I've played regular Burn for quite a while, so I'd like to comment from that perspective. In principle, the question you need to answer is "why is this better than Boros Burn?" (provided that you care about winning). The main issue with Boros Burn, I think, is that its curve is slightly too high to be consistently fast enough and/or cheat on land more to prevent flooding. In my experience, regular Burn dies to flood or clunky slow hands with too many 2 mana spells far more than getting mana screwed on 1 land (provided that you only keep 1-landers with a decent number of 1-drops, of course). The problem with 2 mana spells is that it takes 4 mana to double spell with them and that takes way too long.
This deck has an even higher curve (especially without the discard synergy in place), not to mention slow creatures of 2 mana without haste or otherwise guaranteed damage. Even though there's quite some life gain in here, Burn rarely loses the race because of a lack of life gain, but rather because it can't unload fast enough to race a combodeck or a 'control' deck that simply stabilizes through blockers/counters/discard at too high a life total to easily topdeck out of. Sure, you'll win games because all your 'burn' spells gain you life that you wouldn't have if they didn't, but the question is whether you'd have also won that game if these spells simply cost half the mana and were cast way quicker. Not to mention that a big incentive to play Burn is Searing Blaze which is an insane tempo swing.
That said, I think Rb Burn may have legs, if you only use the 1 mana black spells instead of the white 2 mana spells.
The problem with this, imho, is that the white spells offer you good interaction to win a race/break up a combo (Lightning Helix and the highest damage in a single card for 2 mana (Boros Charm) + good sideboard cards like Rest in Peace and Deflecting Palm. For the small benefit of being slightly easier to cast, Sovereign's Bite is just a much worse Helix. Also, Gonti's Machinations isn't guaranteed damage on a topdeck which is usually a big no-no in burn-style decks.
Alternatively, exploiting Bloodchief Ascension may seem more useful in a black shell that also includes Blightning and other discard, as mentioned above. I'd stay away from cards that give your opponents the choice, though. The margins in Burn are so slim that you can't afford to hand them the reigns.
I played 4 rounds and went 1-3 in some unfortunate events.
R1 I played against Eldrazi and Taxes. G1 he had almost no clock, but a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben while I cycled away in search of As Foretold and land to play it. When I finally found it and cast it, I had a Tolaria West in hand to search for the Living End the next turn and pay for it, knowing I couldn't be stopped anymore. He even had the TKS but could only see he was dead.
G2 He had Grafdigger's Cage (his first Modern event, he told me afterwards) but followed it up with Rest in Peace and Thalia. I played Engineered Explosives for X=1 to get 2 sunburst and blew up the thalia and RiP, after which I could LE for 1 Curator and wiping his board. This is where he found out Cage doesn't help against LE, hehe. I started hardcasting more Curators while casting a Ancestral Vision every turn thanks to a flipped Jace and eventually even had the Combo (hardcast Kiki) to force him to do something now and die to my flyers or just die to the combo, so a certain win for me. All felt pretty good in this match.
R2 I played against Paradoxial Engine combo, which I had never played against before and I made multiple horrible misplays to lose the match. I shot his Core Tapper instead of a mana artifact, which allowed him to put 2 counters on it and continue as if nothing happened, which turned my reasonable mull to 5 G3 into an impossible to win situation. Oh well, can't fault the deck for this because with all the counterspells, artifact destruction and surgicals, this should have been a fine matchup.
R3 I played against UR Storm. G1 I mull to 5, find nothing and die easily. G2 he mulls to a no-lander on 6 and I hardcast Kiki for the win before he can do anything. I could have stopped his fetch the turn before even but didn't want to show him the Nimble Obstructionist.
G3 I keep a 2lander and don't find a 3rd land ever in 7 draws or so. I could have kept a Faithless Looting while looting at some point to have more draws, but the odds of not finding land at the point I had to decide this were so low that seemed needlessly conservative. Such is life.
