MTG Salvation

Quote from KOBossy52

Well, never mind. I figured out Chalice-that's why Cavern of Souls comes in handy-your creatures are immune with it. Doesn't protect your spells, though. Depending on the match up, what is the ideal number to cast it on? 0 for Affinity, and 1 for Burn makes sense. Is two a bit too mana costly?

Steel Sabotage...still on the fence about it. Won't do much of anything vs Affinity, but its great against single artifacts. Problem is...how often will I come across one that totally nerfs me? If I was playing from my graveyard, I'd say Relic or Grafdigger's Cage, but those don't really affect us. Batterskull? Can easily be returned to an opponent's hand. Wurmcoil? That'll just make 2 creatures instead, not get rid of it. It may be useful occasionally, but against the really problematic artifact match up, Hurkyl's is obviously better. Tough call.

So if I cut those, and rearrange things around, I have one sideboard card left. Thoughts? Maybe Swan Song or Spell Snare, just for some extra countermagic? I already have 4 Spell Pierce (2 MD, 2 SB), as well as 4 MD Vapor Snag.

You'll usually set Chalice on 0 or 1, it's not very useful for us to set it on 2. Against Affinity on the play a t1 chalice for 0 often makes them just scoop, and chalice 0 is also very good versus cascade decks and decks that use Lotus Bloom or Pacts. Chalice on 1 greatly hinders storm decks (you'd rather have it on 2 but that's usually too late), monoblack control, and some people say it's great against UWr to turn off Snare, Path and Bolt, but I haven't tried this myself much yet.

For Steel Sabotage, the main reason you want artifact hate is Affinity against which Steel Sabotage is rather bad. Against what else would you run it? Tron is the only deck I can think of, against which youre better off holding them off tron and countering their pyroclasms. Chalice on 1 also destroys 20 cards in their deck, btw.

As for countermagic, I like a singleton Swan Song. It's amazing to have a hard counter to Splinter Twin but do not underestimate a free 2/2 flyer against a deck that can race.

Quote from hisbuchness

I think gut shot would be a decent sideboard card.

Gut Shot has been talked about a few times but it doesn't really hold up. Marrow Shards is pretty interesting against Affinity though

Quote from SaintA

Just went 4-0 at an MTGO Daily. Phew Some tough close games but now I am ready!

Beat Delver, Storm, Twin, and finally UWR in the final.

Nothing too spectacular to report except for one thing I have learned, 4 Merrow is too much. He is nice to have, but he can fill up your hand, give you false hope. Also, Phantasmal Image is good, but he's not 3 or 4 good. Against anything with removal (Electrolyze, yikes) he's pretty bad, but if you use him as a cantrip, he's very good.

Chalice of the Void; is great if your deck is set up for it. I've played with this card ALOT and against some match ups it's awesome (8Rack!) and Delver and Boggles etc, but you can also wind up screwing yourself if you are not careful. I would run 2 Dismember over Snags if you have SB CotV.

Coralhelm Commander; He is a meta choice. I think he's really good vs UWR (only need ONE guy out) and against Delver, a flipped Delver is a bolt a turn. Also good against slower match ups and he might get you there vs Pod.

Good luck at the GP everyone and let's NEVER have a mirror match... now watch me shotgun Jund at the last minute

I currently run 3 Reejereys and 3 Phantasmals and I can see what you mean. Both are fantastic in some situations but just so bad in others, especially when Phantasmal floods your hand. Reejerey is incredible to quickly get a huge board prescence but I often feel that if I'm using his abiity a lot I'm overextending; he does get us out of Anger range pretty fast however.

I'm still not sold on Chalice, really. We can only effectivey put it on 0 or 1, and on 0 it is only good T1 on the play versus affinity and a dead draw after that, and good versus Living End which can just be gravehated and runs a large amount of artifact removal. On 1 it hits a lot of decks, but this includes ourselves and I hate how it nonbos with Spell Pierce, Snare, and Vapor Snag.

