Thanks to WotC for printing so many redundant versions of Blood Artist/ Grave Pact/ and Dark Prophecy effects, I feel like the lower CMC/combo stax version of this deck has some real competitive legs.
I've been playing a UR Twin variant with ONLY Kikis pre-ban (on purpose) which IMO is actually better than the normal one ever was (can't divulge it yet, more testing needed to perfect it)
You have our attention.
He does.
In fact, it even has a nut draw which involves binning a Kiki with either Scour or Looting T1, Goryos-ing the Kiki at EOT of T2, and T3 on your turn cast Exarch and win. Exarch doesn't need to have haste, so you can inmediately start making copies T3 and win a turn earlier than normal Twin ever did. This is not the main plan as you can play tempo/control, but it's an option to have.
I should point out that this does't work. If you do something during the end step, there is another clean-up step. You can't "bring over" Kiki into the next turn with Goryo any more than u can make the +3/+3 last one extra turn by casting Giant Growth on the end step.
Youre actually incorrect about this, please refer to the oracle text on Vengeance:
If you use Vengeance after the beginning of the End step, it will stick around until the beginning of the next end step. This trick is well documented and used with various cards that have similar effects. "Until the end of turn" effects are cleaned up at the end of a turn regardless of when they are cast, but Kiki, Vengeance, Flickerwisp, etc all use the "beginning of the end step" as their trigger. You can copy creatures with Kiki that will stick around for a turn, exile cards with flickerwisp that stay exiled for a whole turn, and vengeance creatures back from you GY that will stick around a whole turn using this trick.
I am sorry, but I think people need to relax and take a deep breath about the bannings. Making these types of changes just spells even more doom for our deck. Main decking Sigarda, Wraths and a 6 mana planeswalker? Is a hand full of 4cc+ spells going to be effective vs. Burn, infect, and other aggro decks? If tron really is going to take over, wraths and elspeth arent going to make the matchup any better.
What we need to do is be patient. We need to see how the metagame shapes up post banning (aka post PT Oath of the Gatewatch) and adjust from there. We cant preemptively make these rash changes and expect our deck to still be tier 1.
Lets expect Abzan to drop back to tier 2, regroup after the metagame settles, and then adjust accordingly.
There is nothing wrong with spitballing changes we could make to be proactive. If we all waited for every tournament result before making deck changes this wouldn't be much of a forum for sharing ideas in.
I understand there are a lot of people running around like chicken little, but Im not one of those people.
I play Burn & Abzan (in various shells) primarily, so Im both thrilled by and fearful of the upcoming meta shift now that Twin wont be part of it.
Regardless of knee jerk reacting, its impossible to deny that two core things will change:
1. T3 is no longer a ceiling every deck needs to pay attention to, thats significant in so many ways and allows us to play bigger threats than CMC4 (siege rhino) without fearing we've lost the game bc of it.
2. Aggro Strategies will make a triumphant return (Affinity, Zoo, Knightfall), including tier 2-3 decks (Orzhov Tokens, Soul Sisters, Martyr-Proc, Death and Taxes, etc).
This means that we can wait and see, or we can talk about proactive strategies that will allow us to test and experiment while the meta transitions.
for what its worth, I dont think that Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a bad card to experiment with. It deals with most of the creatures we cant outclass with our own, and helps us go wide when we need to. Most of us run some form of mana acceleration or another, so getting her out turn 4 isnt unreasonable or unlikely.
Has it gotten to the point where we may need to consider maindecking board wipes again? Tron, Affinity, Eldrazi, Tokens, Zoo, Elves, and Linear Aggro strategies are going to be on the rise without the fear of a reliable T4 win in the meta. Our best tools are Damnation and Wrath of God for this effect.
edit: it even hurts burn in the current meta which relies heavily on small creatures like a little zoo.
I just don't seem to do as well with Junk as Jund, I really don't know why
JUNK/JUND contain almost identical cards, but the playstyle is dramatically different and thats where a lot of players stumble a little when switching between the archetypes. Junk is pure value, it plays like an old school goodstuff deck in EDH/ Legacy. We create card advantage primarily through incremental gain over opposing removal with cards like Gavony, Lingering Souls, Voice of Resurgence, etc. We also have a more creature centered beat down plan while using our hand disruption to clear the path for those creatures. Abzan is comfortable in the Aggro role, but can shift between Aggro and Midrange depending on the matchup.
