This is little different than other people are doing, but it has enough fetches to get a couple basics early. If you're against burn or Aggro match ups the sunken hollow and smoldering marsh do wonders (surprised I'm not seeing these in more lists). If you go against choke, you at least have 4 blue sources that skirt it. It's possible you want a second island in the deck so you can snapcaster blue spells with blood moon in play but I haven't been prioritizing that.
Has anybody been using the new battle lands in this shell? I'm pleasantly surprised with them in terms of consistency and I think they will help against aggro matchups a fair amount. I'm thinking they require minimizing the non-fetch lands as much as possible but it seems worth it to me. Here's what I'm working with. I'm on 18 lands because I do run 8 free cantrips. Feel free to add back the two manlands to get back to the more standard 20.
Another possibility is to replace 3 Liliana and a land with 4 free cantrips. They will play synergistically with the deck and effectively increase the density of the other 56 cards in the deck.
I love darkblast as a singleton, maybe a second in board. Even better if you're playing free cantrips but even with thought scour and serum visions it plays like a machine gun, killing bigger creatures, filling the graveyard and activating prowess/making elemental tokens.
I love the work you have all put in on this. I've been lurking for awhile, and trying to put together the pieces for the deck. Unable to get Jaces yet, which led me down a slightly different route. Trying to find something similar that you can stick on turn 2 and ride to card advantage, I have been trying Sygg, river cutthroat and Dark Confidant. Sygg, while a pet card of mine, hasn't been very good in limited testing except for the occasional game where it snowballs, but I think dark confidant may be worth considering. It obviously requires a different build of the deck, but in changing the deck to accommodate dark confidant, I've found that my abbots have become better. The gist of the changes is:
Replaced delve creatures with young pyromancer (rather not dome myself for 6-7 off confidant). This gives me less reliance on the graveyard, and can gum up the ground in a different way. it's cold to some removal that the delve fatties beats, but it better against some of the spot removal. overall a powerful card replacing powerful cards.
get rid of thought scour, add gitaxian probe and mishra's bauble (extremely underrated card). thought scour lost a lot of its value without jace and delve fatties. 8 free cantrips makes serum visions into turn 2 abbot for value as well as turn two snapcaster impersonating silvergill adept both real plays. also, with dark confidant, having access to 4 serum visions and 4 mishra's baubles makes it a bit easier to control the potential life loss.
add 3 dark confidant. similarly to jace, it just runs away with games. I brought down the top end of the curve by taking out lilianas and going to 2 rise//fall and 2 colophon's command. I would love to have more of all these cards, but having 8 free cantrips makes this almost a 52 card deck, mitigating the change. Since we don't have life gain, dark confidant forces a more aggressive stance to win before we die, so more threats in place of liliana is good. It also influences me to run inquisition over thoughtseize and a less painful manabase. Playing this version probably demands searching out basics more often as well as paying mana for gitaxian probe when possible to mitigate the potential life loss sources.
Dropped the land count to 18. definitely increases the risk of mulligan, but this percentage out of 52 cards is very similar to the percentage that 20.5 lands would be out of 60. Not completely perfect translation, but this gives a lot of play. Perhaps for those of you wishing for 20.5 lands as I've seen in a lot of posts, trimming some stuff for free cantrips is a good way to manipulate the numbers to make the mana base feel like 20.5 lands.
Here's the list I'm working with. Keep in mind I'd be playing similar to the stock list you guys came up with if I had the jaces, but have been enjoying the play of this version and think some of the thoughts may have merit. I do think the free cantrips have merit in any version of this deck, in some number. This version is far less vulnerable to graveyard hate, but would hate to see a proclaims or golgari charm, that's for sure.
3 dark confidant
3 young pyromancer
4 snapcaster
4 abbot
I'm a bit late to reply but curious if you ever solved this. I am working on a similar idea, but also trying to include enough mountains for Chained to the rocks. I tend to be greedy, but it's more fun that way. Here's what I'm thinking. Could be too many basics due to the mountain requirement but I'm just starting to test now.