Quote from KOBossy52

Hi all, I just joined the site. I used to play ages ago but I'm back into the game and am more serious about it now, hoping to play a bit more competitively. I've already constructed a Merfolk deck for Modern that seems pretty competitive, but I see some ideas in this thread that I hadn't thought of and am not sure I understand the reasoning behind. So I was wondering if I could post what I've got so far and get some feedback and maybe tips. I do my research across the web so that I know what I'm doing to a certain level, but I'd like to fine tune that.

First, just a couple questions. I have Steel Sabotage as a 3-of in my sideboard, for match ups against Affinity. Is Hurkyl's Recall also mandatory or can you live with one or the other? Also, what about Cavern of Souls? I see how it could be useful, but I also see some potential drawbacks to using it. Same question-mandatory or just nice to have?

Affinity is a bad matchup no matter what you do. Resolving Hurkyl's Recall often takes the game however. Steel Sabotage is more versatile and can be used versus tron and pod as well but doesn't give enough power versus affinity to make much of a difference unless you manage to manascrew them by countering mox or something. Some merfolk players run 4 Hurkyl's Recall, some none and just lose to affinity to focus on other MUs. Cavern of course depends on how much control there is in your metagame, I myself currently run 2 but am considering getting a third one.

Quote from Kikurek

I am not trying to be rude

Well, you are being rude. Get off your high horse, getting some results does not make you king of magic. If you make unorthodox deck choices people will and should question them, I'd say they'd be fools if they didn't. You clearly know what you are talkng about (and thank you for the good UWr sideboard advice) but you do need to tone down the attitude.

Im gonna back up Slivortal here. I love Utron, it's very fun to play, but it's a fact that currently it just isn't that good; you can't just blame bad results on lack of popularity. Also, people like strong decks, might it possibly just not be that popular because it's not that powerful?

Painter will Eat BUG and lose hard to DnT. It has an ok match against Miracles and it is a skill intensive game against Storm. You can play hell with the cantrips, but you need to know what lines to play and hands to keep making that a match I like quite a lot. I play the Enlightened version myself though. Mono Red I feel is not as explosive. I though do not know if it is a good fit for that meta.

If I was to play against that Meta and I wanted a mix of good and bad matches I would take in Sneak and Show or Reanimator and 12 Post. Sneak has play against BUG and UW while having a more interesting game against ANT. DnT though it just hellish for Sneak. Reanimator I feel is faster but falls to sideboards and counters a bit more while running its own. Post I think is top against the fairer decks losing to the Combo. UW will never want to see the match though. Another options is Elves. Granted I am biased as hell but I think Elves would have a good amount of fun against DnT (Its a bye matchup most of the time) and Shardless while just folding to UW. It has no small amount of play against ANT post side and that is quite the complex match. Hand disruption and a clock are quite effective.

If I was going in to Spike that list I would likely take BUG Delver. I can think of few things I would want more than Forces and Decays against that field.

Sideboarding with Mono-U Tron

Decklist from my article with a slightly updated sideboard because unfortunately Squelch isn't well-positioned right now:


The major decks right now will be pulled from the MTGGoldfish Modern metagame page that shows the decks performing at 3-1 or better in Modern Daily events on Magic Online.
In order of popularity, these decks are:
-UR Delver
-Burn (in its various iterations)
-Affinity
-Melira Pod
-Scapeshift
-Bogles
-Twin
-Amulet of Vigor Combo

We're starting to get into the fringe or rare decks that I won't cover in detail here. Just to cover these important decks plus the rare one that's been doing well lately, here is how I would sideboard in each of these matchups, assuming only the most typical cards from my opponent:

UR Delver
This is the most popular deck online by far. According to a guy who gets his data from all of the replays of daily events, Delver actually makes up more than 50% of the online metagame. (This data indicates that Delver doesn't perform well despite being the most popular deck! Even a generous estimate based on MTGGoldfish data indicates that Delver is only played in 21% of successful decks)

Fortunately for us, we should win the majority of our matches vs UR Delver. It's a favorable matchup, with results ranging from 60%-75% / 40-25% in our favor. Here's my basic boarding plan:
On the play:
-3 Talisman of Dominance
-3 Remand
-1 Expedition Map
-1 Sundering Titan
+2 Dismember
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Ætherize
+2 Negate

