I am super stoked about rending volley. It is perfect for twin. Combust is good against rhinos, but honestly I would rather counter a rhino anyways. I don't even think I would bring combust in for rhinos. Plus we have plenty of other black options.
Edit: I honestly haven't played the tokens matchup much at all yet, but it was the reason I was toying with Architect Jace, and thundermaw. Electrolyze, seems like our best versatile threat, while countering anthems. The tough problems are post anthem spirits which staticaster couldn't handle obviously. Since we can be pretty explosive, I have just been trying to stall their board, aggro, then burn them out while making trades. Thundermaw seems like a good option there.
Also,when I mentioned the "big three" as our threats, I merely mean that I am focusing on them as the matchups to improve. Junk and twin feel about even so far but burn, as you said Frankiepeanuts, is our absolute worst matchup. I honestly don't even like spellskite. So far for me, he has eaten a searing blaze and maybe a bolt every time, which is only three damage prevented. Any good burn player knows to kill skite rather than let him just steal a spell a turn. Plus with lava spike, boros charm, bump (sometime) skullcrack, eidolon, atarka's command soon, searing blaze, searing blood, etc... Sometimes they just don't care. Many times they will burn their targeted ones before the skite, (excluding lightning bolt, which they usually hold as it is instant) then just play those last. Not to mention, we will be on our back foot for the remainder of the game. I cooled off on skite really fast sadly. I think our best option is dragon's claw... Ugh... I know... as it lets us incrementally get back into a powerful position so they lose that inevitability. I think we need lifegain to beat burn.
That said, I just got done testing swerve.. I gotta say that card delivered for me. It is live against the big three decks. It can counter abrupt decay if they have a target (sweet 2 for 1) as I said in the old thread, I got to swerve an abrupt decay onto a goyf, it felt good. It also can redirect splinter twin, bolts, electrolyze (depending on how they cast it), cryptic command, etc... Against burn it is a strange but awesome sorta kinda almost lightning helix, but better against boros charm. That is just the top three decks too. I played it against boggles... And yes, I had a delver with unflinching courage. I don't know if it is good enough for sideboards, but dang if it didn't rock for me this last weekend. (I should mention that against junk, I would only bring it in if they were much more control oriented. Yes... Think of thoughtseize...)
Its Dragons mode also comes in handy. Play the split card.
Is it good against anything other than burn? I can't think of any other decks that a) regularly target you, and b) run tight on mana. Moreover, I thought some people earlier were saying that the siege wasn't actually very good against burn. What is your experience?
Monastery Siege is fantastic in grindy matchups like WUR midrang/control, twin, and whatever control matches you may find. I found that it the khans mode is what i set it to most often because it can feed tasigur and cut, and only set it to dragons when i face burn or decks that focus on targeting my goodies. The card is great, better than i originally thought, especially with Spellskite to help redirect burn
I was asking why you'd play Monastery Siege over Phyrexian Arena. In grindy matchups the draw is better than the loot, so the only reasons to play siege are a) easier on the mana and b) the dragons mode on siege. The first concern is obviously very real, but I was asking dragons mode is actually ever very good? Some people were saying that siege doesn't do all that much against burn, so I wouldn't want to downgrade from arena to siege on khans just so I can play a bad card against burn. I am probably being dense, but I don't understand how what you said addresses that.
Well the biggest reasons why you play siege over arena is that:
1. Feeds Tasigur, Murderous cut, and Gurmag angler if you are running it
2. You don't lose life unlike arena which can, in the long run, end up killing you
3. Much easier to cast
4. Useful in multiple matches, not just grindy ones but even burn
Dragons mode allows you to have a better fight against burn, forces them to cast 1 spell a turn, and if you have spellskite on the field, almost negates any spell they may try to cast. Its still a hard matchup for certain, but it is more flexible than dragon's claw, and this is coming from the guy who originally said "don't play siege over claw, not good enough" but i did some testing and it is actually pretty good. Siege, in my opinion, is an upgrade over arena for those reasons.
1. I think the card is more valuable than the delve mana. I could be wrong I guess, but I would feel pretty confident about this.
2. I think you will lose many more games from not having the cards than not having the life. Again, I'm pretty confident about this, but I could be wrong.
3. Agreed.
4. I'm really curious about the value of Dragons mode, since for the reason above I think Arena is much better than Siege on Khans. I agree that siege + spellskite sounds strong, but how often are you going to have both? I think the card needs to stand on its own merits. So my question is, does it? Starting from turn 3 or 4, is forcing burn to only cast 1 spell per turn worth a card? Is it so good of a card that it's worth the sideboard slot over arena? If you are saying that it is, then I will go ahead and test it.
1) one card is definitely better than the delve mana.
