MTG Salvation

Tron was apparently quite popular at the SCG, but everyone was well prepared for it. The large abundance of aggro definitely made it difficult for tron to do well. It will be a rock paper scissors format of midrangey decks like us beating up aggro which outrace tron which destroys midrange.

Quote from Morphling »

Has anyone looked at Utter End or is it just too expensive? (or just unnecessary?)

Currently building monoblack version for casual but I definitely plan to try a B/W version next.

It seems very versatile for sure. But is is the best option we have available? Probably not. I feel this would fight for the 2-of slot where we have Dismember, Go for the Throat, and Warping Wail all fighting it out. Utter End feels a bit too slow, I'd rather have removal that comes down earlier. I feel like Wail is a strong pick right now for that slot.

Quote from LordGrimpow »

I think it could be good for an aggro variant, but not worth the slot in a grindy variant like BW.

It's been said before, the reason this deck falls is when it takes too long to get started and just can't play anything early. Having an early drop that is able to trade favorably or even just chump block and dig 1 card deeper (also ramping us 1 land half the time) seems like exactly what this deck wants to solve this problem. It's not color intensive, doesn't require any setup, and lets us establish something on the board so we don't just get run over. We don't need more late game grind cards because we can already reliably do that. We need something to help our early game. Why do you feel that this doesn't fit in with our deck? Is there another weakness you think we should be addressing?

Quote from Imborj »

noob ques.

is hangarback chordable for however many counters?

No. His CMC is 0. And if you get him off of chord or CoCo, he will come in with 0 counters and die.

Quote from Torpf »

You shouldn't be planning to win via the combo. You should be planning to win via beatdown and if you happen to assemble the combo then it makes it all that much faster.

Play so that your opponent is on the back foot and fearing the fact that you could combo out at any second. Twin even sides out Splinter Twin sometimes, and just the fear from their opponent thinking it's still in the deck makes them make sloppy plays and hold up mana when they don't need too. Use that thinking and incorporate it into the deck.

This. So much this. I don't think this deck has any decent way to play as a linear combo deck, this should not be the goal. We are not Amulet Bloom, we are nowhere close. The Twin mindset is a great one to have for this deck.

This is also why I like the naya zoo build of this deck. You play heavy aggro and they're forced to deal with your threats, but they also have to be wary of a potential surprise combo for the kill. They are already under a lot of pressure trying to deal with zoo as is, now they have other things to worry about. "What if he has Coco or a Chord at the end of my turn, and then a Retreat on his turn?" Things like that are exactly the fear that forces players into second guessing themselves and saving kill spells at the wrong times. This is a huge advantage we have. Just like Twin, we have the option of boarding out the enchantments when needed, but the opponent will never know if we still have them or not.

Quote from Pokken »

One thing I've been thinking about is a pros/cons list of this combo as compared to Splinter Twin. People act like it's really obvious how much better Twin is as a functionally 6 mana combo.

So, without further ado, a starting point:

-snip-

Very good points. Let's not forget that Twin just sits in your hand until combo as you don't want to play it and waste it if you draw combo. Also, it's dead drawing multiples. Retreat works well in multiples, is able to be dropped early, and has amazing utility without combo. Tapping down blockers is amazing in zoo and still good in midrange. Free scrys are great too. Not to mention it can untap mana dorks for weird mana ramp.

Quote from Soryu »

I've been lurking this thread for a while now. I just got back into MTG and decided to jump into modern with bant company as bant is my favorite color combination.

Just fairly recently got the cards for the bant shell cause bant company, so I was wondering if the consensus now is that the naya/GWur shell consistently outperforms the bant shell? If so, I'm gonna start trading for/buying lands.

I'm hoping for a successful bant shell as well, but I guess you can't argue with results. Bolts seem like a really solid choice.

This deck is just a few days old, it's a newborn baby compared to the other veteran decks of modern. I wouldn't lock in on any build being the "best" build until we get a lot more testing and tournament results in. They both have their merits, so play test both or just play your favorite variant!

Why is deathtouch a theme? If you're playing +1/+1 counters and big creatures, you should have no problem dealing with big threats. I think things like Sedge Scorpion actually go against your strategy of achieving formidable, so you may want to cut him out.

correct me if im wrong, but if you cast natural affinity as the 4th spell to flip it, it will flip and put the return ability on the stack to resolve BEFORE natural affinity. So you have to play something like a bolt, and in response to the flip, play natural affinity. It's kinda hard, and leaves you vulnerable to a path for example, losing natural affinity wich will do nothing.

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I think most are playing Qasali and or Rec Sage to deal with sideboard hate that we may target with Decay. You can Coco or Chord them out when needed, while you can't decay. Great to top deck it when needed or mulligan to have it in opening hand, but personally I'd rather have the creatures. Earlier we had a Path vs Decay debate. At that time most were supporting decay over path, with a 2/1 split usually. Post ban, path seems more valuable and many have gone to 3 path to ensure draw. A 2/1 path-decay split seems defensible.

falchion, stop being an ass, please. You're not giving any helpful contributions at all.

Sure, it's one top 8 from November. I was piloting the deck, I went undefeated in the Swiss and finished top 4. Sorry for using my results to back up my suggestions, I'll stop contributing if it hurts your feelings so much to be challenged by results when you haven't posted any reasonable strategy for beating Tron at all.

Also, how is it not thinking outside the box to add a red source and Crumble to Dust? It's not the standard approach (yet...though if Tron increases in popularity it probably should be) and it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the metagame. Mike Flores and Patrick Chapin commented on it during their podcast and Chapin said he thought it was awesome, by the way.

Quote from Kylar »

The main thing is that Wasteland Strangler could be worth nothing if there isn't any creature on the board or we have nothing in exile, whereas Matter Reshaper gives value even if it dies.

This problem with Strangler happens to me all the time. More than I get him to hit, actually.

Sower is hands down my favorite creature to see. It doesn't require anything to set up or exile beforehand, it has a huge body, it exiles things if you have no enablers in play, it fetches lands so you can put other things in play on the same turn, even with fetchlands if uborg is in play, and you get even MORE value if you use it in conjunction with blight herder tokens. Even if it goes down as a vanilla it's still putting in work and exiling chunks of your opponents library. I think it's the best creature in the deck and wins games. I'd play 2 more of I could. I couldn't imagine cutting it. As was said I'd only cut ot of another creature was that good to put on it's place, but for now it's a key piece for me.

It looks like one Mono-Black deck and one BW deck made Day 2 of SCGCIN, according to the Day 2 Metagame article.

Its not running blight herder because it is running heartless summoning and its all in on casting Ulamog ASAP as evident by the 4x conduit. There is a very good deck in modern already that does that job way better and frequently wins tournaments. If your goal in modern is to drop Ulamog consistently early, then you should be playing tron. I have no problem with trying out new ideas for the deck, but if you want a hammer, don't pick up a screwdriver and start pounding a nail with it. Go buy a hammer.

Yeah, it gives good utility, but youre not allowed to short cut anymore.

As far as people saying "you cant dig up the combo in the aggro version." Thats the point. I mean, you kinda can, Collected company. But its you take an already existing shell, in this case zoo, a very good 1.5 tier deck (and the only one on there who can run it.) And add a game wining 2 card combo, that even has protection.

You dont need to dig the combo, the opponent needs to play around it, giving you the edge and windows just to blantently beat down.