This may be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway ...
Does the number of Fulminators played affect the number of Kolaghan's Command being played. I ask because I am trying out the Blood Moon package, and no Fulminators, so I wonder if two Commands is still necessary?
I am also keen on trying out Blood Moons over Fulminators (which have always felt so mediocre to me), and I'm curious how people are changing their Manabases (if at all) to incorporate Blood Moon. It stands to reason we would want a few more basics and maybe go up an additional fetchland(?), but I'm really not sure.
It's not card advantage. It's virtual card advantage. I think it's hard to argue that Scry 3 is not a form of virtual card advantage. When he connects, Grim Flayer is Scry 3 with upside (for our deck).
On that topic, the 3 Grim Flayer, no Dark Confidant build continues to do well on MTGO.
By allowing you to "see" more cards per turn, Grim Flayer acts as a source of virtual card advantage. He lets you dig deeper in your library, and thus find the card you need for that particular matchup or situation.
Hi guys
Do you think it's better to play bob or grim flayer in the actual version of junk (2 rhino 2 ooze 2 tracker 4 tarmo 3 bob/flayer)?
I was just going to bring this up. I don't know the answer, but what I can say is that some of the most recent successful online decks have been on Grim Flayer over Bob, which is interesting to me because these same lists have cut the main deck artifacts (Bauble/Spellbomb) that the pros have said are necessary to run Flayer.
To start, MTGO user Falleaf won last weekend's modern MOCS with the following Abzan list:
Three days later, MTGO user Jaberwocki ran the same list, card-for-card to a 5-0 finish in a daily competitive event.
Today, the only Abzan lists to place in the MTGO Modern challenge (18th and 19th place lists) were identical main deck, with the 19th place list running a slightly different sideboard.
So it seems like the tide has shifted (online at least) back to running Grim Flayer over Dark Confidant in the main. I have been running 4 Dark Confidant in the main deck of my lists, and really loving him. But, both Grim Flayer and Tireless Tracker are great sources of card advantage, too.
I'm going to go ahead and sleeve up this list to see how it feels at my locals.
I think the more important question around Honored Hydra or any new pet card is what is its purpose? What is it for/what match up does it improve over just running a regular creatures and spell suite? I mean, looking over the list I see you've cut all copies of Inquisition and have opted to run a playset of Thoughtseize. Why? Sure, Thoughtseize hits more things, but it has real drawbacks.
You're giving up important card advantage without Bob and/or Tireless Tracker. You're worse against Burn without Inquisition/Rhino/Kitchen Finks. You're softer to company decks without Kalitas. Etc. etc. Heck, with the change to the Planeswalker uniqueness rule there's an argument to slap some Liliana, the Last Hope in the main, too.
In return you're getting a 6/6 trampler that can be fatal pushed, and relies on the graveyard--which is already a weakness of ours. I don't think that's worth it. You said in your original post that you wanted to try something different, but this isn't really something different. It's almost a stock Abzan list swapping out some of the better cards for a not-as-good card, and one without a clear purpose as to what it adds to the deck that other, better cards don't already do.
I'm all for experimentation. That's how decks evolve and grow. But every time you want to add a card to an established list you really have to interrogate yourself on what its purpose is. What does it add to the deck and how does it improve bad matchups and not just make good matchups better.
A discussion of all this, and why you choose to include it after thinking this all through, is what was missing from your initial post. Including details like that in a decklist post will help engender the type of constructive criticism you're looking for.
I think that it's an incredibly strong argument for running more LotLH. I could see her competing with K-Command or one of the > 2 CMC creatures for a couple slots. Being able to run more LotLH also makes Lingering Souls less of a problem in the Abzan matchup.
Where do you plan to start testing? I'm thinking of starting with a 3/2 split of LotV to LotLH. Although I am loathe to go below 4 LotV, I also don't want to try and jam 4/2. That seems overkill.
PLANESWALKERS OF LEGEND
(Editor's Note: This section has been updated to address Commander.)
Have you seen the planeswalkers in this set? Let's check out Jace!
Well check out that fancy new type line! Legendary Planeswalker — Jace. You must have many questions. Let's pec away at them.
Starting with this set, all planeswalkers past, present, and future will have the supertype legendary. They will also be subject to the "legend rule." The "planeswalker uniqueness rule" is going away. What does this mean? In short, everything that's true about legendary permanents will now be true about legendary planeswalkers. Also note that this does not mean legendary planeswalkers can be your Commander unless an ability says so.
