What do you guys think of transgress the mind instead of iok or ts? Since it helps exile and disrupts the hand I think it may help to change out a few for testing. It's only one mana more.
What do you guys think of transgress the mind instead of iok or ts? Since it helps exile and disrupts the hand I think it may help to change out a few for testing. It's only one mana more.
IoK is only played because of the prevalence of burn/aggro decks that prevent us from running 4 thoughtseize.
I would think a "budget" replacement would very much be duress/despise instead of transgress with me bordering on despise to hit zoo/burn to stabilise
Nah man, we should all be running nameless inversion. Without a doubt. All kidding aside, here is the list Im on. Consistently 4-1ing leagues with it with a single 5-0 at this point. Havent tested some of the changes, but Conduit of Ruin is better than the second Ulamog for sure. Im loving Endless One in all but the BGx matchup where we do a number by blanking their abrupt decays. All is dust is great everywhere. As for the sideboard, I made changes based on my experiences. I really want to get a crucible in there for the GC plan. I feel like it can just hose certain decks while not doing much to us since we can function for a long time without land drops through Sions and just the efficiency of our lands. I havent done a league with it yet, but Ive been consistently going no worse than 3-2 with the stock list including many 4-1s and a 5-0.
@ everyone: i forgot to write what's our gameplan against mono red.
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From Supernatural:
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
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The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
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Mono red isn't that scary honestly. We can strangle their creatures and stabilize with souls or herders. Once we have our fatties, we can just fire up shambling vents and get out of reach. As for post board, it really gets even easier. Don't play into skullcrack mana with your life gain spell of choice, and its a pretty difficult matchup to lose Naya burn is a little more challenging, but the Nactl version is a bit easier as our stranglers are very very strong in the matchup often trading 2 for 1 with their creatures.
Congrats on all your recent success in leagues Cap. I've seen most lists cutting down to one Ulamog and 13 creatures overall. I appreciate that endless one always scales with the state of the game and sometimes you just need a threat and can often come down as a 4/4 late in the game after searching by announcing x = 4 and having eye with an untapped temple but having said all that it strikes me as a vanilla threat where as nearly everything in this deck gets value upon casting. I hope I'm wrong, and both endless one and endbringer wind up putting the deck over the top; its possible people who have been playing this deck (myself included) have become spoiled by the on cast triggers, a 4/4 on T2 or 5/5 on T3 is still really good and puts it in Gurmag Angler territory. Having said all that, I've been having a lot of success with my list and for the time being I wouldn't personally add endless one but I understand and support the reasoning.
I would really like to hear some in depth thoughts about how you assembled your manabase, I'm assuming the last two lands not on screen are windswept heaths? Also with all those utility lands and adding all is dust and conduit I realize you had to make some cuts but the maps add so much value in getting said utility lands or sol lands. With the lack of cantrip artifacts (4 down from Bx's normal 6-8) and no maps it would appear you're just shooting in the dark hoping to hit a silver bullet like GQ vs tron / amulet or vents & vault vs complex board states / burn.
In your sideboard you prefer timely over rest for the weary, again whats the reasoning. Burn gives this deck some trouble and post board they're live with 6 skullcrack affects, 1 mana and instant speed make a difference especially if you have your weary in hand pass and EoT they crack you respond with rest, are the 3 tokens making that much difference in the match up? You and others in this thread have advocated for Zealous, what are the match ups you're boarding it in against and how has the additional damage stacked up for you personally? Is sundering growth a test/pet card because WW can be a challenge early in the match ups i'm assuming your bringing it against.
Having said all that great job, looking forward to your response.
As for the reasoning, Im finding myself often dropping Strangler as a 3/2 vanilla creature just to land a threat in many matchups. The Endless Ones are there so that I can keep my stranglers back as answers while still progressing the board state with an even better body. In situations I would need to jam a strangler to present a clock, I can now drop a 3/3 or 4/4 endless one and be a bit happier about it.
The mana base is a bit funky, and it really has a lot of tuning left. I can't really say much reasoning behind it other than how ineffective fetches have felt, how strong I think vault is, and how often I found myself not playing out map. I raised my MB GC count to 2, so Im actually only cutting the consistency of hitting one by 33% game 1. In reality, map is generally just too slow in those matchups anyways. It stays in when Im going long, but with the prevalence of aggro and quick combo, its often one of the first cards Im cutting in close to 50% of my matches. Maybe more. I will see how I like the deck without it a little more before reassessing, but I think map is a trap in treat our deck like a tron deck. All of our utility lands do a very similar thing. We don't need to hit very specific combinations to function. Map also has a very weird mana cost on our deck's curve. I typically found myself with much more powerful things to be doing than cracking or even playing out a map.
