Merchant Scroll is really nice because in addition to extra copies of Archive Trap, it can also get Echoing Truth to deal with problematic permanents like leyline of sanctity.
The problem is that it costs 3 mana, so you need to cast at least three creature spells before it generates mana overall. You might also waste the mana if you don't have the right casting cost creatures. Also just look at an opening hand: land, land, llanowar elves, tangleroot. That only leaves 3 slots in your opener for creatures. So it's likely tangleroot will actually do almost nothing for you. Except it's worse than that, because you're giving up a turn of tempo to play this, so even if you gain more mana in the long run, you're behind on tempo.
Why is Oboro, Palace in the Clouds not run? Especially with map it seems like a very worthwhile conclusion to find. It lets hands like Oboro(or map)/colorless source/island still able to cast whir. Is the nonbasic hate more relevant?
Also, sussurus mentioned a Discord channel on his stream. Does anybody know what/where that is?
I'm not sure if this is relevant, but you can't chain Ancient Stirrings into itself or similar effects like you can normal cantrips like Preordain. This may be part of the reason why Wizards wants to reduce the number and/or quality of regular cantrips.
I've always loved the idea of TurboFog. I have a list concept, and a few comments/questions related to it/the deck in general. I haven't really time to test, just been brainstorming first. Anyway, here's the concept:
I tried to skimp on win-conditions so that multiples don't clog up your hand. I also tried to make the win-cons difficult to interact with to provide inevitability. I focused on mono-white to allow me more freedom with the manabase, and I think there's a lot of neat things you can do with it.
1) Why don't people just go mono-white? It seems like there are enough options for the deck in this color. White has great sideboard cards, and the best fog effects. It's possible it even has the best win-cons too (Approach of the Second Sun). Mono-white also gives you a lot of freedom with your manabase, which is really nice.
2) In terms of keeping velocity of the deck, why not use more lands which can replace themselves? Even cycle lands at 2 mana are fine since with 4 mana you can cycle + play a fog effect. Of course, not being mono-colored makes this more difficult. I like Horizon Canopy quite a lot.
3) Is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn not a good win-condition? This gives you a viable card in face of removal/counterspells, or can be discarded to reshuffle and using decking as a backup win-condition. I feel like a single copy really lets you skimp on win-conditions, which is nice. Storage lands can power him several turns earlier, although that may be too cute.
I love looking at the new Karn lists on paper but in reality we already crush midrange and have strong game against control. I'm skeptical it's the direction I want to go
This is my thought too. Does Karn really help the deck with any problems the deck faces?
I think the problem with Telepathy is that it doesn't actually do anything on its own. And in a deck like this, every card really counts (especially in the face of hate). You'd be much better off just playing Peek or Sorcerous Spyglass to see their hands.
But on this note, I've been toying around with a decklist based around 4 Runed Halo, 4 Gideon's Intervention, 4 Copy Enchantment (maybe Clever Impersonator)as a way to lock people out of doing anything relevant in the game. People really don't focus much on enchantment hate, so it's semi-reliable. As with unlife you can lock people out with Greater Auramancy. I didn't try this version much, but it's a pretty satisfying line to victory. Instead of just answering one card in play, you answer every copy of that card they might ever have. The deck really needs a third actual disabler enchantment though, as 8 really isn't quite enough to make the strategy work super consistently.
The main issue with any of these enchantment decks is just speed and consistency. There are a lot of powerful things to do, but all the great stuff costs 3+ mana, which makes for such clunky Modern games.
Beseech The Queen can be cast for BBB, and 3 mana can make a huge difference in some games. You can always cast it for at least 2BB. But tutors are pretty slow in general.
Thanks for the suggestion. There is also Rancid Rats which could be some cute synergy with Swarmyard. I'd have to cut down to 2 colors though, and I'm not sure I can commit to black yet.
I finally have the pieces in paper to play this deck though, so I'm eager to test it out. It's been reasonably good vs. fair decks, which is great.
I think Ravenous Trap is actually a very good answer to an Emrakul, The Aeons Torn as it exiles their library as well as Emrakul, compared to Surgical Extraction which gets rid of all the Emrakuls but does nothing about the shuffle effect. I think both have their place and am happy running a combination.
It is true that exiling the whole graveyard is useful to stop the shuffle trigger; however, we still need to deal with all Emrakuls until we can win. That's why I don't feel like Ravenous trap is a great answer. What does it matter if we exile the graveyard in response to the shuffle, yet have more Emrakuls in the graveyard to deal with?
