inflated here because I typically get at least some amount of blind unintentional value from them in the first three or four turns.
On the subject of Seal of Cleansing, I was also under the impression that it was last legal in Nemesis, but then my friend told me that it had been printed in a Modern-legal set. I got a copy of the new-bordered version, just to resolve this question if it came up, but I see now after checking your comment that it was from ETERNAL Masters, not MODERN Masters! I will have to tell the store owner what happened, and it is justice that the only time I have sideboarded it in during a sanctioned match so far was during the loss against the U/W opponent that I mentioned above. I will remove it right away, thank you very much for the catch.
As for humans, I will be happy to post a guide based off of advice I have given previously; it will follow this post directly.
Humans is one of the bread-and butter pairings for Emeria control in any variant, and this list is no exception. Because of a combination of playing to the board with multiple x-1's, very little haste or evasion, a near-total lack of card advantage, and a manabase reliant on Gold lands and dreams, this is almost as good a matchup as Infect, and ranks alongside the far less popular B/W tokens in terms of decks that I am hoping to be paired against in any round. Wall of Omens is as good as advertised, and Pilgrim's Eye performs at above-average rates to encourage the overextended boardstates that they are so desperate to be caught in. At this point, the sweepers take over, and can lead to blowouts beginning from a minimum of 3-for-1 rates and going all the way to my current record of 14-for-1.
Even given all of this, however, it is not impossible to lose. Virtually their only way to achieve a win is to press their disruption with Meddling Mage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Kitesail Freebooter, but the diversity of board control Emeria presents is a huge obstacle for this strategy to overcome. Around 25% of the time, the deck's draws will afford them a chance to do this, but the problem they then face is that these disruptive creatures are particularly poor at applying significant pressure, so their best sequence is narrowed to a turn-one play followed by two (or more often three) layers of disruption, which must be capped off by either Thalia's Lieutenant or Mantis Rider to deny Emeria draw steps. The reason for this is that the average card quality for W/u is extremely high, and it is virtually impossible for Humans to achieve an actual lock on the 5 relevant sweeper effects through Detention Sphere, Path to Exile, and Mortarpod. The last of these is particularly frustrating for them, since Stoneforge Mystic can simply put it (or Batterskull, for that matter) into play through a Meddling Mage, and the targeting of the Germ's sacrifice is often all that is required to kill a key Phantasmal image.
Additionally, their primary interactive pieces in Deputy of Detention and Reflector Mage are downright embarrassing in the face of mass removal and ETB creatures, giving W/u supplemental value in the lategame, which then becomes completely backbreaking. From the sideboard Collector Ouphe does virtually nothing, while Sin Collector and Knight of Autumn are slow and weak to Mortarpod at 3 mana, so their most significant upgrade is found in Gaddock Teeg. Unfortunately for them, the card is a Kithkin Advisor, which is almost totally monopolizing on their Cavern of Souls and Unclaimed Territory. This usually leaves them struggling to provide the necessary pressure to follow up, and exposes their manabase even more to Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter. Speaking of which, the basic land count in most Humans lists is sometimes 0, often only 1 or 2, and generally 3 at maximum, so the Jeskai colours needed for the hasty flier that is most important for them to cast post-Wrath of God are highly susceptible to disruption on their Red source.
Nevertheless, the Mantis Rider and Kitesail Freebooter interactions are important enough that Celestial Purge is a desireable effect to have access to post-sideboard. Crucible of Worlds is unnecessary here, and Teferi, Time Raveler is mediocre in wide board states, while a single Batterskull is all that is needed to win. These three cards therefore come out to make room for the Purges and a single Pithing Needle. The Needle is because Humans makes excellent use of Aether Vial in perfect draws, and the primary angle that tribal decks without reach can use to outmaneuver Emeria is by controlling their exposure to play around Wrath effects. Against Humans the only real threat is their ability to play a "flash" game, and Needle is therefore a very effective card to draw in many midgame situations as insurance that can also disrupt, since if they can choose what to commit and when they can sometimes steal games that would be locked up otherwise.
Beyond that logic, a turn-one Vial can sometimes grow Champion of the Parish fast enough on the play that a single Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter can be used to put off a sweeper for the one turn they need to win. Their normal goldfish gets pushed back by half a turn or more for every weak soft-lock creature they play, though, which means this is rarely possible unless they accelerate. Aether Vial counts as acceleration for this purpose, since it can essentially tap for 6 mana or more in their best draws, and so access to more than four pieces of 1-mana interaction is important for the greatest operational threat they can leverage.
One last relevant question is why in normal circumstances only a single copy of this effect is good against them. The answer is because Aether Vial is a poor topdeck, and can be sideboarded out by some opponents. Creature-centric decks are frequently desperate for either pressure or space post-board against Emeria, and they sometimes will conclude that Vial is to be cut, but until this is certain, the Pithing Needle does its job very well. A single card can turn 4 of theirs into completely dead draws unless they choose to slow themselves down again, creating positive strategic dynamics for Emeria. The risk that they might win the staring contest over whether Needle can name Vial profitably leads one copy only being brought in until the presence of their artifact is confirmed, since after the backup target of Horizon Canopy, they may literally have no other activated abilities to prevent.
oh, and you were able to 14 for 1 a Humans player? haha, that's brutal.
well, they're probably one of the strongest tribal decks in modern.. so it's good that we now have a guide for playing vs them.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Thank you for letting me write the update on Humans, and I once more have a couple of edits to mention. First, I had forgotten the very important word "not" in the opening paragraph, just after the word "desperate". Second, I believe that the formatting error has cropped up again where the hyperlinks are non-functional in the section that starts off hidden.
In addition to this, I have one minor and one major omission to report in the Jund primer. The minor issue is a missed capital "i" at the beginning of the very last sentence of the guide. The more serious concern is that I forgot to mention a critical piece of advice in playing the matchup. To fit it in, I would add the following two phrases immediately after the sentence ending with the hyperlinked words "Liliana of the Veil" in the second to last paragraph:
"The card quality that she and Jund's natural draws provide is much more difficult for them to press when lower on resources, and the lack of an overwhelming clock combines with this such that it is vital to be aware of the importance of Mulligans. Keeping any reasonable hand is imperative, and Liliana is also much more frequently beatable if she is made to discard their resources early, which means that choosing to draw against the deck is often a valid choice."
I am somewhat puzzled that I missed this, since I think it is a big part of my own win percentage against the deck. On the subject of humans, however, yes; things can sometimes turn truly awful for them. The disruptive creatures are very fragile, and often cannot attack into a board containing (for example) a Court Hussar and a Mortarpod. They are therefore stuck making copies of their Meddling Mage to try to lock out sweepers while going wide, and in the meantime Emeria is free to run out self-replacing blockers and Batterskull to maintain parity.
These board stalls sometimes extend into as long as they can keep topdecking more Phantasmal Image, Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Kitesail Freebooter, but eventually they will either draw a land to let Emeria get ahead on creatures (unlocking 'Pod based removal), or they will hit a string of "power" threats to try to turn the corner. At this point, Emeria usually gets multiple chances to use relevant removal on one of the "lock" creatures, which in turn releases a sweeper to knock down the entire house of cards they have built.
Once again, I appreciate your attention!