Thanks for all the kind words everyone! I'm taking a break from Magic period. Its not this deck. I just need some time off to work on other things and recharge.
Hello everyone. I'll let you know right off the bat that this is my last post in this thread, and probably in MTGS for a while. Its not you... its me. Its time for me to take a break from Magic.
By now I'm sure everyone here saw that this deck didn't make a huge splash at the GP. I tried as hard as I could, but despite 100+ hours of hard work and 450+ test games with this deck, it just wasn't in the cards for success at this event.
Friday - The Grinder
I had to do some selling at the dealers' tables, so I ended up jumping into the last grinder of the night.
In Round 1, I played against a fellow from the UK, piloting Amulet Combo. He tried to get me with a Primeval Titan, but my Ghost Quarter & Aven Mindcensor slowed him down enough for me to take control of the game. I had plenty of search hate in game 2 to grind out the match despite his boarded in Firespouts.
In Round 2, I faced Affinity. In game 1 it looked like I was about to lose, when I drew a... Worship! My opponent got the Oracle text for the card and then killed me the very next turn with 10 power on a Inkmoth Nexus. There wasn't much I could do about that. Game 2 had me draw a hand with turn 2 Kataki. I landed the Kataki and followed up with a Spellskite, forcing the concession.
Game 3 had me draw a hand with a decent curve and a Chalice of The Void. Chalice was going to be a bit less effective in this game due to me being on the draw, but it would still help me later as long as I could answer the initial plays from Affinity. Unfortunately for me, Affinity had "the nuts." Ornithopter, Ornithopter, Blinkmoth Nexus, Springleaf, Mox Opal, Cranial Plating, "Go." I lost shortly after when my opponent drew Arcbound Ravager and more gas.
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Saturday - GP Day 1
With no byes, I was looking at playing all nine rounds of Magic today.
After losing to Affinity in the grinder, I decided that I couldn't afford to lose to Affinity today, and made a SB adjustment. This was my final 75:
In game 1 we had a grindy game, where I had Loxodon Smiters for his 3/4 Street Wraiths and 4/4 Carabids. I eventually win this with superior creatures and a couple of removal spells.
In game 2 I had some hate cards to shut Living End down, and the deck never did much more besides play some Fulminator Mages.
1-0
Round 2 - Jund
Game 1 was ground out by the Jund player. He had Goyf, Lili, and enough removal to stop what I was doing.
In game 2, I had an aggressive start that Jund was not able to recover from.
Game 3 was a grind fest. I drew Worship, then Batterskull, then Thrun, the Last Troll to start hitting for 8 lifelink per turn. My opponent drew his own Batterskull, and we went to time in the round.
Once our turns were up, I asked my opponent to count the number of cards not in the deck. He had 30. I had 32. I tried to convince my opponent to concede the match to me, seeing as I would deck him via the Worship lock and he had no chance to win this game. My opponent refused to scoop, and this match ended in a draw.
1-0-1
Round 3 - UWR COntrol
I don't remember many specifics about this match, except that Batterskull was a house in game 2! My opponent didn't have the Mana Leak for that card, and from there I was able to ride it to victory.
2-0-1
Round 4 - Death & Taxes
This was one of the most fun matches I played all day. My opponent was a great person to play with, and our games were kind of silly as well! In game 1 I landed the Leonin Arbiter, Ghost Quarter combo. My opponent had his own Ghost Quarters to kill my lands as well. My opponent ended up having a Plains and 2 Aether Vials out to "cast" his creatures, while I had a pair of Noble Heirarchs to cast mine. The game lasted for a while, but eventually my Scavenging Ooze and Smiters were too much for our mono-white bretheren to manage.
Game 2 was much more straightforward, but my 4/4s were still bigger than the opponent's 3/3 Serra Avengers and 3/4 Restoration Angels.
3-0-1
Round 5 - Melira Pod
I lost this match to Gavony Township making Melira's team larger in both games. The Pod deck didn't need to combo off to beat me, since it played a better beatdown game than I could muster.
3-1-1
Round 6 - Grixis Delver
This was UR Delver with a splash for Thoughtseize.
I lost game 1 due to that Thoughtseize taking out my Worship. My opponent managed to deal with my board with Bolts and an active Grim Lavamancer, while I didn't draw anything that would help me out.
Game 2 was similar. I had a solid hand, but my cards were answered with Thoughtseize, counters, and Bolts on the rest.
3-2-1 - DROP
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Sunday - Win-A-Box
In round 1 I beat a Tin Fins player in 3 games. My hate cards, including Rest In Peace and Chalice set at 2, kept my opponent from doing anything when he couldn't draw an Emrakul. Eventually I had more than 6 permanents anyway...
In round 2 I played against Melira Pod again. Actually, this was the same player I faced in the main event! I still lost this is 2 games, although I got close to winning game 1 with Aven Mindcensor before my opponent dropped Archangel of Thune and pulled the game out. In game 2 I had hate cards while my opponent just went for the beatdown plan and played bigger creatures.
This was frustrating because I could have beaten UWR control in the finals and won this box. Oh well...
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I told myself before the event that this would be my last tournament for a while if I couldn't make Day 2. I put SO much work into this event, only to fail.