R4 I played against Abzan Delirium. G1 I flood out after cycling a bunch, finding nothing. G2 he misplays by not Abrupt Decaying my AF after T3 AF+AV and playing Liliana, the Last Hope instead, thinking he'll be fine. I Blood Moon him, taking away his green and a few turns later I put a bunch of creatures and the combo into play. G3 I try to control him while looking for a LE, which I don't find in the top half of my deck and die. I boarded out a LE here but that's possibly a mistake. Even though I don't need one fast, I do have to also take into account the possibility of it getting discarded (though that didn't happen this game) so perhaps down from 4 to 3 is fine but from 3 to 2 is not.
Even though the result was objectively worse than Thursday, the deck felt a lot better and robust than the all-in version. Also, Surgical Extraction felt like a really good inclusion in this deck because it allows me to tap out for AF without losing interaction potential against combodecks or other fast decks that use the GY. The Storm player remarked that his line was super greedy and would have lost to Surgical if I had it. All in all I'm probably going to try this version again. I also liked flip Jace in this deck, as well as Izzet Charm.
R2 against Amulet Titan.
G1 he has a T2 Hive Mind which voids my T3 kill (could have been T2 with a Simian Spirit Guide on the top of my deck) even though he doesn't have a pact to cast yet. Pretty rough to run into this when Hive Mind is no longer commonly played in that deck.
G2 and 3 I have a quick Blood Moon and have all the time in the world to find my combo.
R3 against UR Breach
G1 I mulligan to a 6 without land but with monkey + Faithless Looting and scry an Island to the top. A few draw 2/discard 2 later I'm still stuck on 2 lands while he gets to 5 and tries to go for Breach/Emrakul, which I Izzet Charm. I proceed to draw nothing and I get emrakule'd later.
G2 we're playing draw go a while and on 6 mana he tries to go for Breach. I allow it to resolve and flash in an exarch pitching monkey to tap his emrakul. I untap and go for the combo but he has Surgical Extraction on my Kiki which is pretty harsh. We continue to play and I tap his Emrakul 2 more times, but he keeps finding answers (and has a Jace, TMS in play since T4) for my anemic beats that he eventually can emrakul me anyway. Pretty funny game, but Surgical is really the perfect hoser. I hadn't seen it in a while so that was unfortunate.
So, all in all it feels bad to have 1 kill combo only, but I'm not sure what would be a good plan. Perhaps Thing in the Ice as it avoids the graveyard hate, doesn't get bolted and is quick to flip in this deck. I could also try to put in more interaction such as Remand instead of Serum Visions. Or simply add cyclers to have a less anemic beat-down backup plan and something else to Living End in.
Probably going to only adjust it slightly for tomorrow because 3 matches (including the ultimate hate-list) is hardly enough to dismiss the deck.
Hi! I'm not against an UR version abusing discard and "living ending" into a insta combo win, but this deck seems to have several big issues.
I would say it's way more graveyard dependent that the average builds proposed here, since trying to hard cast and resolve a 5 mana triple red creature with only 14 red sources and 19 lands is not a reliable plan at all.
Plus you are worried about fast decks, but you've cut all interaction from your deck. You need a double discard outlet + 2 creatures + As Foretold + Living End in your opening 15 cards (let's say a couple more than 10-11 since you can cycle and serum visions) to be faster than them, and that's far from a reliable plan as well!
Any discard spell or graveyard interaction kills your win instantly, and I don't see how you can survive until you can cast the combo "naturally".
Hope you do great, but I wanted to give the input in case you want to tweak it a bit more before playing tomorrow!
Haven't played yet (I'll write about it when I have) but I think you're needlessly pessimistic.
First of all: the deck also has 4 Simian Spirit Guide, which are 4 more (red) mana sources. Also, the deck is full of draw, so finding land isn't an issue. Blood Moon also helps with getting to 3 red. The spirit guides are mainly fast mana, of course. A T1-2 (or even 3 on the play) blood moon can spell game over as well. I have found while goldfishing that I really only need to get 1 basic island to function properly under a blood moon.
