This is the deck I built for my wife to play when she wants to play modern with me (she's almost exclusively a drafter). She loves it since it's pretty straightforward to pilot, but does reward skill with some of the decision trees. It's a powerful fair deck that can get wins against almost any deck. My wife has a pretty even record with the deck almost always going 2-2 or 3-1 at FNMs even though she plays the deck just 4-5 times a year.
The list I have for her is very similar to this:
-4 Groundbreaker
+4 Leatherback Baloth
-2 Kalonian Tusker
+2 Forest
-1 Rancor
+1 Vines of Vastwood
-1 Treetop Village
+1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
The reasoning for all of the above:
In our meta, leatherback sticking around is often better than the fleeting existence that is groundbreaker.
Rancor is something you definitely want to see, but often only want 1 of them any given game, which I've always associated with being a 3x card. Vines is great protection/pump, so you're never really upset to have 2 of those in your opening hand.
Having a couple fewer Tuskers (probably the worst card in the deck currently) in order to have 21 total lands is nice. This build of the deck runs 7x 3-drops so you do want to be able to hit that 3rd land drop consistently on turn 3 or 4 ... and with just 19 lands where 3 come in tapped, that won't be happening enough.
Doing a 2/1 split with treetop and oran-rief is what I'd recommend since it just makes your draws better, which (in my opinion) is better than the marginal utility of a 3rd treetop. Later in the game if you have an oran-rief, it can turn tusker into a 4/4 for 3 (not shabby), a leatherback into a 5/6 for 4, and even your dinky 1-drops aren't as bad of top decks when you get a 3/2 militant for 2. If your geist died and you cast another creature too, they'll both get additional counters, bringing the geist up to 4/3, which is cool. The rief can help get additional counters on your dudes so that a top decked avatar can be absurd. I've seen my wife resolve a 3 mana (due to oran adding an additional counter) 9/8 trampler on a stalled board against me when I was playing merfolk just because she had 2 E1s, an ooze, tusker, and dungrove all with counters that weren't quite big enough to get past a bunch of my 4/4 or 5/4 merfolk that were lacking spreading seas.
-
- bptrumpet
- Registered User
-
Member for 9 years, 7 months, and 21 days
Last active Wed, Dec, 1 2021 13:31:27
- 1 Follower
- 117 Total Posts
- 21 Thanks
I can safely say that week 1 of this unstable league was the worst MTG experience I've had in a long time.
So first off, I'm the only guy in the group of 8 players who doesn't wear glasses and got absolutely wrecked by Blurry Beeble, which 6 of my 7 opponents played just to have 1 drops ... 2 of them actually misread and thought it was unblockable by people who wore glasses, which makes sense since their vision is bad, but whatever, don't get me started on flavor.
We played 2 different games of 4 player FFA to start out the league. I was killed turn 5 in both games. During game 1, my turn 4 Earl of Squirrel was countered (2x Selfie Preservations resolved earlier). I followed up with a Shellephant, but that was countered too and I died the next turn of attacks from everybody stomping me since I still had an empty board. Game 2 was pretty terrible as well. I cast a turn 2 Selfie Preservation, then a turn 3 Shaggy Camel, which stopped the non-beeble ground beats. Turn 4, I put a Humming- on the camel and swung once at the guy with the highest life total. During her next turn, my wife stole my Humming-Camel. Turn 5 I played a Dr. Julius Jumblemorph on an empty board, which died immediately from a burn spell, then I died before my next turn from a 5/5 flying vampire, and more beeble beats.
Game 1 went on for 15 turns with the other 3 people, then about 3 more after the 2nd person was knocked out. Game 2 went on for 20 turns before the 2nd person was knocked out and ended by my wife decking and losing after 20+ turns.
Maybe I'm just disappointed because I played a total of 10 turns when everybody around me played at least 30 turns of magic that evening. Maybe it's because I lost horribly in two games with only attacking once for 5 damage and never having a board and getting pounded by pumped up unblockable creatures. I may be jaded from my memories of the fun I had playing the original 2 "Un" sets back when I was a kid and coming into this with unrealistic expectations. I didn't feel like there was anything unique about this set either other than the contraption stuff and I guess the hybrid creatures (but to be fair they are basically just enchantments that fuse to a specific type of creature).