This deck is tier 2. I'm sorry guys, but the top tier decks either are faster (Storm, Tin Fins, Affinity), have more removal (BGx, Lightning Bolt decks), have combos that win on the spot (Twin, Pod), have bigger and better creatures (BG, Affinity, Melira Pod) or run extensive disruption (UWR). We can beat some of these decks some of the time, but we can't ever beat all of these decks all of the time. I tried, and you can look at the rest of this thread to see the work I put into this.
Aether Vial would not have helped me one bit. I didn't die to Cryptic Command or Spell Snare. I died to Gavony Township and a 10/10 Scavenging Ooze. I died to Thoughtseize. I died to the clock and a stubborn opponent. I died to decks that could take the hate we play and play out of it.
It seems like whatever we do, we lose to half of the top tier decks. We can build the list to beat combo & UWR, and then lose to BG, Affinity and Pod going on the beatdown. We can become a deck that hates out the "fair" decks, but then we'll have a bunch of durdles against the "unfair" half of the format. To top it off, we don't really have an inherant powerful game plan that can just win no matter what the opposition presents. We have to have the right match ups or we lose.
Notice how my wins were against "unfair" decks and the UWR opponent, and my losses were against "fair" decks. That's what my list does, but that's not good enough for this level of competition.
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What would an "anti-fair decks" list look like? Could we build a list that beats Melira Pod and Affinity in game 1 without sacrificing our game against the combo decks? IDK, but I'd start here:
Batterskull and Banealsayer in the maindeck as "trumps" to the fair decks. Baneslayer dies to more removal, but has flying. Batterskull is the more resilient trump, but doesn't have any evasion. Journey To Nowhere is our third best removal spell in these colors, but we play more of these than Dismembers at this point in order to preserve our life total against Zoo and other fast decks.
Mirran Crusader is in the list to punch through Melira Pod and BG decks, and also to carry a Batterskull to victory. Please play around with 1 or 2 Swords in the list as well. They match up well with the Crusader!
For the mana you will notice that I added a 2nd Gavony Township. We may be a bit color shy, so I compensated by adding the 6th mana dork (2nd Birds). This list now has the same Gavony power that Melira Pod does, so we can run the "pump plan" if we have to.
Last but not least, Courser of Kruphix could gain us some much needed life in fair matches as well as dig us through land pockets a bit faster than normal.
The SB is full of singletons now to gain coverage against the field. Damping Matrix stops both Pod and the creatures in the Pod deck from activating, but also stops your Qasali Pridemages, Batterskull and Spellskite from working. Only use this if the effect will cripple the opponent more than it harms you (Hint: Board out Batterskull.)
Grafdigger's Cage stops Melira Pod, but does NOT stop the Living End combo.
I found myself wanting the third Aven in some matches. With this SB that will be possible.
Kataki is the concession to Affinity. Do not ever go to a big tournament without a plan to beat that deck. It makes high showings in nearly every Modern event, so be prepared!
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Sideboard plan for the 75 I registered for the GP:
vs Twin - UR "All-In" version
IN: 2 Torpor Orb, 1 Choke, 2 Seal of Primordium, 1 Linvala
OUT: 2 Thrun, 2 Aven, 2 Thalia
- Worship doesn't actually help much here. If they go off, they will most likely be able to "Scry tutor" with Viscera Seer for the Enchantmant hate card or the Murderous Redcap to kill our board.
- Kill Spike Feeder or Archangel of Thrune first if you see it, because that combo doesn't care about our hate cards.
- Chalice for 0 to stop Summoner's Pact
- Remember that the pact cast on your side of the field via a Hive Mind is NOT countered! Chalice will not stop the Hive Mind part of the deck.
- Chalice for 1 so that Worship can work here. With Chalice out at 1 Merfolk cannot use Vapor Snag to make you lose the last point of life.
- EE for 2 to clear out the Lords and Spreading Seas
Last but not least, attached is the testing spreadsheet I used to log my games leading up to this event. Maybe this info can be of help to those of you that continue playing with the deck. It is certainly a fun list to play, but I'm afraid that if I wanted to play a Modern event tomorrow that I would be bringing my Affinity deck instead of this.
Sorry guys
EDIT: It looks like I can't upload an Excel spreadsheet on here.
Sorry guys. It might be just a little TOO hectic to do this. I'll be around in the Moogfest 2012 shirt, so say hibifbyou see me. Yours truly will be oohing and aahing at sweet foils he can't afford
I have something for everyone with this package. I have a miser's EE for my worst matches and for fast Zoo decks. I have a miser's Kataki that will buy me time for Worship or EE or Seals against Affinty, and I still have robust hate for the biggest decks I expect at this event. Rest In Peace for Storm but also to give me a shot against BG/x and Big Zoo decks. Linvala, RIP, and Torpor Orbs to overload Melira Pod's Thoughtseizes and Abrupt Decays. Seals for Blood Moons, Affinity, Bogle, and lots of other corner cases. Orbs, Choke, and Linvala for Twin, and maybe RIP too if they are running the Goyf version. Chalice for half the format. Choke for a large chunk of the format, mainly decks like Delver, UWR, Twin, and Storm. And that Batterskull for a threat that can win the game vs decks that go bigger than me.
Is it perfect? I think the better question is: Is it possible to have a perfect sideboard for this deck? I can't cover everything with 15 cards, but with the hate here I'll try to have game against at least the critical stuff.
I feel like Stony will be a better card on the play, but much worse on the draw. If we are on the draw then Affinity has three turns by the time we get two, which means their faster hands could have a Cranial Plating already attached to a creature, or a Arcbound Ravager already out and ready to dump counters on something in response to the Stony.
