Congrats on the finish and thanks for the write up (although I agree 2-1 is nothing spectacular).
Regarding some of your questions:
I wouldn't board in a third Grudge against Tron (at least against the Gx variant, Ux sure). I probably wouldn't even board in the second one. Having 1 is nice but Grudge doesn't really do anything against their main game plan (assembling Tron) which is what we want to focus on. Is nice against some of their annoying cards (Relic, O-Stone, Spellskite, helps with Wurmcoil) but doesn't do anything against the stuff that's really backbreaking (Karn, Ugin, Ulamog, Worldbreaker). Ceremonious Rejection is very good against Tron and solid against Affinity and Lantern. Spreading Seas is also very good against Tron and ok against Affinity and Lantern.
Or you just use to the for one Surgical Extraction, which leads me to your next question.
SE is a very good card and with our ability to replay it it can get really dirty. I don't really know how your local meta looks like but unless there's tons of Affinity and Lantern, 3x Grudges seem excessive. I'm also not keen on Kitchen Finks in the SB. It's more of a mainboard card for me. It's obviously good against Burn and also great against grindy decks without Path. But Scavenging Ooze seems overall just like the better SB card. it's solid against Burn (really helps to stabilize, as there are usually at least 3 creatures in the grave by turn 4-5), very good against Snapcaster decks (especially off a Vial), helps against Lingering Souls and shrinks Grim Flayers against Abzan and just randomly hoses tons of graveyard based strategies.
2x Obstinate Baloth seems a little weird too. Do you have enough Lili/K-Command/8-Rack decks in your meta to really warrant that one? Because Huntmaster of the Fells is usually the better choice (being good against the same Lili/K-Command decks, while also against any other midrange decks and excelling against creature decks like Abzan Company or Eldrazi'n'Taxes). We are just so good at flipping him.
Bant Eldrazi is pretty much the worst MU we have. We got some game against them if they don't draw Cavern of Souls, because Remanding their stuff is actually pretty effective. If they have Caverns though it seems nearly unwinnable. Opt for the softlock and try some surprise blocks with vialed in Goyfs. I haven't found a good way to deal with them yet that doesn't involve heavily impacting our mana base to comfort Blood Moon which screws us more often that it helps. Spreading Seas is usually better than Stone Rain because it comes down earlier. Killing Caverns is often better than aiming for Eldrazi Temple.
I haven't played much against Eldrazi Tron but so far it seems like a better MU than Bant Eldrazi (Our land destruction is a lot better against Tron lands so preventing their end game is easier while our lock is more effective (Bant can often stall the lock by tapping our Goyfs down for some turns, which gives them time to find removal). I don't really think it's a good MU neither, though.
I went 3-1 last night by the way, only loosing to Bant Eldrazi. Report will follow soon.
Congrats on the finish and thanks for the write up (although I agree 2-1 is nothing spectacular).
Regarding some of your questions:
I wouldn't board in a third Grudge against Tron (at least against the Gx variant, Ux sure). I probably wouldn't even board in the second one. Having 1 is nice but Grudge doesn't really do anything against their main game plan (assembling Tron) which is what we want to focus on. Is nice against some of their annoying cards (Relic, O-Stone, Spellskite, helps with Wurmcoil) but doesn't do anything against the stuff that's really backbreaking (Karn, Ugin, Ulamog, Worldbreaker). Ceremonious Rejection is very good against Tron and solid against Affinity and Lantern. Spreading Seas is also very good against Tron and ok against Affinity and Lantern.
Or you just use to the for one Surgical Extraction, which leads me to your next question.
SE is a very good card and with our ability to replay it it can get really dirty. I don't really know how your local meta looks like but unless there's tons of Affinity and Lantern, 3x Grudges seem excessive. I'm also not keen on Kitchen Finks in the SB. It's more of a mainboard card for me. It's obviously good against Burn and also great against grindy decks without Path. But Scavenging Ooze seems overall just like the better SB card. it's solid against Burn (really helps to stabilize, as there are usually at least 3 creatures in the grave by turn 4-5), very good against Snapcaster decks (especially off a Vial), helps against Lingering Souls and shrinks Grim Flayers against Abzan and just randomly hoses tons of graveyard based strategies.
2x Obstinate Baloth seems a little weird too. Do you have enough Lili/K-Command/8-Rack decks in your meta to really warrant that one? Because Huntmaster of the Fells is usually the better choice (being good against the same Lili/K-Command decks, while also against any other midrange decks and excelling against creature decks like Abzan Company or Eldrazi'n'Taxes). We are just so good at flipping him.
Bant Eldrazi is pretty much the worst MU we have. We got some game against them if they don't draw Cavern of Souls, because Remanding their stuff is actually pretty effective. If they have Caverns though it seems nearly unwinnable. Opt for the softlock and try some surprise blocks with vialed in Goyfs. I haven't found a good way to deal with them yet that doesn't involve heavily impacting our mana base to comfort Blood Moon which screws us more often that it helps. Spreading Seas is usually better than Stone Rain because it comes down earlier. Killing Caverns is often better than aiming for Eldrazi Temple.
I haven't played much against Eldrazi Tron but so far it seems like a better MU than Bant Eldrazi (Our land destruction is a lot better against Tron lands so preventing their end game is easier while our lock is more effective (Bant can often stall the lock by tapping our Goyfs down for some turns, which gives them time to find removal). I don't really think it's a good MU neither, though.
I went 3-1 last night by the way, only loosing to Bant Eldrazi. Report will follow soon.
Sounds reasonable. I used to run 1 scooze in the SB and no finks. I recently thought I'd try finks but honestly I haven't faced a zoo or burn deck yet since picking up the deck again. Generally though scooze has more utility and I like that a lot.
So regarding grudge; I'm seeing a big uptick in aggro generally, and I've played against Affinity at every large modern tournament recently. I also expect to run into it at the GP this summer (if I play command). Affinity is one of those decks that you can't afford to bet against seeing. At the largest tournaments I've played at in recent memory (400 players) I've faced affinity at least twice per tournament. I've also seen lantern floating around, plus some random artifact decks as well.
