MTG Salvation

Quote from chaos021 »

I guess I don't get the consistency of openers that you do then. I know card-for-card that I should be stronger, but it never seems to work out that way. Usually my mana dork catches a Lightning Bolt or my Voice gets a Spell Snare. I'll be interested to see how many mana dorks you play.

As far as the flaming comment, it was a legitimate question. I usually consider a matchup good if my testing shows a floor of 60%+. You say you it's 45/55 and call it "decent." I find that interesting because that's still essentially a coin flip to me. I mean I'm asking you. You don't have to say anything towards anyone else

I guess my guide is: 45% - 55% winrate is "decent". 37.5% to 44% is "unfavorable", worse than 33% is horrific, with 10% being unwinable. 56%-62.5% is favorable, 75% is amazing, and 90% is unlosable. I know of virtually no match-ups where Little Kid wins more than 70% of the time (burn) or loses more than 30% of the time (Tron). I suppose Tron with 4 maindecked Ugins would potentially be a 25% winrate or lower, while burn without Attarka's Command, say Mardu burn (without Crackling Doom) would be 75% winrate or higher.

I do lose some games where they go turn 1 bolt mana dork, turn 2 counter spell, turn 3 take the turn off, turn 4 Nahiri your 3 drop. But overall find I do OK. I also think I play more 2 drops than most people do, so if my guy eats a bolt I'm OK with that.

Here is the latest version of my deck. I'm pretty happy with it, but I'll discuss some potential changes bellow:



A word on the main deck. I play 21 lands, and I haven't had significant issues across my hundreds of recorded and tested games. I'm pretty good at taking a mulligan or two when needed. I like it better at 21 lands than when I was playing 22. Gavony has screwed me over so many times by producing colorless mana that if I ever play more than 1, I'm cutting a spell for it, not a land. And I'm not in the market for more main-decked gindcore spells.

A 2nd word on the main deck; only 5 mana dorks. I love starting with one, of course. But I lost too many games because I'd draw 3 mana dorks in the 11-14 cards I'd see over the course of the game. Their great turn 1, fine turn 2-3, and don't do as much afterwards. If I had card draw in the main deck, I could see about playing 6. But rather than do that, I made the deck more lean. More aggressive.

And a 3rd, final word on my main deck choices that are unique: Fleecemane Lion. Wonderful card. Nothing else lets you go turn 1 mana dork, turn 2 tap land into 2 drop, turn 3 Liege and swing past a 4/5 Tarmogoyf. Against combo decks, it's a significantly faster clock than Voice is; if they each attack 3 times, Lion bolted them for free. The Lion is a 2 drop that trades with Nacatal, which is key when they kill your mana dork or you don't have one or you want to fetch a tapland. It's ability to become a 4/4 indestructible hexproof creature is phenomenal against BGx, Blue Control, and the mirror match. I'm aware it has many weaknesses; specifically the amount of removal it dies to. This is why I play 2 copies; some matches it's good, other's less so. Voice is better in general, so it gets the nod of 3 copies. Lion will be an unpopular choice, but I'm OK with that. Testing has told me it's fine as cards number 59 and 60 in the deck.

I'd never play Qasali Pridemage in the maindeck. A bear against Jund didn't do it for me, and having exalted doesn't let it be as fast as Lion against combo decks where you're attacking with 2 or 3 creatures.

If I expected a metagame with very little Jund and Junk, and less Zoo, I would cut the 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege and play 4 copies of Restoration Angel instead. Angel is absurd against Nahiri, good against Dredge, good against burn, and fine against Affinity and infect.

I've been thinking about cutting 1 Unmaking from the sideboard, and putting in 1 Celestial Purge. I used to run up to 3 copies of Purge, and it's secretly one of the strongest sideboard cards against modern; it makes your Grixis Delve match-up easy, is great against Nahiri, is very helpful against Jund, great against Delve, and is serviceable against burn.

The moment I get a smell of Delver, I'm putting the 4th Decay back in the main instead of the single Unmaking. No matter the version of Delver, 4 path, 4 decay, efficient life-gain creatures, and Smiter makes it favorable.