Why are you worried about Damping Sphere? (Only echoing truth hits that card anyway.) While it can slow us down, it really doesn't do all that much against us. Especially since if a deck is tapping out for this instead of other threats, then we're in a good position. With 5 lands we can even activate field of ruins and cast 3 archive traps still! It does suck that Rest in Peace shuts of Fraying Sanity, although that's only one of our many mill cards. We can certainly play around it. Especially since control decks are slow. There is an opportunity cost to any non-mill or necessary answer cards. (Opponent might not draw/have rest in peace!) I'm still thinking about Leave no trace though.
Porphyry Nodes looks really interesting and isn't something I had considered. I like how it could be really effective in giving a creature based deck a hard decision about whether to commit to the board and the time this could buy us. Not great with Hedron Crab so I'm not 100% convinced it's the absolute best choice yet either, but I am happy to give them a go to see how they turn out.
Porphyry nodes is useful because it gets you a lot of tempo. Even if they have only one creature in play, you can prevent them from playing a second on their next turn unless they want to keep losing creatures. And since we have a quick way to end the game, I think the tempo can be worthwhile. I'll have to keep trying it to see if I like it.
For your sideboard, what do you think about swapping out Mindbreak Trap for a 3rd Surgical Extraction? Seems like when we want it we really want to find it so perhaps 2 is a little on the low side?
I really debate the surgical extractions. Let's say we ignore issues caused by Emrakul (which I think is very reasonable), how important is it then? They certainly help vs. graveyard decks, but to some degree these decks already help us in speeding up our clock. Surgical vs. tron can also be very helpful, although there is a large degree of randomness in actually hitting the proper tron lands before they get tron online. So ultimately I'm just not sure how much graveyard hate to have. Mindbreak Trap is pretty narrow, and honestly I'm not sure if it's even that powerful against Storm if they know we have it.
Glad you're giving Serum Visions a go, I'm always really happy to have 4 in the deck. I do strongly suggest keeping in the 4 Visions of Beyond as this is one of our most powerful cards! I find the balance of my 21 lands and those 8 cantrips means that I am very rarely mana flooded and have plenty to do in the late game.
Visions of Beyond can be powerful, but honestly I find it to be one of my worst cards. I'm always using my mana, so even 1 mana can be a sacrifice. I find it hard to trigger with so much focus on Archive Trap too. I'm generally prepping for one big archive trap turn, by using the forced shuffle of field of ruin. But if I can only draw a bunch of cards late in the game, then Visions isn't really helping me that much. There's probably a low opportunity cost to running this card though with a large upside, which is good. I think 3 is pretty reasonable, which is what I've been running, as they can be much worse in multiples.
Serum visions is very useful, and I think it helps this deck out a lot. Definitely going to be finding room for 4. Seeing 3 extra cards helps consistency of the deck immensely.
I would also highly recommend running 8 fetches to maximise the effectiveness of Hedron Crab. I have gone even further (like many before us) and added Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, tutorable when needed via Tolaria West, to try and squeeze every last ounce of efficiency out of my favourite little critter.
I don't think it's necessary to run a ton of fetches to maximize the crabs, since ipnu exists. I find that I don't need crabs to be that efficient to close out the game, since archive trap does so much in one go. For pure mill, let's compare long-term value of a fetchland to Ipnu Rivulet. If you have no crabs, ipnu gives you more value. If you have 1 crab, ipnu is still a little better than a fetchland. When you have multiple crabs, then the fetchland is better by a little bit.
Of course, more fetches give you more color consistency, which may be the real argument for running more fetches. But then there's the question, why 8? Why not 9? Or 7? Currently I run 5 fetches, which I think is a good balance, but I will keep an eye on it. Finding a good manabase is hard, because I want all the utility lands, but also color consistency! Here's what I currently have:
//23 lands
One card I think would be very strong in our UW version of the deck is Settle the Wreckage. As an instant speed mass Path To Exile with another opportunity to trigger Archive Trap is just seems amazing. It is a little on the high CMC side for my particular mana curve but I really want it to work. UB versions often run Damnation but for UW Settle The Wreckage seems so much better. Thoughts?
You can't rely on Settle the Wreckage to trigger archive trap. Given that this is game 2/3, (good) opponents will not search their library. And on turn 4 extra mana doesn't help them. We also don't need to worry about playing instants instead of settle. So I would just play wrath effects instead, if we really care about that effect.
Usually I play tron land first. It is better to lead with an island if you think your opponent might be playing Spreading Seas. Basic island, without a turn 1 play, could also signal UR or UW control (with Glacial Fortress or Sulfur Falls being your colored source.)
