MTG Salvation

Quote from DesuBunny »

How do we feel about Wilderness Reclamation it could be more of potential replacement for Vial or just an include especially in the builds that ramp instead of vial.

Which builds ramp instead of Vial?

I don't think Growth Spiral is what our deck is looking for. Yes being able to turn 3 Cryptic is nice, but the card doesn't interact with our opponent nor does it apply pressure or creates CA. We already run Vials for a tempo boost.

Incubation//Incongruity looked way more promising at first sight but then I ran the numbers through a hypergeometric calculator and to consistently hit with Incubation we would need to up our creature count quite a bit. Here's the numbers calculated for at least one creature in the top 4 cards of a 60 card deck (which is not a 100% realistic, but a solid approximation):

15 creatures: 77.6%
16 creatures: 80.1%
17 creatures: 82.4%
18 creatures: 84.4%
19 creatures: 86.3%
20 creatures: 88.0%
21 creatures: 89.5%
22 creatures: 90.8%
23 creatures: 92.0%
24 creatures: 93.1%
25 creatures: 94.1%

Not being able to hit lands really hurts this one because not hitting a creature is just aweful here.

I do think there is some room to brew with this and come up with a more creature heavy version of Eternal Command that uses I//I while also making a better use of Vial, I just haven't found the right creatures to go with yet. Maybe a 1x Kiki+ 4x Bounding Krasis + 2x Architects of Will + 2-3x Traverse the Ulvenwald. Seems pretty janky and the mana is aweful but Krasis into Cryptic into Kiki could be just enough to hold off some of these uninteractive aggressive decks like Dredge or Hollow One. I don't know.

Hey Mad, nice to have you hear!
There's not a lot of buzz around Eternal Command anymore since it hasn't put up any big results in a while and also didn't really receive substantial upgrades in a long time.
IMO it's still a solid deck, especially for FNM level where you can plan your metagame a little better. More importantly though, it's a blast to play!

The traditional version is RUG, although people have been brewing with BUG quite a bit as well recently. I personally still prefer the RUG version, thanks to Bolt it has a way better tempo game, BUG offers actual hard removal for big creatures though.

I suggest you just read over the primer and like last 2 pages of this thread and then feel welcome to ask any further questions you might have!

Ah didn't know you play 2x mainboard Abrades. Wanna post your current list?

Keranos is solid. Have you considered Ral, Izzet Viceroy. Last I've seen Blue Moon opted to play him. Seems nice to have both a way of CA, killing big creatures (against decks like Jund, although they not very common these days) and a game winning ultimate.

And I'd say the number of Alpine Moons depends on how prevalent Valakut and Tron are in your meta, if they're big go with the 3x, if not 2x seems fine.

I haven't found a discard outlet that's really worth it yet. It'd be nice to have something to pitch excess Vials or 'wrong' answers to but there's just nothing really worth a slot to me.

I don't see Hazoret being any good in our list. We play counterspells, we want to have cards in hand. We can't turn him on consistently.
I'd say play at least 2x Ancient Grudge, card is way too good when it's good.
Damping Sphere is a no go with Snapcaster and our cantrips.
Have you considered Alpine Moon for the Tron MU (also good against RG Valakut and Colonnades from UW control)? it's a lot less clunky than Fulminator Mages.

Anger of the Gods and Ancient Grudge definitely seem to be good SB cards right now.

If I were to run a 2:1 split then definitely 2 Vapor Snags and 1 Electrolyze.
Modern is super fast and agressive and Snag is actually quite solid against all those 'cheat creatures out your graveyard' decks (bouncing Amalgam, Hollow One, Delve Threats etc. can buy 2+ crucial turns).
I would, however, not play a 2:1 split of these at all but prefer a 1:1 split and the play another 1x like mentioned in the my post above.

@ObnixilisNate
Yeah, Abrade seems actually pretty solid mainboard currently. It's great against Aether Vial decks, Affinity, Ancient Stirrings decks and rarely a dead card in other MUs.

Yes it's definitely better in a meta with lingering souls or Affinity. Combining it with Bolt is one of the few options RUG has to 'cleanly' deal with x/5 threats though, it's solid as a stabilizer against swarm decks like Humans and Sniping an opposing Snapcaster against control basically negates the value it provided.
All that said I do agree that it's not really well positioned right now, but instead of playing Risk Factor (that just doesn't really fit our game plan imo) I would much rather play another Spell Snare, an Abrade, maybe even Pillar of Flame/Magma Spray.