Kataki is probably better on the draw. Its awesome either way, but at least in that scenario the Affinity player is probably losing a few cards or being tapped out. Of course it dies to Galvanic Blast, which means its less reliable.
I could see 1x Engineered and 1x Kataki. Kataki is NOT a non-bo with Explosives, so I can use both if I draw them. I'll just have to mulligan those hands with only EE, because those are too slow unless I also have a mana dork.
Fracturing Gust is a great card, but like DOL said may be a bit too much. Heck, Creeping Corrosion may be too much mana! IDK. I need to test with each of these options and find out what works best in this list. FWIW I'm getting conflicting advise between here and the people I'm in touch with. No one has a good answer on this...
I know a lot of us are going to be at GP Richmond in a couple of days, so how about we meet sometime on Friday? I'll be there all day, and we can pick a table # or dealer to converge at.
Different topic: Has anyone else tested sideboard options against Affinity? I'm specifically looking at freeing up two sideboard slots for one of these cards:
I'm cutting the last Explosives. Its not doing what I need it to do in the most critical match ups. Its not that great against the expected Zoo lists (Big Zoo) and its too slow for Affinity. Affinity will be one of the most played decks at the GP due to being comparatively cheap to build, and I don't want to give any wins to it.
I'm also looking at fighting against Storm. I think I'm eschewing my test plan to focus on these two matches just to double check on the correct sideboard for this event. DOL, even though Storm wasn't heavily played at the Pro Tour, it had the best win rate among the players who did run it. We also have multiple well-respected Pros this week calling this deck the best, and others calling for more bannings from the deck. I would count this as a "5" in your rankings for the GP.
I just finished testing against Bogle. For the first time in testing with GW, I achieved a clean sweep against a deck. Bogle did not win a single game in 4 games before board or 6 games after boarding!
I don't like the Pro Tour list that I tested against. While I understand why Mana Tithe was in the deck, I feel like that card may have needed to be something else. Maybe Dismember? Anyway, MD Worship was hilarious, as was Chalice for 1 after boarding. In a couple of games I managed to land a Chalice for 1 AND 2 and leave... Unflinching Courage as the only playable card in the opposing deck? I'm simply not worried about this deck at all.
So with this knowledge, I am taking Back To Nature back out of the deck. I'm 99% sure that slot will revert back to the 2nd Seal of Primordium, although I can make a case for Stony Silence now that I'm not running 2 Engineered Explosives in the SB. The big reason why I cut Stony was for the nonbo with EE in the Affinity match. I think I still want an EE for Fast Zoo and for an outside chance of beating our bad match ups (Merfolk, Tokens, BG Rock) and because its a good card to have against a large open field where anything could happen.
It happens VitaminJ. What helps is having a Voice or Thrun on the field to compliment the Worship. Because spells resolve from the stack one at a time, including copies of spells, you'll have a Voice trigger go on the stack after Grapeshot kills it but before the last Grapeshots kill you. You'll get an elemental before you die and keep Worship going.
And you probably get there just with a Qasali and a Loxodon Smiter. Sure, Storm might still pull a win out, but its going to be harder every turn that you add "2" or "4" to the required Grapeshot count to win. Storm is good. Its not THAT good!
Township is one of those cards that 80% of the time will just be a land. However, I am glad to see it in a lot of hairy situations already. I'm testing against Bogle right now, and this is what the board just looked like:
HALLELUJAH!
With Gavony, I can actually win this game before Bogle decks out if they are stubborn enough to want to play it out with 0 MD outs to Worship. I can make my team 5/6s eventually and actually take out Bogle gargantuan creatures on the block.
Behlial, maybe we can arrange a IRL meetup at the event site? I plan on being there as early as I can on Friday.
I originally had 2 Tectonic Edges, then 1, then 0 in order to reduce the mulligans I had to take. There were too many hands with color issues that I had to throw back, which definitely contributed to losses for GW. Recently I found that I needed a way to win grindier games, so I added the 5th colorless land back in as a Gavony Township. I'm extremely happy with the mana base the way it is setup right now. I will not make a change to that part of the deck heading into this GP.
While its on my mind, I'm certain that Batterskull is the actual trump card that we want.
Batterskull requires a more narrow out from our opponents. Instead of just needing creature removal, our opponents will need Artifact removal to actually take that card off the board. If we run out Baneslayer then one Path takes our card. If we run out Batterskull, then our Germ will eat a Path, but we are still threatening to equip the Batterskull and still gain life, or bounce it and get another Germ if we have time to do so.
Batterskull will be better on a board where GW has been mana flooded. With 8 mana its extremely hard to kill, whereas with a Baneslayer or Sword our opponent can draw a Maelstrom Pulse anytime and kill our card for good.
Batterskull will have built in protection via the self-bounce ability if we get to untap with it in play. Forcing the opponent to have an answer right now is a great way to stack the odds in our favor!
Batterskull can keep ourselves safe while still gaining life due to Vigilance. In a bind we can attack with the Germ, gain 4, and then move the Batterskull onto something else if the Germ dies. I was in situations back when I ran maindeck Baneslayer where I couldn't attack with the Angel due to the threat of the opposing swing. With Batterskull I don't have to worry about that as much.