As for Tron, go face. Attack as aggressively as possible. Unmaking can snipe a Karn, Decay and Unmaking can destroy some artifacts at key times. If they bother with Wurmcoil or Worldbreaker, you're much further ahead than if their attack with planeswalkers. Ugin is unbeatable. I hardly have sideboard for this match-up because nothing short of 4 Aven Mindcensor, 2 Gaddock Teeg, and 3 Fulminator Mage will help; even then, it's usually not enough.

I also don't really have much for Ad Nauseam. Stony Silence helps, you can bring in Unamaking in place of Path to try and pop an Unlife. It's a bad match-up, and 3 copies of Thoughtseize won't fix it.

I fear Boggles and Infect. Spellskite helps, but I've only got the single copy in the side. Zealous Persecution is strong against Infect and Affinity, as well as Elves, and I do have Unmaking to have more interaction with Boggles. But these decks are built to fight on a axis we're not, so their inherently challenging.

Affinity is bad game one, fine game 2 and 3. Souls is great, and so is some lifegain. Our removal is good, but heavily taxed. Zealous Persecution is really great there, and Stony Silence is downright mandatory. I'd also always bring in Resto; turn 3-4 Rhino, turn 4-5 Resto can get you out of lethal range and put some pressure on them.

Burn's fantastic. We've got a fast clock, great blockers, cheap removal, and plenty of life gain. I usually never kill Edillion; just put Finks, Voice, or Smiter and wait to draw Siege Rhino or additional Finks. Post board we've got lots of additional life gain in Thragtusk and Resto.

Cage is OP. Great against Coco decks of both varieties, great against Dredge. Keep in mind it stops your Finks and your Souls. I also play the best graveyard hate in the game, Rest in Peace. Good against us because it hits Voice, Scooze, Finks, and Souls. But you bring it in when it hurts them more than it hurts you. These days I'm thinking about playing either a 3rd RIP or 1 copy of Faerie Macabre. I don't think I need the 5th piece of graveyard hate yet, but the day might come. I'd like the 3rd RIP over the 3rd Cage.

You will not beat grindy GBx decks or decks like Zoo frequently enough if you don't have good sideboard for them. It's as simple as that; you'll be 65% game one, and 40% game two when Jund sideboards 10 cards and you've got nothing. Thragtusk is amazing: great against GBx, Zoo, Burn, and grindy blue deck. Restoraiton Angel is fantastic, and having 10 great targets after bringing in Thragtusk makes sure it's always producing additional value and keeping you ahead on board. Against grindy decks that don't have enough life total pressure, like Jund, Anguished Unmaking helps take pressure off of Path to answer all of their absurd 4+ drops, like Olivia, Huntmaster, Tasigur, Dark Dwellers, ect.

Not sure what to think on Merfolk. Mana dorks are great against their plan to attack your lands, and you've got great removal. Decay can free up lands or kill guys, Path is good. We've also got plenty of life gain and a swift clock to make the race winable. But they can curve out like a mother, and be surprisingly aggressive in how quickly they turn the corner. It's probably pretty close.

Living End dunks on me. Game 1 often is Scooze it or lose it, unless I can drop 3 Rhino's or something. Game 2-3 is only slightly better; Cage being useless means I've only got half my normal graveyard hate. Thragtusk helps buy time, Resto helps restore the Finks that survives a living end; but it's still a match-up I don't enjoy.

I think that about wraps it up. Any questions, feel free to ask. I love this deck, I've got thousands of games of it under my belt, and I've got it heavily foiled out. It's probably my favorite deck in the history of the game.

Cheers!

@AeveKai: Maybe you could make a "current state of Green" thread? Talk about how powerful/prevalent the color is and how it's affecting the game? Talk about the color pie, how green is getting such a wide space, how that hurts all the colors and the game?

Quote from prismatic elf »

I agree no bannings are coming not at this point in the block. Wizards is better off letting it play out since were about 2 months away from rotation. If kaladesh isn't a great block look for standard players to quit the format in droves. The store I used to play at became a victim of Zendikar 2.0 block. We went from 20-25 players a night to 5-6 showing up for standard. We Need some power creep especially in Blue and Red Instant Spells. Wizard is horrible at balancing the colors there is always 1 or 2 colors that are better than the rest.

