My big comment is this decks plays at instant speed a lot. Adding sorcery speed, soft answers is not where this deck wants to be. Tallowisp is such a weak card in comparison to other spirits we have.
Before playing nevermore i'd go and play Meddling Mage...
That is spicy. I just realized I don’t have echoing truth in paper, so I might run 2x meddling mage.
Also, how do you guys feel about image. I am thinking about dropping it for another Geist in the main. I was reading Tom anderson’s article and he almost always sided our image. It makes me wonder if Geist as a hedge would be better than hoping for double captain.
Link?
@Everyone
So does anyone doing well actually ever play Herald? I never see it in winning lists.
I played in a PPTQ yesterday and went 4-1-1 and top 8'd where I lost in the quarters to Jeskai control. Deck felt great and had a lot of play. Here is my list.
Match 1 and 2 were against Grixis Shadow. Took the first match 2-0 with just better tempo and RIP in game two really made his life hard. Lost the second 1-2. I misboarded and thought I was the control route, but I should have been beat down. Live and learn. Match 3 was against Whir of Invention. He never got going in game 1 and all I saw was a lot of artifacts. I brought in Stony, played it on turn 2 and was swinging away and then managed to snag a bridge with Queller and that sealed it. Match 4 was RU thing in the ice. I won 2-1 and had paths when I needed to deal with Thing. This was a very fun matchup. Favorite play of the tourney was Thing with one counter, on my attack he plays opt. With the counter trigger on the stack, I play path. In response he plays electrolyze causing a new trigger. After a bit of thinking, I play queller on my path. Thing flips, bounces the queller and I get to path it leaving an open board. Judge watched the whole thing and was nodding in approval. Sadly I ended up losing that game (game winning card was my next draw). Match 5 was against Humans and got there 2-1. ID'd Match 6. I didn't drop a game 1 throughout the swiss.
The quarters just sucked. I had to mull down to 5, and still was close to taking game one. Opponent played a verdict and mostly tapped out. Next turn I slam a geist and thought I was in good shape. He has a Ajani Vengeant in play, I swing at Ajani with the angel and him with geist (had a hierarch in play at this point so snap wasn't an option) and he paths the angel and then played Blessed Alliance. From there I pretty much fell apart. Game 2 he just had all the answers and I couldn't get more than 2 land until turn 6, but it was too late by then.
I am not sure about meddling mage. Never got to play it. I might just go more worship and stony or maybe Kira.
Before playing nevermore i'd go and play Meddling Mage...
That is spicy. I just realized I don’t have echoing truth in paper, so I might run 2x meddling mage.
Also, how do you guys feel about image. I am thinking about dropping it for another Geist in the main. I was reading Tom anderson’s article and he almost always sided our image. It makes me wonder if Geist as a hedge would be better than hoping for double captain.
I am not sure how to deal with bridge or boggles out side of worship. I put in 3 Leyline because I was struggling with Scapeshift. What do you think about going down the leylines, +1 Worship and +2 Disenchants or Detention Spheres?
Basilisk Collar is a great card. I think the Olivia thing might be too cute, but a collar certainly makes bob a lot better and it will probably be unexpected. I think the biggest problem is finding space in the 75.
Good Morning mates (at least in Brazil), I'm having problems with my list lately. I can't find my mojo again and I'm losing several matchs that I were supposed to win or have a good match against it.
Could you guys analyze the following 74. I'm 1 card short because I'm not sure about what to include.
I noticed in your list you have a lot of brutalities. I used to have 2 but cut down to 1. I haven't faced a lot of burn in testing so far, so maybe the number will go back up, but 3 feels like a lot. Huntmaster is a card I love, but only seems to do work like 33% of the time when I play him. I have put olivia mainboard because with the decrease in number of bolts in modern, she is a pretty scary 3/3 flier. She blocks skyspawners all day, picks off dorks and lets you steal some creatures from time to time. I like just having the ability to have some play in the air available in the main. I put batterskull in the board just because against it is an awesome card. Thundermaw is a nod to the tons of spirits that are seeing play these days, and it is basically a 5 cmc, do 5 damage card, so against death's shadow and abzan I figure it is solid choice. As mentioned above I would like to try harsh mentor's out, but not sure where I will put them.