2) + 3) If you want to play this early enough to make a difference, you will be taking a lot of self harm, at which point decks like junk and UWR, the matchups where thearena is good against to begin with, can either burn you out, or trade 1 for 1 with your threats until your arena kills you. I'm not sure how much you've tested, but the 4 probes and mana base hurts when you try to build perfect mana by turn 3. If you want to squeeze out BB on turn 3 without losing tempo on turn 1 and 2, you definitely need to shock yourself at least once.
4) Yes, the value of the dragons mode is not very high against burn. But being able to force them to cast 1 spell a turn buys us breathing room and gives us a chance to stabilize, so it is good to bring it in. It's just a little weaker than it sounds on paper.
Essentially the third point kinda refutes the 2nd point. it doesn't sound right, but the extra card is not always worth the 1 life per turn.
Arena is good against decks that
1) doesn't put a lot of pressure on our life
2) cannot drag the game out to a point where the life loss matters
3) does not have the reach to burn us out after all our self inflicted damage.
Essentially, Arena is good against Infect, Tron, UW Control, etc and these are already favourable mathcups
Arena sucks against UWR, Junk and Burn, and these are the horrible matchups for us.
So I don't really see an argument for arena, especially maindeck.
Hope this was a comprehensive enough analysis
My argument for plunge was that gaining 3 life is equivalent to trading a card with burn. Moreover, against burn we are much better at the long game than they are. I haven't tried a scenario where plunging all of my creatures to gain enough life to push the game to late game was actually effective, and plunge is indeed sketchy tech. I am however willing to test it because i hate dragons claw and our reliance on it against burn
Also, I think it may be right to play more spell snare. Just a thought off my head.
To be better against burn, you could simply replace some number of Gitaxian Probes with Inquisition of Kozilek. Additionally, I've been testing two Vampiric Links in my sideboard for a while and they have been roughly as good as Dragon's Claw. Sometimes better, occasionally worse.
I'm definitely replacing my 2 Combust for 2 of those. I can't think of anything the extra 1 damage for the extra 1 mana hits that is relevant. It hits the same things (Colonnade, Clique, anything Twin plays, Resto, any Merfolk creature). I will say the art is strictly worse Thoughts?
@L0rdAceX - Definitely pumped for rending volley. Being able to stay safe against twin for only R is huge. I actually think this card will have some ripple effects and lead to fewer twin decks in the meta. The only things I can think of combust hits but rending volley doesn't are siege rhino (and you probably won't bring combust in here anyways) and baneslayer angel.
I was kinda bummed when I was awarded with the round 1 bye after only 9 people showed up for Tuesday Night Modern. But fortunately the second and third rounds provided some interesting games. My list for reference:
I faced a pretty sweet esper deck with lingering souls, Lilly, tasigur and a gifts/rites package. Game one wasn't much of a game unfortunately, he stumbled on mana after casting 3 serum visions. He thoughtseized me once, taking a tasigur. I flipped an early delver that got him down to 9 before he pathed it. I stopped a gifts un given with snap/deprive. When he tapped low during my upkeep to dismember the lethal snapcaster, I electrolyzed him in response and he had nothing.
-3 lightning bolt
-2 delver
-1 electrolyze
-1 darkblast
-1 thought scour
+1 gurmag angler
+1 tombstalker
+1 keranos
+2 rakdos charm
+1 negate
+1 dispel
+1 monastery siege
Game 2 is a slow start from both of us, with me mulling to six on the draw. I eventualy land a tasigur, deprive a path, then allow a Gifts Ungiven that tapped my opponent out to resolve while holding rakdos charm and remand as my last 2 cards. He suspected rakdos charm (one thing I hate about charm is any half decent player. can smell it from a mile away) so went with a full pile of un burial rights, elesh norn, liliana, and raven's crime. I give him unburial rights and crime, and charm elesh and liliana away.
I suppose there's an argument for exiling raven's crime but I wanted to protect tasigur because I knew I'd get to untap with him if I fade his draw step. You could argue that raven's crime will take away more cards over time than if I gave him rights and elesh and tried to fight over it, but he'd have to draw more countermagic than lands for that to be true and I figured the opposite would be more likely. Plus I was reasonably sure that was his only copy of elesh so there's value in exiling rather than potentially facing more copies of unburial rites.
He draws and then crimes me twice. I draw keranos, resolve it and get there. While Keranos was "good" here I'm not convinced he's good in our deck yet because I was ahead on board already when I resolved him. My problem with him in twin was that he never really helped me come back from behind, so I'm waiting to see what happens when I land him while I'm losing.
Round three I'm paired against burn. I lose game 1 after almost pulling ahead with tasigur. I'm out of countermagic and at 4 life, having already seen 1 boros charm. He resolves eidolon. I have to terminate it and hope I draw counters or he draws land. I drew a land and he drew a lava spike.
