I was planning on putting together Conley's Pitch Blue deck, but after seeing some of these spoilers it might be time to bust out the ol' artifacts. Although we might have to name change Grixis Urza Control.
I have a strong feeling Force of Negation will be a sideboard card due to non-creature.
I haven't followed the thread for a while, any reason Pentad Prism dropped out of favor?
I feel like there is misconception about Opt. If you don't care about instant speed it is objectively worse than Sleight of Hand. Sleight is "do you want card A or card B" while Opt is "do you want card A or unknown card B".
By the way, Mishra's Bauble reprint for anyone who hasn't picked them up yet.
My time has been pretty limited and I haven't been tracking the progress of modern and Tezz as much recently, primer definitely needs some more focused direction of the deck, would anyone else be interested in taking over the primer maintenance?
Time Sieve with Whir against Tron and Scapeshift is actually really nice, I've always loaded the board with creatures like Vendilion Clique to get more aggressive, being able to better tutor the combo and win right there sounds great.
The other consideration right now is what to do with the manabase. With Prism and much fewer colorless sources we can splash a color pretty easily, one of the Japanese decks had green for Abrupt Decay in the board, what other options do we have?
Again, just quick testing, I believe Whir is pushing it with the mana base but "isn't functional at all" is pretty strong. Talisman, Opal, and GQ can all also add colored mana. For full Whir I'm brewing up probably a 3 color deck. Also GQ in sideboard is a waste of sideboard slots.
I just can't really get on board with so many colorless lands and Pentad Prism, only played a few games with the deck so far, but didn't draw Whir at all. Instant speed is nice, but how good are we really thinking it is over Big Tezz? For 4 Whir / 4 Prism I think you really have to axe most the colorless lands.
Looking forward to testing with Fatal Push, moved recently though and need to find a new LGS, old one I use to go to in this area is about 45 minutes away, which I guess isn't too horrible. Wish MTGO wasn't so slow getting the new cards. Definitely gonna stick to straight UB, probably 4 fetch + 4 GQ manabase.
Yeah, at least for me personally I feel like I haven't been able to land on a good solid list, every time I play I change something that doesn't feel right.
Definitely agree about cutting the fat as well as main deck GY hate (especially on MTGO, where I feel Dredge is an even higher %).
How are you doing with no mana rocks? I feel like every other time I play it is either "Man I wish I had a mana rock in this hand" to "Can't believe I drew 2 stupid mana rocks late game". Radouf is firmly in the 3/2 rock/opal split while you have cut all but 1. I'm still torn.
-A worse version of Duress costs 1 mana more and hits significantly fewer cards.
-A worse version of Disfigure due to sorcery speed and costs 1 mana more.
-A worse version of Pharika's Cure easier to cast but sorcery speed and doesn't hit creatures.
I understand that there is an argument to be made for flexibility, an argument to be made for pitching dead cards, but each of these modes will always cost you a card. Best case scenario you 3 for 3 with an opponent. I would go as far as to argue that the third mode is unplayable. In most match ups it does nothing. Another popular argument is that it gets you hell bent for bridge. While that is great, I would rather not throw away cards and value to get my bridge lock on. If getting the bridge lock up in time is a common problem then we should examine lowering the curve instead of throwing away cards.
In summary I believe that the effects are far to underwhelming and the value the card generates is often psychological. It is likely one of our best tools against decks like burn, and therefore should find a home in most sideboards, but in general the card is far too low impact in game 1 against a lot of decks. Jund would laugh at you for resolving this, Tron, Valakut, Affinity, Dredge, Bant Eldrazi, Lantern etc. Of the current 10 tier one decks in the format http://modernnexus.com/ I would only want it against burn and infect. ~16.5% of the metagame.
So before you all go jamming Collective Brutality in our Tezz decks, remember that it comes at the cost of a slot and the card needs to be fundamentally better than anything else you could be playing.
People have made this argument so many times about so many versatile cards. Kolaghan's Command is just a Shock and Raven's Crime for 3 mana if your opponent doesn't play artifacts! What a bad card. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, bad 0/2 Merfolk Looter with -3 for flashback, can't even protect itself, bad card.
Versatility is always very underrated especially when you point out the worst case of each mode. Now I'm not saying jam 4 of them, I like 2 personally, against Jund the card still kills a turn 2 Scavenging Ooze, Dark Confidant, Grim Flayer, and sometimes (rarely) a Tarmogoyf. I also think it does belong in the main, since you are not throwing away cards, you are converting cards into other cards, that 2nd Mox Opal or extra land or redundant copy of Thopter / Sword or just your first Sword. Maybe you whiff, maybe you hit that Abrupt Decay that would have killed your Ensnaring Bridge.
You list off a lot of matchups, most of those the card isn't 100% dead, but really you need to look at the bad matchups. For example Affinity, sure its not great, 2 mana kill spell essentially, but with Crane the matchup feels in our favor, so I don't really mind if I have 2 mediocre cards in my main for it. Tron is whatever, the matchup is never going to be good.
Valakut a duress effect will usually hit, but this is one matchup where I think we need some help, what two other cards could we replace these for that would be so much better that it is worth taking a hit to our Infect matchup?