This is what happened to my store also. We had 10-20 people from RTR/Theroes through Origins, plenty of meta, plenty of unique decks. It was always a fun format. But Return to Zendikar dropped it to 10 at the absolute most, and now it's totally dead.

I'm hoping we'll see strong red cards, non-graveyard based black cards, blue card draw cards and probably some blue threats (like Mono U devotion), and some playable counterspells, like Dissolve.

If you just want to crush the mirror, I'd play 3-4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa in the sideboard. It's effectively unraceable and unkillable for this deck. Just save decay's for Ooze when able, and most decks play nothing that can interact with it in any way; creatures, removal; we've got nothing.

Has the upside of being good against Jund, very good against Junk, pretty good against Nahiri decks, playable against Zoo, ect. But against our deck, it steals games by itself.

I didn't read her backstory, but I just want to say that visually, she's looks really badass. Very stylish, very tough looking. The eyes of a predator, and I very much like her jewelry. Very, very good design/art.

I've been lurking here, and as someone who plays aggressive creature heavy decks, I'd like to say that Ashiok is terrible if you're on the backfoot against anything trying to kill your at all quickly, and pretty strong if you're at parity with them or ahead. If you're playing the card to grind against slower midrange and control decks, I like it. But if you're hoping it'll stop all in aggro or aggressive midrange decks, I'd look elsewhere.

Comment Hidden

This is why I think Commander is by far the worst format in magic. People come to the table with different exceptions and desires waaaaaay more than people do for any format.

Playing at the kitchen table with friends who play casually? Everyone wants to have fun, so play decks that create fun and interesting interactions with the others. Don't play your consistent turn 3 kill combo deck.

Playing at an IQ, PPTQ, or sanctioned FNM? There are prizes, expect people to do everything they can within the format to win and play competitive decks.

Playing a pick-up EDH? Dice roll. Someone's idea of fun is Gaddock Teeg stacks, someone else views all magic as competitive and plays Scion of the Ur-Dragon combo, and someone else loves the lore behind Konda so much he build a dedicated deck that tells a story to him. Unlike other formats, there are no standards at all for what an appropriately strong deck is.

If you play a pick-up game of standard or modern, there is a hard cap as to what decks are able to do. You don't have to ask "so, how competitive are we?" to know if you should play Merfolk or Jund; both decks are reasonably competitive within the scope of modern. For EDH, when you sit down, good luck knowing what's appropriate to play. It might be people casting there favorite 6/7/8 drops, or it might be singleton legacy/vintage.

Yes, you can mitigate some of the weakness of EDH by talking to people. But if someone only owns Ezuri and Scion decks, you basically have to tell them "you can't join this game" if people are playing for fun with casual decks. Or they could borrow someone's casual deck, which is often significantly less fun than playing a deck one built for themselves.

Unlike any other sanctioned format, EDH has an extremely wide level of variance in expectations of power level. If you want to play with a wide range of people, you practically have to own a large amount of decks across the scale of power level. Compare to Modern or Legacy, where having 1 deck is enough to play with anyone and fall within a reasonable expectation of the formats power level. Also compare to Kitchen table with casual players, where you can play whatever you want as long as it creates an interesting and fun game for everyone involved.

I have other issues with the format, but this is my biggest problem with Commander: far too much variety of expectations for power level of the format compared to any other format that Wizards supports.

Quote from scasseden »

I'm not really following your statement I think. I'm not choosing between Jace and Goblin Dark-Dwellers or Jace and removal. I'm talking about playing the same Mardu core, but with the splash color being blue for Jace/etc. instead of green for Den Protector/etc. The deck still plays removal and still plays Dwellers, as I talked about earlier with combining Jace with Dwellers.

The decks might generate card advantage in different ways, in some respects, but I think that's just a consequence of the tools available to each deck instead of any significant divergence in game plan.

