TBH, still haven't seen too many exciting cards yet. Their design philosophy though, is excellent ability and flavor wise, just lacks a little bit of power.
combined with the premium price tag slashed on MH1, it is highly likely to be marked as a failure financial wise, and that may hinder any efforts to make another MH set in the near future.
I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
I'd say search for azcanta has different values at different stages. I used to play 0 discard 10-11 counter mainboard, and i hated tapping out on turn 2-4 for azcanta. But in the current configuration, i play a much more proactive game, so tapping out on turn 2 - 4 is not that bad, hence making azcanta better. It gives you a surveil every turn at least, as a 2 mana enchantment, not too shabby. then when you flip it, it actually ramps you, in addition to providing that dig ability. I'm happy playing 2 at this point, don't recommend going above that count.
Snapcaster recursion is crucial to our game plan. but I spot few worthy targets to flashhback in your list. Ideally chaining Kommand+Snapcaster & cryptic command + snapcaster will net you a lot of card advantage, and snapcaster mages can basically flash back every removal you've used, making sure you profit from 1 for 1 trades, especially we have access to some of the best spot removals, lightning bolt, terminate, liliana's triumph, and fatal push.
In addition, Snapcaster+Bolt is a quite effective clock. With 4 mana open, bolt-snap-bolt is 6 damage upfront usually played EoT, 8 damange counting snap's combat dmg, combined with a single tar pit swing, that's basically 11 in 2 turns, considering modern's fetch/shock manabases, enough to threaten lethal in the 3rd on many occasions. Shriekmaw is simply not as effective.
Im playing LoLH as a 1-of because a) she does something different than LoTV, which I already packed 3 copies and b) she's the 4th copy of liliana to turn on liliana's triumph. she's also pretty much a 6 turn clock if left unattended. And that isn't impossible, given that our game plan involves resolving targets of much higher priority.
the Dragon god bandwagon peaked my interest for fun. But i realized i haven't played modern control in a while, let alone grixis.
Tried my hand at making a grixis list but realized i made that classic mistake. went half discard spells and half counter magic.
for modern grixis whats the best plan counter spells or discard?
In a 4 round tournament I went 3 ties against rock, blue red kiki combo/control, blue white control. Got a bye round 3 cause of my 2 ties
I liked the new narset with liliana, turned off my opponents extra draws, kept them down to 1 card or 0 when the liliana lock worked.
this list does look a bit all over the place, but a good place to start.
some of the lines you might want ro reconsider:
- narset does not forward your current gameplans at all, she's much stronger in a ub lock shell backed by notion thief
- shriekmaw simply doesnt make the cut here. grixis color is full of removal.
- logic knot for counters alone is a bit odd, the reason we played cryptic is because of its flexibility and card advantage, it's never a dead card, and is our only answer to resolved enchantments (bounce).
- full set of collective brutalities might be a bit overdone, you definitely want a package of inquisition and thoughtseize in there as well.
- yahenni's expertise is an interesting inclusion, i never thought about it. my list is full of targeted removal and snapcaster to flash back, but since you are not playing snapcaster, mainboard wipes could be a good option, and the main contender for this spot is anger od the gods.
yeah that's my main concern... though i'm still debating. gonna get a 3rd one and give it a try
Not discouraging you, but I think an interesting data point you may wish to consider is Mythic Championship contenders Luis and Petr played UW control and they both had 2 copies of Teferi, and 3 copies of JTMS. Their curve and land count is not unlike ours, so I think this could be relevant.
yeah that's my main concern... though i'm still debating. gonna get a 3rd one and give it a try
Not discouraging you, but I think an interesting data point you may wish to consider is Mythic Championship contenders Luis and Petr played UW control and they both had 2 copies of Teferi, and 3 copies of JTMS. Their curve and land count is not unlike ours, so I think this could be relevant.