So I agree some people jamming 4 might be over-evaluating, but you might be under-evaluating the card.
I was thinking about Chalice, another matchup that it will take from bad to good is Lantern Control, they can lock us out super easily with their 3-4 Pithing Needles. Chalice on 1 crushes that deck.
No guarantee you'll hit a good spell off discard. Sure best case scenario it is better, but it is really hard to hit things like Scapeshift that will almost never be discarded by the player and IoK whiffs. I'm actually running 2x Surgical Extraction and 2x Lost Legacy in my board right now.
Here's another one for discussion, Dredge. I think LL could be good enough for the matchup, turn 3 you can strip their graveyard of recurring dudes or once you have bridge down you can hit their hate. It isn't an ideal card since it is slow, and if they have a nut draw it isn't going to be good, but usually there are enough dead cards against them that you can bring it in.
EDIT:
Figure I should just post the build I've been using on MTGO:
I have a strong feeling Force of Negation will be a sideboard card due to non-creature.
I haven't followed the thread for a while, any reason Pentad Prism dropped out of favor?
By the way, Mishra's Bauble reprint for anyone who hasn't picked them up yet.
The other consideration right now is what to do with the manabase. With Prism and much fewer colorless sources we can splash a color pretty easily, one of the Japanese decks had green for Abrupt Decay in the board, what other options do we have?
Land (23)
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Inventors' Fair
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Watery Grave
Creature (6)
4 Glint-Nest Crane
2 Spellskite
Artifact (18)
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Talisman of Dominance
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Instant (4)
2 Fatal Push
2 Whir of Invention
Sorcery (2)
2 Collective Brutality
Creature (2)
2 Vendilion Clique
Artifact (6)
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Instant (2)
2 Surgical Extraction
Sorcery (5)
2 Damnation
1 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
I just can't really get on board with so many colorless lands and Pentad Prism, only played a few games with the deck so far, but didn't draw Whir at all. Instant speed is nice, but how good are we really thinking it is over Big Tezz? For 4 Whir / 4 Prism I think you really have to axe most the colorless lands.
Mechanized Production can go on Darksteel Citadel to be indestructible and ramp you every turn, might be a janky build out there?
Super excited about Fatal Push.
Yeah, at least for me personally I feel like I haven't been able to land on a good solid list, every time I play I change something that doesn't feel right.
How are you doing with no mana rocks? I feel like every other time I play it is either "Man I wish I had a mana rock in this hand" to "Can't believe I drew 2 stupid mana rocks late game". Radouf is firmly in the 3/2 rock/opal split while you have cut all but 1. I'm still torn.
People have made this argument so many times about so many versatile cards. Kolaghan's Command is just a Shock and Raven's Crime for 3 mana if your opponent doesn't play artifacts! What a bad card. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, bad 0/2 Merfolk Looter with -3 for flashback, can't even protect itself, bad card.
Versatility is always very underrated especially when you point out the worst case of each mode. Now I'm not saying jam 4 of them, I like 2 personally, against Jund the card still kills a turn 2 Scavenging Ooze, Dark Confidant, Grim Flayer, and sometimes (rarely) a Tarmogoyf. I also think it does belong in the main, since you are not throwing away cards, you are converting cards into other cards, that 2nd Mox Opal or extra land or redundant copy of Thopter / Sword or just your first Sword. Maybe you whiff, maybe you hit that Abrupt Decay that would have killed your Ensnaring Bridge.
You list off a lot of matchups, most of those the card isn't 100% dead, but really you need to look at the bad matchups. For example Affinity, sure its not great, 2 mana kill spell essentially, but with Crane the matchup feels in our favor, so I don't really mind if I have 2 mediocre cards in my main for it. Tron is whatever, the matchup is never going to be good.
Valakut a duress effect will usually hit, but this is one matchup where I think we need some help, what two other cards could we replace these for that would be so much better that it is worth taking a hit to our Infect matchup?
So I agree some people jamming 4 might be over-evaluating, but you might be under-evaluating the card.
Here's another one for discussion, Dredge. I think LL could be good enough for the matchup, turn 3 you can strip their graveyard of recurring dudes or once you have bridge down you can hit their hate. It isn't an ideal card since it is slow, and if they have a nut draw it isn't going to be good, but usually there are enough dead cards against them that you can bring it in.
EDIT:
Figure I should just post the build I've been using on MTGO:
Land (22)
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Island
2 River of Tears
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Watery Grave
Creature (6)
4 Glint-Nest Crane
2 Spellskite
Artifact (18)
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Executioner's Capsule
2 Mox Opal
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Talisman of Dominance
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Instant (2)
1 Go for the Throat
1 Smother
Sorcery (6)
2 Collective Brutality
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
Creature (2)
2 Vendilion Clique
Artifact (4)
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Torpor Orb
Planeswalker (1)
1 Liliana of the Veil
Instant (2)
2 Surgical Extraction
Sorcery (6)
2 Damnation
1 Flaying Tendrils
2 Lost Legacy
1 Thoughtseize