Jund is very famous for its "2 for 1" aesthetic, where everything in their deck is designed to remove, disrupt, or threaten with an advantage. Jund plays less creatures typically, and they shift primarily between midrange value and control. They play a much slower game, and rely more heavily on the GY for threats like Tasigur and to pump their Goyfs as much as possible.
We are both weak to GY hate bc of our reliance on Goyf as a constant threat, but Abzan can easily replace goyf without a hiccup if those strategies continue to make waves in the format. Abzan also has access to the best SB hate outside of Blood Moon to make those tougher matchups easier.
Pretty much nonsense in my opinion, but one of the reasons I tend to write down stuff like that. He clearly shorthanded "The borborygmos in your deck" with "boroborygmos" and will hopefully never make that mistake again. Had someone pithing needled him and said "on seer" I doubt he would have called a judge and said "hey there's no card named seer" because there's just piles of shorthand like that in Magic (moving between phases and passing priority, for example).
Those were my thoughts exactly on the call. At this point in the tournament, every player has access to the decklists of their opponents. While Borborygmos may be a different card than Borborygmos Enraged, the fact that the judges would not have considered it short hand for the "Borborygmos in my opponents decklist that I have access to and have seen him play game 1" is just counter intuitive to the spirit of the game itself.
It was a legit Judge call, but anytime a top 8 match is won from a BS call like that... it robs all of us from a legitimate game experience. I applaud Brad for taking the call with such elegance, I wouldn't have reacted so kindly.
Nice to see that the deck still has legs in the meta, and I look forward to seeing it on camera in the future with such a decent finish this weekend.
I like Pyrite Spellbomb over Reality Hemorrhage for the flexibility to draw a card if I need it over the damage. The only match up where it would be a concern would be against Gx decks running Creeping Corrosion or Fracturing Gust and thats a small % of the Tier 1 meta.
I'm not too fond of the Stax focused style of gameplay. Like the OP i'm looking for a deck that is powerful but also interactive, dynamic and synergistic. For example the other deck I mainly pilot is Roon of the hidden realm which also has a lot of synergies and interactions thus it can attack from multiple angles but is by no means unfair. I'm leaning more towards an attrition/drain gameplan with some stax elements as a necessity for some degree of control.
Come to the dark side... we have cookies ^_^. I can completely respect that, and you can always side in those cards if you're in a more competitive meta. Playing it politically means that you're going to be controlling the board state through Teysa herself, constantly extorting/ draining the table through Pontiff of Blight, Blood Artist, or Zulaport Cutthroat; and always holding the threat of edict effects through grave pact and martyr's bond... at some point it works like a stax deck but less soul crushing haha.
Interestingly enough, one of my other main EDH decks is a BANT blinktastic deck with Rubinia Soulsinger at the helm and Roon in the 99.
This thread has me excited to try building teysa; I was curious to hear your thoughts on the following cards:
-Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Token generator + retribution of the meek, 3 white tokens with Teysa can make her +1 into "exile target creature"
-Athreos, God of Passage, cheap and indestructible, will accelerate the game early and force tough decisions later with all your creatures dying.
-Toxic Deluge, cheap and effective board wipe, if your playing the drain game the life loss should not bother you
-Dictate of Erebos, a second Grave pact, costs 1 more but it has flash which can catch people who target you by surprise.
-Culling Dais, cheap and can sac creatures that later turns into card draw.
-Bloodchief Ascension, Do you feel this deck can reliably activate and take advantage of this enchantment?
-Massacre Wurm, probably doesn't fit the deck, just happen to have one and think it's cool
Its a really fun deck to run, if you enjoy stax decks... otherwise its cruel and unusual punishment for your playgroup
Ive long switched over to Elspeth, Sun's Champion instead of her OG version exactly for the reasons you mention. For only a small bit more mana, she gives us a ton more tokens and is Retribution of the Meek on a stick.
Athreos, God of Passage is a tough call, and its a card I've struggled with including as well. Returning creatures to your hand does help a lot, especially with ETB token generators like Marsh Flitter and Sengir Autocrat, plus it helps fuel the brutally efficient token generator that is Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder. The reason I've been reluctant is that it doesn't really synergize with the deck's main method of recursion which is through the GY and re animator spells. When Atheros is in play, you cant choose whether your creatures stay in the GY, and you cant easily sac him when he becomes inconvenient unless you have the devotion to make him a creature first. Luckily, even with him in play, your creatures do still hit the GY momentarily, so it matches the death requirement of most of your other cards and can be responded to with instant reanimate effects... just remember to make sure Atheros is a creature, then sac him before starting the infinite Reveillark/Karmic Guide/2 power creature combo.