I don't think Ravenous Trap is a very reliable answer to Emrakaul, The Aeons Torn, because most decks have multiple copies. And if you have to "double mill" them in addition to casting graveyard hate, you can be pretty far behind. Sometimes I get good surgicals, but it can be tough. For example, against UW if they have multiple Colonnades, surgical isn't great. Against UW, I'd probably save surgical when they try to snapcaster a counterspell, since if they get to the point where they're attacking with colonnade, we're in trouble!
Against burn I probably wouldn't board in Leave No Trace. If you have to spend two mana to deal with their threat that still hits you for 2, then you're probably not winning. Against them we also can't afford to dilute our main game plan. Especially since we already have to board in 4 leyline. I think you just have to hope to get a little lucky that you outspeed them and/or they don't have an answer to Leyline.
I'm not sure Leave no Trace is necessary with 2 Echoing Truth in the 75. Leyline is a card, but it's not all too common. Here's my current sideboard:
I don't know if nodes are any good, but I just love this card. Currently I'm running 5 creature removal (4 path + 1 Engineered Explosives). I removed the 2 other creature removal and 1 visions from beyond for 3 serum visions. I think they're worthwhile to just give a little more consistency. I might drop the 24th land now for the 4th serum visions too. Although I do love my land drops, as getting to 4 mana on turn 4 creates our best chances for milling them out on turn 4.
I haven't played against Hatebears, but I think it's a bad matchup. Leonin Arbiter matches up well against our tutors, as well as Field of Ruin. They can elect to not pay, so we can't force them to search! Thalia, Guardian of Thraben also shuts off big Archive trap turns, and slows us down a ton (especially on the play). Note that Engineered Explosives is good against Thalia, because you can pay X = 1, but since Thalia requires you to pay 2 mana, you still get to trigger Sunburst for 2.
In terms of the metagame clock, we're basically a burn deck that's harder to disrupt. Although in practice we almost feel like a combo deck where we just need to resolve ~4 spells to win the game. But I'm not really sure.
Also, sussurus mentioned a Discord channel on his stream. Does anybody know what/where that is?
// 8 Artifact
4 Temple Bell
4 Howling Mine
// 1 Creature
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
// 4 Enchantment
4 Leyline of Sanctity
// 25 Instant
4 Ethereal Haze
4 Holy Day
4 Angelsong
4 Batwing Brume
4 Dawn Charm
4 Pollen Lullaby
1 Settle the Wreckage
8 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Saltcrusted Steppe
1 Calciform Pools
4 Horizon Canopy
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
4 Irrigated Farmland
1 Approach of the Second Sun
1 Wrath of God
I tried to skimp on win-conditions so that multiples don't clog up your hand. I also tried to make the win-cons difficult to interact with to provide inevitability. I focused on mono-white to allow me more freedom with the manabase, and I think there's a lot of neat things you can do with it.
1) Why don't people just go mono-white? It seems like there are enough options for the deck in this color. White has great sideboard cards, and the best fog effects. It's possible it even has the best win-cons too (Approach of the Second Sun). Mono-white also gives you a lot of freedom with your manabase, which is really nice.
2) In terms of keeping velocity of the deck, why not use more lands which can replace themselves? Even cycle lands at 2 mana are fine since with 4 mana you can cycle + play a fog effect. Of course, not being mono-colored makes this more difficult. I like Horizon Canopy quite a lot.
3) Is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn not a good win-condition? This gives you a viable card in face of removal/counterspells, or can be discarded to reshuffle and using decking as a backup win-condition. I feel like a single copy really lets you skimp on win-conditions, which is nice. Storage lands can power him several turns earlier, although that may be too cute.
This is my thought too. Does Karn really help the deck with any problems the deck faces?
But on this note, I've been toying around with a decklist based around 4 Runed Halo, 4 Gideon's Intervention, 4 Copy Enchantment (maybe Clever Impersonator)as a way to lock people out of doing anything relevant in the game. People really don't focus much on enchantment hate, so it's semi-reliable. As with unlife you can lock people out with Greater Auramancy. I didn't try this version much, but it's a pretty satisfying line to victory. Instead of just answering one card in play, you answer every copy of that card they might ever have. The deck really needs a third actual disabler enchantment though, as 8 really isn't quite enough to make the strategy work super consistently.
The main issue with any of these enchantment decks is just speed and consistency. There are a lot of powerful things to do, but all the great stuff costs 3+ mana, which makes for such clunky Modern games.
I finally have the pieces in paper to play this deck though, so I'm eager to test it out. It's been reasonably good vs. fair decks, which is great.
It is true that exiling the whole graveyard is useful to stop the shuffle trigger; however, we still need to deal with all Emrakuls until we can win. That's why I don't feel like Ravenous trap is a great answer. What does it matter if we exile the graveyard in response to the shuffle, yet have more Emrakuls in the graveyard to deal with?