Yeah I wanted to make exactly the same point. NBDG is much like Teferi in the sense that if it lands on an empty board, we are pretty much locked to win. However, as a control deck, you don't want to get overloaded in win conditions, because then you just draw them far too often.
However, it is a matter of fact that we will be wanting to land NBDG on T5 much more often than UW wants to have Teferi on T5. I maintain that playing 2 is the correct number, especially considering that we have several lines of play on 5cc anywya (i.e. Snapcaster K. Command, Tasigur+activation/kill spell), and to compensate for the 3rd, the correct choice is to play 4x Serum Visions so you can dig deep enough to find him in the first turns.
yup you guys are correct, tested 3 and didnt like it. but my original list was a bit flooded with 2 cmc removal, so now im playing -1 terminate and +1 azcanta, since this list doesnt need to hold mana for counters and wont mind tapping out.
G2: T1 discard into T2 discard into T3 LotV, killed every creature opponent landed. opponent scooped after resolving nicol bolas
Yessss this is it, this is pretty much the NBDG experience. When the starting hand + early draws is 3 discard spells or 2 discard 1 removal and lily it's just horrendous. NBDG basically lives off that start and seals the game.
yeah and that's exactly why im seriously considering throwing the 3rd NBDG in there
Played the following list in a tuesday night tournament, small crowd of 16, 4 rounds of swiss, ended 3-1, 3rd place, have to say, this shell has been outperforming my expectations, I'm very impressed.
Here are the test results
R1: Valakut Titan
G1: lost. didn't draw any counter and opponent casted scapeshift to win
G2: won. T3 umoored egoed valakut, answered every creature opponent landed.
G3: won. T1 inquisition, T2 inquisition, T3 liliana of the veil, T4 liliana's triump into T5 nicol bolas.
R2: Narset lock
G1: topdeck war, discards into liliana of the veil, striped opponent's hand, topdecked nicol bolas to win.
G2: similar story to G1, disrupting shoal from opponent essentially stripped his hand for me and rode nicol bolas to another victory.
R3: RUG Scapeshift
G1: lost. similar story to R1 G1, stripped opponent's hand, no counters, scapeshifted me.
G2: lost, opponent had a T1 valakut, drew umoored ego but couldnt take out his in play valakut. then he ramped into a T4 Keranos, and it was GG from there.
R4: abzan
G1: lost. both drew 3/4 of the deck, couldnt land any threats, opponent finally stuck a kaya, orzhov usurper, and i flooded
G2: T1 discard into T2 discard into T3 LotV, killed every creature opponent landed. opponent scooped after resolving nicol bolas
G3: war of attrition, by turn 10 both graveyards are full of dead creatures, manlands, and planeswalkers. tarpit + 2 snappies beated opponent down.
some thoughts:
- tasigur is pretty good, since most of the time we cast it for B. it's a pretty good clock, along side tarpit.
- really need another nicol in the list, im thinking of -1 terminate, +1 nicol
- practiced against a mardu pyromancer dude, seems like it's an autoloss for this configuration, very tough MU
- practiced against hardened scales, another very tought MU
I gave this list some test with proxy Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, and it felt more solid than I thought. the list I tested is pretty much just his list, -1 bolas +1 bolt
some thoughts:
- this configuration plays like a blue jund list, except for jund is tempo (goyf, ooze) + card advantage (confidant, Kommand, BBE),whereas this list is pure CA driven, we largely don't need to care about tempo.
- the goal is to stabilize with either lili or bolas, then ultimately win by either drawing bolas, or by racing, keeping the board clean is key.
- the list runs 5 targeted discards, 3 LoTVs, 2-3 Kommands (I ran 2), 2 liliana's triumph, the 2-3 copies of nicol are also psudo discarads. 4-5 of which are instant speed, and can be reused by snapcaster mage. you are almost guaranteed to strip your opponent's hand by turn 5. once your opponent's hand is clean, your nicol bolas +1 starts ripping apart their board.