And last but not least, Batterskull can be cast no matter what our mana looks like, as long as we have 5 mana in some form! That means we still get our trump from under a Blood Moon or if we end up with something like 2 Ghost Quarters, a Gavony, a Forest, and a Razorverge Thicket as our lands.
and I thought I had a lot of work to do just getting another 100 games in by Friday! I'm impressed. I'll see if I can provide a more thorough response soon.
I really feel like some of these matches change drastically based on even a few cards of difference between our lists. Just the difference in some matches with and without running Worship can flip something from favorable to unfavorable, and vice versa. To top it off, since this deck is highly customizable and changing to match the current meta, these matches will continue to improve / suffer based on what we tune our current lists to beat.
Maybe I get crushed by 3 BG Rock decks in a row on day 1, and then come back here and say I'm cutting Thalias and running MD Mirran Crusader instead. My Rock match becomes more winnable, but then my Storm match might go from even before board to 40%. I suggest keeping this "big picture" view of how the deck performs against the entire format whenever considering a card change. It would stink to make a change to fix one match, and then face one of our supposedly good match ups and lose because of cutting a key card for that match!
DOL, thanks for the write ups on the match ups. I take it these will end up in the Primer soon? The primer is going to be a real tomb of knowledge for this deck with all of this analysis added!
Let's take a look at the Hatebears list that just made the finals of a ChannelFireball 5k (!)
First off, that sideboard and most of the main deck #s look VERY familiar. Give yourselves a pat on the back for coming to a consensus with this list. Many of these cards are proving their worth in real tournament situations and at high levels of play. This is a HUGE deal for us! This means we're on the right track with things like Chalice, Seal of Primordium, Choke, etc.
I'd like to know how the Brimaz worked out for this player. I wanted to test it out, but I can only test so much in the time that I have. It seems like a solid creature, and its one that we have discussed on here before. Its not technically a "hate" card, but I imagine it is a powerful creature that will slow down Zoo and our midrange opposition.
Did anyone watch the coverage of this finals match? I know Affinity won, and I'd like to know what happened. This list does NOT run Worship or Engineered Explosives, and I'm wondering if that was an issue or if it was something else. I do like how this runs Stony Silence since it does not have Explosives.
I'm leaning towards cutting the last couple of Explosives. They're great against Fast Zoo, but if its true that Big Zoo is going to be more common, then I'm going to want something like Baneslayer Angel back in my 75. Explosives was slow and hard to use effectively in my testing against Big Zoo, especially due to the fact that I couldn't get 3 counters on EE to kill Knight of The Reliquary or even Domri Rade.
I'm also looking at a Sword or Batterskull in that Baneslayer slot. I just want some sort of "trump" card back in my 75 for when the games go long against BG, Melira Pod, or Big Zoo. I want something that I can draw, slam on the table, and force an answer. "Pulse/kill this or lose" is what I'm looking for here, with a life gain component if possible.
Has anyone tested against Bogle? I'm going to have 10 games in against it this week, and I'm trying to figure out if I need that Back To Nature or if sticking with 2x Seal Of Primordium will work. Back To Nature also hits stuff like Blood Moon, but is one less card I can bring in for Affinity.
dcovino: If you did an analysis of my boarding you'd come to the same conclusion with my Worships as well. I'm really liking the idea of just running them in game 1. Sure, my opponents may have answers for it in game 2, but if it makes bad pre board matches shift in my favor then its worth it, especially since I bet we always have more answers than they have answers-for-our-answers. BTW I will share my testing spreadsheet, probably Sunday night.
Good insights. I feel the same way about a lot of these topics. There is a creeping feeling that Jund is just the best deck, or close to it still. We just need to find that right list now, and I'm not sure Huntmaster is it.
Good idea on the GoogleDocs link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-QwgoqXFaZFeGNzOU8yZGxkb28/edit?usp=sharing
By now I'm sure everyone here saw that this deck didn't make a huge splash at the GP. I tried as hard as I could, but despite 100+ hours of hard work and 450+ test games with this deck, it just wasn't in the cards for success at this event.
Friday - The Grinder
I had to do some selling at the dealers' tables, so I ended up jumping into the last grinder of the night.
In Round 1, I played against a fellow from the UK, piloting Amulet Combo. He tried to get me with a Primeval Titan, but my Ghost Quarter & Aven Mindcensor slowed him down enough for me to take control of the game. I had plenty of search hate in game 2 to grind out the match despite his boarded in Firespouts.
In Round 2, I faced Affinity. In game 1 it looked like I was about to lose, when I drew a... Worship! My opponent got the Oracle text for the card and then killed me the very next turn with 10 power on a Inkmoth Nexus. There wasn't much I could do about that. Game 2 had me draw a hand with turn 2 Kataki. I landed the Kataki and followed up with a Spellskite, forcing the concession.
Game 3 had me draw a hand with a decent curve and a Chalice of The Void. Chalice was going to be a bit less effective in this game due to me being on the draw, but it would still help me later as long as I could answer the initial plays from Affinity. Unfortunately for me, Affinity had "the nuts." Ornithopter, Ornithopter, Blinkmoth Nexus, Springleaf, Mox Opal, Cranial Plating, "Go." I lost shortly after when my opponent drew Arcbound Ravager and more gas.
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Saturday - GP Day 1
With no byes, I was looking at playing all nine rounds of Magic today.
After losing to Affinity in the grinder, I decided that I couldn't afford to lose to Affinity today, and made a SB adjustment. This was my final 75:
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
2 Worship
1 Batterskull
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Choke
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Torpor Orb
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Round 1 - Living End
In game 1 we had a grindy game, where I had Loxodon Smiters for his 3/4 Street Wraiths and 4/4 Carabids. I eventually win this with superior creatures and a couple of removal spells.