Toxic Deluge and Dictate of Erebos are both great cards, I would run definitely run Dictate for redundancy if I could find a place for it, but I prefer enchantment tutor creatures like academy rector to ensure I get my grave pact, or whatever other enchantment I want into play.
Yes, we can reliably enable and take advantage of Bloodchief Ascension, I haven't had the chance to test its mileage myself. Give it a try and report your findings.
Massacre Wurm is an awesome card, but we try and keep the power of our creatures at 3 or lower, Ideally at 2 or lower.
The Urza Lands are definitely the least offensive of the various cards pulled from those core sets, I realized that this would also ban Kird Ape and a few other decent cards that aren't staples but are used in modern. So maybe not a wholesale ban of the sets, but a close examination of what card designs they want to actually see in the modern card pool.
At the very least, I definitely support the banning of Blood Moon, Choke, Boil, Worship, and Ensnaring Bridge
For awhile now, there's been a huge assertion by many professional players that the Modern format should not include the 8th and 9th edition core sets.
The primary reasoning, AFAIK, is due to the oppressive nature of the hate cards from those sets; Blood Moon, Choke, etc. Yes, these cards are not 4x Main of in competitive decks, but they are some of the most powerful hate cards in the format. That kind of specific hate is not something thats existed in the rest of the modern design space... hence the assertion that 8th/9th editions weren't "modern designed" sets. To be fair though, at the time these sets were released, as a transition between art/borders/design space, Modern wasnt a format, extended was... and it was terrible... but it would have meant that these Old School Style cards would have eventually rotated away from the more balanced cards wizards was releasing.
Its worth noting that many of the cards on the Modern banned list are from sets that were released in those early years of transition; Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, Artifact Lands, etc. So while the format hadn't been created yet, it was clear that Wizards was intentionally re-aligning the power level of cards moving forward.
The counter argument for their continued inclusion has always been its easier for new players to know whats in the modern format bc they all share the same border. Keeping sets in the Modern card pool bc its easier for new players to see a modern border and know its playable doesn't make sense anymore. With FTV, Commander, and plenty of judge/ prize promos taking old cards and giving them a modern border, there is already plenty of confusion for new players to know whats playable. Making a sweeping statement that 8th and 9th edition core sets would be banned as a whole wouldn't confuse anyone.
Even as a player who plays Blood Moon, and Choke in many of my deck's SB... I would definitely enjoy the game more if they and all the 8th/9th edition cards weren't in the format anymore.
Gideon isnt a bad sell atm, he hasn't been picked up in a Modern/ Legacy shell like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy... so he'll be another Elspeth, Sun's Champion or Nissa, WorldWaker, and plummet in value as soon as BFZ rotates. $40 is usually the peak for these kinds of cards, and he hasnt quite hit it yet. But if you don't want to play with him, he will be worth flipping but not holding onto long term when his price will probably settle around $15-$20.
I'm thinking more for french duelcommander. I wouldn't want more then one or two 5cmc spells and probably zero 6+ spells
In 1V1 I would totally ignore that ExP ability then. Just drop her, equip, and swing away.
Ya, thats more or less what I thought too, but if there are a few solid evoke cards that are both good on there own and synergise with Kalamne then you may as well put em in.
i like Glarewealder, can get her through while pumping for two mana... Less so in multiplayer, but still possible.
Greater gargodon and ivory giant too
Maybe Greater Gargadon, the other two don't seem very good to me.
Unfortunately Greater Gargadon doesn't count right away bc you don't cast a card with suspend until all the time counters are removed from it. Suspend isn't an alternative casting cost, more than its an alternative means to cast a spell X turns later. It would trigger your commanders ability once its eventually cast, but suspend is risky bc it provides your opponent with a large response window in order to deny you that trigger.
Eh, I pre ordered a set of all 5 from a reliable ebay seller regardless, as I have for the past 2 years. I'm hooked on commander as a format and the releases are always worth getting a full set of... Commander is also why Ill always order the annual From the Vault releases. Im just sorry I didnt find this format until after the commander's arsenal was released, so many great cards in modern borders I would love to have without paying too much for them.
Enemy Fetches would be really nice for me to import into my Modern decks, especially a Scalding Tarn or Verdant Catacombs. I concur that their inclusions would also push casual players away from being able to purchase the Izzet and Golgari decks, but it would also reduce the cost of those cards dramatically which would help modern immensely. So I can see a good and bad point to either choice.