Maybe 2 is correct. 3 would feel amazing if you hit the matchup, and Shouta Yasooka used to run 3 in his Sideboard. Here's a crazy idea; what if I dropped my 4th cryptic for a Forked Bolt and helped insure against Affinity that way, keeping 2 grudges.
Obstinate baloth is there for any decks running k-command or liliana (as well as zoo/burn) Jund was traditionally the hardest matchup for this deck and I can't see that being any different now (eldrazi may be harder but jund will still be bad). In a similar way, grixis control, esper, faeries & delver are on an uptick and seeing lots of play in paper in the UK where I live.
Also I can't stand taking vial to 4. It's so bad lol.
I basically decided with my sideboard that I want to crush every aggro deck I come across, and have the tools to beat control/tron with some decent land destruction. I've had a fiddle and the deck now looks like this:
Awesome to have you on board Existenz!
Your list seems solid, Izzet Charm is a flexible card which is nice, but it has been to inefficient for me which is why I dropped it. With the meta seemingly slowing down currently and being pretty diverse maybe it's time to play the card again. I probably still wouldn't play 2 though. No love for Electrolyze?
What's the Rending Volley for? I really can't think of anything besides Restoration Angel.
@Purklefluff
While the reference to Yasooka's list of 2012 really doesn't mean anything (completely different meta and he was playing at World's, a meta that's wildly known to be inbred) I agree that having 3 Grudges is awesome if you face a lot of Affinity. I just personally prefer to have a diverse suite of SB tools that I can bring in against many MUs. Most of my SB cards have 3+ MU where I can bring them in against.
The thing I dislike about Baloth is that he's really only good if you get to discard him. Against Jund that can happen quite often ( 4x Lili + 1-2 K-Command), but against Abzan (only 4x Lili) and Grixis (only 2-3 K-Command) you get to abuse him a lot less often. And hardcasting him is pretty terrible. Huntmaster always provides CA when he resolves and gets super nasty when he stays on the field for a few turns. Again, I just prefer more versatile cards.
Also what cards does Faeries play that are non-targeted discard?
As promised here's my report from FNM this week:
Match 1: Eldrazi Tron 2-0
Game 1: Keep a hand of 2x lands, Vial, Remand, Goyf, Snap, Cryptic on the play. Play Vial, he casts Map, goes for Eldrazi Tempel, casts TKS turn 3, which I remand and vial in Goyf. Next turn I vial in Snap to remand TKS again, cryptic his Smasher, bounce Snap to tempo him out.
Game 2: Keep 3 lands, Remand, Stone Rain, Vial, SV. Remand his turn 3 TKS again, Stone Rain his temple during my turn, he misses his 3rd land drop and scoops two turns later when I kill another land with a vialed in Snap into Stone Rain( reveals me 2x Ulamog, 1x Endbringer, 2x Smasher and 1x TKS in his hand.)
Match 2: Bant Eldrazi 0-2
Game 1: Keep 6 on the play (2x lands, Bolt, Snap, Cryptic, Finks). My opponent goes Temple, Temple, TKS, land, Smasher and I just can’t compete.
Game 2: Keep an ok 6 of Spreading Seas, Goyf, Vial, Tarfire, SV but only 1 land. Struggle to find my second land drop for 2 turns. A vialed in 5/6 Goyf buys me a little time against a Reality Smasher but Drowner of Hope + Eldrazi Displacer soon put the game out of my reach (both played with a second Cavern of Souls, I used Seas on the first one).
Match 3: RG Titan Shift 2-0
Game 1: Keep 7 of 3 lands, Remand, Spell Snare, 2x Goyf on the draw. Snare his Khalni Heart Expedition, play Goyf, play another Goyf while he ramps, remand his Titan, beat down with Goyfs and finish him with a Bolt.
G2: Keep 6 of Vial, 2x lands, SV, Remand, Spell Snare. Turn one Vial, turn two SV finds me a Goyf and puts Snap on top. Snare his Tribe Elder. Next turn vial in the Goyf, remand his Titan, vial in Snap, remand Titan again and find Familiar’s Ruse which seals the deal.
Match 4: Infect 2-1
Game 1: Mull to 5, keep 2x lands, SV, Spell Snare, Snap on the draw. He opens with Glistener Elf, I play SV, put a Bolt to top. He gets in for 5 and plays an Inkmoth. I bolt his Elf, he attacks me for another poison with Inkmoth. Does the same the next turn and denies my EoT Snap/Bolt with Vines.
I’m actually out of answers with some lands and 2x Goyf in hand, he kills me next turn.
Game 2: Keep 7 of Spellskite, Goyf, Bolt, Snap, Clique, 2 lands. He mulls to 5, Bolt kills his Elf and he doesn’t find a new infecter for the next 3 turns while I’m beating down with Goyf. He’s too far behind to still turn it around.
Game 3: Keep Bolt, Snap, Izzet Staticaster, 3 lands. He has no turn 1 play and his turn 2 Agent gets bolted, he plays another one next turn and attacks for 1 poison. I EoT clique him to see another Agent, Vines, Groundswell, fetch. I draw a Tarfire, play it, he responds with Vines, I respond with Staticaster, he plays Groundswell, I’m fine with that. He actually gets in for 5 poison (topdecked Might of Old Krosa) next turn but has no answer to Staticaster, which just kills all his infecters while I attack with Clique and hold up Snap/Bolt.
All in all a solid performance and a fun night. As always, if you have some suggestions (especially regarding those damn Eldrazi) I'm eager to hear them!
Bant's cool. Geist of Saint traft, spell queller, path to exile, nice sideboard options. Losing bolt is pretty rough though, & I've found it to significantly slow the deck down (which is fine in some matchups but a death sentence in others)
Tricky!
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
The last time I saw somebody running a Bant list was more than half a year ago. You should find a list at around page 18 of this thread.
The truth is Bant is probably the weakest colour combination for EC. There are some nice cards for it (Restoration Angel, Spell Queller) but it misses good early removal and Goyf is worse due to removal only exiling. Bant has a suite of quite good beaters but all of them come at 3cmc, which, like Purklefluff said, really hempers the speed of the deck. Being slower definitely makes your combo and Tron MU worse.
