While it is mentioned in the first post, has anyone tested Surgical Extraction?
While not as good in the main deck as Relic of Progenitus, it can almost always get four copies of a card into exile on the first turn if you have a way to make an opponent discard. It hits non-basic lands too, so you can take the land destroyed by a ghost quarter and exile all copies of that land from their library before casting Oblivion Sower. It might be a good mirror match card for the sideboard.
I played one mainboard today at my local modern, it's pretty nice since there's a lot of twin and control/grindy decks in my meta, I just take out random good cards depending on when I get it. For tron matchups (havent got to play it) GQ Surgical hurts them quite a bit...
didn't get to take splinter twin, deceiver or the pestermite, but took lightning bolts when he only had 1 up and two snapcasters in hand.] which was fun
Yeah, no marsh flats, but I didn't even notice. Caves of Koilos might even be better if the eldrazi in Oath are worth running.
No bojuka bog either, as I don't want tap lands screwing up my curve. Plus, bog has literally cost me a mox in the past (couldn't cast a spell in a legacy finals because of the stupid bog), so you won't catch me running it in any deck I play.
My board is set up for tron and the mirror, as I was expecting a lot of eldrazi decks.
Congrats Darth Bunny!
I like the land base, I've been working around not having marsh flats either but went windswept heaths since they were cheaper. It doesn't sound like you had much trouble with fetch targets, but I am curious since you have only 3 targets for bloodstained. Did you ever have a dead one? Thanks!
Maybe I am playing this wrong, but my god it felt awful at FNM. Got my ass kicked by Tooth and Nail and Mill for Christ sakes. Barely beat Elves and he misplayed badly. Should have been 0-3.
This deck, at least when I pilot the BW version, seems like it loses hard to random tier 3 decks. Did not enjoy.
D: sorry for you dude, I have no experience against tooth & nail, but elves would be a bit roughy for bw, what was the mill?
Also if you ever get to play against grixis control bw just crushes it,
Good luck for next time!
Wow, people really need to calm down about Strangler. For reference: yea, im playing Mono Black, and just 2 Stranglers, because i find him to be a 3/2 for B more often than not, which is not where i want to be often enough.
I rather have safe removal like Dismember and Slaughter Pact, since i feel like control, and control can not rely on situational removal, thats just my 2 cents though, and i can agree if someone disagrees here - ill just say it straight from my head: I think strangler is more a sideboard card vs Aggro (even though he surely can apply some pressure).
Please stay constructive and friendly
My meta is mostly control and twin and a handful of aggro, adn I've got to agree I've gone down to 1-2 strangler for spellskites main board, I think I'm going to switch one for slaughter pact when I get one though.
Deaddrift from the BW page also just posted a list of maindeck spellskites in place of strangler.
1. For references, you could check pages like mtgtop8 and such http://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=533&meta=51&f=MO
2. Liliana is not a must play in my opinion. Some decks sport her as a 1/2-off, but its not required.
On another note, could we brainstorm a bit for utility lands for the B<> variant? It seems we have some open slots, since we dont need like 10 swamps here (since we also play 3-4 Urborg). Of course the "mono" B shell will most likely run 4 Ghost Quarter, aside from that Sea-Gate Wreckage looks promising (as a 1-off), but i have been thinking about cards like Thespian's Stage or Vesuva to copy Eldrazi Temples, or maybe Desert to have some more game vs Aggro? Maybe even some lifegain lands like Radiant Fountain or Seraph Sanctuary. If the Fountain would not enter tapped, i'd actually run it as a 3 off right away.... The 1 life from Sanctuary might not be worth anything though, i guess? Desert actually looks somewhat nice vs affinity i guess, also it would force Infect to pump (im playing modern infect for some time now, i know the deck sometimes just wants to get in for 1 and you could deny the slowroll with desert). Thespian Stage looks nice, you can drop it untapped, and whenever you have free mana EOT, you can just copy a temple (or maybe even of a land an opponent controls).
Any thoughts?
Also for displacer/strangler I think it's a meta call, I'd probably play a split because I saw mostly control decks/combo where strangler had no targets for most of the game and I was siding them out constantly.
For tidehollow, I was playing him turn 2-4 and it felt good most of the time, I never got the golden combo of sculler-process, but he drew aggro and coming off a inquisition or two it just wrecked their hand having to use more removal to get their card back.
Oblivion Sower is one of the best cards in this deck. I don't think it's correct to run less than 4. If anything, I'd cut Herder before Sower. Sower gives you uncounterable mana ramp regardless of what's in the opponent's graveyard or exile zone. It's unconditional ramp, essentially, with a fat body left over.