- surprisingly, due to all the attrition and the clock from manlands + snappy, this deck handles Tron way better than I thought
- MU vs the fair decks are pretty good, also handles phoenix quite well, after bolting/pushing the first few threats, it takes them ages to fight through all the discards we pack and bring phoenix back. even then it's easily answered by all the edicts from either lili or triump/rampage. As a phoenix player myself, I'd put 2 copies of young pyromancer in my phoenix sideboard to battle this deck. pyromancer ascension is key in this MU, #1 target for discard.
some problems I ran into:
- undecided between 2-3 copies of nicol bolas. sometimes you need the redundancy, but drawing 2 in the first few turns is brutal. but he is one of the best topdecks ever, you want to see him every game.
- game 1 just folds to dredge, period. I'm thinking of swapping the 2 opts for nihil spellbomb. after SB, an opener with leyline of the void wouldn't suffice sometimes, I sided out all the discards and opponent draws nature's claim and the game is pretty much over from there.
- MU against UW control feels tougher than expected, theoretically discards trump all counterspells, but i found top decked teferi annoying, once his -3 shuffles your walker back, you'll have a hard time to cast it through all the counters. and since they dont play creatures, it's hard for us to gain CA vs them.
Yesterday this list was posted as a 5-0 league winner and got me thinking; is Crackling Drake a worthwhile threat in Grixis? It plays a similar role to Nicol Bolas, the Ravager as it’s a 4 drop that gives value when it ETBs and gets better in the late game. However, drawing a card is usually going to be better than making an opponent discard a card of their choice, and having a huge flier is usually better than needing to pay 7 mana at sorcery speed to flip Bolas. From my experience, Nicol Bolas is much more important as a large flier than it ever is as a late game threat. Also, Drake isn’t legendary so the value of having several in play is something that needs consideration. Evaluating the Drake within the scope of a Grixis shell makes me think it’s a reasonable choice. It doesn’t fight Tasigur, it plays well with discard spells, and it’s great to get back with K Command. Here is a preliminary list:
4 Drake may not be correct but I figured I should jam the set to get a feel for how good it is. I could also see Cryptic Command being necessary, I just didn’t want to gum up the 4 mana slot. The sideboard is nothing crazy. Surgical Extraction has a not so obvious use in this deck as a pseudo pump spell as you can surgical one of your own spells to grow your Drake.
That's certainly one card I find very interesting, and I agree with you that drawing one is better than making your opponent discard one. 4 might not be the best number though, maybe 2 as a finisher would be better, drake's main problem is the restrictive manacost.
Holy crap, I think we just got a playable Lobotomy effect with Unmoored Ego. I'll name valakut. I'll name Urza's Mine. I'll name Ad Nauseum. Grapeshot. Prime Time. I really believe that this makes our "eat all of your win cons" board plan against combo infinitely easier. Currently we try to blow up an urza piece and surgical it or surgical their grapeshots or other targets for the decks that have only one or two win cons. This card completely removes the need to jump through hoops to make it so they are incapable of winning. Granted it doesn't do anything against turn 3 tron on the play, but not much does and alpine moon barely covers that. Never the less, the fact that it takes lands is a big deal for us.
Far from a main deck inclusion obviously, but this does make a lot of games a lot easier to win. With a pile of discard and permission this could easily end up patching the leaks we have against the non-creature based combo decks. I've mentioned before that fair decks are very favorable for us and this just might solve our problems with some combo decks. Here's a deck I'm tinkering with considering all of the spoilers and what I think the meta might look like.
unmoored ego is a premium sibeboard card for us for sure. but i guess I wouldn't play a full set along with an extra copy of surgical, maybe a 1-2 split would do just fine. I would never walk out without at least 2 dedicated spot for graveyard hate.
and re: the previous post, I think keranos is a little too slow for mardu pyromancer, maybe its a good idea for me to run 2 copies of electrolyze ?
damn... it looks broken enough on its own. 3 mana for a 7/6, and discarding isnt exactly that bad, just play w/e you draw....
combined with the premium price tag slashed on MH1, it is highly likely to be marked as a failure financial wise, and that may hinder any efforts to make another MH set in the near future.