The most important thing against Tron is to put them on a clock. You can have a hand full of counterspells, if you don't put pressure on them they don't care. Their lategame is better than ours. We're going full tempo in that MU. It's an uphill battle because Ulamog and Worldbreaker are super annoying but Karn, Ugin and Wurmcoils are actually fine to deal with via counterspells but you must be beating them down in the meantime!
I tried it a few times, we just can't support Blood Moon. Our main colour is blue, then green, then red. We want to have U/R turn 1, GG on turn 3 and UUU on turn 4. This deck is way too greedy to play moon.
Edit (didn't see your other comment): Eidolon of Rhetoric, haven't seen that one in a looong time.
I guess if your local meta if full with those cards, sure makes sense to play Volley. I've been ok with with just using Stone Rain/Spreading Seas on Colonnade and Resto/Guardian come up late enough to have some counters for them. Also the Guardian+Saheeli combo can be broken up with bolting Saheeli, too (just in case you didn't know).
so I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but if Death's Shadow Jund (absolutely awesome deck btw) starts getting better, our deck gets much worse. Lightning bolt as removal is kind of what we rely on, and without the usefulness of bolt, we are suddenly at a handicap. what do we do?!
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Haven't done any testing, so obviously this is all theory crafting!
I think lots of players will try out the deck (I'm thinking about building it too, pretty much only miss the Shadow's, it looks really awsome). Lots of players are not as good as Sam Black and friends. The deck seems really hard to pilot correctly. We can capitalize on that. When playing EC I often try to set up a turn where I can 'surprise win' (draw step Clique, see the coast is clear, EoT vial in Goyf, attack for 7, Bolt them or something like that).
We can definitely capitalize on our ability to switch between control and tempo super fast. Cryptic is key, playing Vapor Snags again like Cody said seems solid (was thinking about switching my Roast for one anyway). Scooze to possibly keep them off Delirium, cutting down to 3 Remands again.
Repeal is also an interesting consideration, but a lot worse against Tasigur/Angler where Snag also shines.
Not saying the MU is good, just better as it may seem on the first glance. Testing will tell.
Is there a specific reason you don't want to go RUG?
I don't really see the upsides of your list vs RUG. Decay is obviously nice to have but pretty hard on the mana actually (at least if you want to cast it turn 2), Tasigur is a nice 5th beater but I'm not sure if he doesn't interfere with our gameplan too much without Thought Scours. Fatal Push is nice but your removal suite still struggles with any creature with a higher cmc than 4 (Tasigur, Angler, Smasher, Drowner, Primetime) and Bolt is just better than Push. The fact that it doubles as reach is huge! Especially with Snapcaster Mage/Eternal Witness to just cast it again.
List looks solid, how's the Knuckleblade been for you?
And what are the 2x Spell Pierces doing in there? meta call?
Can you be more specific as to which MUs you're struggling with? Would make it a lot easier to give you some tips haha.
I can imagine that the fair, grindy MU are tough, as we play them quite a bit different than other grindy decks because we don't have clean solutions to kill Goyf, Tasigur and the likes.
The last time I saw somebody running a Bant list was more than half a year ago. You should find a list at around page 18 of this thread.
The truth is Bant is probably the weakest colour combination for EC. There are some nice cards for it (Restoration Angel, Spell Queller) but it misses good early removal and Goyf is worse due to removal only exiling. Bant has a suite of quite good beaters but all of them come at 3cmc, which, like Purklefluff said, really hempers the speed of the deck. Being slower definitely makes your combo and Tron MU worse.
I am wondering about the bant list. After I have assembeled all my decks, what manbase I have left is enough for one bant deck. I am qurius to how it performs.
One thing bant offers, and that seems to go very well into a deck like this is monestery mentor. Mayby not maindeck, but 3 or 4 in the sideboard can be really good in the more fair matches. Vialing the mentor out even means that you can do more tricks before it dies. Saving it with a cryptic/remand/manaleak can be quite devestating. It is after all pumping out creatues as good as monestery swiftspear. With a cryptic to tap down attackers/blockers it can fast turn the table.
I also wonder peoples experience with Thing in the Ice? I sometime think of it as a green tarmagoyf. The bounce effect and the 7/8 body is very big. The 0/4 is also a decent break.
White also gives path, better vs death shadow, wurmcoil engine, eldrazi, primeval titan things a controll deck do not like to see. Blessed Aliance is good vs anything that runs noble hiarch, and it offers a gameplan vs burn.
The deck does not have the tempo approach that your red decks have with goyf, electorlyse, bolt-snap-bolt and click. However, I do feel that the deck is kind of inevedabal for winning. That might be the wrong aproach though as that is what the 'eternal-command' sort of is, and is a plan b, while plan a in the red deck is just to attack inn.
thing in the ice and mentor sort of nonbo, though.
Both like you casting lots of spells, but upheavaling all your monks can be a problem.
I did try thing in the ice a while ago because it felt like it could be a decent budget goyf, but its not great.
Generally, eternal command casts its spells reactively, and you aim for a couple impsctful spells, and not a lot of small ones, for the most part.
I tried Young Pyromancer in RUG for quite a while, never had much success with it, we really don't run enough cantrips to make it work (and it's just not that good in modern anyway, way too much removal and creatures that can block the tokens running around compared to Legacy). I can't really see Mentor being better here.
Thing might be worthwhile to try out in Bant though. It's usually just worse than Goyf in RUG, but Goyf is worse in Bant colours, so maybe that's the right shell for it.
Playing more cantrips to flip it more reliably seems correct. I was thinking about play one or two Thought Scour anyway for quite some time, as it's actually pretty good at 'finding' our one of answers when we have a Snap/E-wit in hand. Maybe 3 is overdoing it and 2 is correct, but that would need some testing.
I would not cut the Cliques. They aren't just a tempo tool. The information they provide is very relevant for planning how we play our counterspells (I often end up not taking anything), they bait counterspells against Grixis/Jeskai to play your SB bombs, you can use them to get rid of dead cards in your hand, they are our best answer against Ulamog/Worldbreaker and the flying is highly relevant to get some beats in when the board is stalled.