Thats absolutely false. Ive missed a number of times with sower.
^ this, but the time I missed I hit 2 cryptic commands and a few other key cards and it felt so goood...
just went 3-1 with a mostly built BW list at the weekly modern tournament, made a few mistakes against twin and lost.
Played a one of liliana because I didn't have a a few cards yet and she felt good when I played her. I got her against grixis control and she took out a guy and a bolt which feels about the same as a strangler, but you never really feel bad seeing her.
Grixis control was an easy matchup and I won 2 round back to back in 2
Faries went to 3 because I got stuck at 3 land game 1
Twin I kept getting stuck on 3-4 land and getting shambling vents cryptic bounced, just didn't really know what I was doing and surgicald snap and splinter twin when I should have gone for bolt and still maybe the twin?
But all in all it felt really great, there was one affinity but didn't have to play him which was nice.
Yeah, while the idea of an opener with double Eye scares me, 23 lands seems a little tight. What other lands are you running, Vault of the Archangel, Caves of Koilos, Shambing Vent?
With an Urborg in play, duplicate Eye's work as Lotus petal. So it's not all bad.
But that's still bad isn't it.
You also have to compare it with being able to draw the three land combo. Playing more copies guarantee that you can tap for multiple mana. I have been a proponent of running less than 4 copies of eye and urborg, but lately I think i understand this reasoning more and now i think the payoffs are bigger than the cons.
I just wish we find a something to discard extra cards too so that they retain some value if we draw multiples.
Liliana, if you've got her or are willing to shell out.
Eye of ugin will do nothing to decrease the cost since it doesn't have suptype - eldrazi
Eldrazi temple - same thing, its not a suptype - eldrazi - just devoid (which is not eldrazi)
The spoiler is in another language - are we sure it isn't an eldrazi!? Seems like one to me. Do other creature types have devoid?
Eldrazi Temple Reads "cast colorless eldrazi spells or activate abilities of colorless eldrazi" The on cast effect of the Act if treason eldrazi is noteither of those, so unfortunately we cannot further reduce the cost beyond 1CR
None of the other devoid spells have been eldrazi - not saying that they wont print one - but if they do i think it will be heavily costed, like all is dust. I really doubt they will print cheap spells with eldrazi subtype
None of the spells (instants, sorceries, or enchantments) have been, but its a creature, eldrazi drone or processor.
I played one mainboard today at my local modern, it's pretty nice since there's a lot of twin and control/grindy decks in my meta, I just take out random good cards depending on when I get it. For tron matchups (havent got to play it) GQ Surgical hurts them quite a bit...
didn't get to take splinter twin, deceiver or the pestermite, but took lightning bolts when he only had 1 up and two snapcasters in hand.] which was fun
Congrats Darth Bunny!
I like the land base, I've been working around not having marsh flats either but went windswept heaths since they were cheaper. It doesn't sound like you had much trouble with fetch targets, but I am curious since you have only 3 targets for bloodstained. Did you ever have a dead one? Thanks!
D: sorry for you dude, I have no experience against tooth & nail, but elves would be a bit roughy for bw, what was the mill?
Also if you ever get to play against grixis control bw just crushes it,
Good luck for next time!
Another fun thing, it can act as extra spellskites against twin. Tap out with less worries
My meta is mostly control and twin and a handful of aggro, adn I've got to agree I've gone down to 1-2 strangler for spellskites main board, I think I'm going to switch one for slaughter pact when I get one though.
Deaddrift from the BW page also just posted a list of maindeck spellskites in place of strangler.
Radiant doesn't enter tapped
For tidehollow, I was playing him turn 2-4 and it felt good most of the time, I never got the golden combo of sculler-process, but he drew aggro and coming off a inquisition or two it just wrecked their hand having to use more removal to get their card back.
^ this, but the time I missed I hit 2 cryptic commands and a few other key cards and it felt so goood...
Played a one of liliana because I didn't have a a few cards yet and she felt good when I played her. I got her against grixis control and she took out a guy and a bolt which feels about the same as a strangler, but you never really feel bad seeing her.
Grixis control was an easy matchup and I won 2 round back to back in 2
Faries went to 3 because I got stuck at 3 land game 1
Twin I kept getting stuck on 3-4 land and getting shambling vents cryptic bounced, just didn't really know what I was doing and surgicald snap and splinter twin when I should have gone for bolt and still maybe the twin?
But all in all it felt really great, there was one affinity but didn't have to play him which was nice.
Liliana, if you've got her or are willing to shell out.
None of the spells (instants, sorceries, or enchantments) have been, but its a creature, eldrazi drone or processor.