Thanks to WotC for printing so many redundant versions of Blood Artist/ Grave Pact/ and Dark Prophecy effects, I feel like the lower CMC/combo stax version of this deck has some real competitive legs.
Some cards from recent sets I'm really loving for this deck are Midnight Reaper, Open the Graves, Gruesome Menagerie, and Doom Whisperer
Im also looking at Desecrated Tomb but I feel that it might be too cute
Youre actually incorrect about this, please refer to the oracle text on Vengeance:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=goryo's vengeance
If you use Vengeance after the beginning of the End step, it will stick around until the beginning of the next end step. This trick is well documented and used with various cards that have similar effects. "Until the end of turn" effects are cleaned up at the end of a turn regardless of when they are cast, but Kiki, Vengeance, Flickerwisp, etc all use the "beginning of the end step" as their trigger. You can copy creatures with Kiki that will stick around for a turn, exile cards with flickerwisp that stay exiled for a whole turn, and vengeance creatures back from you GY that will stick around a whole turn using this trick.
There is nothing wrong with spitballing changes we could make to be proactive. If we all waited for every tournament result before making deck changes this wouldn't be much of a forum for sharing ideas in.
I understand there are a lot of people running around like chicken little, but Im not one of those people.
I play Burn & Abzan (in various shells) primarily, so Im both thrilled by and fearful of the upcoming meta shift now that Twin wont be part of it.
Regardless of knee jerk reacting, its impossible to deny that two core things will change:
1. T3 is no longer a ceiling every deck needs to pay attention to, thats significant in so many ways and allows us to play bigger threats than CMC4 (siege rhino) without fearing we've lost the game bc of it.
2. Aggro Strategies will make a triumphant return (Affinity, Zoo, Knightfall), including tier 2-3 decks (Orzhov Tokens, Soul Sisters, Martyr-Proc, Death and Taxes, etc).
This means that we can wait and see, or we can talk about proactive strategies that will allow us to test and experiment while the meta transitions.
for what its worth, I dont think that Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a bad card to experiment with. It deals with most of the creatures we cant outclass with our own, and helps us go wide when we need to. Most of us run some form of mana acceleration or another, so getting her out turn 4 isnt unreasonable or unlikely.
edit: it even hurts burn in the current meta which relies heavily on small creatures like a little zoo.
JUNK/JUND contain almost identical cards, but the playstyle is dramatically different and thats where a lot of players stumble a little when switching between the archetypes. Junk is pure value, it plays like an old school goodstuff deck in EDH/ Legacy. We create card advantage primarily through incremental gain over opposing removal with cards like Gavony, Lingering Souls, Voice of Resurgence, etc. We also have a more creature centered beat down plan while using our hand disruption to clear the path for those creatures. Abzan is comfortable in the Aggro role, but can shift between Aggro and Midrange depending on the matchup.
Jund is very famous for its "2 for 1" aesthetic, where everything in their deck is designed to remove, disrupt, or threaten with an advantage. Jund plays less creatures typically, and they shift primarily between midrange value and control. They play a much slower game, and rely more heavily on the GY for threats like Tasigur and to pump their Goyfs as much as possible.
We are both weak to GY hate bc of our reliance on Goyf as a constant threat, but Abzan can easily replace goyf without a hiccup if those strategies continue to make waves in the format. Abzan also has access to the best SB hate outside of Blood Moon to make those tougher matchups easier.
Those were my thoughts exactly on the call. At this point in the tournament, every player has access to the decklists of their opponents. While Borborygmos may be a different card than Borborygmos Enraged, the fact that the judges would not have considered it short hand for the "Borborygmos in my opponents decklist that I have access to and have seen him play game 1" is just counter intuitive to the spirit of the game itself.
It was a legit Judge call, but anytime a top 8 match is won from a BS call like that... it robs all of us from a legitimate game experience. I applaud Brad for taking the call with such elegance, I wouldn't have reacted so kindly.
Nice to see that the deck still has legs in the meta, and I look forward to seeing it on camera in the future with such a decent finish this weekend.
Come to the dark side... we have cookies ^_^. I can completely respect that, and you can always side in those cards if you're in a more competitive meta. Playing it politically means that you're going to be controlling the board state through Teysa herself, constantly extorting/ draining the table through Pontiff of Blight, Blood Artist, or Zulaport Cutthroat; and always holding the threat of edict effects through grave pact and martyr's bond... at some point it works like a stax deck but less soul crushing haha.
