Is it just me or is UWR really not that bad of a deck at all? Maybe it's not the FOTM but it's still pretty damn good. It's probably just the crazy amount of abzan rolling around right now that has made it unpopular to play. That doesn't mean control is a bad deck, it's just the present state of the meta.
valorous stance gives indestructible with no splash. Its removal too, though no doublestrike.
Griffin guide seems bad to me, it costs 3 mana, gives mediocre benefits, and rewards your difficult to kill creatures dying. You aren't going to be enchanting the token outside of dire circumstances, and it likely won't last long, or be very relevant.
I think he meant using boros charm to protect your enchantments, since it targets all permanents you control.
bingo. stop taking minuscule sample sizes to mean so much guys.
This whole notion of "small sample sizes don't matter" is really misplaced. I think this is because people are so accustomed to criticizing data-driven conclusions with the "N too small" argument, but it's actually a lot more nuanced than that. Small sample sized observations are important, even critical, ways to confirm or challenge conclusions drawn from larger sample sizes. This is the classic qualitative vs. quantitative data analysis struggle you see in a variety of fields. Big sample size analyses have a lot of statistical power, but they tend to miss out on a lot of smaller details and dynamics that are highly important. Small sample size analyses can really unpack those details and tell the story, but they tend to be hard to extrapolate from in any meaningful way. That's why it's important to combine both and see how they interact. There are other ways to account for small sample sizes and manage them, but one of the best is just to use small n qualitative and big n quantitative data together.
Note that this is particularly important with matchup data because Wizards doesn't regularly give it to us. We really only get it at the PT. At other events, they don't give us day 1 to day 2 conversion rates, or matchup results that we can unpack in such depth. So the appropriate reaction is not to say "lawl, small N". It's to figure out how we can use that valuable data and make it meaningful.
Amulet represents a great example of that in action. Our bigger N analysis shows that this deck has made T8 at the last 4 major events. Our smaller N analysis shows that it had great win percentages at one of those events, which makes sense given its performance at the other 3. And our smallest N analysis shows that, on camera, Amulet does some broken things. All of those datapoints alone are probably less meaningful, but taken together they tell a fairly convincing story.
Yeah the N from the PT is also not horribly small, 40-16 would likely come up highly statistically significant if you were to use a binomial test.
I personally prefer more data as a mathematical theorist in a primarily empirical research area, but I get your point. I think a good way to apply it here would be to say statistically, amulet did ridiculously well in the PT, but we can use our specific knowledge that it was a somewhat new deck to suggest that in future events people may come more prepared and it might not do as well. The recent GP does suggest otherwise though - people there were probably prepared for it.
Tmiller: I'm a little surprised you bring in leyline against zoo, is it just for bolts and helix? I imagine they might side a number of those out, and I don't see them being that big of a deal anyway. I could see leyline coming after turn 1 and hurting you a lot more than it would have helped had you drawn it in your opener.
I'm also a litte surprised by the fact that ethereal armor would ever get sided out - it seems like that is one of your critical pieces in the deck and against Abzan I'd rather cut one of the suppression fields due to the fact that having seven answers to Lilliana in addition to the main board outs of dryad arbor/second bogle/spirit dancer/ etc. may be excessive.
I played my first modern event tonight with bogles. I made it to the top 8 by going 2-1-1. I beat tron and UWR aggro. I lost to 4C gifts, surprisingly.
I may agree with the person who said a few posts back not to side too much. The losing game against gifts went as follows:
Start with 2 leylines, quickly get a bogle with an ethereal armor. Crazy start. Proceed to draw 3 suppression fields and another leyline. He had damnation, and a pyroclasm for the next bogle. He was at 1 and proceeded to beat me to death with a batter skull.
I mainboard suppression fields and brought in the leylines for a couple spirit dancers and spirit mantles. It felt like potentially I should have left more in - though perhaps I just had an unlucky draw.