On the draw:
-3 Talisman of Dominance
-3 Remand
-1 Sundering Titan
-2 Expedition Map
+2 Dismember
+2 Ætherize
+2 Negate
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Trinket Mage

Against Burn on the play:
[cards]
-1 Sundering Titan
-3 Remand
-1 Expedition Map
-1 Oblivion Stone (unless you see Young Pyromancer)
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Negate
+2 Dismember
+1 Trinket Mage

Against Burn on the draw:
-2 Expedition Map
-1 Oblivion Stone
-1 Sundering Titan
-3 Remand
+2 Negate
+2 Ætherize
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Trinket Mage

Against Affinity:
-3 Remand
-1 Sundering Titan
-1 Expedition Map
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
-1 Condescend
+3 Hurkyl's Recall
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Dismember
+1 Pithing Needle


Against Melira Pod:
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
-3 Remand
-4 Chalice of the Void
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Dismember
+1 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Jester's Cap
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Trinket Mage

I don't like Ætherize in this matchup because it's really bad to be holding when they go for Entomber Exarch, Thoughtseize, or Sin Collector pre-combat, which they will once they've seen it. Bring it in at your own risk. Watch out for Choke, and bring in Negate if you see it.

Against Scapeshift:
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
-4 Chalice of the Void
+2 Negate
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Jester's Cap


Against Bogles:
-1 Sundering Titan
-3 Talisman of Dominance
+2 Ætherize
+2 Snapcaster Mage

They bring in Stony Silence every time. Bring in Dismember if you see Gaddock Teeg. Ætherize is easily our best card against them postboard, while Chalice on 1 + Platinum Angel is usually a hardlock against their maindeck.

Against Splinter Twin:
-4 Chalice of the Void
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
-1 Talisman of Dominance
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Negate
+2 Dismember

This is actually highly deck-dependent. Ætherize can come in if they try to swarm you, and Jester's Cap can come in if they bring in counters and more combo stuff like buky did against me in a Daily.

Against Amulet of Vigor:
-1 Expedition Map
-2 Talisman of Dominance
-1 Sundering Titan
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+2 Snapcaster Mage
+2 Negate (if you see Hive Mind)
+1 Jester's Cap
This is a really rough list, but it shouldn't be too bad. Ætherize is really bad against Primeval Titan. If they're all-in on Azusa, Lost but Seeking you can bring in Dismember.

Playing with Chalice
Here are the important values for Chalice against the aforementioned decks:

UR Delver - 1, then 2 both preboard and postboard.

Burn - 1, then 2 preboard, prioritize Chalice on 2 postboard as it stops 90% of the artifact hate they play and they're much lighter on 1drops postboard, but play one on 1 first if you have time. Note that a Chalice on 2 stops a Chalice on 1, so keep that in mind when casting Chalice. If you see Shattering Spree, keep up the Chalice on 1 game, as they probably aren't also running Smash to Smithereens.

Affinity - Depending on the # in your starting hand. If you know they're Affinity on the play, put a Chalice on 0. Otherwise, Chalice on 2 is the most important, but if you can put one on 1 first, do so as it stops Galvanic Blast. G1 Chalice on 1 and Platinum Angel is often GG if they don't play Dismember. 2 is always the most important at stopping them from landing haymakers though. Postboard keep in mind you'll have Pithing Needle in your deck that is very important to land before playing a Chalice on 1 if you have time, and Chalice on 2 stops Hurkyl's Recall. It really depends on your list.

Melira Pod - Drop a Chalice on 1 to stop dorks, but discard the rest unless you can play it on 4 before Birthing Pod or after Repealing a Pod. Chalice is actively bad in this matchup.

Scapeshift - Chalice is much better pre-board than post-board in this matchup. A Chalice on 4 and 1(to stop them from Repealing the Chalice...if they don't run Repeal, a Chalice on 4 is a softlock) will lock most lists out of the game. On 2 it stops their counters except Cryptic Command, but it also stops your Remands, so this is really a judgement call.

Bogles - Chalice on 1 is close to GG, especially if you can land a Platinum Angel.

Twin - Chalice on 1, 3, and 4. Good luck. Board them out, but I have won a lot of G1's due to Chalice.