Under the new rules, if a player controls more than one legendary planeswalker with the same name, that player chooses one and puts the other into their owner's graveyard. This means that if you control Jace, Unraveler of Secrets and cast Jace, Cunning Castaway, both Jaces can exist under your control.
Planeswalkers will continue to have planeswalker types (Jace, Nissa, Bolas, and so on). However, those subtypes won't be used by any rule to determine what a player can retain control of. Cards like Jace's Defeat will continue to be able to refer to those subtypes.
What about fetchlands? I wanna run 4 Verdant Catacombs, 2 Marsh Flats and 2 Windswept Heath. Does this sounds fine?
It very much depends on the rest of your Mana base, but yes you can run 2 Windswept Heath in place of two Marsh Flats. I think 4 Marsh Flats and 4 Verdant is the optimal build, because the most important color in the deck is black. But, when I first built Abzan I ran 4 Windswept instead of Marsh Flats because I already had them, and slowly bought into the 4 Marsh Flats build, even running the 2/2 split you're suggesting for a while.
I've seen the Abzan lists with either 23 or 24 lands. What's the correct number? Any thoughts?
I've honestly always been happy with 23. I don't play a lot of 4 drops in my lists, though, never more than 2 after board, and 23 has never let me down.
Four (4)! Tectonic Edge in the main deck of the Top 8 Abzan list?! That's certainly surprising. It looks more like a Rock deck splashing for Souls and Stony Silence out of the board than traditional Abzan.
Lots of interesting choices in all the Top 32 Abzan and Rock decks.
To me the card feels very 50/50. Against some decks it does really good work (Combo/Control decks, Mirror match, Elves ect.) but against other decks it does almost nothing (Eldrazi, Gurmag/Tasi, Deaths Shadow).
It also seems difficult to get Delirium in some cases, especially if not running bauble / traverse.
Does it make sense to run this card in a non Traverse / Bauble build? Just seems kind of inefficient compared to our other 2 drops. Thoughts?
I would not run Grim Flayer in a non-Traverse list that wasn't dedicated to hitting Delirium as quickly as possible. I mean, even as a 2/2 that lets you filter the top of your deck/throw cards in the'yard, Grim Flayer is great when he connects. But without the additional power, connecting is often rather difficult. Don't get me wrong, I think Grim Flayer is great, but multiple experts (Reid/Willy) have said not to run it without at least 3 artifacts main, and that as a 2/2 for 2 you have better options in GBx.
Yeah, it's always hard to tell with these decks if they're Sultai splashing white, or Abzan splashing blue. Or if it matters. Other than the snappies this is a pretty stock Abzan mainboard minus Path to Exile, which as you noted would be nice to have against large creatures/Delve fatties.
I love that snappy gives you additional virtual copies of all your spells, but Snap > Maelstrom Pulse is a 5 mana play to kill a large threat if needed. I'd definitely love to find room for a couple Path. As much as I love Bob, I'm not sure the full playset of both this and Noble is necessary. There's really nothing to ramp into except for Lili (though I suppose a noble or two can make that Snapcaster > Maelstrom Pulse a bit easier to pull off.)
Honestly, I don't think I have the balls to sleeve something like this up for competitive play, but it looked too fun not to share.
I am also keen on trying out Blood Moons over Fulminators (which have always felt so mediocre to me), and I'm curious how people are changing their Manabases (if at all) to incorporate Blood Moon. It stands to reason we would want a few more basics and maybe go up an additional fetchland(?), but I'm really not sure.
Also, I just want to leave this here: https://twitter.com/thequietfish/status/910662810128076800
On that topic, the 3 Grim Flayer, no Dark Confidant build continues to do well on MTGO.
Pilot Tw33Ty went 8-1 in this weekend's Modern PTQ, after a 5-2 finish the day before in the Modern Challenge. Falleaf, who won last weekend's MOCS with the deck, scored another 5-0 run in a competitive league this week.
I was just going to bring this up. I don't know the answer, but what I can say is that some of the most recent successful online decks have been on Grim Flayer over Bob, which is interesting to me because these same lists have cut the main deck artifacts (Bauble/Spellbomb) that the pros have said are necessary to run Flayer.