I'm not sure if I will even finish the league. Has anybody had a similar experience and then stuck it out for it to get better? If it's going to be more of the same, I'd rather stay home and play video games or read a book. My wife seemed to enjoy it, so that's good at least.
Have you missed having the 1/1 split of kira/kopala since switching to Watertrap? I think that's what you had been running for a while after Ixalan ... if I'm not mistaken.
I'm still running kira/kopala and ended up cutting down to 2 MoW to fit the Watertrap Weavers. I have found that (since my local meta doesn't have any "must answer" creature combo) Harbinger, Reejerey, and Watertrap end up being enough creature interaction that I don't need dismember anymore, so I switched those 2 slots to spell pierce. I'm not 100% on my 4 Reejerey 2 MoW decision. MoW is great, but often felt bad back when it was a 4x. I've always built with the "don't put 4 in if you don't want to see multiples in your opening hand" adage. I'm thinking 3 might be the right number, but unsure what to cut. I still see lists with 4 MoW (like your most recent finish ... congrats btw) and I just don't think I like the marginal gain of a 4th MoW is worth the mulligans. Maybe I'm wrong though, I haven't done the math, and it's clearly still putting up results. Nikachu's newest mono-U series is running a 3/3 split of Reejerey/MoW.
4 Cavern of Souls
10 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Creatures:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Harbinger of the Tides
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Kopala, Warden of Waves
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Master of Waves
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Watertrap Weaver
4 Aether Vial
2 Spell Pierce
4 Spreading Seas
3 Dispel
2 Echoing Truth
3 Negate
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Smuggler's Copter
2 Tectonic Edge
It is certainly a versatile card and can be extremely potent. It can act as a counterspell to any spell/ability that goes after your vial, mutavault, copter, spreading seas, or any creature. It can be extra reach or combat trick removal. It can be a tempo card. It requires a lot of skill to use correctly.
*Individual results may vary. Please consult your meta before making any major decisions about your flex spot usage. Be sure to consider what other flex spot cards you are using such as: dismember and/or spell pierce. Side effects of simic charm may include: not having non-creature green mana to cast it, the urge to add to the board rather than hold up 2 mana, not being able to deal with "must answer" threats that your opponent casts. The views expressed in this post are solely those of the poster. The Simic Guild has no affiliation with the poster.
Not that it mattered, but unless I'm missing something, at around 6:50 of PART 2, your Lord of Atlantis was a 3/3 and was blocked by his 3/4 Restoration Angel ... he put it in the graveyard. In the end, it didn't matter since he was dead on the next turn. I also find it strange that people exile lands that have been enchanted by Spreading Seas. Also he should have used his Ghost Quarter to destroy the land you were targetting, thus saving his Abrupt Decay for a lord.
Overall, you had pretty clean play and your opponent was rather sloppy. That's a good recipe for a win!
I used to use the old ice age snow-covered islands that I've had since I was a kid, but I put them in my wife's pauper UR delver deck for skred a year or two ago. Since then, I just use my favorite BFZ full art that I pieced together as filler during trades.
This basically. Only wizards knows the true metagame now with all the hiding of the data. Who knows how many times said infect list went through a league with who knows what results before it got a 5-0 and was published. I mean, there are still people who occasionally put up not-bad results with "splinter twin" decks in modern (just with kiki instead of twin), but the deck is just as dead as infect is. Is it still playable? Absolutely! Can it still win a decent amount, especially against the right string of opponents? Of course! Is it still fun? Yes, but with some of it's old pieces banned it's slower and more susceptible to mainboard hate that makes it harder to actualize your gameplan, so maybe that makes it less fun if you don't enjoy that struggle. There have been a few twin decks that get 5-0 every now and then in leagues and also I've seen them get top 3rd in stuff like MOCS still in 2017. There's still a guy at my FNM who plays his old twin deck every now and then when he wants a break from his eldrazi & taxes.