I'd say this deck is perhaps a bit more graveyard-centric than typical cycling versions, but way less than the version incorporating Goryo's Vengeance. It has less interaction so it's less likely to win a very long game. On the other hand it's also much faster. I say "less interaction", btw, because it certainly doesn't have nothing. Izzet Charm doubles up as removal for problematic creatures and counterspell protection next to its primary use. I'd say this is pretty much on-par in regard to interaction for similar combo decks. Deceiver Exarch is also a great piece of 'interaction' as it can tap them out EoT, tap a potential lethal threat and block/chump another. In the Twin decks of old, I have won many a game on the back of deceiver tapping something down.
Next up, don't forget about Living End itself. I don't need to end the game directly with LE if it's a boardwipe that leaves the opponent with nothing. In most cases, I can safely LE again later to put my combo into play (or hardcast a missing piece if I already had something) without worrying about the creatures I put into play on their side. It takes some pretty specific creatures to break up my combo.
Lastly, there's the sideboard :). Playing UR gives me access to Anger of the Gods which is a very good way of beating the decks I had issues with previously. Finding AF LE on T3 in the cycling version is not consistent enough to be a reliable boardwipe against go-wide aggro decks with a t4 kill (or that leave you so low on t3 that wrathing their board t4 doesn't save you anymore). Being able to just win should also help a lot against combo decks such as storm.
All that said, I do of course realize that my 'combo' is pretty convoluted with needing 4 cards to actually win quickly, 2 of which I have to get into the GY first. Funnily enough, it has been much smoother/easier during goldfishing than I expected with everything as a 4-off. I'll play another FNM this Friday so I can adjust the list after tonight. I can see myself cutting 1 LE and Kiki for something like Remand. The other route could be to swap Serum Visions with Street Wraith for more speed and a back-door way of winning with LE. So far it has felt pretty good to go serum visions into looting though. That's a lot of digging.
After losing too much against fast decks I have sort of given up for now. I have to admit that Jace, TMS doesn't seem great here, or, better said, he's great in the wrong matchups because those we generally win already anyway. 4 mana brainstorm isn't good enough against the problematic matchups, and sadly 4 mana triple unsummon also isn't good enough there because they either burn us out or have too wide a board.
Looking at the posted results of others, it seems better to go for cheap interaction and speeding up the combo. I still don't like Street Wraith in this deck because it's so bad against the fast decks that pressure your life total, but Nimble Obstructionist has been pretty great. It's very good against fx Storm, which is a pretty poor matchup as they're just a much faster combodeck. Having main deck spell pierce in addition to path would help a lot of course.
However, I thought of just going full-on combo, with a combo that wins the game on the spot (Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Deceiver Exarch) but can also be played normally to circumvent graveyard hate. Online I found a video (by Oren Lagziel, search for UR Living End Kiki) of someone playing a middle ground version of these 2 concepts by playing only 2 kiki and 4 untap creatures in a shell of 12 cyclers. I don't know what is better, but I first want to try this sort of all-in version:
I'm not playing Goryo's Vengeance and Griselbrand because they also (fully) rely on the graveyard and that makes it way weaker against graveyard hate as well as more a much more painful manabase. A quick Blood Moon also wins games which is not possible in a 3 color deck.
So far it goldfishes nicely to either a quick blood moon or combo kill, but the first real game I can play with it will be Thursday.
@brandioo1
Your Solemnity opponent seems to have had a nombo in their deck. Devoted Druid and Solemnity don't work together because the solemnity prevents you from being able to use the untap ability of the druid.
I played some more and went 0-4 in one FNM into 3-0 the next. Matchups can be a bit lopsided and I didn't play all that well. I have to admit that Jace, while great, is too often not great in a matchup (anything aggro, really) and should also be boarded out in those matchups, which I inititally didn't do for testing purposes. The deck also draws so many cards that 2 Jace seems sufficient. Cutting a path to make room for those Jaces was also a mistake so that was an easy fix by just swapping path/jace from the SB.