-2 delver
-2 remand
-4 gitaxian probe
-1 darkblast
+2 monastery siege
+2 spellskite
+1 dispel
+1 negate
+1 tombstalker
+1 gurmag angler
+1 murderous cut
I have a feeling that maybe a better player would mull that hand. Maybe it's correct to mull that hand. I honestly think that if the gurmag angler were any other 1 mana spell in the deck it's quite keepable. But I am greedy. And I wanted to keep testing the efficacy of the turn 3 siege and prove Dragons mode's power. Granted If I get lucky and hit three lands I'd have it out alongside a spellskite, so it will have some help and thus isn't a true test of siege alone. But I have yet to curve skite into siege and felt the reward of doing so was worth the risk of not hitting land, since skite into siege is our absolute nut draw versus burn (at least in my theory), while the reward of a better 6 card hand wasn't worth the risk of worse one, especially on the play.
I go to 18 and play delver. He suspends a rift bolt. My delver sees another steam vents. I'm happy to hit a land drop but don't think it's worth the two damage to get skite into play. So I play it tapped and play serum visions, drawing a watery grave and seeing dispel and tasigur. I send tasigur to the bottom and keep dispel. I get rift bolted while my opponent sorcery speeds a searing blaze. I figure its worth shocking a land into play to pay for siege naming Dragons. Waiting means I take 0-7 points of damage this turn cycle, while shocking and playing it means 2-5. I play the siege and pass, he makes a land drop, plays grim lavamancer and passes. I draw spell snare for turn, play skite and pass the turn with dispel/skite/snare mana up.
It's only a matter of time before I cast the angler and win in 3 attacks and a lightning bolt. He resolved one more spell that game while I held up snap/dispel/bolt for a better target.
Dragons mode on siege is absolutely worth it. Even without spellskite I would have ended the game at 2 life instead of 6. Precariously low, sure, but I basically handed him a boros charm on top of his 6 damage before siege did what it's supposed to: leave their hand stuck with 4 mana spells we can easily trade 1 for 1 with while pressuring them.
If there's any doubt you should be playing siege over arena, just the fact that you can be bringing siege in against matchups where you wouldn't dream of bringing the arena in makes it better. Having cards that are useful in many different types of matchups gives us more room in the sideboard.
It simply makes more sense to have 2 slots that come in for both junk and burn than having more 3-5 slots that come in for either or.
Also, Deprive continued to impress. 3 seems like a good number, I'm tempted to try 4. This card was Counterspell for me all day and should be our default over leak, at least until the meta speeds up.. I still like remand in the deck
@Blatm while being able to see their hand and remove their best card is why discard sounds so good on paper, the fact is they're meant for decks that wanna go down to top decking and we aren't one of them. Delver is very fragile and tasigur can get chumped, bounce off or become outclassed by a goyf. Unless everything just goes right for us, we don't end the game very quickly, so we need live draws. While countermagic is a poor topdeck while you're behind, it's fine when you're stalled or ahead. Discard spells are terrible topdecks.
Another reason I'm against claw is because of how we'll rounded my sideboard feels. While I didn't use the combust or engineered explosives, there was twin, affinity and hatebears in the room so they would have come in handy. What would I cut for these supposedly essential Dragons Claws? We can beat burn with what we have. Claw doesn't turn the matchup around enough to clutter precious sideboard space. Spellskite, siege and countermagic are enough. If you land skite and siege there's nearly nothing they can do. I took damage after resolving them because I allowed my opponent to while I waited to assemble more cards. It felt like controlling top/cbalance.
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Dragons mode on siege is absolutely worth it. Even without spellskite I would have ended the game at 2 life instead of 6. Precariously low, sure, but I basically handed him a boros charm on top of his 6 damage before siege did what it's supposed to: leave their hand stuck with 4 mana spells we can easily trade 1 for 1 with while pressuring them.
@Blatm while being able to see their hand and remove their best card is why discard sounds so good on paper, the fact is they're meant for decks that wanna go down to top decking and we aren't one of them. Delver is very fragile and tasigur can get chumped, bounce off or become outclassed by a goyf. Unless everything just goes right for us, we don't end the game very quickly, so we need live draws. While countermagic is a poor topdeck while you're behind, it's fine when you're stalled or ahead. Discard spells are terrible topdecks.
These are convincing arguments to me. Thanks for the input.
Hi all
I played UR delver a lot in the past,
and recently I am moving towards this URb build.
I have some questions regarding the counters.
Some people only play 4 deprive, some a split with remands and sme play leak remand
and snare
What do you think is th.e best combination? And why?
Trying to ask for a best combination will never get you an answer. The leak remand snare combination is the traditional build, centered on a 3-2-2 split usually.
The builds with deprive are rather new, but have been working splendidly for us, and i might be better to just cut the leaks or remands for the deprive.
I recommend a split between deprive, spell snare and remand.
Reason being the are always live. Even if they just go ahead and recast a card you remanded, you still got to cycle it and waste their mana instead of simply going down a card like yo would with leak.