I like to use that twin example because that was the deck I played before switching to infect. They are both still playable and can totally win matches as is proven by occasional results ... but for the same amount of money, you could get a better deck with more growth potential and more reliable results with less ability to be hated on by common mainboard cards that are now in the meta.
Wizards isn't going to print any new infect cards. We might get some goodies with spells and enchantments, but there won't be any new infect creatures likely for a decade or more. I don't think we're going to see anything like BI again in about as long too.
I think if you just love infect and can't give it up, you should just suck it up and trade for / buy FoW and Trops so you can play it in legacy ... where you also get to play probe and daze and brainstorm and ponder and berserk and invigorate, etc... It's beautiful.
How about Blood Moon? But seriously, is there any way to somehow fit some discard or something like Sudden Shock in your sideboard? Thoughtseize or Duress would help with the storm, valakut, and tron matchups. Sudden Shock still hits all the mana dorks that Mogg Fanatic hits, but also gets Goblin Electromancer, Baral, Chief of Compliance, Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Sakura-Tribe Elder, not to mention some of the other creature combo stuff that's being played now ... and even things like merfolk / D&T players who are holding up potential vial activations, plus gets Arcbound Ravager.
This deck is pretty linear. I know the times I 4-0 with it at my LGS, I win 3+ of the coin flips. It's something like 80% match win if I'm on the play and 35% if I'm on the draw. Most decks just stabilize if you can't close it out by turn 4-5 ... unless you can top deck a grenade (at least that's my experience). If you're in black already, try Claim // Fame with Vexing Devil. It's a sweet combo. You can also grab other good stuff like war marshal or piledriver.
So despite being cautiously optimistic over the last couple months that this deck would still be a thing, I'm honestly thinking about switching over to play infect in the mono-B control shell ... since I still love the infect mechanic. WotC seems to really be pushing black a lot and hating out a lot of blue decks if/when they get a large enough % of the metagame.
I was a twin player for quite a few years, then switched to infect after the ban. I'm getting a bit tired of my deck being banned / nerfed out of being competitive. Twin was technically still playable with kiki, but as the test of time determined it was weakened so much that it wasn't viable for anything more than FNM level tournaments. Heck, I still think you could take an old twin list to a FNM today with 4 kiki-jiki and not auto-lose, potentially even win small events with the surprise factor. But as all of us know, it's obviously not a competitive deck anymore. After the twin ban, I saw people brewing for months and keeping active in the forums just like I'm seeing here with infect. There were results here and there with various brews just like infect is putting up now.
I stuck with twin for about as long as I've stuck with infect now (post-ban). Both instances I was hoping that the community would solve it and modify the deck so that it would be putting up top finishes at bigger events, or regularly getting back to 4-0 / 5-0 finishes online, or that some new card would be printed that would make the deck viable again.
WotC definitely doesn't have any plans to reprint anything that will help out infect. MaRo has infect mechanic and stuff that would really push it in the "very unlikely" end of his development agenda ... with even more headache cards being printed as time goes by: Fatal Push, Solemnity.
Maybe I'm just being pessimistic now, but I don't feel it's entirely unjustified. I saw the exact same thing just a year before.
The strongest brew was an all-in Doran build with heavy removal and 4 tower defense for an overrun finish. Here are some of my notes:
The most successful shell was to run loads of t1 ramp / tutor: 4 birds of paradise, 4 treefolk harbinger, 4 noble hierarch. The 8 mana dorks are great for getting a 3-drop down on t2 or eating some early removal. The harbinger can help fix your mana or just be Doran 5-8.
The beaters were 4 Dauntless Dourbark, 4 Leaf-Crowned Elder, and 4 Doran, the Siege Tower. These guys eat non-bolt removal like crazy too, so think about your sequencing.
Bosk was largely unimpressive. He comes down on t2, but on t2 you want to be playing a 3-drop like Doran or lingering souls. He only has 3 toughness, which isn't that great considering something like mono-G stompy is throwing out 3/3s for 2 or better, plus he does to bolt, etc...