One thing I am sure about is that this deck doesn't want Street Wraith. The deck is way too slow and controlly to justify paying 2 life for such a marginal creature/effect. Instead, I went up to 21 lands and am playing Glassdust Hulk. It's nice to dodge push/bolt and be able to cycle for white. The ability of Architects of Will never seemed very relevant to me as we have better ways to control the opponent than to reorder the top 3 cards of their deck and the creature itself sucks.
This is my list now, which I just 3-0'd with against Bogles, Ponza and Zoo.
In all games I've played so far I never wanted to suspend Living End. It would never be relevant and the white cards are way more impactful than the black. I definitely view this deck as a control deck with an unusual win con. If I had it, I'd play a 2nd Obstructionist over the 2nd Glassdust Hulk. I've never played the mono-U version but I don't see the upside with a significantly worse SB and only 3 white cards MD.
I've played this deck recently in a few FNMs and I like what it does. I've only played Uw so far, because I see nothing useful from black, am not interested in suspending Living End and feel like you really need early interaction in quite a few matchups, but without having their creature end up in the graveyard, thus: Path to Exile. White also gives you Stony Silence which is pretty good against bad matchups (affinity, tron) and a way to cast Leyline of Sanctity. This deck, with its need to find a 4-off in As Foretold seems pretty bad against discard so I feel leyline is quite useful. It also helps against another bad matchup, Burn. It used to be terrible to draw more leylines beyond your opening hand, but with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and many shuffle effects it's not a big deal anymore.
Speaking of Jace, this deck really got a big boost from this card, imho. I think those who are saying that this deck doesn't really want Jace or maybe only 1-2 are nuts and have never played with it. Not only does Jace find As Foretold, it gets annoying creatures of the battlefield to buy time, controls their draws and is a wincon that doesn't use the graveyard or the combat phase. With our ability to clear the board, Jace slices and dices and gives you a whole new angle of attack that also works very well with the rest of the deck. I own 3 Jaces and play 3, but I wouldn't be surprised if 4 is actually correct. Fortunately the deck plays a lot of draw so finding one isn't really an issue.
Jace basically means we're not just looking for a 4-off in As Foretold, but now have up to 8 win cons to find which makes this deck much more consistent.
For the 3 Jaces, I cut the 4th Cryptic, 4th Street Wraith and put the 3rd Path in the SB. I felt that I can't have too many 4-drops, Street Wraith is poor anyway and with the added draw (and bounce) from Jace I could get away with 2 paths main. Last FNM I went 3-1 and Jace felt awesome, as expected. What didn't feel awesome was 20 land and 3 street wraiths. I mulled almost every 7 due to too few lands (or awkward lands like tolaria west, bojuka bog + field of ruin) and the deck seems too slow to really consider street wraith a free cycler. 3 was already better than 4, but the creature is so meh and the free cycling almost irrelevant that I rather play more Obstructionist, more land and perhaps another 1 mana cycler, like Architects of Will, even though I think the creature itself is even worse than Street Wraith.
This deck seemed pretty good against control so far (I also beat UW Jace control in the last FNM) so if control gets played more, that should be good. My main concern is that there may simply be other 'control' decks that are better Jace shells, making LAF just a worse Jace deck.
If the probe ban wasn't bad enough for this deck already, the fact that Fatal Push will most likely cause BGx decks to get more popular (and possibly as a consequence, burn) puts the final nail in the coffin. I recently played this deck again in an FNM because I felt like it and I hadn't seen all that many bad matchups in the local meta in a while. Sadly, I of course had to face the only 2 BGx decks in the room (of 30 players or so) who normally don't even play BGx and despite having pyromancers in the board and having a fairly close g3 against Jund, it was as miserable as ever to play against. Against Abzan, I had no chance whatsoever. Granted, my draws were below average and theirs perhaps above, but considering JAC got (way) worse and they gained, you must be pretty masochistic to still try to play this deck.
