I tried three copies (couldn't find enough things to cut and wasn't in the mood of re-examining all card choices) and I think it provides an amazingly good rate of finding Infestation. The only noticeable drawback was that it occasionally exiled a Tec Edge vs Control (which is our best card against them) and the basic Forest (without which we need to rely on Squee a lot vs moon decks - which is perfectly fine in my experience).
There are a lot of ways to work around scooze with a conflagrate using timing restrictions, especially with the fourth copy (the only scenario where they can eat it is if we dredge into it on the draw step and they have open green mana for extra copies we potentially find).
Pox sure is good against storm, but I don't find it very useful for other matchups. For example, I don't think turn 2 symmetric land destruction hurts tron badly enough to warrant taking a turn off (otherwise GQ would be much better in the matchup).
Despair is stellar against tron (including pushing the points of last damage through a wurmcoil) but needs an explosive start to deal with storm (despair + 2 Axes have previously been enough for me to have a very good record in the matchup, but if I don't know what's the opponent on, this often becomes the sideboard plan). It's also really good against Vanifar decks, if that counts for anything.
If the London mulligan stays in modern, I can potentially see pox getting an upgrade due to an increased number of mulls though.
I'm trying to make a four-color build with the idea of playing white for Settle + Rev as stabilizing pieces that deal with many threats at once. I have only tuned a budget maindeck (with a fetchless manabase that works reasonably well and no Trophy) whose plan is to accelerate into turn 3-4 stability.
Card choices:
Revival is to get back BSZ exactly against control, Secure can close out games fastly - something which I felt was lacking from the archetype - and Azorius Chancery is essentially a way to get even more mana with Reclamation as well as guarantee land drops while playing less lands.
Memorial may be too cute with the number of taplands I included, but it's lifesaving when flooding.
Ok, so I tried the snake and am torn between really liking it and really disliking it.
In the end I compromised with the idea that Conflagrate can be used to replace the very aggressive play patterns of snake and depend on dredging to get me more of them. Despair is a backup plan should I brick (in the end, I think it was a big mistake on my part to remove Dryad Arbor since it provided so much consistency towards the Despair plan, which is apparently incredibly consistent in winning midrange matchups - without it we have surprising difficulty). Therefore, I'm currently on the following list (perhaps I need the fourth Squee, but I don't have access to it in paper for the time being):
My reasoning for cutting Axes from the main is that Pharaohs+Brownscales should deal well with aggressive strategies and 4x Confalgrate should be enough to kill scooze. If I'm proven wrong, I'll reinstate them. (I'm mostly suspicious of the ability of Brownscale to gain large enough amounts of life to keep up with their attacks as Pharaoh deals with creatures.)
P.S. My previous posts in this thread are deleted with the EU stuff.
What I mean by dilution is that she forces Kiki, Exarch (btw, why Exarch of all options?) and Scryb into deck slots, which dilutes the drawing power a lot (Scryb is actually not bad, but it's just more acceleration if we happen to draw it).
The problem I currently have with all-in builds is that a couple of bolts/paths usually spell game over in all combo avenues if the opponent knows how the deck works (i.e. bolt kiki or saheeli and ignore the rest), which I presume does not hold true for the time being. For this reason I think that I'd rather either run card advantage engines (like Courser/Tracker) or Resto as protection mid-combo that doubles-up as decent pressure by shaving a few redundant pieces.
I'm not very interested in Rhythm, because we already get Saheeli to provide a haste effect and what we desperately need is CA which is the exact opposite (Van dillutes the deck quite a bit and cutting the buff land for haste hurts quite a bit in that front too).
On another note, I believe that playing KotR+Van can allow me (I say "me" because there are many ways to have fun with this archetype) to cut Cobra for CA (I'm looking some mix of Courser/Tracker/2nd Canopy), since Scryb fills the critical number of 2CMC slots for Evo and we now get a reasonable outlet to combo turn 3 without warning (needs only 2 key pieces).
P.S. Scryb also makes for some good occasional pseudo-accelaration if it gets flashed in EOT.
After testing for a bit, I believe Van is too slow to wait a turn with, so I'd like to have her only when I can haste her out with KotR + Hanweir Battlements + Evo or with Saheeli as a supplement to guardian.
Therefore, I think I'll start from something like the following (ignore the sideboard - it's outdated):
Perhaps the third guardian is a bit suspicious and some sort of card advantage could be played there (I was thinking of choosing between Tracker or Lark), but it feels uncomfortable playing with two guardians, especially since Van usually needs to sacrifice one during her chain.
P.S. Essentially a new account because I missed my curse emails completely - maniospas.