In game 2 I had some hate cards to shut Living End down, and the deck never did much more besides play some Fulminator Mages.
1-0
Round 2 - Jund
Game 1 was ground out by the Jund player. He had Goyf, Lili, and enough removal to stop what I was doing.
In game 2, I had an aggressive start that Jund was not able to recover from.
Game 3 was a grind fest. I drew Worship, then Batterskull, then Thrun, the Last Troll to start hitting for 8 lifelink per turn. My opponent drew his own Batterskull, and we went to time in the round.
Once our turns were up, I asked my opponent to count the number of cards not in the deck. He had 30. I had 32. I tried to convince my opponent to concede the match to me, seeing as I would deck him via the Worship lock and he had no chance to win this game. My opponent refused to scoop, and this match ended in a draw.
1-0-1
Round 3 - UWR COntrol
I don't remember many specifics about this match, except that Batterskull was a house in game 2! My opponent didn't have the Mana Leak for that card, and from there I was able to ride it to victory.
2-0-1
Round 4 - Death & Taxes
This was one of the most fun matches I played all day. My opponent was a great person to play with, and our games were kind of silly as well! In game 1 I landed the Leonin Arbiter, Ghost Quarter combo. My opponent had his own Ghost Quarters to kill my lands as well. My opponent ended up having a Plains and 2 Aether Vials out to "cast" his creatures, while I had a pair of Noble Heirarchs to cast mine. The game lasted for a while, but eventually my Scavenging Ooze and Smiters were too much for our mono-white bretheren to manage.
Game 2 was much more straightforward, but my 4/4s were still bigger than the opponent's 3/3 Serra Avengers and 3/4 Restoration Angels.
3-0-1
Round 5 - Melira Pod
I lost this match to Gavony Township making Melira's team larger in both games. The Pod deck didn't need to combo off to beat me, since it played a better beatdown game than I could muster.
3-1-1
Round 6 - Grixis Delver
This was UR Delver with a splash for Thoughtseize.
I lost game 1 due to that Thoughtseize taking out my Worship. My opponent managed to deal with my board with Bolts and an active Grim Lavamancer, while I didn't draw anything that would help me out.
Game 2 was similar. I had a solid hand, but my cards were answered with Thoughtseize, counters, and Bolts on the rest.
3-2-1 - DROP
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Sunday - Win-A-Box
In round 1 I beat a Tin Fins player in 3 games. My hate cards, including Rest In Peace and Chalice set at 2, kept my opponent from doing anything when he couldn't draw an Emrakul. Eventually I had more than 6 permanents anyway...
In round 2 I played against Melira Pod again. Actually, this was the same player I faced in the main event! I still lost this is 2 games, although I got close to winning game 1 with Aven Mindcensor before my opponent dropped Archangel of Thune and pulled the game out. In game 2 I had hate cards while my opponent just went for the beatdown plan and played bigger creatures.
This was frustrating because I could have beaten UWR control in the finals and won this box. Oh well...
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I told myself before the event that this would be my last tournament for a while if I couldn't make Day 2. I put SO much work into this event, only to fail.
This deck is tier 2. I'm sorry guys, but the top tier decks either are faster (Storm, Tin Fins, Affinity), have more removal (BGx, Lightning Bolt decks), have combos that win on the spot (Twin, Pod), have bigger and better creatures (BG, Affinity, Melira Pod) or run extensive disruption (UWR). We can beat some of these decks some of the time, but we can't ever beat all of these decks all of the time. I tried, and you can look at the rest of this thread to see the work I put into this.
Aether Vial would not have helped me one bit. I didn't die to Cryptic Command or Spell Snare. I died to Gavony Township and a 10/10 Scavenging Ooze. I died to Thoughtseize. I died to the clock and a stubborn opponent. I died to decks that could take the hate we play and play out of it.
It seems like whatever we do, we lose to half of the top tier decks. We can build the list to beat combo & UWR, and then lose to BG, Affinity and Pod going on the beatdown. We can become a deck that hates out the "fair" decks, but then we'll have a bunch of durdles against the "unfair" half of the format. To top it off, we don't really have an inherant powerful game plan that can just win no matter what the opposition presents. We have to have the right match ups or we lose.
Notice how my wins were against "unfair" decks and the UWR opponent, and my losses were against "fair" decks. That's what my list does, but that's not good enough for this level of competition.
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What would an "anti-fair decks" list look like? Could we build a list that beats Melira Pod and Affinity in game 1 without sacrificing our game against the combo decks? IDK, but I'd start here:
2 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Courser of Kruphix
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Loxodon Smiter
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Dismember
2 Journey to Nowhere
4 Path to Exile
1 Worship
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Choke
1 Damping Matrix
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Rest in Peace
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Spellskite
1 Stony Silence
1 Torpor Orb
1 Worship
Batterskull and Banealsayer in the maindeck as "trumps" to the fair decks. Baneslayer dies to more removal, but has flying. Batterskull is the more resilient trump, but doesn't have any evasion. Journey To Nowhere is our third best removal spell in these colors, but we play more of these than Dismembers at this point in order to preserve our life total against Zoo and other fast decks.