Young pyromancer is much better in legacy then modern. They have fewer removal spells, cheaper spells, fever creatures, more cantrips etc.
Monestery mentor is not the same card as young pyromancet by a long shot. It cost one more mana, witch means landing it and getting a spell of can be harder. Vial can help with that. There are enough 2/x bodies i modern so it can trade favorably, unlike y. pyromancer. This also goes for the tokens when on the offense. Having an instant and remand means you can cast the spell, remand it, cast it again to give your team +3/+3 and have chump blockers on the swing back, often making a winning board posittion.
I used to play mentor in a japanese esper deck that had very good games vs s. twin. 4 snap, 4 lingering souls, 4 mentor, 2 tasigur and a lot of cantrips, discard and removal. That gave me a good feel of how mentor performs, and it is good.
Thing in the ice and mentor is a no-bo perhaps, but they both want the same shell. If i have 2 or 3 tokens i feel like i am winning anyway. If thing in the ice flips it is quite beneficial for the rest of the deck: E vitnes and snaps.
Pulse of murasa + vial + eternal vitnes is a combo of sorts. Blocker + 6 life,rince and repeat.
Thought scouer seems like a good thing in a deck with 4 snapcasters, 3 e. vitnes. Pulse of murasa also fits in there, if you find place for it in the deck.
What I do not like about the regular deck is that graveyeard hate like relic o. p. or rest in piece shuts down the deck. But a deck that attacks on the 'critical ammount of spells' has another line to attak through gravyeard hate.
Emperical data is lacking for the moment, I would need to do some testing.
What are your experience with man lands?
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I'm actually quite liking this list, Existenz. I made a couple small changes, removing Resto Angel and Familiar's Ruse for 2x Mana Leak. I may even turn these into 2x Disallows, as I've been wanting to play with that card a bit and like it in this shell.
Otherwise, it runs smoothly - I think Path to Exile and Blessed Alliance line us up much better against a slower meta; even though I respect the Snap-Bolt-Snap sequence, I'm not sure it's what our tempo deck wants to be doing.
Renegade Rallier seems great as a 1-of. Any other changes you've made since playtesting?
Hah! Yeah, I completely understand the synergy between Resto/Ruse and Witness/Clique/Snap, but I wanted to move toward a less contextual and more consistent 60. Definitely agree that Mana Leak is less ideal with P2E. Do you think Disallow is too expensive at 3 CMC? I just love its flexibility and the CMC isn't as difficult to recur with Snap/Witness when we have Vial to help with that.
I'm comfortable with Negate in my Grixis deck, but that's only bc Grixis creature removal is absurdly good. Not sure I like being as favored against non-creature decks with Bant. What other options could we consider?
Hi, the primer is outdated so forgive me if my concerns we're already answered. I'm interested with the deck as I already own most of the staples (except Misty and Vial) since I play Jund/Abzan and Jeskai/Grixis. I'm a sucker for midrange/control decks especially U, which is why I built my decks even though they share the same bad matchups which are big mana and ramp decks. This decks looks fun to play because Goyfs, Snaps and Cryptics is where I want to be, but the absence of hard removal (Terminate, Path, Push) is concerning. How does the deck fares in the current meta? Unortunately mine have lots of Tron, Eldrazi and even Amulet Titan. Needless to say, I get my ass kicked every now and then but the love for the archetype in general keeps me going.
Awesome to see some Bant brewing again!
I'll personally stick to RUG for now (it's what I know inside out and Bolt is just sooo good) but vialing in Renegade Rallier to get back a Snap or Goyf sounds pretty awesome.
Big mana decks are kinda designed to beat up on fair decks so usually they are not good MUs for us.
The exception here are the RG Valakut decks, which are pretty weak to counterspells (combined by a clock like Goyf or Clique). From my experience the MU is at least 70:30 in our favor.
Tron is a better MU for us than for the GBx decks in my experience, but still not a good one. Remand+Cryptic do a good job in holding of Karn and Ugin while we beat down but the on-cast-triggers of Ulamog and Worldbreaker are really giving us problems. Land destruction in the SB helps this MU a ton though. 40:60 in my experience.
Bant Eldrazi is definitely our worst MU. If they don't draw Caverns we stand a chance, if they do it's cryptic lock or bust. 20:80.
I haven't played much Eldrazi Tron yet but I've actually won more matches than I lost, although my guts say the MU isn't really favorable either, many lists play only one Caverns which makes our counterspells a pretty effective tool.
Can't really say much about Amulet Titan, no one at my LGS plays it but the MU seems ok. Without Summer Bloom they are less explosive, Remand keeps Titans away for awhile and they need to attack to kill us without running much interaction, which makes the Cryptic Lock very good against them.
If you expect to play in a meta with many big mana decks, play enough land destruction in the SB and consider playing 21 lands with a 1x Ghost Quarter and if you wanna go really sweet 1xShadow of Doubt.
The lack of hard removal is obviously annoying and you'll probably need to change your playstyle a little if you're used to be playing Grixis for example. That said we got some ways to deal with bigger creatures (Cryptic Lock, vial Goyf for surprise blocks, Roast, Snap->block+Bolt etc.) and the plus side is that our removal is pretty much never dead in our hand against decks like Ad Nauseam
May have to tweak the number of creatures/lands, but I love Pack Rat in a shell like this, too. It makes all of our cards valuable and it grows so stupidly quickly. I think early discard helps us against big mana decks, and am even considering just going 4x Thoughtseize for that reason. I threw the SB together very quickly but tend to crowd source those anyways - what MU's do we think we need to shore up via SB?
Look forward to any responses! Feel free to be brutally honest
I tried to make a BUG list work multiple times and obviously tried again with the printing of Fatal Push but always came back to RUG.
Playing Aether Vial makes targeted discard a lot worse as both of those cards a pretty bad topdecks in the lategame (there's a reason we side out Vials against Jund). Having 8 of those bad topdecks makes your lategame a lot worse and a singleton Pack Rat won't change that.