The best we can hope for is that they unban Eye of Ugin (and probe) in some lapse of judgement ;).
The reason U tron is unfavorable is because they run Chalice of the Void, bounce spells, and counter magic. The reason RG Tron is even instead of favorable is because you have to have the kill before they get tron online. Living End is even because they have a consistent turn 3 board wipe. Lantern Control has hand attack to disrupt the combo long enough to get the lock online.
Ok, well, I haven't seen chalice from U tron yet but that is certainly a bit annoying. On the other hand, they need it all to even come close to have a chance because they're slow as hell. Maybe with the nutdraw they have a chance but it's still very hard to believe it's merely even. Chalice is at most a 4-off that they need to have in the top 8-9 cards and even if they do, they need to actually do something or you wish for decay and kill them.
With RG tron, I disagree completely. In the treasure cruise era, I tested a lot against a friend of mine. Even after sideboarding and with him on the play, I had like an 80% win rate. T3 karn on the play is not good enough. It only became interesting if I couldn't combo off through it immediately and he had a follow-up O-stone ready to blow (or I just bricked completely). Even though we don't have cruise anymore, that doesn't change much in this case. Before their T4, they can do practically nothing of importance and our goldfish is definitely faster than that.
I've only played against Living End when I ran multiple Silence, so perhaps that's why I thought it was a cakewalk. Still, a boardwipe is not really all that impressive considering we have fatestitchers to go off right after anyway. Not to mention what they might be returning to our battlefield with living end.
Lantern doesn't play that much hand disruption that it can stop you from playing any mana dorks/wishes/cantrips. A deck that is half cantrip is pretty hard to lock out and without a hard lock they're not winning because we don't care about bridge. Sure, it's possible to lose if they happen to take your wish/JAC and surgical it + have a soft lock to mill us out before we can find an out, but it seems pretty unlikely. Also, all this is basically assuming that your opponent knows the matchup. If any of these decks keep a reasonable hand in the dark, chances are they get completely steamrolled and then it's easy to win 1 out of 2 SB games.
Really? RG tron is 'even' and U tron even unfavorable? Living end even? How do you lose these matchups? It also seems almost impossible to lose against Lantern control. They need both their surgicals on wish and JAC to even stand a chance..
Blue moon also never felt that hard to me. They have no clock and blood moon is only impressive if they also kill all your dorks, which is pretty hard with caryatid. If you also happen to run manamorphose it's not a problem at all.
I think Infect is less favorable than even because they can be as fast and have disruption even though we have little to no disruption for them. This is why I like running a slaughter pact because it doubles as free spell and interaction that they can't ignore (unless they probe you, of course). Also, I think most aggro decks should be not so favorable because you easily deal tons of damage to yourself which can seriously speed up their clock, putting you under a lot of pressure to find your combo quickly or die.
Jund, Abzan and Burn should be in another category: agony :P.
If you want to play pump, I'd pair it with TBR. You could even splash green for become immense and be a bit like atarka red of old standard. Between fetches and (free) cantrips, it's pretty easy to get there. The advantage over infect and death's shadow is that you have reach with burn and don't murder yourself. Still, it would make the mana worse and more painful and it's a bit more all-in than I like, but pump without trample seems bad.
I like TBR because it is both 'pump' and trample, but I only run 3 because I only really need 1 and they are bad top decks.
I responded mostly to Jonny_Tempel, who seemed to suggest to have many more twisted images and cut forked bolt in favor of looting.
When stormchaser mage was just legal, I made an URg prowess deck (splashing for Atarka's Command) that ran 2 twisted image, which I think is a fine number. Worst case scenario is that you can't cast it due to no legal targets so it's not without risk to run 4 and thus I wouldn't.