Mirran Crusader is in the list to punch through Melira Pod and BG decks, and also to carry a Batterskull to victory. Please play around with 1 or 2 Swords in the list as well. They match up well with the Crusader!
For the mana you will notice that I added a 2nd Gavony Township. We may be a bit color shy, so I compensated by adding the 6th mana dork (2nd Birds). This list now has the same Gavony power that Melira Pod does, so we can run the "pump plan" if we have to.
Last but not least, Courser of Kruphix could gain us some much needed life in fair matches as well as dig us through land pockets a bit faster than normal.
The SB is full of singletons now to gain coverage against the field. Damping Matrix stops both Pod and the creatures in the Pod deck from activating, but also stops your Qasali Pridemages, Batterskull and Spellskite from working. Only use this if the effect will cripple the opponent more than it harms you (Hint: Board out Batterskull.)
Grafdigger's Cage stops Melira Pod, but does NOT stop the Living End combo.
I found myself wanting the third Aven in some matches. With this SB that will be possible.
Kataki is the concession to Affinity. Do not ever go to a big tournament without a plan to beat that deck. It makes high showings in nearly every Modern event, so be prepared!
---
Sideboard plan for the 75 I registered for the GP:
vs Twin - UR "All-In" version
IN: 2 Torpor Orb, 1 Choke, 2 Seal of Primordium, 1 Linvala
OUT: 2 Thrun, 2 Aven, 2 Thalia
- They might have Blood Moon
vs Twin - UWR & RUG versions
IN: 2 Torpor Orb, 1 Choke, 2 Seal, 1 Rest In Peace, 1 Linvala
OUT: 1 Thrun, 2 Aven, 2 Thalia, 2 Leonin Arbiter
- I want a Thrun here as a "hedge" against the alternate plans for these decks.
vs Blue Moon
IN: 2 Seal, 3 Chalice, 2 Rest In Peace, 1 Choke, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Worship, 1 Birds, 4 Path, 2 Arbiter
- Chalice for 1, then 3 to keep Shackles off the board.
vs UWR Control
IN: 1 Choke, 2 RIP, 3 Chalice, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Worship, 4 Path, 1 Birds
- Chalice for 1
- Try to cast Thrun with the regen mana up. Don't lose your best card in this match to a board wipe!
vs Melira Pod
IN: 2 RIP, 2 Torpor Orb, 2 Seal, 1 Stony Silence, 1 Linvala
OUT: 2 Thrun, 2 Thalia, 2 Spellskite, 2 Worship
- Worship doesn't actually help much here. If they go off, they will most likely be able to "Scry tutor" with Viscera Seer for the Enchantmant hate card or the Murderous Redcap to kill our board.
- Kill Spike Feeder or Archangel of Thrune first if you see it, because that combo doesn't care about our hate cards.
vs Kiki Pod
IN: 2 Torpor Orb, 1 Linvala, 2 Seal, 1 Stony Silence, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Thrun, 2 Thalia, 2 Spellskite, 1 Worship
vs Affinity
IN: 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Stony, 2 Seal, 3 Chalice, 1 Kataki
OUT: 2 Thalia, 2 Thrun, 3 Voice, 1 Smiter
- Chalice for 0 on the play & 0 or 2 on the draw
- Mulligan to Stony or EE or Path & Seal on the draw
vs Storm
IN: 1 EE, 3 Chalice, 1 Choke, 2 RIP, 2 Seal
OUT: 1 Voice of Resurgence, 4 Path, 1 Dismember, 2 Thrun, 1 Birds
- Chalice for 2 on the play, 1 on the draw
- Use EE for 0 to blow up Empty the Warrens tokens
vs Ad Nauseum combo
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 Seal, 1 Stony Silence
OUT: 4 Path, 1 Dismember, 1 Birds
- Chalice for 0 if they have Lotus Bloom, else set it to 1 for the Angel's Grace and cantrips
- Spellskite is also hard hate for this combo.
vs Amulet combo / Summer Bloom
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 Orb, 2 Seal
OUT: 2 Worship, 2 Thrun, 2 Spellskite, 1 Ooze
- Chalice for 0 to stop Summoner's Pact
- Remember that the pact cast on your side of the field via a Hive Mind is NOT countered! Chalice will not stop the Hive Mind part of the deck.
vs Living End
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 RIP
OUT: 2 Spellskite, 3 Qasali Pridemage
- Chalice for 0 stops Living End from resolving
vs Big Zoo
IN: 1 Batterskull, 2 RIP, 1 EE
OUT: 2 Thalia, 2 Qasali
- EE for 2 to blow up opposing Goyfs and Oozes
vs BG Rock / Jund
IN: 2 RIP, 1 Batterskull, 1 EE
OUT: 2 Thalia, 2 Arbiter
- Keep Qasali for possible Batterskull or Swords on their side.
- EE for 2 for Goyfs
vs RG Tron
IN: 3 Chalice, 1 Stony, 2 Seal, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Spellskite, 2 Worship, 1 Dismember, 2 Thalia
vs Tin Fins
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 RIP
OUT: 3 Voice, 2 Thalia
- Chalice for 2 if on the play, or 1 if on the draw.
vs Merfolk
IN: 1 Batterskull, 1 EE, 1 Choke, 3 Chalice
OUT: 1 Birds, 3 Path, 2 Aven
- Chalice for 1 so that Worship can work here. With Chalice out at 1 Merfolk cannot use Vapor Snag to make you lose the last point of life.