I'm thinking about statistically analyzing what bogles hands should be kept by looking at the probability of getting a bogle in the first couple turns versus the probability of mulling into a better hand.
I was the Merfolk player who managed to sneak in at 8th. I was dreading the possibility of playing you in the semis or finals, but alas, a bad matchup in the quarters knocked me out (The one you played in the finals). Anyways, congrats on your win.
How do you find the merfolk bogles match up? My friend who plays merfolk claims it is good for him, because he has hibernation in the side and echoing truth to occasionally bounce an aura in response to coronet placement, as well as a spell skite in the side. I don't really buy it though, as I think bogles has a pretty solid match up unless hibernation shows up.
I posted the following in the Pod thread, but I think, here it fits a little better:
Yesterday I tested a podless pod list against some friends. I haven't played any combo so it 's been just a Junk good stuff list using 3x chord for creature tutoring and 3x knight for land tutoring. The list I played was
I played three rounds best of three. The deck perfomed pretty well:
1st round against Jund (3-1)
1st game a growing and tutoring knight of the reliquary that entered the battlefield bolt proof due to two lands in my yard searched for stirring wildwood and both killed my opponent. Even a late and big tarmogoyf and Thrun, the last Troll could not win him the game.
2nd game I got disrupted by thougtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek and only drew Mana Dorks and lands. Finally I was killed by two big Tarmogoyf...
3rd game an attack of Siege Rhino and an Elemental Token won the game because my opponent blocked the Rhino and left the 3/3 Token unblocked. So I chorded for Blade Splicer and did the last 5 damage to him.
4th game double Siege Rhino + Restoration Angel performed quite well and killed my opponent...
2nd round against 8Rack (4-0)
In each game Abrupt Decay and Reclamation Sage + Restoration Angel were power houses destroying his annoying Ensnaring Bridge. In game 3 my opponent was totally mana screwed so we decided to play a 4th game I also won quite easily.
3nd round against mono green Infect (0-3)
I had not a single chance. The first two games I was killed on turn 3/4 by a giant trampling Inkmoth Nexus I could only block with my Birds of Paradise... Game three took a little bit longer but even 3 Restoration Angel and a blocking Wall of Roots were not enought...
In none of these games I saw any removal spell. So I guess I will put 2-3 Dismember into my sideboard...
Within the next weeks I will do some more testing against several other modern decks usede by my friends like Tron, Affinity, Bloom, Storm and I will post my changes to the deck and further results. I am looking forward to any replies and suggestions for changings.
Have you been liking chords? I just feel like they aren't really doing much in the deck, since you really don't want to be tapping your big dudes, you want to be swinging with them.
I think you should really try out loxodon smiter as well - he is excellent in control matchups and of course against liliana.
P.S. - I'm really happy to find this thread, since I've been messing with this list the past few days, having some success, and having noone to discuss it with!
I'm also working on a bobless/goyfless version of Abzan Midrange. I too feel that Phyrexian Arena can be a better Bob in lists that run their curves on the higher side. I'm currently down to one, b/c that's all I own now, but this should probably be at 2, with the other card draw coming from Abzan Charm.
KotR can get really big with this manabase (bigger than Goyf) and she can tutor up Vault of the Archangel or Township, depending on need. I've won a couple games with just pumped Souls tokens and Birds. I think Smiter is going to be very important in the upcoming meta with all the Junk/Jund running around, although one could make the argument for Obstinate Baloth or Wilt-Leaf Liege here as well. I've always liked the fact that a turn 2 smiter is a problem for a lot of decks. BSA has always been a pet of mine as she was the chase Mythic when I started playing and I cracked two in a box of M10 (my first ever box). She could become something else, but for now I feel like she's not terrible.