Since my latest BUG brew I'm actually of the opinion that the colour combination just doesn't need the soft lock and playing a 'normal' BUG midrange list would just be better. If you want to play AD and possibly Grim Flayer on turn 2, have GG on turn for E/Wit or possible Scooze activations and then UUU on turn 4 (not to mention U/B on turn 1 if you're on targeted discard) the mana is just horrible. Between Maelstrom Pulse, AD, Fatal Push and several counterspells BUG has the tools to deal with pretty much anything anyway. Playing individually suboptimal cards just to make an easy to disrupt soft lock happen is not what that deck wants.
RUG is better at the tempo game than the other colour combinations, it maximizes the use of Aether Vial as a tempo card and Cryptic Command's tap-mode outside of the soft lock, while the lock itself gives the deck another option to compensate for its lack of hard removal.
All that said running only one mass removal in the side seems iffy against swarm strategies and no way to interact with lands in your 75 brave at best but rather stupid at worst. Spreading Seas is a solid card, especially against Eldrazi decks, which will still be a tough MU for the deck.
Speaking of the big mana match-up, Simic Charm can be a useful tool. Pump to close out the game or Hexproof to protect from on cast trigger. Could also be sided in for DS Jund for the bounce.
Simic Charm is actually a pet card of mine, but I found Vapor Snag to actually be a little better in more often. The difference between cmc 1 and 2 is just so huge (especially if using Snapcaster), Charm definitely has it's uses too though (awesome against Abrupt Decay for example).
Isn't Bauble actually a little awkward with Rallier? I mean you usually really want to crack it right away to get your card back and not wait til you maybe draw a Rallier. Just playing more fetches seems easier if you wanna achieve enabling Revolt more consistently.
Sadly Bant are the worst colours for Goyf as it can actually be surprisingly hard to get a creature in the grave.
What do you sideboard the Geists in against?
If stoneforge mystic sees the nod in April, I'll probably try to make bant work in this shell. Otherwise, I just think the normal bolt package with optional tarfire is the best and most competitive way to run the deck. Without bolt-snap-bolt levels of game-closure you are forced into a grindy board-fest and easily get outclassed by decks such as eldrazi. The burn also helps against death's shadow decks who like to play fast and loose with their life total
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
You already know my opinion on the Baubles, but if they work for you that's nice. Your 60 seems solid.
In the SB you're really low on gravehate. I don't know your meta, but a second Scooze seems good. Dromoka's Command seems more like a mainboard than a SB card to me and isn't Condemn better than Sunlance? Especially if you expect to see Death Shadow Jund where it's awesome tech (put the attacking Goyf to bottom, opponent gain 6 life, both his 5/5 Death Shadows die...seems quite good haha).
Besides the Finks you're also not really packing anything grindy, are the mainboard Rallier enough to hang with Jund/Junk/Esper after SB?
If you tell us more about your meta, maybe we can give more specific tips
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Regarding some of your questions:
I wouldn't board in a third Grudge against Tron (at least against the Gx variant, Ux sure). I probably wouldn't even board in the second one. Having 1 is nice but Grudge doesn't really do anything against their main game plan (assembling Tron) which is what we want to focus on. Is nice against some of their annoying cards (Relic, O-Stone, Spellskite, helps with Wurmcoil) but doesn't do anything against the stuff that's really backbreaking (Karn, Ugin, Ulamog, Worldbreaker).
Ceremonious Rejection is very good against Tron and solid against Affinity and Lantern.
Spreading Seas is also very good against Tron and ok against Affinity and Lantern.
Or you just use to the for one Surgical Extraction, which leads me to your next question.
SE is a very good card and with our ability to replay it it can get really dirty. I don't really know how your local meta looks like but unless there's tons of Affinity and Lantern, 3x Grudges seem excessive. I'm also not keen on Kitchen Finks in the SB. It's more of a mainboard card for me. It's obviously good against Burn and also great against grindy decks without Path. But Scavenging Ooze seems overall just like the better SB card. it's solid against Burn (really helps to stabilize, as there are usually at least 3 creatures in the grave by turn 4-5), very good against Snapcaster decks (especially off a Vial), helps against Lingering Souls and shrinks Grim Flayers against Abzan and just randomly hoses tons of graveyard based strategies.
2x Obstinate Baloth seems a little weird too. Do you have enough Lili/K-Command/8-Rack decks in your meta to really warrant that one? Because Huntmaster of the Fells is usually the better choice (being good against the same Lili/K-Command decks, while also against any other midrange decks and excelling against creature decks like Abzan Company or Eldrazi'n'Taxes). We are just so good at flipping him.
Bant Eldrazi is pretty much the worst MU we have. We got some game against them if they don't draw Cavern of Souls, because Remanding their stuff is actually pretty effective. If they have Caverns though it seems nearly unwinnable. Opt for the softlock and try some surprise blocks with vialed in Goyfs. I haven't found a good way to deal with them yet that doesn't involve heavily impacting our mana base to comfort Blood Moon which screws us more often that it helps. Spreading Seas is usually better than Stone Rain because it comes down earlier. Killing Caverns is often better than aiming for Eldrazi Temple.
I haven't played much against Eldrazi Tron but so far it seems like a better MU than Bant Eldrazi (Our land destruction is a lot better against Tron lands so preventing their end game is easier while our lock is more effective (Bant can often stall the lock by tapping our Goyfs down for some turns, which gives them time to find removal). I don't really think it's a good MU neither, though.
I went 3-1 last night by the way, only loosing to Bant Eldrazi. Report will follow soon.
Sounds reasonable. I used to run 1 scooze in the SB and no finks. I recently thought I'd try finks but honestly I haven't faced a zoo or burn deck yet since picking up the deck again. Generally though scooze has more utility and I like that a lot.
So regarding grudge; I'm seeing a big uptick in aggro generally, and I've played against Affinity at every large modern tournament recently. I also expect to run into it at the GP this summer (if I play command). Affinity is one of those decks that you can't afford to bet against seeing. At the largest tournaments I've played at in recent memory (400 players) I've faced affinity at least twice per tournament. I've also seen lantern floating around, plus some random artifact decks as well.
Maybe 2 is correct. 3 would feel amazing if you hit the matchup, and Shouta Yasooka used to run 3 in his Sideboard. Here's a crazy idea; what if I dropped my 4th cryptic for a Forked Bolt and helped insure against Affinity that way, keeping 2 grudges.