Spell snare is generally great for me. It stops snapcaster goyf scooze yadayada theres huge list that goes on and on. Its a great trump in counterwars (just watch out for maindeck dispel in twin, the actual best trump in modern counterwars).
You're absolutely right that mana leak is better than deprive in a fast meta. Its possible I could have won game 1 against burn yesterday if I had leak in m hand rather than deprive because of the UU in the cost. That said, if I were heading to a pptq tomorrow, I'd pack deprives. They are still live against fast decks but you may need to fetch a basic island sooner than you'd like, and the metagame is overwhelmingly twin and junk. Twin was around 45% of the room at my last pptq.
I recommend a split of 3 deprive 2 remand 2 spell snare. If you are unhappy with snare, you could run the full 4 deprives, a 3rd remand pr more cuts/terminates.
A split between leak and deprive doesn't seem as good to me because, again, leak will become dead as the game goes late, while you can always at least cycle remand for the same cost.
The thing to remember is this is really a metagame deck and there isn't necessarily an optimal build, theres the core and then lots of room to adapt to your predicted metagame and your own playstyle.
only 2 smash to smithereens as artifact hate. granted he has a ton of other burn related removal.
4(!) dragon claws in the board. That's how bad the burn matchup is.
2-2-2 split of pierce, snare and remand: no mana leaks at all
Caleb feels his affinity match doesn't need much help. I think dragons claw is a bit more justified in strait UR. I am surprised he hasn't caught on to monastery siege, though maybe its not as good in UR than it is in Grixis. I feel grixis is almost just a straight up better delver shell than UR, my only reservation in saying that is its much easier for the to run blood moon. We'r much more explosive, we get to run real removal and we can play big board dominating fatties while holding up interaction. I was getting really sick of modern after the bannings but once I started working on this deck I've been having a ton of fun.
I've been tempted to try 18 lands. I dont really think theres an "optimal"choice between 18 or 19, I think it comes down to preference and how the rest of your deck is built. I rarely have to mulligan with 19 and I want to be able to cast my sideboard 5 Drop on time. 19 does perhaps invite the issue of screwing a little with delver flips but so does your inclusion of grim lavamancer, npt that I think its bad to play him. Reduced chances of flipping delver are mitigated by the fact that I often side some number of them out due to more artifacts enchantments and creatures coming in.
Sorry if I was unclear. I am playing swerve as a sideboard card. Definitely not maindeck.
I don't think Caleb's inclusion/exclusion of monastery siege means as much as you think it does. Even in this forum we are undecided on the card. Plus RU is much more able to support dragon's claw than we are.
I have yet to try it out so I won't express any definite opinions except that I don't THINK it our burn answer.
It and spellskite are a beating, but if you would need a good amount of sideboard space to run enough of each to ensure the lock regularly against burn.
Dragon's claw is easy. ensures some lifegain, and can be great if you get some counters in purely gaining life.I play 2 deprives md, none in the side, mana leaks and remand and the 1 cmc variants as needed. (Annul, spell snare, spell pierce etc...) This also means we won't have to sideboard as many cards in so our main gameplan continues better. Maybe I am just over valuing searing blaze, but they draw it every time I land skite. Every. Time. Then bolt him the rest of the way and keep going at me. One of the biggest problems for me are the games where they land an early creature and I don't have one of my tons of removal spells to kill it early giving them a free few swings. The games I win are usually when the burn deck is creatureless for obvious reasons. Skite, while helping is gonna save us only 2 damage in that scenario, or he doesn't block, giving burn more time to swing away.
I wanna know how he has been in testing for you guys with a little more specific results than the theory I have heard so far. Same for siege. I would love to run them.
Also, is anyone actually having a regularly tough time with affinity? I keep hearing people talk about needing more sideboard space for them, but I dont know thay we need TOO much. I have very little difficulty with them unless they just draw god hands... and most decks have trouble with those hands anyways... lol
I think the unfortunate truth is that there is no easy way to shore up our burn matchup and it simply requires tight play and good luck. Just about every deck has a horrendous matchup it hopes to dodge, burn, bogles and to some extent, tokens are ours.
I am convinced that siege and skite should be our go to cards for fighting burn. I definitely understand how weak skite can seem against burn and in the old thread I even tried to argue against bringing it in at all simply because of how relatively easy it is for the burn player to deal with it. However, it does buy you some time. The searing cards are ridiculously effective against us and the only answer to that is to have dispel or snare in hand.
Skite must come in because despite some weaknesses it really is a reasonable card in the matchup and its a staple in our sideboard because of how many matches its good in. It can do a dragonclaw impression and sometimes it is even better when it blanks entire cards when you have blue mana open.
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I type at length over and over again about how good siege actually is against them. I KNOW, I KNOW, it costs 3 and you basically have to get it on the board turn 3 or 4 at the latest for it to be worthwhile. If you land this card early enough it will win you the game. Burn's strength comes from its velocity. By the time we land siege, generally their hand is nearly empty. If you open with siege in your hand, hold your countermagic and take your licks. Once its on the table, they dont get to accomplish much.