Yes, I meant that none of those seem maindeckable in today's modern metagame.
I may be wrong, as some of them seem borderline playable (maybe as a 1-2 of), but that's my initial assessment.
I'd say search for azcanta has different values at different stages. I used to play 0 discard 10-11 counter mainboard, and i hated tapping out on turn 2-4 for azcanta. But in the current configuration, i play a much more proactive game, so tapping out on turn 2 - 4 is not that bad, hence making azcanta better. It gives you a surveil every turn at least, as a 2 mana enchantment, not too shabby. then when you flip it, it actually ramps you, in addition to providing that dig ability. I'm happy playing 2 at this point, don't recommend going above that count.
Snapcaster recursion is crucial to our game plan. but I spot few worthy targets to flashhback in your list. Ideally chaining Kommand+Snapcaster & cryptic command + snapcaster will net you a lot of card advantage, and snapcaster mages can basically flash back every removal you've used, making sure you profit from 1 for 1 trades, especially we have access to some of the best spot removals, lightning bolt, terminate, liliana's triumph, and fatal push.
In addition, Snapcaster+Bolt is a quite effective clock. With 4 mana open, bolt-snap-bolt is 6 damage upfront usually played EoT, 8 damange counting snap's combat dmg, combined with a single tar pit swing, that's basically 11 in 2 turns, considering modern's fetch/shock manabases, enough to threaten lethal in the 3rd on many occasions. Shriekmaw is simply not as effective.
Im playing LoLH as a 1-of because a) she does something different than LoTV, which I already packed 3 copies and b) she's the 4th copy of liliana to turn on liliana's triumph. she's also pretty much a 6 turn clock if left unattended. And that isn't impossible, given that our game plan involves resolving targets of much higher priority.
this list does look a bit all over the place, but a good place to start.
some of the lines you might want ro reconsider:
- narset does not forward your current gameplans at all, she's much stronger in a ub lock shell backed by notion thief
- shriekmaw simply doesnt make the cut here. grixis color is full of removal.
- logic knot for counters alone is a bit odd, the reason we played cryptic is because of its flexibility and card advantage, it's never a dead card, and is our only answer to resolved enchantments (bounce).
- full set of collective brutalities might be a bit overdone, you definitely want a package of inquisition and thoughtseize in there as well.
- yahenni's expertise is an interesting inclusion, i never thought about it. my list is full of targeted removal and snapcaster to flash back, but since you are not playing snapcaster, mainboard wipes could be a good option, and the main contender for this spot is anger od the gods.
yup you guys are correct, tested 3 and didnt like it. but my original list was a bit flooded with 2 cmc removal, so now im playing -1 terminate and +1 azcanta, since this list doesnt need to hold mana for counters and wont mind tapping out.
yeah and that's exactly why im seriously considering throwing the 3rd NBDG in there
sorry i dunno how the deck function works...
3 Scalding tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Field of Ruin
2 Watery Grave
3 Steam Vent
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Blood Crypt
2 Swamp
3 Island
Creatures (5)
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Nicol Bolas, Dragon God
Enchantments&Artifacts (2)
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Search for Azcanta
Instants and Sorceries (23)
2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Angrath's Rampage
2 Opt
2 Fatal Push
4 Cryptic Command
2 Liliana's Triump
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Unmoored Ego
1 Damnation
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Countersquall
1 Dispel
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Vandalblast
Here are the test results
R1: Valakut Titan
G1: lost. didn't draw any counter and opponent casted scapeshift to win
G2: won. T3 umoored egoed valakut, answered every creature opponent landed.
G3: won. T1 inquisition, T2 inquisition, T3 liliana of the veil, T4 liliana's triump into T5 nicol bolas.