Anyway, the numbers probably need to be tweaked for a lot of cards, but it's a rough idea of what I'm working on. In addition, I have a Resto-flicker variant that plays some questionable cards (Blade Splicer and Thragtusk) in addition to the common "playable" ETB cards like Rhino and Finks that seems like it could eventually become something. It's focus is more creature-centric, basically trying to bury the opponent with value cards off the back of Resto flickering. A double-Helix while also saving your Rhino from removal seems nuts, but also very slow and probably not all that likely.
I'm glad there's a thread for this version though. I was hesitant to put this in the Established Junk thread for fear of it being labeled "budget", but I feel that it's a solid strategy to forego Bob in favor of something more resilient and less painful.
The main thing I can't decide is what to do with the 2 drop slot. I know I want 4 voices and 3 snoozes, but beyond that, I think I should have a few more. Otherwise, my curve gets incredibly heavy on the 3 slot. I love the interaction of knight with horizon canopy, and the various other utility lands I have in there.
I'm thinking about lingering souls.
I'm not entirely sure on the mana base - as of now, it actually seems like I rarely get color screwed because nothing in my deck really costs double of any color. I think I might be able to afford a couple more colorless lands.
Figured id give a quick update about the deck, ran it as junk 2 weeks ago ended up going 2-2 the matchups were alright but felt like it needed some work so im going to go with this version on friday and continue exploring junk(could swap back to gw if its just not worth it).
Mostly this is still under consideration. The pieces seem strong in a lot of match ups but the meta is too unknown to know if the cards I am playing are affective enough. I decided to try and play Kitchen Finks with all the attrition matchups and since that means more shocks are fine. Still split between Restoration Angel and Wilt-Leaf liege.
I've been messing around with a list like this minus the mindcensors/arbiters and land hate, plus fetches, more canopies, some random utility lands, and knights. My only issue is I'm not sure what I should have in the 2 drop slot.
Also, for anyone wondering, the math behind my earlier point is as follows:
Let p=probability of winning a game.
Probability of winning the match = p^2+2p(1-p)
Taking the derivative with respect to p, we get 2p+2-2p^2. The derivative is maximized when the second derivative is zero, i.e., 2-4p=0, or p=1/2.
Out of curiosity, if you play leyline main deck and hit it in your starter game 1 against an opponent like junk, do you side it out game 2? Do you assume they brought out their thought seizes and the like after seeing it?
I would be very careful with maindecking Leylines. In general the matchups where a card is completely dead tend to drag down the average value of the card significantly. What effectively amounts to pre-sideboarding should only be done in extremely unbalanced metas. There's a difference if your deck has tutors and silver bullets (like Reclamation Sage/Spellskite in Pod) or if the cards are just below average but not terrible against the field in general. As an example of the second situation, it's reasonable to maindeck Path to Exile since it's great against Twin/Affinity, but still does something against for example BGx, Tron, UWR and Storm decks. It's below average but not dead against those decks. If the metagame would have a large amount of Scapeshift/Ad Nauseam/Eggs decks for example, you should not maindeck Path to Exile since it's so often dead.
As for not needing Leylines in the sideboard to win against burn, that's the wrong way of thinking. Even if we assume you have 65% chance to beat burn without Leylines, there is still value in improving the win rate to something like 85%. In fact, improving the win rate from 65% to 85% is worth just as much as improving the win rate from 40% to 60%. You should not just think about what matchups are bad when building a sideboard. You should be thinking about what cards will significantly improve matchups against popular decks.
Regarding Heliod's Pilgrim, 3 mana is a lot for this deck and the flexibility you get from the tutoring is not all that useful. When you have 3 mana you would almost always be getting something like Unflinching Courage anyway, and you would be better off just playing an extra copy of that card.
I'd just like to make the point that it isn't as important to increase the win rate from 65% to 85% than from 40% to 60% because of the best 2 out of 3 nature of magic. Similarly, taking a matchup from 0 to 20% is statistically not as valuable. The value of increasing your win ratio is maximized around the 50% range.
I think he meant using boros charm to protect your enchantments, since it targets all permanents you control.