Interestingly enough, one of my other main EDH decks is a BANT blinktastic deck with Rubinia Soulsinger at the helm and Roon in the 99.
Its a really fun deck to run, if you enjoy stax decks... otherwise its cruel and unusual punishment for your playgroup
Ive long switched over to Elspeth, Sun's Champion instead of her OG version exactly for the reasons you mention. For only a small bit more mana, she gives us a ton more tokens and is Retribution of the Meek on a stick.
Athreos, God of Passage is a tough call, and its a card I've struggled with including as well. Returning creatures to your hand does help a lot, especially with ETB token generators like Marsh Flitter and Sengir Autocrat, plus it helps fuel the brutally efficient token generator that is Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder. The reason I've been reluctant is that it doesn't really synergize with the deck's main method of recursion which is through the GY and re animator spells. When Atheros is in play, you cant choose whether your creatures stay in the GY, and you cant easily sac him when he becomes inconvenient unless you have the devotion to make him a creature first. Luckily, even with him in play, your creatures do still hit the GY momentarily, so it matches the death requirement of most of your other cards and can be responded to with instant reanimate effects... just remember to make sure Atheros is a creature, then sac him before starting the infinite Reveillark/Karmic Guide/2 power creature combo.
Toxic Deluge and Dictate of Erebos are both great cards, I would run definitely run Dictate for redundancy if I could find a place for it, but I prefer enchantment tutor creatures like academy rector to ensure I get my grave pact, or whatever other enchantment I want into play.
Culling Dias is a personal call, I prefer Spawning Pit bc the sac is free and can be re used as much as needed. Also, card draw really isnt a problem for this deck, between Grim Haruspex, Mentor of the Meek, Smothering Abomination, Vulturous Aven, Dark Prophecy, and Skullclamp... you'll be drawing a lot of cards. Knowing when to stop drawing is more of the problem haha, making Reliquary Tower a must include.
Yes, we can reliably enable and take advantage of Bloodchief Ascension, I haven't had the chance to test its mileage myself. Give it a try and report your findings.
Massacre Wurm is an awesome card, but we try and keep the power of our creatures at 3 or lower, Ideally at 2 or lower.
At the very least, I definitely support the banning of Blood Moon, Choke, Boil, Worship, and Ensnaring Bridge
The primary reasoning, AFAIK, is due to the oppressive nature of the hate cards from those sets; Blood Moon, Choke, etc. Yes, these cards are not 4x Main of in competitive decks, but they are some of the most powerful hate cards in the format. That kind of specific hate is not something thats existed in the rest of the modern design space... hence the assertion that 8th/9th editions weren't "modern designed" sets. To be fair though, at the time these sets were released, as a transition between art/borders/design space, Modern wasnt a format, extended was... and it was terrible... but it would have meant that these Old School Style cards would have eventually rotated away from the more balanced cards wizards was releasing.
Its worth noting that many of the cards on the Modern banned list are from sets that were released in those early years of transition; Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, Artifact Lands, etc. So while the format hadn't been created yet, it was clear that Wizards was intentionally re-aligning the power level of cards moving forward.
The counter argument for their continued inclusion has always been its easier for new players to know whats in the modern format bc they all share the same border. Keeping sets in the Modern card pool bc its easier for new players to see a modern border and know its playable doesn't make sense anymore. With FTV, Commander, and plenty of judge/ prize promos taking old cards and giving them a modern border, there is already plenty of confusion for new players to know whats playable. Making a sweeping statement that 8th and 9th edition core sets would be banned as a whole wouldn't confuse anyone.
Even as a player who plays Blood Moon, and Choke in many of my deck's SB... I would definitely enjoy the game more if they and all the 8th/9th edition cards weren't in the format anymore.
Unfortunately Greater Gargadon doesn't count right away bc you don't cast a card with suspend until all the time counters are removed from it. Suspend isn't an alternative casting cost, more than its an alternative means to cast a spell X turns later. It would trigger your commanders ability once its eventually cast, but suspend is risky bc it provides your opponent with a large response window in order to deny you that trigger.
Enemy Fetches would be really nice for me to import into my Modern decks, especially a Scalding Tarn or Verdant Catacombs. I concur that their inclusions would also push casual players away from being able to purchase the Izzet and Golgari decks, but it would also reduce the cost of those cards dramatically which would help modern immensely. So I can see a good and bad point to either choice.
At this point I just want spoilers!!