Dragons claw is out of my board because it is only meant for 1 deck and it isnt even that reasonable of an answer, they still get to outpace you and outmana you. If it was on stony silence or sowing salt or rest in peacce's level of plan specific hate, Id be all for it but it simply just doesnt do much.
If you're still doubtful about how powerful siege is after just reading what the card does, I cant talk you into it or convince you. Test it. The card is so good in a variety of matchups that I cant imagine registering RUB delver without it. Find a friend to test some postboard matches with burn, put siege into your hand and draw 6. Play out 10 games this way, then play some normal games where its up to variance if you see it or not.
I wont say the game is unlosable after siege resolves but claw certainly cant make that claim either. But sieges effect on the game is infinitely superior.
EDIT: this is also why I advocate having a couple more delve creatures in our board.in addition to being much better mid-to late game threats than delver in grindy matchups, they are also threats that we can play cheaply that will escape any pings from eidolon in addition to outclassing anything else on the board. The burn player must 2 for 1 themselves to deal with them.
Edit: I honestly haven't played the tokens matchup much at all yet, but it was the reason I was toying with Architect Jace, and thundermaw. Electrolyze, seems like our best versatile threat, while countering anthems. The tough problems are post anthem spirits which staticaster couldn't handle obviously. Since we can be pretty explosive, I have just been trying to stall their board, aggro, then burn them out while making trades. Thundermaw seems like a good option there.
Also,when I mentioned the "big three" as our threats, I merely mean that I am focusing on them as the matchups to improve. Junk and twin feel about even so far but burn, as you said Frankiepeanuts, is our absolute worst matchup. I honestly don't even like spellskite. So far for me, he has eaten a searing blaze and maybe a bolt every time, which is only three damage prevented. Any good burn player knows to kill skite rather than let him just steal a spell a turn. Plus with lava spike, boros charm, bump (sometime) skullcrack, eidolon, atarka's command soon, searing blaze, searing blood, etc... Sometimes they just don't care. Many times they will burn their targeted ones before the skite, (excluding lightning bolt, which they usually hold as it is instant) then just play those last. Not to mention, we will be on our back foot for the remainder of the game. I cooled off on skite really fast sadly. I think our best option is dragon's claw... Ugh... I know... as it lets us incrementally get back into a powerful position so they lose that inevitability. I think we need lifegain to beat burn.
That said, I just got done testing swerve.. I gotta say that card delivered for me. It is live against the big three decks. It can counter abrupt decay if they have a target (sweet 2 for 1) as I said in the old thread, I got to swerve an abrupt decay onto a goyf, it felt good. It also can redirect splinter twin, bolts, electrolyze (depending on how they cast it), cryptic command, etc... Against burn it is a strange but awesome sorta kinda almost lightning helix, but better against boros charm. That is just the top three decks too. I played it against boggles... And yes, I had a delver with unflinching courage. I don't know if it is good enough for sideboards, but dang if it didn't rock for me this last weekend. (I should mention that against junk, I would only bring it in if they were much more control oriented. Yes... Think of thoughtseize...)
I was asking why you'd play Monastery Siege over Phyrexian Arena. In grindy matchups the draw is better than the loot, so the only reasons to play siege are a) easier on the mana and b) the dragons mode on siege. The first concern is obviously very real, but I was asking dragons mode is actually ever very good? Some people were saying that siege doesn't do all that much against burn, so I wouldn't want to downgrade from arena to siege on khans just so I can play a bad card against burn. I am probably being dense, but I don't understand how what you said addresses that.
1. Feeds Tasigur, Murderous cut, and Gurmag angler if you are running it
2. You don't lose life unlike arena which can, in the long run, end up killing you
3. Much easier to cast
4. Useful in multiple matches, not just grindy ones but even burn
Dragons mode allows you to have a better fight against burn, forces them to cast 1 spell a turn, and if you have spellskite on the field, almost negates any spell they may try to cast. Its still a hard matchup for certain, but it is more flexible than dragon's claw, and this is coming from the guy who originally said "don't play siege over claw, not good enough" but i did some testing and it is actually pretty good. Siege, in my opinion, is an upgrade over arena for those reasons.
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Modern:
BURGrixis DelverRUB
URUR DelverRU
URBlue MoonRU
RIPURUR TwinRURIP
Legacy:
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RUBGrixis PyromancerRUB
Commander:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonRU
URBJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeRUB
2. I think you will lose many more games from not having the cards than not having the life. Again, I'm pretty confident about this, but I could be wrong.
3. Agreed.
4. I'm really curious about the value of Dragons mode, since for the reason above I think Arena is much better than Siege on Khans. I agree that siege + spellskite sounds strong, but how often are you going to have both? I think the card needs to stand on its own merits. So my question is, does it? Starting from turn 3 or 4, is forcing burn to only cast 1 spell per turn worth a card? Is it so good of a card that it's worth the sideboard slot over arena? If you are saying that it is, then I will go ahead and test it.