Amulet Combo - Chalice on 0, 1, and 6? 0 stops Pacts (but they can still kill you with Hive Mind so have Condescend ready - note that you can Condescend your Pact for 0 and choose not to pay 0, and that their copy will simply be a scry 2. If they also target your Pact, pay the 0 so you still get to scry), 1 stops Amulet, 6 stops Hive Mind and Prime Time.

Hope this helps!

Quote from Looooooooo »

that because pure combo doesn't exist anymore (in large part). In a rock paper scissor system if scissor (combo) doesn't exist, rock (control) never wins, instead we have now rocks with pointy edge (control deck with combo finisher, like shift).

People need to stop this idea of "control beats combo beats aggro beats control." This kind of simplistic rock-paper-scissors mentality is just false. Maybe that's how it once was, but that's been a gross oversimplification for a long time, if not outright false.

Control doesn't beat combo. Particular kinds of control deck beat particular kinds of combo. Meanwhile, particular kinds of combo beat particular kinds of control decks.

Not to mention the high number of decks that don't really fit into those three categories, like midrange. You can't have a Rock-Paper-Scissors idea when you also have to deal with things like Table and Cup in the mix.

Quote from Looooooooo »

I meant real combo a la legacy (i.e. TES ANT Belcher S&T). In modern i see Ascendancy and PA storm or kiki pod maybe; and the feared ascendancy is doing its job mostly if not only in standard while PA can be taken to the top only by Finkel or Budde and Kiki pod is off the radar right now.
You can't really say that twin or shift are the real combo decks which control decks tend to predate on...

And I can't say those decks you just listed are the "real combo decks which control decks tend to predate on." Those are good against some control decks and bad against some control decks.

For example, let's take Show and Tell. I'm not sure if it's necessarily favored against Miracles (the biggest control deck), but it sure as heck isn't disfavored against it. Meanwhile, it's absolutely awful against Death & Taxes, the second most popular control deck (that MTG Top 8 laughably misclassifies as "aggro").

Meanwhile, Belcher's weakness isn't control decks. It's any deck running Force of Will. Lands and the aforementioned Death & Taxes are control decks that Belcher walks right over. Miracles is decent against it, but again because it's running Force of Will; it's not really better than something like UWR Delver (hardly a control deck) in this department.

Again, we need to get over this inaccurate idea of a rock-paper-scissors meta based around control, combo, and aggro because it's simply outdated.

Here are the links to UWx streamers

http://www.twitch.tv/erikcierniak/profile
http://www.twitch.tv/battleu/profile

Quote from iamghost »

can you explain this further?

Let me see if I can answer that in the form of a question.


How many good creatures are in pod's deck that you want to steal?
Compare the good creatures in pod to BGx, and ask yourself if threads is worth siding in vs pod.
What is the best case scenario for threads of disloyalty? How often is that going to happen?
Think about the creature you're stealing, and how fast you can win with that creature against pod.

and just for reference read threads of disloyalty if you don't know what it does. Here is the pod decklist he played against in the finals. The video is here too lazy to find the game where he wins with threads.

1) You won't win a PTQ without Master of Waves.
2) It's irrelevant if you think Spellskite or Kira are better, you basically need BOTH considering how heavy the Meta (at the top tables) is with control variants. Again, you're not going to win a PTQ without 2-5 copies of these cards (TAKE YOUR PICK!) Kira was auto 2 of, but now that Jund is runing hot again... not sure. Abrupt Decay is such a beating.
3) Somewhere you need some Tectonic Edge, Relics. I see soo many Merfolk decks with no Teck edge, why?? Again, very very hard to win without them consistently. Good vs Jund, ANY control variant, Twin.
4) 4 Vapor Snag is just not optimum. Some Dismember/some snag. But this isn't 100% proven.
5) Phantasmal Image is garbage. It's ONLY good if you are going for the combo insta win with Merrow. Otherwise, 2 of top decks are running so many copies of Electrolyze that it's not even worth running. NOTHING protects him. Max 1 (even then..). Coralhelm is better, Thrasher, Thassa, ISLAND, a queen of hearts!! ANYTHING, but please for the love of god, this guy sucks. He dies to Pestermites and Exarchs! I love to get 0 for 1'd that's awesome!!