Timely is a great card, and it is often played over rest. Im also on 3 fetch lands, so I don't have as much of a "gotcha" opportunity. In fact, I don't think Ive cast Rest at instant speed in any of my games. The tokens are great considering we run souls and herder. 3 dorks are really nice as they trade with Nactl, Kird Ape, a single pumped swiftspear. As burn decks move over to the Nactl/Zoo burn variety, I think Timely gets more and more of an edge over rest. Zealous fits our tokens plan so much better. It is versatile to be used on offense and defense, and Im a HUGE fan of Izzet Staticaster in this meta, and Zealous plays a very similar role. It comes in vs mana dorks, vs infect, vs affinity, vs twin, vs pyro/mentor, vs other souls decks, etc. I really can't sing enough praises about being able to instant speed drain their creatures for -1/-1. It also has great gotcha potential as I often find myself on the "Grind them out with tokens" strategy. The number of times Ive won with herder tokens after they path the herder itself is easily near 33%. The zealous is just great in those creature matchups and ends up very swingy. I was relatively unimpressed with disenchant in general, and I wanted a card with more upside. WW hasn't been a problem yet, but if it becomes one, Ill let you know. One trick I have is that our deck can run relatively completely off of 1 B a turn, and with Urborg, it is almost always correct to be fetching a plains unless you intend to immediately cast or leave up a black spell. So, based on that, Im usually not struggling to hit WW. Its actually one of the reasons I don't think Mono B is correct. The deck is more of a <>bx deck, and the "consistency" you get from going for only b as your splash is really not that much greater than going 2 color. Fetches and shocks being 2 colored for minimal cost really shores this up.
So after doing more testing and playing against a wider variety of decks I've come to believe 2 things:
1) I really think this BW build is real, I know we all knew it was solid and fun but my testing has found it to be really good against a large portion of the modern field, and to have game against even its' more difficult match ups.
2) I really don't think we need expedition map. Dropping our fatties as soon as possible is nice, but it's not like it instantly wins us the game like for Tron. This makes the big draw for map its' ability to grab out the utility land we want when we want it. However, I really feel that the card slot and mana you spend on map can just as easily be used on more removal/disruption. Think of it this way, against Tron game 1 if you have 2 maps and 2 GQ in your deck you are just as likely to draw a GQ as a map, admittedly map can help you find a GQ, but you'll need to have 3 open mana and not have played your land for the turn if you want to use GQ that turn. I know decks running map have been doing very well, and I also only play paper so I cannot say I face as large and likely diverse a meta as MTGO, but I personally have found I would rather use card slots for more removal/hand disruption than on ramp cards like map.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I don't think we could run those singletons very effectively without the maps. It's also nice because you don't really need to crack it immediately. I've often played one, and then let it sit 2-4 turns while I do other things with my mana. I do agree that more removal might be nice, but then again removal is dead in some matchups too. I have found the Go For The Throats to be often disappointing. I would change them way before the maps.
Honestly, none of our lands aren't redundant enough to need tutoring, and we have no need to hit specific drops. Tron runs it because it provides land consistency. Something we frequently don't want to be spending 3 mana on. Their payoff is huge while ours is weak in comparison.
I have to disagree. Bog, Ghost Quarter, and Eye are all very important and legit Map targets, and the first two are singletons in most lists. Some people also run Cavern, which is also a good target. I've had a few games where I had no paths or relics, so going for that Bog allowed me to start my entire game plan. I really think you are underselling the maps. They may be better in Tron, but that doesn't make them bad for us. But anyways, I don't mean to argue it too much, if you run a successful list without them then more power to you. I just have found them to be really helpful
Yes im sure it's just a preference call. I Still like scullers and extirpates md so I don't feel the need for bog, and i am also running more md GQ, upping my chances of drawing them w/out having to tutor. I personally would rather have other cards in the slot but it seems like all variants are doing well map or no map, so if it ain't broke don't fix it I suppose
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
Any thoughts on running a single Shizo, Death's storehouse? I know we only got one legendary, but it lets us swing Ulamog right into someone without any way for them to block except if they are running black.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Thanks for the great discussion Cap. Again I can see the value of endless one and the consistent ability to match the board state, late game as a top deck or tutor target its often a 10/10+, and post board GBx should be removing their decays.