Thanks for the clarification.
2) + 3) If you want to play this early enough to make a difference, you will be taking a lot of self harm, at which point decks like junk and UWR, the matchups where thearena is good against to begin with, can either burn you out, or trade 1 for 1 with your threats until your arena kills you. I'm not sure how much you've tested, but the 4 probes and mana base hurts when you try to build perfect mana by turn 3. If you want to squeeze out BB on turn 3 without losing tempo on turn 1 and 2, you definitely need to shock yourself at least once.
4) Yes, the value of the dragons mode is not very high against burn. But being able to force them to cast 1 spell a turn buys us breathing room and gives us a chance to stabilize, so it is good to bring it in. It's just a little weaker than it sounds on paper.
Essentially the third point kinda refutes the 2nd point. it doesn't sound right, but the extra card is not always worth the 1 life per turn.
Arena is good against decks that
1) doesn't put a lot of pressure on our life
2) cannot drag the game out to a point where the life loss matters
3) does not have the reach to burn us out after all our self inflicted damage.
Essentially, Arena is good against Infect, Tron, UW Control, etc and these are already favourable mathcups
Arena sucks against UWR, Junk and Burn, and these are the horrible matchups for us.
So I don't really see an argument for arena, especially maindeck.
Hope this was a comprehensive enough analysis
My argument for plunge was that gaining 3 life is equivalent to trading a card with burn. Moreover, against burn we are much better at the long game than they are. I haven't tried a scenario where plunging all of my creatures to gain enough life to push the game to late game was actually effective, and plunge is indeed sketchy tech. I am however willing to test it because i hate dragons claw and our reliance on it against burn
Also, I think it may be right to play more spell snare. Just a thought off my head.
http://mythicspoiler.com/dtk/cards/rendingvolley.html
I'm definitely replacing my 2 Combust for 2 of those. I can't think of anything the extra 1 damage for the extra 1 mana hits that is relevant. It hits the same things (Colonnade, Clique, anything Twin plays, Resto, any Merfolk creature). I will say the art is strictly worse Thoughts?
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
4 delver of secrets
4 young pyromancer
3 tasigur, the golden fang
3 Snapcaster mage
4 serum visions
4 gitaxian probe
4 lightning bolt
2 electrolyze
1 darkblast
1 murderous cut
1 terminate
3 deprive
2 remand
2 spell snare
3 thought scour
4 polluted delta
2 steam vents
2 watery grave
1 darkslick shores
1 sulfur falls
3 island
1 mountain
1 swamp
1 keranos, God of storms
1 tombstalker
1 gurmag angler
1 combust
1 negate
1 dispel
1 murderous cut
2 engineered explosives
2 spellskite
2 monastery seige
2 rakdos charm
I faced a pretty sweet esper deck with lingering souls, Lilly, tasigur and a gifts/rites package. Game one wasn't much of a game unfortunately, he stumbled on mana after casting 3 serum visions. He thoughtseized me once, taking a tasigur. I flipped an early delver that got him down to 9 before he pathed it. I stopped a gifts un given with snap/deprive. When he tapped low during my upkeep to dismember the lethal snapcaster, I electrolyzed him in response and he had nothing.
-3 lightning bolt
-2 delver
-1 electrolyze
-1 darkblast
-1 thought scour
+1 gurmag angler
+1 tombstalker
+1 keranos
+2 rakdos charm
+1 negate
+1 dispel
+1 monastery siege
Game 2 is a slow start from both of us, with me mulling to six on the draw. I eventualy land a tasigur, deprive a path, then allow a Gifts Ungiven that tapped my opponent out to resolve while holding rakdos charm and remand as my last 2 cards. He suspected rakdos charm (one thing I hate about charm is any half decent player. can smell it from a mile away) so went with a full pile of un burial rights, elesh norn, liliana, and raven's crime. I give him unburial rights and crime, and charm elesh and liliana away.
I suppose there's an argument for exiling raven's crime but I wanted to protect tasigur because I knew I'd get to untap with him if I fade his draw step. You could argue that raven's crime will take away more cards over time than if I gave him rights and elesh and tried to fight over it, but he'd have to draw more countermagic than lands for that to be true and I figured the opposite would be more likely. Plus I was reasonably sure that was his only copy of elesh so there's value in exiling rather than potentially facing more copies of unburial rites.
He draws and then crimes me twice. I draw keranos, resolve it and get there. While Keranos was "good" here I'm not convinced he's good in our deck yet because I was ahead on board already when I resolved him. My problem with him in twin was that he never really helped me come back from behind, so I'm waiting to see what happens when I land him while I'm losing.
Round three I'm paired against burn. I lose game 1 after almost pulling ahead with tasigur. I'm out of countermagic and at 4 life, having already seen 1 boros charm. He resolves eidolon. I have to terminate it and hope I draw counters or he draws land. I drew a land and he drew a lava spike.