Electrolyze and Risk Factor do two very different things.
The fact that it can hit creatures is the reason we run Electrolyze, not to deal damage to opponents.

Some very valid points Kathal, people always underestimate how important it is that Goyf is a 2 drop.
So 2 or 3 Flayers?
And what do you guys think about 2x Mishra's Bauble to enable him faster (as well as growing Goyf and supporting a 1x Traverse)?

Nice to hear from you again 2imu!
I'm not playing the BUG version so I don't really feel in the position to comment on all the stuff you wrote.
It's nice to see someone agreeing on Traverse with me, I've been a proponent of playing it as a 1x pretty much since it was printed exactly for the reasons you stated, it just bridges so many conflicts this deck has quite well (virtually higher creature count while also being nice with snap and enabling a loer land count...).
Since you're also running Grim Flayer, 2x Baubles seem really worth testing. The 22 lands you're running are rather on the safe side actually. We run 4x SV (2x= 1 land according to the Xerox rule) + Aether Vials + Traverse. 21 lands is easily doable (and has been kind of the consensus on this thread). If have played 20 lands with success.
So shaving a land (probably a fetch, 10 is a lot) and another card for 2x Baubles seems worth trying out.
How good has Trophy been for you? With all the recursion between Snap and E-Wit, does this deck really want 3?

I'm also sceptical regarding the Dark Confidants. Even Jund hasn't really been playing it lately and that deck can make better use of it than we can (more lands, more a of 'let's get into topdeck mode' game plan). I don't think it's well positioned right now, fast decks kill you before he actually gains you an advantage, grindy decks easily kill it on sight. On top of that we already have quite the amount of CA between Snaps, E-Wits, Commands, SfA...
Getting rid of Bob would free a lot of space for some meta answers like Spell Snare or Dismember.

Man I haven't seen a list that made we give BUG a chance again in a while, but maybe the combination of more threats (grim flayer) and Trophy leaves the Tron and combo MUs good enough to not have Bolt.

Sadly I haven't really played EC much over the last months. Life is just keeping me too busy to participate in FNMs currently so I'm getting my magic fix with MTG Arena. It's not the same as playing Modern but I'm having fun with a Grixis Energy list and drafting.

I can't really tell you much about Sultai list but regarding Temur (which is written with a 'u' by the way):
Alpine Moon still seems like a very solid SB card for us. I'd probably play 2x and a Spreading Seas. Yes it doesn't win the game against Tron but should greatly increase our chances to execute our tempo game with Goyfs/Cliques backed up by counterspells. It's also pretty good against Valakut decks and I'd test bringing it in against UW control as well, Collonades are pesky to deal with for us and this shuts all of the down.
Champion of Wits is pretty bad without Vial. You don't wanna tapout on turn 3 for it in Modern and we really even get up to 7 lands, which is what makes the card really good.
Are you running ToK? because while it was played in the first iterations of this deck, consensus has pretty much been that it's too situational. While not always ideal playing a second vial can actually be very useful so it's really more about discarding the third Vial, which just doesn't come up often enough.

Regarding the current meta:
I think it's definitely time to play 1x Abrade maindeck as well as 2x Scavenging Oozes maybe even 2x Spell Pierces and at least 2x Anger of the Gods in the side (probably better 3x since it's also pretty good against Humans).
The actual big problem I see with the new meta is the rise in graveyard hate. People are packing Leyline of the Void again to tackle stuff like the new Vengevine lists. And we get hit in the crossfire, which sadly makes me think this deck is not really viable in the current meta.