I was watching Jonathan Sukenik a.k.a. Watchwolf92's stream a few nights ago and he was playing Magus' stock list from the MOCS but one of the first things he said he would cut is Godless Shrine down to 1 because its redundant past the first, I find that interesting for a number of reasons. I agree map is slow in the aggro match ups which is about 11-13% of the meta but against the field it is incredibly powerful. As others have said in this thread I don't view map as ramp per se but utility; often i'm fetching up Bog if i haven't come across a relic or GQ against Infect / Affinity if i haven't landed a souls, and on several occasions game 1 against burn or zoo if we've turned the corner mid I fetch up vents. In the case of map i see the pros and cons of it but in the dark against a vast field I would play it, in a meta dependent situation I could see cutting them.
No denying Timely is a great card and has been a gold standard against linear aggro strategies for a long time, I feel the way this deck is built though with souls and herder you're often at board parity or wider than the opponent when you're casting it so you're only getting half of the value conditionally where with Rest unless you're skullcracked its always 4 or 8 and can be used in resp to a command or crack where as with timely you're forced into a corner where you might only get half of the value if that, the upside is obviously there but personally I prefer the ability to interact with the stack and consistency. As for zealous i'll have to test it out, again appreciate all the feed back.
Going back to a discussion that was started earlier, what does everyone think about adding a single shock land in order to broaden our sideboard options? Someone mentioned splashing red for slaughter games or crumble to dust. I know that burn decks have been doing this for a long time by running a single stomping ground for a green splash, and I think it's a good idea for us as well. Honestly I've found the SB options in B/W to be a little meh, so maybe a splash would work. What are people's thoughts?
Any thoughts on running a single Shizo, Death's storehouse? I know we only got one legendary, but it lets us swing Ulamog right into someone without any way for them to block except if they are running black.
For BW Processors I've only been running 4 fetches, I don't think upping the number would really be that big a deal if you really want to splash a third color though, and as others have said if you run the map plan it's even easier.
I also really like the idea of only 1 godless shrine. We only really need 1 land that produces B and 1 land that produces W to function and if we can get that mana from basics all the better as far as I'm concerned. It also reduces the pain of our manabase a little, which I think is probably a good direction to go in.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
The problem with splashing more than one additional color is that we run into the consistency problem even with fetch lands in the deck. That and I don't think the value is there yet to make shelling out the extra money for enemy fetch lands worth it for this deck. It has enough tools just from running black and white that it doesn't need anything else.
There's novelty in running a color trifecta with good stuff if you already have the enemy fetches to utilize, though.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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IoK is only played because of the prevalence of burn/aggro decks that prevent us from running 4 thoughtseize.
I would think a "budget" replacement would very much be duress/despise instead of transgress with me bordering on despise to hit zoo/burn to stabilise
WBGCompany
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
====
The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
====
with R i'll burn you and with B youll'be maimed
I would really like to hear some in depth thoughts about how you assembled your manabase, I'm assuming the last two lands not on screen are windswept heaths? Also with all those utility lands and adding all is dust and conduit I realize you had to make some cuts but the maps add so much value in getting said utility lands or sol lands. With the lack of cantrip artifacts (4 down from Bx's normal 6-8) and no maps it would appear you're just shooting in the dark hoping to hit a silver bullet like GQ vs tron / amulet or vents & vault vs complex board states / burn.
In your sideboard you prefer timely over rest for the weary, again whats the reasoning. Burn gives this deck some trouble and post board they're live with 6 skullcrack affects, 1 mana and instant speed make a difference especially if you have your weary in hand pass and EoT they crack you respond with rest, are the 3 tokens making that much difference in the match up? You and others in this thread have advocated for Zealous, what are the match ups you're boarding it in against and how has the additional damage stacked up for you personally? Is sundering growth a test/pet card because WW can be a challenge early in the match ups i'm assuming your bringing it against.
Having said all that great job, looking forward to your response.
The mana base is a bit funky, and it really has a lot of tuning left. I can't really say much reasoning behind it other than how ineffective fetches have felt, how strong I think vault is, and how often I found myself not playing out map. I raised my MB GC count to 2, so Im actually only cutting the consistency of hitting one by 33% game 1. In reality, map is generally just too slow in those matchups anyways. It stays in when Im going long, but with the prevalence of aggro and quick combo, its often one of the first cards Im cutting in close to 50% of my matches. Maybe more. I will see how I like the deck without it a little more before reassessing, but I think map is a trap in treat our deck like a tron deck. All of our utility lands do a very similar thing. We don't need to hit very specific combinations to function. Map also has a very weird mana cost on our deck's curve. I typically found myself with much more powerful things to be doing than cracking or even playing out a map.