If you can't chain multiple spells easily (which is why I run manamorphose), I agree that TBR is less exciting. With Delver, it's definitely not exciting unless you run mutagenic growth. On the other hand, if you do get to 4+ power, TBR is great and deals tons of damage. Without trample, I don't think Titan's Strength is better than lava spike. In the best case scenario it deals the same amount of damage and in the worst case scenario you can't even cast one and the other still does the same. It's also great to be able to rip burn from the top to finish someone off after they wipe the board or have a bunch of blockers.
Main deck, a deck like this should not try to hedge against problem cards like kitchen finks because you can't afford to be so slow against combo. If there are enough kitchen finks to warrant main deck pillar of flame, then this is not the deck to play to begin with. Bloodghast is no problem, btw. It can't block :).
Lastly, Distortion strike doesn't exile itself permanently. On the rebound, provided that you can cast it, it will end up in your gy. It also pumps power, which should not be ignored. Just like the 1 life from vapor snag adds up, this does too. With bedlam reveler I prefer TBR because just TBR already gives trample and the damage potential is way higher.
I agree, mostly. Twisted Image is actually a pretty good pump spell in a deck with 4 Monastery Swiftspear, 4 Stormchaser Mage and 4 Bedlam Reveler, so I'd definitely play 1-2 of those main, but 4 seems a bit over the top. I'm much lighter on those high toughness creatures so I'm not so sure I want it in my list, but it's definitely a great card to have to cycle at worst and blow them out or kill them at best. I'd replace Tian's Strength with it rather than other spells.
I also think you want some number of Forked Bolt. You don't really want to bolt their birds, but forked bolt is great for that and it's only 1 mana, contrary to electrolyze.
I'm a bit surprised you don't play Temur Battle Rage in this deck, though. So much pump and prowess. Seems unlikely that someone can put more toughness in front of something than the power of your slipped creature, meaning that TBR would deal effectively more damage with in some cases (if they aren't dead) the added benefit of killing the blocker(s).
Also, in general burn is better than pump because burn is much more flexible and (almost, Leyline of Sanctity ) always works whereas pump can be a dead top deck easily.
Most of the lists in this thread look alot bigger then the lists I've been leaning towards.
So let me start by saying i dont know how to post a decklist as this is my first post.
I have been playing ur delver in legacy for 6 months and modern for about 4. And have found that the bigger versions don't go under decks like the legacy ur delver does, and i think thats because in legacy it leans closer to burn instead of lookong more like grixis. So I put that same philosophy into my modern list.
So far the spreading seas have given me the effect of blood moon with more velocity, and the added burn makes it feel a lot more like legacy.
So far the only slots in the main I'm unhappy with are the mutagenic growths. The are often apart of a hand that can run out of steam, but they have also been integral in saving a threat from removal. I am looking for a better card in tbat slot. As it is, with all the prowess having counterspells isn't something im missing nor something i want. Looking forward to your thoughts.
If you use the [.deck] and [./deck] tags around your list (without dots) you get the above result. With deck=Something you can also give it a specific name because the default is to give it the poster's name (which is mine now, funnily enough).
17 land seems a bit light with snapcaster mage which is pretty much a 3 mana play. Even though snapcaster is great, I don't really want it in this deck and think bedlam reveler is just better to be able to reload and have a big beater. Reveler also doesn't get killed by anger of the gods, which everything else does.
I'm actually leaning towards including a mutagenic (instead of electrolyze which I think is too expensive and a bit redundant next to 2 forked bolt) in my list because I also run temur battle rage. As you said, it also saves your prowess dudes from bolts, which is nice. Counterspells aren't great in this deck, true, but I think it would be a mistake to run none. I chose spell pierce as a singleton in the main deck to be as catch-all as possible at the cheapest cost so it can be used to protect your stuff while you pump your dudes with lava spikes etc. Also, to keep them honest, as they say.