My last thought is I would consider grafdigger's cage over spell bomb. If you track MTGGoldFish at all, you will see dredge is poised to take the crown from DS aggro as having the most success in modern (MTGO and paper combined). Dredge was #1 last night, but they appear to have flipped again. Spell bomb is good for clearing the yard for a KoTR, or for keeping delve down, but Lingering souls is being played a lot, control strats with snaps are coming back and storm is a thing now too. Cage shuts down all of those strats pretty effectively. Otherwise I would consider Leylines, but that is my personal preference.
@Harsh Mentor: If it did hit planeswalker activations as well, then I think Harsh Mentor would be really considerable. But as it is I doubt it will improve our Tron Matchup. It is good against Affinity, Lantern and Bant Eldrazi though, which is nice, but still not the most problematic matchups for us. I did mention that in the post I talked about Harsh Mentor earlier as well. So I doubt it will see play in Jund, but who knows.
I agree. Personally I wish it included triggered abilities too, but that might have made it too strong.
No it's not. It does not win the game on the spot from turn 4 on. And whiping the whole board including lands is a 3 card combo (AF, RB and a sac outlet like gargadon). Restore Balance and Gargadon are both terrible without any other cards.
There is potential for a sweet brew but I have yet to see a list that has the potencial to 'break modern'.
If you wanna brew with this, consider Kari Zev's Expterise for additional (bad) copies of As Foretold. Extra style points if you sac the stolen creature to a Gargadon.
Remember, Splinter Twin is a terrible card without any other cards. Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite are only passably decent. In the right combination with other cards though, they are format warping.
My biggest worry about this card is tapping out on turn 3 to play it and do nothing. However, the combo with Lotus Bloom seems very very strong.
Exile bloom, and on turn 4 cast foretold for free, and have mana up to protect it. Or cast Foretold on turn 3, and play lotus bloom and have mana up to protect it. Casting AV for free is awesome, but doesn't win games. However, what wins games in my mind is basically always having mana up for counters and allowing you to play large end game cards with multiple layers of protection up.
This makes me so sad. Every time I find a modern deck I like, it is destroyed by bannings or rule changes now (RIP Twin, Eldrazi Processors, R/G Eldrazi, Expertise decks).
How do you guys feel about Goblin Dark-Dwellers? I tested them out but found out that you can only fuse spells when they are cast from your hand. Are you just using them as a way to get goryo's cast from the yard again?
SCG Bant Spirits
I played in a PPTQ yesterday and went 4-1-1 and top 8'd where I lost in the quarters to Jeskai control. Deck felt great and had a lot of play. Here is my list.
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Rattlechains
3 Selfless Spirit
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Drogskol Captain
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
Spells - 8
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
Lands - 22
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
2 Damping Sphere
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
1 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Meddling Mage
1 Worship
Match 1 and 2 were against Grixis Shadow. Took the first match 2-0 with just better tempo and RIP in game two really made his life hard. Lost the second 1-2. I misboarded and thought I was the control route, but I should have been beat down. Live and learn. Match 3 was against Whir of Invention. He never got going in game 1 and all I saw was a lot of artifacts. I brought in Stony, played it on turn 2 and was swinging away and then managed to snag a bridge with Queller and that sealed it. Match 4 was RU thing in the ice. I won 2-1 and had paths when I needed to deal with Thing. This was a very fun matchup. Favorite play of the tourney was Thing with one counter, on my attack he plays opt. With the counter trigger on the stack, I play path. In response he plays electrolyze causing a new trigger. After a bit of thinking, I play queller on my path. Thing flips, bounces the queller and I get to path it leaving an open board. Judge watched the whole thing and was nodding in approval. Sadly I ended up losing that game (game winning card was my next draw). Match 5 was against Humans and got there 2-1. ID'd Match 6. I didn't drop a game 1 throughout the swiss.