All of this is pretty much theory crafting though, without actual testing to back it up. So take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Awesome to hear you picked up the deck, hope you have a lot of fun with it!
As with pretty much all more fringe deck, you'll need a good amount of practise with the deck to be competitive and mulliganing is definitely one of the important things to learn more about.
This is a Vial deck, which means starting hands with a Vial tend to be a lot better than hands without it. That makes mulliganing a mediocre 7 o even 6 without Vial a better decision than it would be in other decks.
What I look for in my starting hand:
1) early disruption: Bolts, Spell Snares/Pierces, Remands etc.
2) Vial
3) Clock: Goyf/Clique
4) Cantrips: SV or Opt
Pretty much any combination of 3 of these 4 makes a very solid starting hand. Any hand with early interruption and any other of the 3 is usually also keepable.
Cryptics and E-Wits are not really cards you want in your opening hand (same goes to some extend even for Snap, especially if you don't have any cheap spells).
Modern is FAST and not interacting or pressuring your opponents during the first turns means you lose.

The point about 3cmc creatures is they tend to be clunky without Vial. There's a ton of stuff we have a hard time answering if we can't counter it, so tapping out on turn 3 can turn out crucial easily. That's why we play Vendillion Clique as our other 3-drop.
I could see playing a copy or 2 of Tireless Tracker, especially in a grindier meta, though.

Between Snap and E-Wits and bouncing Snaps and E-Wits to play them again this deck can make a lot more use out of singletons than decks traditionally can.
I personally probably overdo it a little bit but besides Bolt, Remand and Cryptic there just aren't any good catchall answer that warrant playing 3+ copies.
Between our cantrips, Remand, Cryptic, Electrolyze and replaying all those cards we are also able to look through a decent amount of cards everygame to find those singletons.
I would love to have one or two more versatile answers, but we sadly simply don't have a K-Command in RUG colors.

Regarding Young Peezy: Unlike Legacy, the card took a long while til it found a home in Modern, it just needs a lot more build around in a format with less free spells, less powerful cantrips and a lot more spot removal.
People here in the thread (myself included) tested it out in a more cantrip heavy version after Opt was reprinted into Modern. Couldn't really make it work.

sweet to hear about the 4-1! I'm always happy to read some reports on how other Eternal Command decks are performing, so if you have the time to write one next time you play the deck (even if not doing well) that would be awesome!

Regarding sideboarding I'm too busy currently to write an extensive guide, maybe you can name some specific MUs you're having difficulties with?
Overall deciding what to bring in always seems easier to me than what to take out, so some tips for that:
-Remand goes out against all kinds of low cmc aggressive decks (Affinity, Burn, Humans etc.), it's also a lot worse on the draw than on the play
-Vial can be taken out against Jund and Mardu (bad lategame topdeck, they have lots of tools to destroy it)
-Vendillion Clique usually goes out against any kind of Lingering Souls strategy
-I have had success with siding out Tarmogoyf against UWx control strategies (making all our creatures 2 for 1s makes their spot removal a lot worse and it helped not getting hit as hard by RiP, since they adapted Search for Azcanta that card fell of though. Not sure if this is still correct)
-I side out E-Wit against fast combo decks (those MUs are all about efficiency in aggression and disruption, E-Wit isn't efficient in neither)
-Situational counterspells and removal (Spell Pierce, Snare, Roast etc.) get sided out against decks without many targets.

As far as 4 drops go, Huntmaster is proven and really ******* good in this deck. All the other stuff you mentioned is really dependend on what kind of meta you expect. P&K is solid, but only really better than Huntmaster if you expect a lot of Affinity, Thrun is obviously great against Control but that MU has been solid for me anyway. Colossus is too narrow for my taste and Glenn Elendra sadly is just too slow of a card in Modern.

So we got a sweet potential SB card spoiled: Alpine Moon
Unlike Blood Moon or Damping Sphere the card only affects the opponent's board.
Costing only R, it's super cheap (make it awesome and super flexible to play).
It hits a wide variety of cards:
-Tron (notably Tron lands care about the subtype, not the card name. So this turn all of them off)
-Valakut (pretty much needs to answer this before it can win)
-Manlands (especially Collonades are giving us a hard time, why not deal with all 4 of them. Also Inkmoth Nexus)
-Cavern of Souls (oh how much did I want something that deals with this against Eldrazi Tron, probably not worth it against Humans, as they also have Vials, but hey)
-All kinds of other utility lands, think Azcanta the Sunken Ruin etc.

While it's probably more of a speedbump than a actual hoser for Gx Tron decks, that little tempo can be all we need against them and the card should help in other MUs as well. I like it and see it probably replacing Spreading Seas.
Opinions?