What I'm talking about for Mardu Blue is a list similar to this:

Mardu Blue MidrangeMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards

Creatures (14) 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy 4 Soulfire Grand Master 3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers Planeswalkers (2) 2 Chandra, Flamecaller Instants & Sorceries (17) 4 Crackling Doom 3 Kolaghan's Command 2 Murderous Cut 2 Roast 2 Read the Bones 2 Duress 2 Dig Through Time Lands (27) 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Polluted Delta 3 Flooded Strand 2 Prairie Stream 2 Smoldering Marsh 1 Sunken Hollow 2 Mountain 1 Island 1 Plains 1 Swamp 2 Needle Spires 1 Shambling Vent 1 Wandering Fumarole 2 Nomad Outpost

Sideboard (15) 2 Disdainful Stroke 1 Duress 3 Hallowed Moonlight 1 Infinite Obliteration 1 Negate 3 Radiant Flames 2 Roast 2 Transgress the Mind

What advantages do Mardu Green decks have over a list like this? What specifically about green makes it worth playing in this type of deck?
That's what I'm trying to figure out.

The deck is fine, but I think Mardu Green is significantly stronger, and significantly more consistent.

It's not trying to produce Blue on turn 2 and Black Red White on turn 3; it only needs it's splash color on turn 3 for Abzan Charm (sometimes) or turn 4 for Siege Rhino (often). It also never needs 2 of it's splash color, as you do for Dig Through Time.

Your also heavily taxing your graveyard. You want to keep; 1) Action spells for Dark-Dwellers AND action spells for Jace, 2) Creatures for Kolgahan's Command, and 3) lots of fuel for your 4 Delve Spells. I find supporting 2 Cuts, Dark-Dwellers, and Command is already extremely challenging, especially against decks that don't want to go to turn 20, so I can't imagine trying to provide resources for over twice as many spells.

Without Rhino, aggro decks are much stronger against you. You might have a fine match-up against them, but it is without question worse than Mardu Green's is. Playing turn 4 Kalitas, they kill him, turn 5 Dark-Dwellers Kommand or just Kommand back Kalitas, turn 6 cast him is much worse against the various aggro decks in the format than doing the same with Rhino. Getting Kalitas bounced by Reflector Mage also hurts far more than getting Rhino bounced; neither is good, mind you, but Rhino ends up producing value both times he hits the board, while Kalitas amounts to nothing. The same is true of Krasis tapping them; Kalitas has done nothing, Rhino gained you 3 life and bought you more time to bring your heavy weapons to bear.

In short, against decks that are racing you, Rhino is extremely strong. Specifically when you can recycle him with Kommand, which is one of the strongest interactions in the deck.

Those are the major issues I see with a Mardu Blue deck. I do see what you're trying to do, which is make it even more grindy with with Jace + Dig, but I honestly think it makes it less so than it is with Siege Rhino + Abzan Charm. Overtaxing your graveyard makes you more awkward, playing Abzan Charm increases your density of removal while allowing for card advantage (that can be recycled with Dark-Dwellers), and Siege Rhino is just a more threatening card than almost anything else in the deck. Without the ability to recyle Siege Rhino, Kolaghan's Command becomes somewhat worse, especially against aggressive decks.

In the end, I don't feel like Blue is adding much to this deck, specifically nothing worse losing Green over. I don't see which match-ups it improves considerably, as sideboarding 3 counter spells won't do much in my eyes against Rally decks that Hallowed Moonlight won't. And the large Eldrazi have effects that Trigger on cast.

Add in the fact that your aggro match-ups are worse, and I don't see the potentially (in my opinion, rather marginal) gains that Mardu Blue adds over Ramp and Rally being strong enough to make up for that.

I think calling Modern dead at this point is just silly. Give it a month, then decide if it's dead or not.

I wonder how many games people who are calling Eldrazi insane have tested against it with different decks. If they've grinded a few dozen yet to get a feel for what works and what doesn't. Perhaps the deck is absolutely invincible to all forms of attack in all situations, but maybe certain decks can beat it.

My testing has made me hopeful the deck can be beaten, while still feeling it's probably too good. I'd like to withhold final judgement for a later date.