Yeah the N from the PT is also not horribly small, 40-16 would likely come up highly statistically significant if you were to use a binomial test.
I personally prefer more data as a mathematical theorist in a primarily empirical research area, but I get your point. I think a good way to apply it here would be to say statistically, amulet did ridiculously well in the PT, but we can use our specific knowledge that it was a somewhat new deck to suggest that in future events people may come more prepared and it might not do as well. The recent GP does suggest otherwise though - people there were probably prepared for it.
I'm also a litte surprised by the fact that ethereal armor would ever get sided out - it seems like that is one of your critical pieces in the deck and against Abzan I'd rather cut one of the suppression fields due to the fact that having seven answers to Lilliana in addition to the main board outs of dryad arbor/second bogle/spirit dancer/ etc. may be excessive.
I may agree with the person who said a few posts back not to side too much. The losing game against gifts went as follows:
Start with 2 leylines, quickly get a bogle with an ethereal armor. Crazy start. Proceed to draw 3 suppression fields and another leyline. He had damnation, and a pyroclasm for the next bogle. He was at 1 and proceeded to beat me to death with a batter skull.
I mainboard suppression fields and brought in the leylines for a couple spirit dancers and spirit mantles. It felt like potentially I should have left more in - though perhaps I just had an unlucky draw.
I'm thinking about statistically analyzing what bogles hands should be kept by looking at the probability of getting a bogle in the first couple turns versus the probability of mulling into a better hand.
Do you bring in Spellskite hate preemptively before seeing it?
What do you take out?
Sorry, I'm just getting into bogles and have to still do the testing, so I'm curious what everyone else does.
How do you find the merfolk bogles match up? My friend who plays merfolk claims it is good for him, because he has hibernation in the side and echoing truth to occasionally bounce an aura in response to coronet placement, as well as a spell skite in the side. I don't really buy it though, as I think bogles has a pretty solid match up unless hibernation shows up.
Have you been liking chords? I just feel like they aren't really doing much in the deck, since you really don't want to be tapping your big dudes, you want to be swinging with them.
I think you should really try out loxodon smiter as well - he is excellent in control matchups and of course against liliana.
P.S. - I'm really happy to find this thread, since I've been messing with this list the past few days, having some success, and having noone to discuss it with!
I've been playing around with something similar, here's my list:
4 Windswept Heath
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Godless Shrine
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Temple Garden
1 Swamp
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Siege Rhino
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Restoration Angel
1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
2 Thoughtseize
3 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
The main thing I can't decide is what to do with the 2 drop slot. I know I want 4 voices and 3 snoozes, but beyond that, I think I should have a few more. Otherwise, my curve gets incredibly heavy on the 3 slot. I love the interaction of knight with horizon canopy, and the various other utility lands I have in there.
I'm thinking about lingering souls.
I'm not entirely sure on the mana base - as of now, it actually seems like I rarely get color screwed because nothing in my deck really costs double of any color. I think I might be able to afford a couple more colorless lands.
I've been messing around with a list like this minus the mindcensors/arbiters and land hate, plus fetches, more canopies, some random utility lands, and knights. My only issue is I'm not sure what I should have in the 2 drop slot.
Let p=probability of winning a game.
Probability of winning the match = p^2+2p(1-p)
Taking the derivative with respect to p, we get 2p+2-2p^2. The derivative is maximized when the second derivative is zero, i.e., 2-4p=0, or p=1/2.
Out of curiosity, if you play leyline main deck and hit it in your starter game 1 against an opponent like junk, do you side it out game 2? Do you assume they brought out their thought seizes and the like after seeing it?
I'd just like to make the point that it isn't as important to increase the win rate from 65% to 85% than from 40% to 60% because of the best 2 out of 3 nature of magic. Similarly, taking a matchup from 0 to 20% is statistically not as valuable. The value of increasing your win ratio is maximized around the 50% range.