- EE for 2 to clear out the Lords and Spreading Seas
vs Bogle
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 Seal, 1 EE
OUT: 2 Aven, 2 Thrun, 2 Path
- Chalice and EE for 1
vs Infect
IN: 1 EE, 3 Chalice
OUT: 2 Worship, 2 Thrun
- They will have Stony Silence for your Spellskites.
vs BW Tokens
IN: 1 EE, 2 Seal
OUT: 2 Aven, Dismember
- They will have Sundering Growth for Worship if they see it in game 1.
vs Soul Sisters
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 Orb, 1 Batterskull, 1 EE
OUT: 2 Thalia, 1 Birds, 4 Path
- Chalice for 1
vs Delver
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 RIP, 1 Batterskull, 1 Choke
OUT: 2 Thalia, 1 Birds, 4 Path
- Chalice for 1
- RIP for Snapcaster and Grim Lavamancer
vs UWR Midrange
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 RIP, 2 Torpor Orb, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Thalia, 1 Birds, 4 Path, 1 Aven
- Chalice for 1
vs Scapeshift
IN: 1 Choke
OUT: 1 Qasali
- Assuming you are playing against the RUG version with Cryptic Command
vs the mirror
IN: 1 Batterskull, 1 Linvala
OUT: 2 Thalia
vs 8-rack
IN: 3 Chalice, 2 Seal, 1 EE, 1 Batterskull
OUT: 2 Aven, 2 Worship, 2 Path, 1 Birds
- Chalice for 1
---
Last but not least, attached is the testing spreadsheet I used to log my games leading up to this event. Maybe this info can be of help to those of you that continue playing with the deck. It is certainly a fun list to play, but I'm afraid that if I wanted to play a Modern event tomorrow that I would be bringing my Affinity deck instead of this.
Sorry guys
EDIT: It looks like I can't upload an Excel spreadsheet on here.
if you're in pink ballroom, come say hi! I'm at table 286 until the end of this round.
3 Chalice of The Void
1 Choke
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Rest In Peace
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Torpor Orb
I have something for everyone with this package. I have a miser's EE for my worst matches and for fast Zoo decks. I have a miser's Kataki that will buy me time for Worship or EE or Seals against Affinty, and I still have robust hate for the biggest decks I expect at this event. Rest In Peace for Storm but also to give me a shot against BG/x and Big Zoo decks. Linvala, RIP, and Torpor Orbs to overload Melira Pod's Thoughtseizes and Abrupt Decays. Seals for Blood Moons, Affinity, Bogle, and lots of other corner cases. Orbs, Choke, and Linvala for Twin, and maybe RIP too if they are running the Goyf version. Chalice for half the format. Choke for a large chunk of the format, mainly decks like Delver, UWR, Twin, and Storm. And that Batterskull for a threat that can win the game vs decks that go bigger than me.
Is it perfect? I think the better question is: Is it possible to have a perfect sideboard for this deck? I can't cover everything with 15 cards, but with the hate here I'll try to have game against at least the critical stuff.
Kataki is probably better on the draw. Its awesome either way, but at least in that scenario the Affinity player is probably losing a few cards or being tapped out. Of course it dies to Galvanic Blast, which means its less reliable.
I could see 1x Engineered and 1x Kataki. Kataki is NOT a non-bo with Explosives, so I can use both if I draw them. I'll just have to mulligan those hands with only EE, because those are too slow unless I also have a mana dork.
Fracturing Gust is a great card, but like DOL said may be a bit too much. Heck, Creeping Corrosion may be too much mana! IDK. I need to test with each of these options and find out what works best in this list. FWIW I'm getting conflicting advise between here and the people I'm in touch with. No one has a good answer on this...
- Kataki, War's Wage
- Stony Silence
- Creeping Corrosion
I'm cutting the last Explosives. Its not doing what I need it to do in the most critical match ups. Its not that great against the expected Zoo lists (Big Zoo) and its too slow for Affinity. Affinity will be one of the most played decks at the GP due to being comparatively cheap to build, and I don't want to give any wins to it.
I'm also looking at fighting against Storm. I think I'm eschewing my test plan to focus on these two matches just to double check on the correct sideboard for this event. DOL, even though Storm wasn't heavily played at the Pro Tour, it had the best win rate among the players who did run it. We also have multiple well-respected Pros this week calling this deck the best, and others calling for more bannings from the deck. I would count this as a "5" in your rankings for the GP.
When Jon Finkel says something is OP, I listen.
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
2 Worship
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Choke
2 Torpor Orb
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
I don't like the Pro Tour list that I tested against. While I understand why Mana Tithe was in the deck, I feel like that card may have needed to be something else. Maybe Dismember? Anyway, MD Worship was hilarious, as was Chalice for 1 after boarding. In a couple of games I managed to land a Chalice for 1 AND 2 and leave... Unflinching Courage as the only playable card in the opposing deck? I'm simply not worried about this deck at all.
So with this knowledge, I am taking Back To Nature back out of the deck. I'm 99% sure that slot will revert back to the 2nd Seal of Primordium, although I can make a case for Stony Silence now that I'm not running 2 Engineered Explosives in the SB. The big reason why I cut Stony was for the nonbo with EE in the Affinity match. I think I still want an EE for Fast Zoo and for an outside chance of beating our bad match ups (Merfolk, Tokens, BG Rock) and because its a good card to have against a large open field where anything could happen.