The quarters just sucked. I had to mull down to 5, and still was close to taking game one. Opponent played a verdict and mostly tapped out. Next turn I slam a geist and thought I was in good shape. He has a Ajani Vengeant in play, I swing at Ajani with the angel and him with geist (had a hierarch in play at this point so snap wasn't an option) and he paths the angel and then played Blessed Alliance. From there I pretty much fell apart. Game 2 he just had all the answers and I couldn't get more than 2 land until turn 6, but it was too late by then.
I am not sure about meddling mage. Never got to play it. I might just go more worship and stony or maybe Kira.
That is spicy. I just realized I don’t have echoing truth in paper, so I might run 2x meddling mage.
Also, how do you guys feel about image. I am thinking about dropping it for another Geist in the main. I was reading Tom anderson’s article and he almost always sided our image. It makes me wonder if Geist as a hedge would be better than hoping for double captain.
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Rattlechains
3 Selfless Spirit
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Drogskol Captain
1 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
Spells - 8
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
2 Damping Sphere
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
1 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Worship
I am not sure how to deal with bridge or boggles out side of worship. I put in 3 Leyline because I was struggling with Scapeshift. What do you think about going down the leylines, +1 Worship and +2 Disenchants or Detention Spheres?
This match says differently on the time match:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/98919500 (at around 30 min)
This is what I am currently testing out.
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Olivia Voldaren
Spells (25)
3 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Terminate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Blood Crypt
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Stomping Ground
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
3 Raging Ravine
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Damnation
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Slaughter Games
1 Batterskull
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
I noticed in your list you have a lot of brutalities. I used to have 2 but cut down to 1. I haven't faced a lot of burn in testing so far, so maybe the number will go back up, but 3 feels like a lot. Huntmaster is a card I love, but only seems to do work like 33% of the time when I play him. I have put olivia mainboard because with the decrease in number of bolts in modern, she is a pretty scary 3/3 flier. She blocks skyspawners all day, picks off dorks and lets you steal some creatures from time to time. I like just having the ability to have some play in the air available in the main. I put batterskull in the board just because against it is an awesome card. Thundermaw is a nod to the tons of spirits that are seeing play these days, and it is basically a 5 cmc, do 5 damage card, so against death's shadow and abzan I figure it is solid choice. As mentioned above I would like to try harsh mentor's out, but not sure where I will put them.
My last thought is I would consider grafdigger's cage over spell bomb. If you track MTGGoldFish at all, you will see dredge is poised to take the crown from DS aggro as having the most success in modern (MTGO and paper combined). Dredge was #1 last night, but they appear to have flipped again. Spell bomb is good for clearing the yard for a KoTR, or for keeping delve down, but Lingering souls is being played a lot, control strats with snaps are coming back and storm is a thing now too. Cage shuts down all of those strats pretty effectively. Otherwise I would consider Leylines, but that is my personal preference.
I agree. Personally I wish it included triggered abilities too, but that might have made it too strong.
With less lightning bolt around, I have started to run Olivia with some good success. Picking off tokens and stealing drowners/DS/Goyf's feels good.
Remember, Splinter Twin is a terrible card without any other cards. Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite are only passably decent. In the right combination with other cards though, they are format warping.
Exile bloom, and on turn 4 cast foretold for free, and have mana up to protect it. Or cast Foretold on turn 3, and play lotus bloom and have mana up to protect it. Casting AV for free is awesome, but doesn't win games. However, what wins games in my mind is basically always having mana up for counters and allowing you to play large end game cards with multiple layers of protection up.
This definitely has my brewing juices flowing.
This makes me so sad. Every time I find a modern deck I like, it is destroyed by bannings or rule changes now (RIP Twin, Eldrazi Processors, R/G Eldrazi, Expertise decks).