The only 2-drop creature I ran was Spellskite. It's pretty obvious why he's awesome in a deck running Doran.
Dungrove looks great on paper, but unless you're ramping via Search for Tomorrow, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Explore (which if you are, you should probably just be playing titan-shift), he's not all that great. He's often just a 3/3 or 4/4 still on t6 or so ... not where this deck wants to be.
For a 5 drop (even on t4) timber protector isn't terribly impressive. I think he does justify including 1-2 copies since he might add more than his 6 toughness, which is fine, but unless you have a Doran out, he's not amazing. At least he doesn't die to push.
To not auto-lose to combo you need 4-8 Duress and/or Thoughtseize in the 75. You need some solid removal too, so Fatal Push, Path to Exile, Dismember, Nameless Inversion, abrupt decay, etc... should probably be between 6-8 copies in the 75 ... and to make things more complicated, you should be running at least 4 grave-hate cards too in the 75.
I kinda mentioned it earlier, but Lingering Souls was a nice addition due to it being blockers to keep life high and also evasive creatures for getting the 5 toughness from tower defense when it was time to overrun with Doran.
Vines of Vastwood is a worthwhile inclusion, but I probably wouldn't bother with much more protection than that.
Assault Formation is pretty bad. You want to be developing your board every turn ... if it drew a card like spreading seas or something then it might be playable, but it's basically a trap.
For the deck to support all this stuff, you need a pretty solid abzan manabase. I'd run at least 8 forest fetches with a couple of each tomb / temple, a playset of Murmuring Bosk, and the rest basics.
I have a copy of every Standard event deck that has been made (yep all 26 of them). I was thinking about throwing them all together into a cube and seeing how that would go. Maybe just picking my favorite 10 or so and throwing them together to make a 360 cube.
Any thoughts?
I could see this being a potential replacement to Wild Defiance for those who run that in the main ... although they do completely different things. The one comes down late game, protects your dudes from damage based removal, and doubles down on your own pump spells. The other comes down mid/early-game and gives you a little more gas when your guys have a kill spell pointed their way. There are also fringe scenarios that involve this doing broken things with multiple spellskite in play.
I guess the next thing is: assuming you find this card worthy of inclusion, what do you take out? I could see an argument for removing serum visions if you're playing that already. It is the same cmc, but instead of instant card draw + filtering it gives delayed card draw with potential for more card draw if your opponent is on targeted removal.
I may proxy a couple of these in my sideboard and see if I ever want to bring them in, but my immediate take on this card is: skeptical with a dash of hopeful.
In Tom's SCG article right when the ban happened, he proposed a manabase:
And his main deck was using fewer Mutagenic Growths and fewer Become Immenses since you wouldn't have as much in the graveyard.
I've been playing with a list very similar to what Scharfestahl posted a couple weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/HjzmjWr.png but I just prefer Slip Through Space over Distortion Strike.
I've recently been testing with 8 fetches and 2 sanctums (going from 3 back to 2 pools) and have been liking it / not running into any mana awkwardness. I'm thinking about trying the full 4 sanctum with 6 fetches and cutting all the mutagenics while running all 12 of the +4/+4 spells and 3-4 Serum Visions.
It seems like this might save a significant amount of life each game, so we'll be able to play a turn or two longer against other aggressive decks. Maybe I'm wrong ... I mean the list Tom Ross advocated for right after the ban isn't even close to what he most recently sleeved up for the SCG Open, so maybe he's already done the testing.
I'm playing nearly the same list as you. I just prefer Slip Through Space over Distortion Strike, other than that, our 60 is the same. My sideboard is a bit different just due to local meta, but that's natural.
I haven't really felt much of a power drop since the ban. Maybe it's that I'm only playing LGS level, but losing probe doesn't seem all that backbreaking. It certainly makes the deck more grindy, but I still win most of my good matchups and lose my bad matchups for the usual 3-1 average finish.