Timely is a great card, and it is often played over rest. Im also on 3 fetch lands, so I don't have as much of a "gotcha" opportunity. In fact, I don't think Ive cast Rest at instant speed in any of my games. The tokens are great considering we run souls and herder. 3 dorks are really nice as they trade with Nactl, Kird Ape, a single pumped swiftspear. As burn decks move over to the Nactl/Zoo burn variety, I think Timely gets more and more of an edge over rest. Zealous fits our tokens plan so much better. It is versatile to be used on offense and defense, and Im a HUGE fan of Izzet Staticaster in this meta, and Zealous plays a very similar role. It comes in vs mana dorks, vs infect, vs affinity, vs twin, vs pyro/mentor, vs other souls decks, etc. I really can't sing enough praises about being able to instant speed drain their creatures for -1/-1. It also has great gotcha potential as I often find myself on the "Grind them out with tokens" strategy. The number of times Ive won with herder tokens after they path the herder itself is easily near 33%. The zealous is just great in those creature matchups and ends up very swingy. I was relatively unimpressed with disenchant in general, and I wanted a card with more upside. WW hasn't been a problem yet, but if it becomes one, Ill let you know. One trick I have is that our deck can run relatively completely off of 1 B a turn, and with Urborg, it is almost always correct to be fetching a plains unless you intend to immediately cast or leave up a black spell. So, based on that, Im usually not struggling to hit WW. Its actually one of the reasons I don't think Mono B is correct. The deck is more of a <>bx deck, and the "consistency" you get from going for only b as your splash is really not that much greater than going 2 color. Fetches and shocks being 2 colored for minimal cost really shores this up.
1) I really think this BW build is real, I know we all knew it was solid and fun but my testing has found it to be really good against a large portion of the modern field, and to have game against even its' more difficult match ups.
2) I really don't think we need expedition map. Dropping our fatties as soon as possible is nice, but it's not like it instantly wins us the game like for Tron. This makes the big draw for map its' ability to grab out the utility land we want when we want it. However, I really feel that the card slot and mana you spend on map can just as easily be used on more removal/disruption. Think of it this way, against Tron game 1 if you have 2 maps and 2 GQ in your deck you are just as likely to draw a GQ as a map, admittedly map can help you find a GQ, but you'll need to have 3 open mana and not have played your land for the turn if you want to use GQ that turn. I know decks running map have been doing very well, and I also only play paper so I cannot say I face as large and likely diverse a meta as MTGO, but I personally have found I would rather use card slots for more removal/hand disruption than on ramp cards like map.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I was watching Jonathan Sukenik a.k.a. Watchwolf92's stream a few nights ago and he was playing Magus' stock list from the MOCS but one of the first things he said he would cut is Godless Shrine down to 1 because its redundant past the first, I find that interesting for a number of reasons. I agree map is slow in the aggro match ups which is about 11-13% of the meta but against the field it is incredibly powerful. As others have said in this thread I don't view map as ramp per se but utility; often i'm fetching up Bog if i haven't come across a relic or GQ against Infect / Affinity if i haven't landed a souls, and on several occasions game 1 against burn or zoo if we've turned the corner mid I fetch up vents. In the case of map i see the pros and cons of it but in the dark against a vast field I would play it, in a meta dependent situation I could see cutting them.
No denying Timely is a great card and has been a gold standard against linear aggro strategies for a long time, I feel the way this deck is built though with souls and herder you're often at board parity or wider than the opponent when you're casting it so you're only getting half of the value conditionally where with Rest unless you're skullcracked its always 4 or 8 and can be used in resp to a command or crack where as with timely you're forced into a corner where you might only get half of the value if that, the upside is obviously there but personally I prefer the ability to interact with the stack and consistency. As for zealous i'll have to test it out, again appreciate all the feed back.
Or artifact.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I also really like the idea of only 1 godless shrine. We only really need 1 land that produces B and 1 land that produces W to function and if we can get that mana from basics all the better as far as I'm concerned. It also reduces the pain of our manabase a little, which I think is probably a good direction to go in.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
There's novelty in running a color trifecta with good stuff if you already have the enemy fetches to utilize, though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!