To start, MTGO user Falleaf won last weekend's modern MOCS with the following Abzan list:
3 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Siege Rhino
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tireless Tracker
Spells:
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Collective Brutality
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Flaying Tendrils
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Runed Halo
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
Three days later, MTGO user Jaberwocki ran the same list, card-for-card to a 5-0 finish in a daily competitive event.
Today, the only Abzan lists to place in the MTGO Modern challenge (18th and 19th place lists) were identical main deck, with the 19th place list running a slightly different sideboard.
So it seems like the tide has shifted (online at least) back to running Grim Flayer over Dark Confidant in the main. I have been running 4 Dark Confidant in the main deck of my lists, and really loving him. But, both Grim Flayer and Tireless Tracker are great sources of card advantage, too.
I'm going to go ahead and sleeve up this list to see how it feels at my locals.
Also, 2 CMC =\= 1 CMC. Collective Brutality is a great supplement to our discard suite, it is not a replacement for Inquisition.
At no time did I call you stupid. I was nothing but constructive in my criticism. Don't conflate the responses of other, less charitable, posters.
You're giving up important card advantage without Bob and/or Tireless Tracker. You're worse against Burn without Inquisition/Rhino/Kitchen Finks. You're softer to company decks without Kalitas. Etc. etc. Heck, with the change to the Planeswalker uniqueness rule there's an argument to slap some Liliana, the Last Hope in the main, too.
In return you're getting a 6/6 trampler that can be fatal pushed, and relies on the graveyard--which is already a weakness of ours. I don't think that's worth it. You said in your original post that you wanted to try something different, but this isn't really something different. It's almost a stock Abzan list swapping out some of the better cards for a not-as-good card, and one without a clear purpose as to what it adds to the deck that other, better cards don't already do.
I'm all for experimentation. That's how decks evolve and grow. But every time you want to add a card to an established list you really have to interrogate yourself on what its purpose is. What does it add to the deck and how does it improve bad matchups and not just make good matchups better.
A discussion of all this, and why you choose to include it after thinking this all through, is what was missing from your initial post. Including details like that in a decklist post will help engender the type of constructive criticism you're looking for.
Where do you plan to start testing? I'm thinking of starting with a 3/2 split of LotV to LotLH. Although I am loathe to go below 4 LotV, I also don't want to try and jam 4/2. That seems overkill.
(Top list): http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-mocs-2017-08-28
It very much depends on the rest of your Mana base, but yes you can run 2 Windswept Heath in place of two Marsh Flats. I think 4 Marsh Flats and 4 Verdant is the optimal build, because the most important color in the deck is black. But, when I first built Abzan I ran 4 Windswept instead of Marsh Flats because I already had them, and slowly bought into the 4 Marsh Flats build, even running the 2/2 split you're suggesting for a while.
I've honestly always been happy with 23. I don't play a lot of 4 drops in my lists, though, never more than 2 after board, and 23 has never let me down.
Lots of interesting choices in all the Top 32 Abzan and Rock decks.
I would not run Grim Flayer in a non-Traverse list that wasn't dedicated to hitting Delirium as quickly as possible. I mean, even as a 2/2 that lets you filter the top of your deck/throw cards in the'yard, Grim Flayer is great when he connects. But without the additional power, connecting is often rather difficult. Don't get me wrong, I think Grim Flayer is great, but multiple experts (Reid/Willy) have said not to run it without at least 3 artifacts main, and that as a 2/2 for 2 you have better options in GBx.
I know this has been discussed to death, but that's part of the reason I am running 4 Dark Confidant in its place in my non-Traverse build, atm. And, case in point, another Bobzan list went 5-0 in a competitive league today: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2017-08-08 (second list down). Other than 2 Maelstrom Pulse main, the deck looks pretty stock.
I love that snappy gives you additional virtual copies of all your spells, but Snap > Maelstrom Pulse is a 5 mana play to kill a large threat if needed. I'd definitely love to find room for a couple Path. As much as I love Bob, I'm not sure the full playset of both this and Noble is necessary. There's really nothing to ramp into except for Lili (though I suppose a noble or two can make that Snapcaster > Maelstrom Pulse a bit easier to pull off.)
Honestly, I don't think I have the balls to sleeve something like this up for competitive play, but it looked too fun not to share.