I tried three copies (couldn't find enough things to cut and wasn't in the mood of re-examining all card choices) and I think it provides an amazingly good rate of finding Infestation. The only noticeable drawback was that it occasionally exiled a Tec Edge vs Control (which is our best card against them) and the basic Forest (without which we need to rely on Squee a lot vs moon decks - which is perfectly fine in my experience).
Pox sure is good against storm, but I don't find it very useful for other matchups. For example, I don't think turn 2 symmetric land destruction hurts tron badly enough to warrant taking a turn off (otherwise GQ would be much better in the matchup).
Despair is stellar against tron (including pushing the points of last damage through a wurmcoil) but needs an explosive start to deal with storm (despair + 2 Axes have previously been enough for me to have a very good record in the matchup, but if I don't know what's the opponent on, this often becomes the sideboard plan). It's also really good against Vanifar decks, if that counts for anything.
If the London mulligan stays in modern, I can potentially see pox getting an upgrade due to an increased number of mulls though.
I'm trying to make a four-color build with the idea of playing white for Settle + Rev as stabilizing pieces that deal with many threats at once. I have only tuned a budget maindeck (with a fetchless manabase that works reasonably well and no Trophy) whose plan is to accelerate into turn 3-4 stability.
4 Wilderness Reclamation
2 Cast Out
4 Growth Spiral
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Path to Exile
1 Secure the Wastes
3 Settle the Wreckage
4 Mystical Teachings
2 Negate
3 Mana Leak
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Noxious Revival
4 Forest
3 Island
3 Azorius Chancery
3 Plains
2 Memorial to Genius
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
4 Serum Visions
Card choices:
Revival is to get back BSZ exactly against control, Secure can close out games fastly - something which I felt was lacking from the archetype - and Azorius Chancery is essentially a way to get even more mana with Reclamation as well as guarantee land drops while playing less lands.
Memorial may be too cute with the number of taplands I included, but it's lifesaving when flooding.
In the end I compromised with the idea that Conflagrate can be used to replace the very aggressive play patterns of snake and depend on dredging to get me more of them. Despair is a backup plan should I brick (in the end, I think it was a big mistake on my part to remove Dryad Arbor since it provided so much consistency towards the Despair plan, which is apparently incredibly consistent in winning midrange matchups - without it we have surprising difficulty). Therefore, I'm currently on the following list (perhaps I need the fourth Squee, but I don't have access to it in paper for the time being):
4 Bloodghast
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Stinkweed Imp
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
2 Golgari Brownscale
1 Dryad Arbor
Enchantments (4)
4 Zombie Infestation
Spells (19)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Conflagrate
3 Lingering Souls
3 Driven // Despair
1 Flame Jab
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Canyon Slough
2 Blooming Marsh
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Memory's Journey
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Nature's Claim
1 Golgari Charm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Darkblast
3 Lightning Axe
1 Scattered Groves
My reasoning for cutting Axes from the main is that Pharaohs+Brownscales should deal well with aggressive strategies and 4x Confalgrate should be enough to kill scooze. If I'm proven wrong, I'll reinstate them. (I'm mostly suspicious of the ability of Brownscale to gain large enough amounts of life to keep up with their attacks as Pharaoh deals with creatures.)
P.S. My previous posts in this thread are deleted with the EU stuff.
The problem I currently have with all-in builds is that a couple of bolts/paths usually spell game over in all combo avenues if the opponent knows how the deck works (i.e. bolt kiki or saheeli and ignore the rest), which I presume does not hold true for the time being. For this reason I think that I'd rather either run card advantage engines (like Courser/Tracker) or Resto as protection mid-combo that doubles-up as decent pressure by shaving a few redundant pieces.
On another note, I believe that playing KotR+Van can allow me (I say "me" because there are many ways to have fun with this archetype) to cut Cobra for CA (I'm looking some mix of Courser/Tracker/2nd Canopy), since Scryb fills the critical number of 2CMC slots for Evo and we now get a reasonable outlet to combo turn 3 without warning (needs only 2 key pieces).
P.S. Scryb also makes for some good occasional pseudo-accelaration if it gets flashed in EOT.
Therefore, I think I'll start from something like the following (ignore the sideboard - it's outdated):
3 Felidar Guardian
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Arbor Elf
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Pestermite
1 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Saheeli Rai
Lands (23)
2 Plains
5 Forest
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Damping Sphere
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Reveillark
1 Angel of Sanctions
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Stony Silence
2 Path to Exile
Perhaps the third guardian is a bit suspicious and some sort of card advantage could be played there (I was thinking of choosing between Tracker or Lark), but it feels uncomfortable playing with two guardians, especially since Van usually needs to sacrifice one during her chain.
P.S. Essentially a new account because I missed my curse emails completely - maniospas.