Why are you worried about Damping Sphere? (Only echoing truth hits that card anyway.) While it can slow us down, it really doesn't do all that much against us. Especially since if a deck is tapping out for this instead of other threats, then we're in a good position. With 5 lands we can even activate field of ruins and cast 3 archive traps still! It does suck that Rest in Peace shuts of Fraying Sanity, although that's only one of our many mill cards. We can certainly play around it. Especially since control decks are slow. There is an opportunity cost to any non-mill or necessary answer cards. (Opponent might not draw/have rest in peace!) I'm still thinking about Leave no trace though.
Porphyry nodes is useful because it gets you a lot of tempo. Even if they have only one creature in play, you can prevent them from playing a second on their next turn unless they want to keep losing creatures. And since we have a quick way to end the game, I think the tempo can be worthwhile. I'll have to keep trying it to see if I like it.
I really debate the surgical extractions. Let's say we ignore issues caused by Emrakul (which I think is very reasonable), how important is it then? They certainly help vs. graveyard decks, but to some degree these decks already help us in speeding up our clock. Surgical vs. tron can also be very helpful, although there is a large degree of randomness in actually hitting the proper tron lands before they get tron online. So ultimately I'm just not sure how much graveyard hate to have. Mindbreak Trap is pretty narrow, and honestly I'm not sure if it's even that powerful against Storm if they know we have it.
Visions of Beyond can be powerful, but honestly I find it to be one of my worst cards. I'm always using my mana, so even 1 mana can be a sacrifice. I find it hard to trigger with so much focus on Archive Trap too. I'm generally prepping for one big archive trap turn, by using the forced shuffle of field of ruin. But if I can only draw a bunch of cards late in the game, then Visions isn't really helping me that much. There's probably a low opportunity cost to running this card though with a large upside, which is good. I think 3 is pretty reasonable, which is what I've been running, as they can be much worse in multiples.
Serum visions is very useful, and I think it helps this deck out a lot. Definitely going to be finding room for 4. Seeing 3 extra cards helps consistency of the deck immensely.
I don't think it's necessary to run a ton of fetches to maximize the crabs, since ipnu exists. I find that I don't need crabs to be that efficient to close out the game, since archive trap does so much in one go. For pure mill, let's compare long-term value of a fetchland to Ipnu Rivulet. If you have no crabs, ipnu gives you more value. If you have 1 crab, ipnu is still a little better than a fetchland. When you have multiple crabs, then the fetchland is better by a little bit.
Of course, more fetches give you more color consistency, which may be the real argument for running more fetches. But then there's the question, why 8? Why not 9? Or 7? Currently I run 5 fetches, which I think is a good balance, but I will keep an eye on it. Finding a good manabase is hard, because I want all the utility lands, but also color consistency! Here's what I currently have:
//23 lands
You can't rely on Settle the Wreckage to trigger archive trap. Given that this is game 2/3, (good) opponents will not search their library. And on turn 4 extra mana doesn't help them. We also don't need to worry about playing instants instead of settle. So I would just play wrath effects instead, if we really care about that effect.
Against burn I probably wouldn't board in Leave No Trace. If you have to spend two mana to deal with their threat that still hits you for 2, then you're probably not winning. Against them we also can't afford to dilute our main game plan. Especially since we already have to board in 4 leyline. I think you just have to hope to get a little lucky that you outspeed them and/or they don't have an answer to Leyline.
I'm not sure Leave no Trace is necessary with 2 Echoing Truth in the 75. Leyline is a card, but it's not all too common. Here's my current sideboard:
I don't know if nodes are any good, but I just love this card. Currently I'm running 5 creature removal (4 path + 1 Engineered Explosives). I removed the 2 other creature removal and 1 visions from beyond for 3 serum visions. I think they're worthwhile to just give a little more consistency. I might drop the 24th land now for the 4th serum visions too. Although I do love my land drops, as getting to 4 mana on turn 4 creates our best chances for milling them out on turn 4.
I haven't played against Hatebears, but I think it's a bad matchup. Leonin Arbiter matches up well against our tutors, as well as Field of Ruin. They can elect to not pay, so we can't force them to search! Thalia, Guardian of Thraben also shuts off big Archive trap turns, and slows us down a ton (especially on the play). Note that Engineered Explosives is good against Thalia, because you can pay X = 1, but since Thalia requires you to pay 2 mana, you still get to trigger Sunburst for 2.
In terms of the metagame clock, we're basically a burn deck that's harder to disrupt. Although in practice we almost feel like a combo deck where we just need to resolve ~4 spells to win the game. But I'm not really sure.