-2 delver
-2 remand
-4 gitaxian probe
-1 darkblast
+2 monastery siege
+2 spellskite
+1 dispel
+1 negate
+1 tombstalker
+1 gurmag angler
+1 murderous cut
Game two on the play my hand is:
I have a feeling that maybe a better player would mull that hand. Maybe it's correct to mull that hand. I honestly think that if the gurmag angler were any other 1 mana spell in the deck it's quite keepable. But I am greedy. And I wanted to keep testing the efficacy of the turn 3 siege and prove Dragons mode's power. Granted If I get lucky and hit three lands I'd have it out alongside a spellskite, so it will have some help and thus isn't a true test of siege alone. But I have yet to curve skite into siege and felt the reward of doing so was worth the risk of not hitting land, since skite into siege is our absolute nut draw versus burn (at least in my theory), while the reward of a better 6 card hand wasn't worth the risk of worse one, especially on the play.
I go to 18 and play delver. He suspends a rift bolt. My delver sees another steam vents. I'm happy to hit a land drop but don't think it's worth the two damage to get skite into play. So I play it tapped and play serum visions, drawing a watery grave and seeing dispel and tasigur. I send tasigur to the bottom and keep dispel. I get rift bolted while my opponent sorcery speeds a searing blaze. I figure its worth shocking a land into play to pay for siege naming Dragons. Waiting means I take 0-7 points of damage this turn cycle, while shocking and playing it means 2-5. I play the siege and pass, he makes a land drop, plays grim lavamancer and passes. I draw spell snare for turn, play skite and pass the turn with dispel/skite/snare mana up.
It's only a matter of time before I cast the angler and win in 3 attacks and a lightning bolt. He resolved one more spell that game while I held up snap/dispel/bolt for a better target.
Dragons mode on siege is absolutely worth it. Even without spellskite I would have ended the game at 2 life instead of 6. Precariously low, sure, but I basically handed him a boros charm on top of his 6 damage before siege did what it's supposed to: leave their hand stuck with 4 mana spells we can easily trade 1 for 1 with while pressuring them.
If there's any doubt you should be playing siege over arena, just the fact that you can be bringing siege in against matchups where you wouldn't dream of bringing the arena in makes it better. Having cards that are useful in many different types of matchups gives us more room in the sideboard.
It simply makes more sense to have 2 slots that come in for both junk and burn than having more 3-5 slots that come in for either or.
Also, Deprive continued to impress. 3 seems like a good number, I'm tempted to try 4. This card was Counterspell for me all day and should be our default over leak, at least until the meta speeds up.. I still like remand in the deck
@Blatm while being able to see their hand and remove their best card is why discard sounds so good on paper, the fact is they're meant for decks that wanna go down to top decking and we aren't one of them. Delver is very fragile and tasigur can get chumped, bounce off or become outclassed by a goyf. Unless everything just goes right for us, we don't end the game very quickly, so we need live draws. While countermagic is a poor topdeck while you're behind, it's fine when you're stalled or ahead. Discard spells are terrible topdecks.
These are convincing arguments to me. Thanks for the input.
And what about a Aether's Vial set at two markers?
Deprive works all the time. Familiar's Ruse doesn't work if you don't have a creature out, and aether vial at 2 only puts in 7 creatures in the deck
Trying to ask for a best combination will never get you an answer. The leak remand snare combination is the traditional build, centered on a 3-2-2 split usually.
The builds with deprive are rather new, but have been working splendidly for us, and i might be better to just cut the leaks or remands for the deprive.
What I meant to say was that there is no single "best combination" available.
There can be rough guides to follow but ultimately the numbers and choices will keep getting tweaked.
Reason being the are always live. Even if they just go ahead and recast a card you remanded, you still got to cycle it and waste their mana instead of simply going down a card like yo would with leak.
Spell snare is generally great for me. It stops snapcaster goyf scooze yadayada theres huge list that goes on and on. Its a great trump in counterwars (just watch out for maindeck dispel in twin, the actual best trump in modern counterwars).
You're absolutely right that mana leak is better than deprive in a fast meta. Its possible I could have won game 1 against burn yesterday if I had leak in m hand rather than deprive because of the UU in the cost. That said, if I were heading to a pptq tomorrow, I'd pack deprives. They are still live against fast decks but you may need to fetch a basic island sooner than you'd like, and the metagame is overwhelmingly twin and junk. Twin was around 45% of the room at my last pptq.
I recommend a split of 3 deprive 2 remand 2 spell snare. If you are unhappy with snare, you could run the full 4 deprives, a 3rd remand pr more cuts/terminates.
A split between leak and deprive doesn't seem as good to me because, again, leak will become dead as the game goes late, while you can always at least cycle remand for the same cost.