I really cannot understand why the prospect of a G enchantment that turns all nonbasic lands into rainbow lands is worriesome. You can't lock people out of playing magic with it the way you do with blood moon (colourless mana symbols of eldrazi notwithstanding which is one very specific mechanic/tribe - and hey, play some wastes/mind stones and problem solved), but it can be played in non-red decks as a way to slow/stop valakut, temple, tron and hell even cavern of souls and manlands if you care to. It non-bo's with nykthos so cannot build devotion, crap in multiples, takes the pain off your opponent's fetchlands, and may not even be good enough at doing what we hope it would do in the first place since it can just be blown up turn 2 by natures claim / revelry anyways.

Blood moon already exists. This card is less powerful and more narrow in just about every meaningful way, while being easily countered by decks that would need to get rid of it (again, eldrazi tron probably has to adapt somehow but welcome to reality with your all colourless deck).

If blood moon cost 2, there would be a tier 1 prison deck based on it, you can bet on that, and it would necessitate the banning of SSG if t1 blood moon was only a 2 card combo. That's way over the top.

Anyone still confounded by the land hate dilemma:

check below for my simple yet admittedly brilliant solution to all of life's problems!

Yes, you have top tier strategies built around exploiting nonbasic lands. There should be more than one card in modern that can be sideboarded to effectively attack all nonbasic-based decks. Not as pure mana denial, but as a specific measure against the abilities of those nonbasics. We dont have 50 card sideboards to work with, and options are great. Some decks would use blood moon because they can and moon is king. Others might still use fulminator because they can exploit it being a creature, others might go with seas because they can leverage the card type or flickering it or islandwalking. Just like some play revelry, some play dsphere, some play stony, some play creeping corrosion, some play vandalblast, etc.

And metagaming is the biggest joke in magic. Step one: predict the future. Step two: only draw the prominent matchups from your predicted future. That is, nailing step one is a one in a million shot, and when it works you gain a 5 percent advantage due to step two being a one in a zillion shot.

Honestly, I see it as (tron) a potential problem. It's something that is unique in what it does, and with the fact we have a long Dev cycle I would rather have better answers now, than not.

That's all.

And no, playing the game is not a sacred cow either. I have no issue with prison or lock decks, or things like Turns that prevent one from playing.

Quote from h0lydiva »

Why is Jund entitled to dodge hate?
Why is UW Control entitled to dodge hate?
Why is Merfolk entitled to dodge hate?

Not all strategies have to be hateable. I don't know where that idea comes from.

Cavern, Uncounterable, Protection from Blue....there is UW hate. Merfolk, if it make an issue could easily be handled, they are not doing anything special without Vial.

Jund? We already looked at Discard hate, so...yeah.

Has nothing to do with Midrange being a sacred cow. I hate midrange style play, its paint dry boring to me.

Just flip the 'why is midrange entitled to no bad match ups' around to 'why should any deck not have hate'.

Thats the question being asked here. Why should decks which depend on specific lands and the leverage those lands provide, not be subject to hate, on the level of Rest in Peace for Dredge, and Stony for Affinity?

I dont care about Midrange. I dont care about decks that get hosed by Torpor Orb and I dont care about decks that get run out of the brackets by RIP and Stony.

Why are people so up in arms about hate that would just join the ranks of other hard hate cards?

Why is ETron entitled to dodging hate?

EDIT: And before you all point out Seas and Blood Moon, I'm talking 'scoop it up if you dont answer it' kind of hate. Hate like Choke, and Boil.

Also if you think seas claim or spreading seas kill eldrazi, tron, and valakut I have some distressing news for you. They are speed bumps vs tron, worthless vs valakut, and basically worthless vs temple.

Saying "play blood moon" would be like removing cage, surgical, leyline of the void and grafdiggers cage from the format and telling people if they want to beat gy decks "stop *****ing and play white for rip".

Land destruction is mostly hot garbage - which is generally fine, but when top tier strategies exploit that fact maybe wizards could get creative and add some more options that dont suck (and actually work reliably) to allow people to fight those strategies when they choose to

This is really just the same conversation we had months ago Re: Thoughtseize vs Counterspell.

If we didnt have thoughtseize in the format, people would FLIP OUT if anyone suggested it be added, just like they will tell you that Counterspell would break modern.

If we didnt have Rest in Peace or Stony Silence, people would flat out quit (well threaten to) over how they would break the format.

The land hate cards we are theorizing, would be 100% fine in Modern.