4 evolving wilds
2 mardu tri land
4 jeskai tri land
3 flooded strand
3 bloodstained mire
3 mountain
1 swamp
2 island
2 plains
16 red sources (10 mountains)
15 white sources
13 blue sources
10 black sources
10 tapped lands
Mana confluences or pain lands could also be correct, perhaps in place of a plains or island.
This is little different than other people are doing, but it has enough fetches to get a couple basics early. If you're against burn or Aggro match ups the sunken hollow and smoldering marsh do wonders (surprised I'm not seeing these in more lists). If you go against choke, you at least have 4 blue sources that skirt it. It's possible you want a second island in the deck so you can snapcaster blue spells with blood moon in play but I haven't been prioritizing that.
4 polluted delta
4 scalding tarn
4 bloodstained mire
1 swamp
1 mountain
1 island
1 steam vents
1 watery grave
1 sunken hollow
1 smoldering marsh
2 sulfur falls
2 creeping tar pit
4 polluted delta
4 scalding tarn
3 bloodstained mire
1 swamp
1 mountain
1 island
1 steam vents
1 watery grave
1 sunken hollow
1 smoldering marsh
Replaced delve creatures with young pyromancer (rather not dome myself for 6-7 off confidant). This gives me less reliance on the graveyard, and can gum up the ground in a different way. it's cold to some removal that the delve fatties beats, but it better against some of the spot removal. overall a powerful card replacing powerful cards.
get rid of thought scour, add gitaxian probe and mishra's bauble (extremely underrated card). thought scour lost a lot of its value without jace and delve fatties. 8 free cantrips makes serum visions into turn 2 abbot for value as well as turn two snapcaster impersonating silvergill adept both real plays. also, with dark confidant, having access to 4 serum visions and 4 mishra's baubles makes it a bit easier to control the potential life loss.
add 3 dark confidant. similarly to jace, it just runs away with games. I brought down the top end of the curve by taking out lilianas and going to 2 rise//fall and 2 colophon's command. I would love to have more of all these cards, but having 8 free cantrips makes this almost a 52 card deck, mitigating the change. Since we don't have life gain, dark confidant forces a more aggressive stance to win before we die, so more threats in place of liliana is good. It also influences me to run inquisition over thoughtseize and a less painful manabase. Playing this version probably demands searching out basics more often as well as paying mana for gitaxian probe when possible to mitigate the potential life loss sources.
Dropped the land count to 18. definitely increases the risk of mulligan, but this percentage out of 52 cards is very similar to the percentage that 20.5 lands would be out of 60. Not completely perfect translation, but this gives a lot of play. Perhaps for those of you wishing for 20.5 lands as I've seen in a lot of posts, trimming some stuff for free cantrips is a good way to manipulate the numbers to make the mana base feel like 20.5 lands.
Here's the list I'm working with. Keep in mind I'd be playing similar to the stock list you guys came up with if I had the jaces, but have been enjoying the play of this version and think some of the thoughts may have merit. I do think the free cantrips have merit in any version of this deck, in some number. This version is far less vulnerable to graveyard hate, but would hate to see a proclaims or golgari charm, that's for sure.
3 dark confidant
3 young pyromancer
4 snapcaster
4 abbot
4 serum visions
4 lightning bolt
1 spite of mogis
4 gitaxian probe
4 Mishras bauble
3 terminate
4 inquisition of kozilek
2 rise//fall
2 kologhan’s command
3 polluted delta
4 scalding tarn
1 swamp
1 mountain
1 island
1 steam vents
1 watery grave
1 blood crypt
3 blackcleave cliffs
2 creeping tar pits (not sure if this is just better as darkslick shores)
Average CMC for Dark Confidant: 1.2
Still working on the mana base.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. Hopefully it helps me win an FNM to get the store credit for my Jaces.
4 evolving wilds
2 mardu tri land
4 jeskai tri land
3 flooded strand
3 bloodstained mire
3 mountain
1 swamp
2 island
2 plains
16 red sources (10 mountains)
15 white sources
13 blue sources
10 black sources
10 tapped lands
Mana confluences or pain lands could also be correct, perhaps in place of a plains or island.
Thoughts?