And you probably get there just with a Qasali and a Loxodon Smiter. Sure, Storm might still pull a win out, but its going to be harder every turn that you add "2" or "4" to the required Grapeshot count to win. Storm is good. Its not THAT good!
Township is one of those cards that 80% of the time will just be a land. However, I am glad to see it in a lot of hairy situations already. I'm testing against Bogle right now, and this is what the board just looked like:
HALLELUJAH!
With Gavony, I can actually win this game before Bogle decks out if they are stubborn enough to want to play it out with 0 MD outs to Worship. I can make my team 5/6s eventually and actually take out Bogle gargantuan creatures on the block.
Behlial, maybe we can arrange a IRL meetup at the event site? I plan on being there as early as I can on Friday.
While its on my mind, I'm certain that Batterskull is the actual trump card that we want.
Batterskull requires a more narrow out from our opponents. Instead of just needing creature removal, our opponents will need Artifact removal to actually take that card off the board. If we run out Baneslayer then one Path takes our card. If we run out Batterskull, then our Germ will eat a Path, but we are still threatening to equip the Batterskull and still gain life, or bounce it and get another Germ if we have time to do so.
Batterskull will be better on a board where GW has been mana flooded. With 8 mana its extremely hard to kill, whereas with a Baneslayer or Sword our opponent can draw a Maelstrom Pulse anytime and kill our card for good.
Batterskull will have built in protection via the self-bounce ability if we get to untap with it in play. Forcing the opponent to have an answer right now is a great way to stack the odds in our favor!
Batterskull can keep ourselves safe while still gaining life due to Vigilance. In a bind we can attack with the Germ, gain 4, and then move the Batterskull onto something else if the Germ dies. I was in situations back when I ran maindeck Baneslayer where I couldn't attack with the Angel due to the threat of the opposing swing. With Batterskull I don't have to worry about that as much.
And last but not least, Batterskull can be cast no matter what our mana looks like, as long as we have 5 mana in some form! That means we still get our trump from under a Blood Moon or if we end up with something like 2 Ghost Quarters, a Gavony, a Forest, and a Razorverge Thicket as our lands.
I really feel like some of these matches change drastically based on even a few cards of difference between our lists. Just the difference in some matches with and without running Worship can flip something from favorable to unfavorable, and vice versa. To top it off, since this deck is highly customizable and changing to match the current meta, these matches will continue to improve / suffer based on what we tune our current lists to beat.
Maybe I get crushed by 3 BG Rock decks in a row on day 1, and then come back here and say I'm cutting Thalias and running MD Mirran Crusader instead. My Rock match becomes more winnable, but then my Storm match might go from even before board to 40%. I suggest keeping this "big picture" view of how the deck performs against the entire format whenever considering a card change. It would stink to make a change to fix one match, and then face one of our supposedly good match ups and lose because of cutting a key card for that match!
Let's take a look at the Hatebears list that just made the finals of a ChannelFireball 5k (!)
Source
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Temple Garden
4 Path to Exile
1 Dismember
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Spellskite
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskoz
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Choke
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
2 Torpor Orb
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Imposing Sovereign
1 Stony Silence
First off, that sideboard and most of the main deck #s look VERY familiar. Give yourselves a pat on the back for coming to a consensus with this list. Many of these cards are proving their worth in real tournament situations and at high levels of play. This is a HUGE deal for us! This means we're on the right track with things like Chalice, Seal of Primordium, Choke, etc.
I'd like to know how the Brimaz worked out for this player. I wanted to test it out, but I can only test so much in the time that I have. It seems like a solid creature, and its one that we have discussed on here before. Its not technically a "hate" card, but I imagine it is a powerful creature that will slow down Zoo and our midrange opposition.
Did anyone watch the coverage of this finals match? I know Affinity won, and I'd like to know what happened. This list does NOT run Worship or Engineered Explosives, and I'm wondering if that was an issue or if it was something else. I do like how this runs Stony Silence since it does not have Explosives.
I'm leaning towards cutting the last couple of Explosives. They're great against Fast Zoo, but if its true that Big Zoo is going to be more common, then I'm going to want something like Baneslayer Angel back in my 75. Explosives was slow and hard to use effectively in my testing against Big Zoo, especially due to the fact that I couldn't get 3 counters on EE to kill Knight of The Reliquary or even Domri Rade.
I could see a list that looks like this:
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
2 Worship
1 Baneslayer Angel
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Choke
2 Torpor Orb
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Stony Silence / Engineered Explosives
2 Rest in Peace
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
I'm also looking at a Sword or Batterskull in that Baneslayer slot. I just want some sort of "trump" card back in my 75 for when the games go long against BG, Melira Pod, or Big Zoo. I want something that I can draw, slam on the table, and force an answer. "Pulse/kill this or lose" is what I'm looking for here, with a life gain component if possible.
Has anyone tested against Bogle? I'm going to have 10 games in against it this week, and I'm trying to figure out if I need that Back To Nature or if sticking with 2x Seal Of Primordium will work. Back To Nature also hits stuff like Blood Moon, but is one less card I can bring in for Affinity.
dcovino: If you did an analysis of my boarding you'd come to the same conclusion with my Worships as well. I'm really liking the idea of just running them in game 1. Sure, my opponents may have answers for it in game 2, but if it makes bad pre board matches shift in my favor then its worth it, especially since I bet we always have more answers than they have answers-for-our-answers. BTW I will share my testing spreadsheet, probably Sunday night.