Obstinate baloth is there for any decks running k-command or liliana (as well as zoo/burn) Jund was traditionally the hardest matchup for this deck and I can't see that being any different now (eldrazi may be harder but jund will still be bad). In a similar way, grixis control, esper, faeries & delver are on an uptick and seeing lots of play in paper in the UK where I live.
Also I can't stand taking vial to 4. It's so bad lol.
I basically decided with my sideboard that I want to crush every aggro deck I come across, and have the tools to beat control/tron with some decent land destruction. I've had a fiddle and the deck now looks like this:
4x aether vial
Spells (21):
4x lightning bolt
4x serum visions
3x remand
3x cryptic command
3x mana leak
2x spell snare
1x tarfire
1x electrolyze
Creatures (15):
4x snapcaster mage
3x eternal witness
4x tarmogoyf
1x scavenging ooze
2x vendilion clique
1x Savage Knuckleblade
4x misty rainforest
2x scalding tarn
1x spirebluff canal
1x steam vents
1x cascade bluffs
2x breeding pool
1x flooded Grove
1x stomping ground
2x raging ravine
1x treetop village
3x island
1x forest
1x scavenging ooze
2x huntmaster of the fells (or baloth)
3x ancient grudge
2x anger of the gods
2x surgical extraction
3x stone rain
1x dispel
1x negate
Overall it feels better than a week ago. Thanks for the advice.
Your list seems solid, Izzet Charm is a flexible card which is nice, but it has been to inefficient for me which is why I dropped it. With the meta seemingly slowing down currently and being pretty diverse maybe it's time to play the card again. I probably still wouldn't play 2 though. No love for Electrolyze?
What's the Rending Volley for? I really can't think of anything besides Restoration Angel.
@Purklefluff
While the reference to Yasooka's list of 2012 really doesn't mean anything (completely different meta and he was playing at World's, a meta that's wildly known to be inbred) I agree that having 3 Grudges is awesome if you face a lot of Affinity. I just personally prefer to have a diverse suite of SB tools that I can bring in against many MUs. Most of my SB cards have 3+ MU where I can bring them in against.
The thing I dislike about Baloth is that he's really only good if you get to discard him. Against Jund that can happen quite often ( 4x Lili + 1-2 K-Command), but against Abzan (only 4x Lili) and Grixis (only 2-3 K-Command) you get to abuse him a lot less often. And hardcasting him is pretty terrible. Huntmaster always provides CA when he resolves and gets super nasty when he stays on the field for a few turns. Again, I just prefer more versatile cards.
Also what cards does Faeries play that are non-targeted discard?
As promised here's my report from FNM this week:
Match 1: Eldrazi Tron 2-0
Game 1: Keep a hand of 2x lands, Vial, Remand, Goyf, Snap, Cryptic on the play. Play Vial, he casts Map, goes for Eldrazi Tempel, casts TKS turn 3, which I remand and vial in Goyf. Next turn I vial in Snap to remand TKS again, cryptic his Smasher, bounce Snap to tempo him out.
Game 2: Keep 3 lands, Remand, Stone Rain, Vial, SV. Remand his turn 3 TKS again, Stone Rain his temple during my turn, he misses his 3rd land drop and scoops two turns later when I kill another land with a vialed in Snap into Stone Rain( reveals me 2x Ulamog, 1x Endbringer, 2x Smasher and 1x TKS in his hand.)
Match 2: Bant Eldrazi 0-2
Game 1: Keep 6 on the play (2x lands, Bolt, Snap, Cryptic, Finks). My opponent goes Temple, Temple, TKS, land, Smasher and I just can’t compete.
Game 2: Keep an ok 6 of Spreading Seas, Goyf, Vial, Tarfire, SV but only 1 land. Struggle to find my second land drop for 2 turns. A vialed in 5/6 Goyf buys me a little time against a Reality Smasher but Drowner of Hope + Eldrazi Displacer soon put the game out of my reach (both played with a second Cavern of Souls, I used Seas on the first one).
Match 3: RG Titan Shift 2-0
Game 1: Keep 7 of 3 lands, Remand, Spell Snare, 2x Goyf on the draw. Snare his Khalni Heart Expedition, play Goyf, play another Goyf while he ramps, remand his Titan, beat down with Goyfs and finish him with a Bolt.
G2: Keep 6 of Vial, 2x lands, SV, Remand, Spell Snare. Turn one Vial, turn two SV finds me a Goyf and puts Snap on top. Snare his Tribe Elder. Next turn vial in the Goyf, remand his Titan, vial in Snap, remand Titan again and find Familiar’s Ruse which seals the deal.
Match 4: Infect 2-1
Game 1: Mull to 5, keep 2x lands, SV, Spell Snare, Snap on the draw. He opens with Glistener Elf, I play SV, put a Bolt to top. He gets in for 5 and plays an Inkmoth. I bolt his Elf, he attacks me for another poison with Inkmoth. Does the same the next turn and denies my EoT Snap/Bolt with Vines.
I’m actually out of answers with some lands and 2x Goyf in hand, he kills me next turn.
Game 2: Keep 7 of Spellskite, Goyf, Bolt, Snap, Clique, 2 lands. He mulls to 5, Bolt kills his Elf and he doesn’t find a new infecter for the next 3 turns while I’m beating down with Goyf. He’s too far behind to still turn it around.
Game 3: Keep Bolt, Snap, Izzet Staticaster, 3 lands. He has no turn 1 play and his turn 2 Agent gets bolted, he plays another one next turn and attacks for 1 poison. I EoT clique him to see another Agent, Vines, Groundswell, fetch. I draw a Tarfire, play it, he responds with Vines, I respond with Staticaster, he plays Groundswell, I’m fine with that. He actually gets in for 5 poison (topdecked Might of Old Krosa) next turn but has no answer to Staticaster, which just kills all his infecters while I attack with Clique and hold up Snap/Bolt.
All in all a solid performance and a fun night. As always, if you have some suggestions (especially regarding those damn Eldrazi) I'm eager to hear them!