6) HIBERNATION. I think 2 copies auto include in the sideboard. Boggles, POD(!), Choke, and whatever random mono-green Elves show up It's just insane vs Pod and that should just be enough reason (#1 deck in the meta!). I don't ever see losing with this in hand vs them. Good enough reason to have?

Good luck at the PTQ's guys!!

Quote from bearscape »

Well, could you be a bit more specific? What's UR Tempo good against where TarmoTwin lacks, and vice versa? Zoo isn't even a real deck nowadays

People might disagree but the mana is significantly better in U/R than Tarmo. A lot of people say "oh it's modern, it doesn't even matter" but with tarmo-twin you frequently take more damage off your lands (the main issue being you rarely want to fetch basics and since you're green cards are 2 drop you often need an untapped green shock to play them on turn 2) and your lands are far more susceptible to LD, which is particularly relevant against say, living end. While scooze is great against LEND, I found the MU better with straight U/R since your counters make it really hard for them to actually get a living end off and fetching basics means fulminator mage does virtually nothing. Then you can just eventually combo with remand mana up and they can't combo to kill your dudes.

You're also more combo focused with the U/R version, which means your gameplay is a lot more proactively the free win route. Against some decks this is bad, hence the reason tarmo-twin exists, but against others you're more likely to score a free win. Mainboard spellskites help a lot to just combo without fear (something tarmo-twin doesn't have) and also help in random other MUs like burn and infect. Mainboard Cliques let you have more peaks, also work as cyclers for dead cards in your hand and can be a thoughtseize for their combo interrupt. Also Kiki (if you play him) along with deceiver beats a spellskite, so you dont always need to kill the skite. The ability to play bloodmoon against decks also can just net you free wins (like against tron and I guess jund).

Basically the match I noticed tarmo-twin be the most improved over was pod. Pod really forces you to find ways to remove spellskite and linvala, as well as hope they do not have one of their many ways to kill your dude as you combo. Which means it's a lot harder to combo off against pod. Thus, having goyf as a secondary way to just smash them in the face while forcing them to still play around the combo is quite a bit better than what U/R has to offer. Scooze is just also insane against them.

I'm not that well versed in the UWR MU to be honest, but I think tarmo-twin has the edge. I feel like people enjoy playing tarmo-twin (as well as many other midrangey decks) when they feel like the field will be filled with netdecked tier 1 lists like UWR, Pod, Jund (goyf, batterskull and thrun are all pretty good against jund) but U/R seems to be a more steamlined deck that beats the crap out of the 1.5 decks that can spike these netdecky decks (like LEND, infect, burn, random aggro).

I made a weighted color distribution table for the Day 2 archetypes at GP Minneapolis. Final results:

*AFFINITY COUNTS AS WUBRG*
All decks
W 104/U 105/B 94/R 119/G 112

"Top tier" only (anything with equal or more D2 entrants as Kiki Pod)
W 74/U 82/B 75/R 98/G 96

p-values for chi-squared test on "All decks" and "Top tier" are 0.51 and 0.19 respectively. For the uninititated, it just means that there is nothing "extreme" about the result - assuming every color was perfectly equally represented and every deck of each color/combination of colors was equally likely to make Day 2, it is reasonable to get such a spread and the variations in B and R is plausibly due to chance.

If you're going to count Affinity as UR (since the only colored spells it plays main are Thoughtcast, Master of Etherium, Galvanic Blast; ignoring Vault Skirge):

*AFFINITY COUNTS AS UR*
All decks
W 81/U 105/B 71/R 119/G 89

Top tier
W 51/U 82/B 52/R 98/G 73

At this point the chi-squared test's warning flag pops up and we have to conclude that there is something "extreme" about the above distribution.

Draw whatever conclusions you want. If I had to be tongue-in-cheek I'd say "Modern's color balance depends on what colors you view Affinity as." Do you see it as a UR deck? Ok, then Modern has terrible color balance, time to stop playing it.

Sundial of the Infinite is great in the sideboard of my mill deck. You can use it to keep eldrazi titans in the graveyard.