The thing to remember is this is really a metagame deck and there isn't necessarily an optimal build, theres the core and then lots of room to adapt to your predicted metagame and your own playstyle.
The only huge difference between us is that he run 19 land and I run 18.
We pretty much agree on everything else with slight deviations.
For reference my latest list:
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Deprive
2 Remand
2 Spell Snare
2 Electrolyze
2 Thought Scour
2 Murderous Cut
1 Terminate
1 Forked Bolt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Spellskite
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Flashfreeze
2 Monastery Siege
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Combust
1 Deathmark
1 Negate
1 Keranos, God of Storms
I feel that deprive encourages 18 land builds more since you probably will end up with extra lands in your hand.
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-modern-ur-delver/
interesting things about his list:
only 2 smash to smithereens as artifact hate. granted he has a ton of other burn related removal.
4(!) dragon claws in the board. That's how bad the burn matchup is.
2-2-2 split of pierce, snare and remand: no mana leaks at all
I've been tempted to try 18 lands. I dont really think theres an "optimal"choice between 18 or 19, I think it comes down to preference and how the rest of your deck is built. I rarely have to mulligan with 19 and I want to be able to cast my sideboard 5 Drop on time. 19 does perhaps invite the issue of screwing a little with delver flips but so does your inclusion of grim lavamancer, npt that I think its bad to play him. Reduced chances of flipping delver are mitigated by the fact that I often side some number of them out due to more artifacts enchantments and creatures coming in.
I don't think Caleb's inclusion/exclusion of monastery siege means as much as you think it does. Even in this forum we are undecided on the card. Plus RU is much more able to support dragon's claw than we are.
I have yet to try it out so I won't express any definite opinions except that I don't THINK it our burn answer.
It and spellskite are a beating, but if you would need a good amount of sideboard space to run enough of each to ensure the lock regularly against burn.
Dragon's claw is easy. ensures some lifegain, and can be great if you get some counters in purely gaining life.I play 2 deprives md, none in the side, mana leaks and remand and the 1 cmc variants as needed. (Annul, spell snare, spell pierce etc...) This also means we won't have to sideboard as many cards in so our main gameplan continues better. Maybe I am just over valuing searing blaze, but they draw it every time I land skite. Every. Time. Then bolt him the rest of the way and keep going at me. One of the biggest problems for me are the games where they land an early creature and I don't have one of my tons of removal spells to kill it early giving them a free few swings. The games I win are usually when the burn deck is creatureless for obvious reasons. Skite, while helping is gonna save us only 2 damage in that scenario, or he doesn't block, giving burn more time to swing away.
I wanna know how he has been in testing for you guys with a little more specific results than the theory I have heard so far. Same for siege. I would love to run them.
Also, is anyone actually having a regularly tough time with affinity? I keep hearing people talk about needing more sideboard space for them, but I dont know thay we need TOO much. I have very little difficulty with them unless they just draw god hands... and most decks have trouble with those hands anyways... lol
I am convinced that siege and skite should be our go to cards for fighting burn. I definitely understand how weak skite can seem against burn and in the old thread I even tried to argue against bringing it in at all simply because of how relatively easy it is for the burn player to deal with it. However, it does buy you some time. The searing cards are ridiculously effective against us and the only answer to that is to have dispel or snare in hand.
Skite must come in because despite some weaknesses it really is a reasonable card in the matchup and its a staple in our sideboard because of how many matches its good in. It can do a dragonclaw impression and sometimes it is even better when it blanks entire cards when you have blue mana open.
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I type at length over and over again about how good siege actually is against them. I KNOW, I KNOW, it costs 3 and you basically have to get it on the board turn 3 or 4 at the latest for it to be worthwhile. If you land this card early enough it will win you the game. Burn's strength comes from its velocity. By the time we land siege, generally their hand is nearly empty. If you open with siege in your hand, hold your countermagic and take your licks. Once its on the table, they dont get to accomplish much.
Dragons claw is out of my board because it is only meant for 1 deck and it isnt even that reasonable of an answer, they still get to outpace you and outmana you. If it was on stony silence or sowing salt or rest in peacce's level of plan specific hate, Id be all for it but it simply just doesnt do much.
If you're still doubtful about how powerful siege is after just reading what the card does, I cant talk you into it or convince you. Test it. The card is so good in a variety of matchups that I cant imagine registering RUB delver without it. Find a friend to test some postboard matches with burn, put siege into your hand and draw 6. Play out 10 games this way, then play some normal games where its up to variance if you see it or not.
I wont say the game is unlosable after siege resolves but claw certainly cant make that claim either. But sieges effect on the game is infinitely superior.
EDIT: this is also why I advocate having a couple more delve creatures in our board.in addition to being much better mid-to late game threats than delver in grindy matchups, they are also threats that we can play cheaply that will escape any pings from eidolon in addition to outclassing anything else on the board. The burn player must 2 for 1 themselves to deal with them.