MTG Salvation

Quote from kodieyost »

I piloted to a 3-1 finish tonight, kudos!

I haven't liked the Expertise as much as some others have, for me I play the 4th Dread happily. Almost every time I have lost recently has been due to not finding a cascade spell (in fact it's exactly what cost me the single match tonight).

How do you like 3 MB Beast Within? What's your meta like? I have a lot of Eldrazi Tron, along with a few Dredge, Elves, and Affinity decks piloted by folks who have jammed them for years. I play a singleton BW and there have been a handful of games where it has been phenomenal and another handful of games where it has been the worst card in my deck, but it's usually just too slow for what I'm trying to accomplish.

Do you mainly use it for Land Destruction in G1?

I found the MB beast within to be pretty nice. I was never unhappy to see it when I played the other night. Its just very flexible. Im on the land destruction plan B thing which is why I run the full 4 Fulminator mages as well. My meta varies but there is Abzan company, Burn, Eldrazi Tron, Suicide zoo, Burn, Goblins, several control decks, and a guy who plays 8 rack more often than not. there is usually at least 1 fair deck like jund or abzan midrange roaming around too.

Hey all,

I just recently put together a Living end deck and took it to Modern Mondays yesterday at a LGS near me. I ended up 3-0-1 IDing the final round since we were the only two people left at 3-0. My unoptimal list is as follows:



The sideboard needs the most attention in my opinion. I really liked the 1 of Kari zev as it turned 2 turn clocks into 1 turn finishes. This deck is also a lot more resilient than I was expecting.

Match 1 vs. Abzan Devoted Vizier (2-0)
This was my friend playing my abzan deck cause he wanted a change from merfolk. Game 1 was over fairly quickly, filled up my graveyard then violent outburst on his turn 3 end step, wiping his board besides a now 2/1 finks
Game 2 took a bit longer, as it took me a while to find a cascader, I was able to dismember his druid in response to a chord for 2, then next turn beast within'd the vizier in response to a collected company, so he scooped.

Match 2 vs. Bogles (2-0)
Game 1 was fairly similar to game 1 last round, Hitting the living end put him on the back foot, and I killed him quickly after. I was forced to use a beast within on a land to give myself a target for demonic dread though.
Game 2 was a great game of magic. He hits the turn 2 rest in peace, which really hurt (i still did a fair amount of cycling though) I was forced to use 2 of my living ends as edicts to clear his crazy enchanted dudes. I thought I was stabilized and would have been able to start hard casting creatures, but he stuck a Dryad Arbor and I had to beast within that. By this time though he was out of gas and I started hard casting creatures to get the win.

Match 3 vs. Jund (2-1)
Game 1 saw him back to back force me to discard my fulminator mages, I was however cycling that whole time, and when I hit the outburst on his end step I got them back and destroyed both of his dual lands and he conceded.
Game 2 I got stuck on 1 land for a handful of turns, and probably wrongly exiled a spirit guide to cycle an Archfiend, he got on that jund em game plan and I was junded out a turn before I could have gotten a living end off.
Game 3 A bit more back and forth, He only had grafdiggers cage in his SB for graveyard hate and he sided it in. probably an error on his end. It was a kind of regular living end game though. Only fun part was he fatal pushed his Scooze in response to my living end so he got it back, Which allowed me to steal it with Kari Zevs expertise and win the game that turn (he would have gone to 1 if he didnt have a scooze to block with initially)

Match 4 vs. B/W pox ID (0-0)
A riveting "wanna draw?" and handshake Great match all around.

It was a fun night, and I really enjoyed piloting this deck. It was fun hearing people say "oh no" after I would cycle my first creature. Kinda felt like the villain. I will definitely be playing this deck again.

Also ant critiques or suggestions? the deck is very much a work in progress. Thanks!

This was probably the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me magic wise. When MM17 came out i ordered 1 box because I just couldn't resist. After ordering it, I told my friend that I would for sure be opening a foil Liliana of the Veil. (obviously i was just joking) So the box arrives in the mail and I opened it. Lo and behold, there was a foil Lili in one of the packs. It was also a fire box with 5 mythics in it.

The only place i really see people talking about frontier is on this site. Ive never heard of a frontier tournament in my local area, and when I mention it to someone they usually dont know what I am even talking about

Nice job, that means you were at least .500 on the night. That's solid. I hope you can build off that, but don't get discouraged.

Do you switch between the 3 decks a lot? Perhaps just focus on one for now. Do you keep a game log? Like writing down life totals, when stuff was played, if you see their hand what is in it? What the other person suggested above is a good idea as well, I'd look into that

What formats are you playing when you play with your group? Are you playing casual decks, then going and and playing standard at FNM? I remember the summer I took a big jump in skill level, I picked one deck in the format (standard at the time) and then printed out and proxied all the other tier one decks in the format. I then would play my deck against my neighbor who would use all the other decks we made. We played almost every day. I went from being a 2-2 no prizes to top 4/top 8 much more consistently. Maybe you could try something like that?

That does sound really bad... I went 2-2 in my first tournament ever. Maybe you need to find a group to practice with or play test online or something.

I didn't notice till I saw this post, but then I realized that I hadn't seen any CC in a good while. Hope everything is okay and they can get back to making comics soon

You could look into other ways to help the store if you aren't trying to buy packs you don't want or singles you don't need. Offer to help sort cards, I used to do this at a local shop, I just asked if they needed any help with anything and they were more than happy to have me sort cards for a while, they paid me in store credit but that's something you could work out with the manager/owner.

So I was able to get a Good deal on a MM17 booster box (and that thread is now kinda dead) last week and opened all 24 packs. Notables:

Liliana of the veil Foil!!!
Cavern of Souls
Voice of Resurgence
Snapcaster Mage
Goblin Guide
Death's Shadow
Griselbrand
misty rainforest
Marsh Flats


Other hits included 2 Path to exiles, (1 foil) an inquisition of Kozilek, Ranger of Eos Foil Soul Warden restoration angel


This was easily the best booster box I have ever opened. Aside from having a foil Lili it also had 4 other mythics and 2 fetches. such value

I have opened a Masterpiece Solemn simulacrum and a masterpiece paradox engine in fat packs i bought at target. I don't usually buy from big box stores but when I do I usually get something nice.

What makes the established modern player entitled? While I was building abzan/Jund I played Soul sisters and then B/W Tokens. I suggest the same thing to newer people.

Unless you have extra disposable income id say a large amount of established modern players started with t2/t3 decks and built their T1/more expensive deck. T2/T3 decks can also be fine in LGS meta when tuned.

I think it depends on the store. There are a handful of MTG shops in my area. One was derium's and they would play WoW at work or play EDH with customers and they seemed just fine. (granted they dropped mtg for pokemon and i dont go there anymore) Another store that sells magic but is more of a D and D/board game store is similar. I have walked in and the guy at the counter is watching youtube videos or playing a demo of a board game. Both of these shops are doing fine, derium's was looking to expand i think and the board game shop has been around for over 10 years. There was another shop where I never saw the workers not working. Sorting, dealing with customers, running tournaments, and that shop got shut down cause it couldnt compete with others in the area.

Amazon is perfectly safe for buying singles, I have done it multiple times. All of the sellers on there are legit, usually brick and mortar shops from all over similar to TCGplayer. I know Channel Fireball and Troll and Toad sell on amazon as well. (Havent seen star city or coolstuffinc on there but alas).