Bant's cool. Geist of Saint traft, spell queller, path to exile, nice sideboard options. Losing bolt is pretty rough though, & I've found it to significantly slow the deck down (which is fine in some matchups but a death sentence in others)
Tricky!
The truth is Bant is probably the weakest colour combination for EC. There are some nice cards for it (Restoration Angel, Spell Queller) but it misses good early removal and Goyf is worse due to removal only exiling. Bant has a suite of quite good beaters but all of them come at 3cmc, which, like Purklefluff said, really hempers the speed of the deck. Being slower definitely makes your combo and Tron MU worse.
I tried it a few times, we just can't support Blood Moon. Our main colour is blue, then green, then red. We want to have U/R turn 1, GG on turn 3 and UUU on turn 4. This deck is way too greedy to play moon.
Edit (didn't see your other comment):
Eidolon of Rhetoric, haven't seen that one in a looong time.
I guess if your local meta if full with those cards, sure makes sense to play Volley. I've been ok with with just using Stone Rain/Spreading Seas on Colonnade and Resto/Guardian come up late enough to have some counters for them. Also the Guardian+Saheeli combo can be broken up with bolting Saheeli, too (just in case you didn't know).
I think lots of players will try out the deck (I'm thinking about building it too, pretty much only miss the Shadow's, it looks really awsome). Lots of players are not as good as Sam Black and friends. The deck seems really hard to pilot correctly. We can capitalize on that. When playing EC I often try to set up a turn where I can 'surprise win' (draw step Clique, see the coast is clear, EoT vial in Goyf, attack for 7, Bolt them or something like that).
We can definitely capitalize on our ability to switch between control and tempo super fast. Cryptic is key, playing Vapor Snags again like Cody said seems solid (was thinking about switching my Roast for one anyway). Scooze to possibly keep them off Delirium, cutting down to 3 Remands again.
Repeal is also an interesting consideration, but a lot worse against Tasigur/Angler where Snag also shines.
Not saying the MU is good, just better as it may seem on the first glance. Testing will tell.
I don't really see the upsides of your list vs RUG. Decay is obviously nice to have but pretty hard on the mana actually (at least if you want to cast it turn 2), Tasigur is a nice 5th beater but I'm not sure if he doesn't interfere with our gameplan too much without Thought Scours. Fatal Push is nice but your removal suite still struggles with any creature with a higher cmc than 4 (Tasigur, Angler, Smasher, Drowner, Primetime) and Bolt is just better than Push. The fact that it doubles as reach is huge! Especially with Snapcaster Mage/Eternal Witness to just cast it again.
And what are the 2x Spell Pierces doing in there? meta call?
Can you be more specific as to which MUs you're struggling with? Would make it a lot easier to give you some tips haha.
I can imagine that the fair, grindy MU are tough, as we play them quite a bit different than other grindy decks because we don't have clean solutions to kill Goyf, Tasigur and the likes.
I am wondering about the bant list. After I have assembeled all my decks, what manbase I have left is enough for one bant deck. I am qurius to how it performs.
One thing bant offers, and that seems to go very well into a deck like this is monestery mentor. Mayby not maindeck, but 3 or 4 in the sideboard can be really good in the more fair matches. Vialing the mentor out even means that you can do more tricks before it dies. Saving it with a cryptic/remand/manaleak can be quite devestating. It is after all pumping out creatues as good as monestery swiftspear. With a cryptic to tap down attackers/blockers it can fast turn the table.
I also wonder peoples experience with Thing in the Ice? I sometime think of it as a green tarmagoyf. The bounce effect and the 7/8 body is very big. The 0/4 is also a decent break.
White also gives path, better vs death shadow, wurmcoil engine, eldrazi, primeval titan things a controll deck do not like to see. Blessed Aliance is good vs anything that runs noble hiarch, and it offers a gameplan vs burn.
Perhaps something like this:
4 Thing in the Ice
3 Eternal Witness
2 Monastery Mentor
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Pulse of Murasa
3 Cryptic Command
3 thought scour
4 Remand
2 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
4 Aether Vial
The deck does not have the tempo approach that your red decks have with goyf, electorlyse, bolt-snap-bolt and click. However, I do feel that the deck is kind of inevedabal for winning. That might be the wrong aproach though as that is what the 'eternal-command' sort of is, and is a plan b, while plan a in the red deck is just to attack inn.
Both like you casting lots of spells, but upheavaling all your monks can be a problem.
I did try thing in the ice a while ago because it felt like it could be a decent budget goyf, but its not great.
Generally, eternal command casts its spells reactively, and you aim for a couple impsctful spells, and not a lot of small ones, for the most part.
Thing might be worthwhile to try out in Bant though. It's usually just worse than Goyf in RUG, but Goyf is worse in Bant colours, so maybe that's the right shell for it.
Playing more cantrips to flip it more reliably seems correct. I was thinking about play one or two Thought Scour anyway for quite some time, as it's actually pretty good at 'finding' our one of answers when we have a Snap/E-wit in hand. Maybe 3 is overdoing it and 2 is correct, but that would need some testing.
I would not cut the Cliques. They aren't just a tempo tool. The information they provide is very relevant for planning how we play our counterspells (I often end up not taking anything), they bait counterspells against Grixis/Jeskai to play your SB bombs, you can use them to get rid of dead cards in your hand, they are our best answer against Ulamog/Worldbreaker and the flying is highly relevant to get some beats in when the board is stalled.
Monestery mentor is not the same card as young pyromancet by a long shot. It cost one more mana, witch means landing it and getting a spell of can be harder. Vial can help with that. There are enough 2/x bodies i modern so it can trade favorably, unlike y. pyromancer. This also goes for the tokens when on the offense. Having an instant and remand means you can cast the spell, remand it, cast it again to give your team +3/+3 and have chump blockers on the swing back, often making a winning board posittion.
I used to play mentor in a japanese esper deck that had very good games vs s. twin. 4 snap, 4 lingering souls, 4 mentor, 2 tasigur and a lot of cantrips, discard and removal. That gave me a good feel of how mentor performs, and it is good.
Thing in the ice and mentor is a no-bo perhaps, but they both want the same shell. If i have 2 or 3 tokens i feel like i am winning anyway. If thing in the ice flips it is quite beneficial for the rest of the deck: E vitnes and snaps.