R2: Narset lock
G1: topdeck war, discards into liliana of the veil, striped opponent's hand, topdecked nicol bolas to win.
G2: similar story to G1, disrupting shoal from opponent essentially stripped his hand for me and rode nicol bolas to another victory.
R3: RUG Scapeshift
G1: lost. similar story to R1 G1, stripped opponent's hand, no counters, scapeshifted me.
G2: lost, opponent had a T1 valakut, drew umoored ego but couldnt take out his in play valakut. then he ramped into a T4 Keranos, and it was GG from there.
R4: abzan
G1: lost. both drew 3/4 of the deck, couldnt land any threats, opponent finally stuck a kaya, orzhov usurper, and i flooded
G2: T1 discard into T2 discard into T3 LotV, killed every creature opponent landed. opponent scooped after resolving nicol bolas
G3: war of attrition, by turn 10 both graveyards are full of dead creatures, manlands, and planeswalkers. tarpit + 2 snappies beated opponent down.
some thoughts:
- tasigur is pretty good, since most of the time we cast it for B. it's a pretty good clock, along side tarpit.
- really need another nicol in the list, im thinking of -1 terminate, +1 nicol
- practiced against a mardu pyromancer dude, seems like it's an autoloss for this configuration, very tough MU
- practiced against hardened scales, another very tought MU
I gave this list some test with proxy Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, and it felt more solid than I thought. the list I tested is pretty much just his list, -1 bolas +1 bolt
some thoughts:
- this configuration plays like a blue jund list, except for jund is tempo (goyf, ooze) + card advantage (confidant, Kommand, BBE),whereas this list is pure CA driven, we largely don't need to care about tempo.
- the goal is to stabilize with either lili or bolas, then ultimately win by either drawing bolas, or by racing, keeping the board clean is key.
- the list runs 5 targeted discards, 3 LoTVs, 2-3 Kommands (I ran 2), 2 liliana's triumph, the 2-3 copies of nicol are also psudo discarads. 4-5 of which are instant speed, and can be reused by snapcaster mage. you are almost guaranteed to strip your opponent's hand by turn 5. once your opponent's hand is clean, your nicol bolas +1 starts ripping apart their board.
- surprisingly, due to all the attrition and the clock from manlands + snappy, this deck handles Tron way better than I thought
- MU vs the fair decks are pretty good, also handles phoenix quite well, after bolting/pushing the first few threats, it takes them ages to fight through all the discards we pack and bring phoenix back. even then it's easily answered by all the edicts from either lili or triump/rampage. As a phoenix player myself, I'd put 2 copies of young pyromancer in my phoenix sideboard to battle this deck. pyromancer ascension is key in this MU, #1 target for discard.
some problems I ran into:
- undecided between 2-3 copies of nicol bolas. sometimes you need the redundancy, but drawing 2 in the first few turns is brutal. but he is one of the best topdecks ever, you want to see him every game.
- game 1 just folds to dredge, period. I'm thinking of swapping the 2 opts for nihil spellbomb. after SB, an opener with leyline of the void wouldn't suffice sometimes, I sided out all the discards and opponent draws nature's claim and the game is pretty much over from there.
- MU against UW control feels tougher than expected, theoretically discards trump all counterspells, but i found top decked teferi annoying, once his -3 shuffles your walker back, you'll have a hard time to cast it through all the counters. and since they dont play creatures, it's hard for us to gain CA vs them.
That's certainly one card I find very interesting, and I agree with you that drawing one is better than making your opponent discard one. 4 might not be the best number though, maybe 2 as a finisher would be better, drake's main problem is the restrictive manacost.
unmoored ego is a premium sibeboard card for us for sure. but i guess I wouldn't play a full set along with an extra copy of surgical, maybe a 1-2 split would do just fine. I would never walk out without at least 2 dedicated spot for graveyard hate.
and re: the previous post, I think keranos is a little too slow for mardu pyromancer, maybe its a good idea for me to run 2 copies of electrolyze ?