Pulse of murasa + vial + eternal vitnes is a combo of sorts. Blocker + 6 life,rince and repeat.
Thought scouer seems like a good thing in a deck with 4 snapcasters, 3 e. vitnes. Pulse of murasa also fits in there, if you find place for it in the deck.
What I do not like about the regular deck is that graveyeard hate like relic o. p. or rest in piece shuts down the deck. But a deck that attacks on the 'critical ammount of spells' has another line to attak through gravyeard hate.
Emperical data is lacking for the moment, I would need to do some testing.
What are your experience with man lands?
Otherwise, it runs smoothly - I think Path to Exile and Blessed Alliance line us up much better against a slower meta; even though I respect the Snap-Bolt-Snap sequence, I'm not sure it's what our tempo deck wants to be doing.
Renegade Rallier seems great as a 1-of. Any other changes you've made since playtesting?
I'm comfortable with Negate in my Grixis deck, but that's only bc Grixis creature removal is absurdly good. Not sure I like being as favored against non-creature decks with Bant. What other options could we consider?
I'll personally stick to RUG for now (it's what I know inside out and Bolt is just sooo good) but vialing in Renegade Rallier to get back a Snap or Goyf sounds pretty awesome.
Big mana decks are kinda designed to beat up on fair decks so usually they are not good MUs for us.
The exception here are the RG Valakut decks, which are pretty weak to counterspells (combined by a clock like Goyf or Clique). From my experience the MU is at least 70:30 in our favor.
Tron is a better MU for us than for the GBx decks in my experience, but still not a good one. Remand+Cryptic do a good job in holding of Karn and Ugin while we beat down but the on-cast-triggers of Ulamog and Worldbreaker are really giving us problems. Land destruction in the SB helps this MU a ton though. 40:60 in my experience.
Bant Eldrazi is definitely our worst MU. If they don't draw Caverns we stand a chance, if they do it's cryptic lock or bust. 20:80.
I haven't played much Eldrazi Tron yet but I've actually won more matches than I lost, although my guts say the MU isn't really favorable either, many lists play only one Caverns which makes our counterspells a pretty effective tool.
Can't really say much about Amulet Titan, no one at my LGS plays it but the MU seems ok. Without Summer Bloom they are less explosive, Remand keeps Titans away for awhile and they need to attack to kill us without running much interaction, which makes the Cryptic Lock very good against them.
If you expect to play in a meta with many big mana decks, play enough land destruction in the SB and consider playing 21 lands with a 1x Ghost Quarter and if you wanna go really sweet 1xShadow of Doubt.
The lack of hard removal is obviously annoying and you'll probably need to change your playstyle a little if you're used to be playing Grixis for example. That said we got some ways to deal with bigger creatures (Cryptic Lock, vial Goyf for surprise blocks, Roast, Snap->block+Bolt etc.) and the plus side is that our removal is pretty much never dead in our hand against decks like Ad Nauseam
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Pack Rat
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Eternal Witness
2 Vendilion Clique
Artifacts (4)
4 Aether Vial
Sorceries (5)
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Instants (16)
3 Fatal Push
2 Spell Snare
2 Countersquall
4 Remand
2 Dismember
3 Cryptic Command
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Darkslick Shores
1 Forest
2 Island
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Kalitas
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Pulse of Murasa
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Damnation
1 Thragtusk
1 Spellskite
May have to tweak the number of creatures/lands, but I love Pack Rat in a shell like this, too. It makes all of our cards valuable and it grows so stupidly quickly. I think early discard helps us against big mana decks, and am even considering just going 4x Thoughtseize for that reason. I threw the SB together very quickly but tend to crowd source those anyways - what MU's do we think we need to shore up via SB?
Look forward to any responses! Feel free to be brutally honest
I tried to make a BUG list work multiple times and obviously tried again with the printing of Fatal Push but always came back to RUG.
Playing Aether Vial makes targeted discard a lot worse as both of those cards a pretty bad topdecks in the lategame (there's a reason we side out Vials against Jund). Having 8 of those bad topdecks makes your lategame a lot worse and a singleton Pack Rat won't change that.
Since my latest BUG brew I'm actually of the opinion that the colour combination just doesn't need the soft lock and playing a 'normal' BUG midrange list would just be better. If you want to play AD and possibly Grim Flayer on turn 2, have GG on turn for E/Wit or possible Scooze activations and then UUU on turn 4 (not to mention U/B on turn 1 if you're on targeted discard) the mana is just horrible. Between Maelstrom Pulse, AD, Fatal Push and several counterspells BUG has the tools to deal with pretty much anything anyway. Playing individually suboptimal cards just to make an easy to disrupt soft lock happen is not what that deck wants.
RUG is better at the tempo game than the other colour combinations, it maximizes the use of Aether Vial as a tempo card and Cryptic Command's tap-mode outside of the soft lock, while the lock itself gives the deck another option to compensate for its lack of hard removal.
All that said running only one mass removal in the side seems iffy against swarm strategies and no way to interact with lands in your 75 brave at best but rather stupid at worst. Spreading Seas is a solid card, especially against Eldrazi decks, which will still be a tough MU for the deck.
Simic Charm is actually a pet card of mine, but I found Vapor Snag to actually be a little better in more often. The difference between cmc 1 and 2 is just so huge (especially if using Snapcaster), Charm definitely has it's uses too though (awesome against Abrupt Decay for example).
Sadly Bant are the worst colours for Goyf as it can actually be surprisingly hard to get a creature in the grave.
What do you sideboard the Geists in against?
In the SB you're really low on gravehate. I don't know your meta, but a second Scooze seems good.
Dromoka's Command seems more like a mainboard than a SB card to me and isn't Condemn better than Sunlance? Especially if you expect to see Death Shadow Jund where it's awesome tech (put the attacking Goyf to bottom, opponent gain 6 life, both his 5/5 Death Shadows die...seems quite good haha).
Besides the Finks you're also not really packing anything grindy, are the mainboard Rallier enough to hang with Jund/Junk/Esper after SB?
If you tell us more about your meta, maybe we can give more specific tips