Maybe Spreading Seas is good enough, but I like how this deck (if tuned for it) can basically ignore blood moon itself while locking other decks completely out. Spreading seas can never do that.
This deck has an even higher curve (especially without the discard synergy in place), not to mention slow creatures of 2 mana without haste or otherwise guaranteed damage. Even though there's quite some life gain in here, Burn rarely loses the race because of a lack of life gain, but rather because it can't unload fast enough to race a combodeck or a 'control' deck that simply stabilizes through blockers/counters/discard at too high a life total to easily topdeck out of. Sure, you'll win games because all your 'burn' spells gain you life that you wouldn't have if they didn't, but the question is whether you'd have also won that game if these spells simply cost half the mana and were cast way quicker. Not to mention that a big incentive to play Burn is Searing Blaze which is an insane tempo swing.
That said, I think Rb Burn may have legs, if you only use the 1 mana black spells instead of the white 2 mana spells.
The problem with this, imho, is that the white spells offer you good interaction to win a race/break up a combo (Lightning Helix and the highest damage in a single card for 2 mana (Boros Charm) + good sideboard cards like Rest in Peace and Deflecting Palm. For the small benefit of being slightly easier to cast, Sovereign's Bite is just a much worse Helix. Also, Gonti's Machinations isn't guaranteed damage on a topdeck which is usually a big no-no in burn-style decks.
Alternatively, exploiting Bloodchief Ascension may seem more useful in a black shell that also includes Blightning and other discard, as mentioned above. I'd stay away from cards that give your opponents the choice, though. The margins in Burn are so slim that you can't afford to hand them the reigns.
I know, but he didn't. Should have said "try to stop me", unfortunately he played the spyglass shortly after so it didn't matter.
Anyway, I played in another FNM last Friday with the following list:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
1 Mountain
4 Island
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Tolaria West
1 Cascade Bluffs
Creatures (19)
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Deceiver Exarch
1 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Street Wraith
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Living End
4 Faithless Looting
4 Izzet Charm
2 Blood Moon
4 As Foretold
2 Abrade
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Dispel
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Cryptic Command
1 Engineered Explosives
I played 4 rounds and went 1-3 in some unfortunate events.
R1 I played against Eldrazi and Taxes. G1 he had almost no clock, but a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben while I cycled away in search of As Foretold and land to play it. When I finally found it and cast it, I had a Tolaria West in hand to search for the Living End the next turn and pay for it, knowing I couldn't be stopped anymore. He even had the TKS but could only see he was dead.
G2 He had Grafdigger's Cage (his first Modern event, he told me afterwards) but followed it up with Rest in Peace and Thalia. I played Engineered Explosives for X=1 to get 2 sunburst and blew up the thalia and RiP, after which I could LE for 1 Curator and wiping his board. This is where he found out Cage doesn't help against LE, hehe. I started hardcasting more Curators while casting a Ancestral Vision every turn thanks to a flipped Jace and eventually even had the Combo (hardcast Kiki) to force him to do something now and die to my flyers or just die to the combo, so a certain win for me. All felt pretty good in this match.
R2 I played against Paradoxial Engine combo, which I had never played against before and I made multiple horrible misplays to lose the match. I shot his Core Tapper instead of a mana artifact, which allowed him to put 2 counters on it and continue as if nothing happened, which turned my reasonable mull to 5 G3 into an impossible to win situation. Oh well, can't fault the deck for this because with all the counterspells, artifact destruction and surgicals, this should have been a fine matchup.
R3 I played against UR Storm. G1 I mull to 5, find nothing and die easily. G2 he mulls to a no-lander on 6 and I hardcast Kiki for the win before he can do anything. I could have stopped his fetch the turn before even but didn't want to show him the Nimble Obstructionist.
G3 I keep a 2lander and don't find a 3rd land ever in 7 draws or so. I could have kept a Faithless Looting while looting at some point to have more draws, but the odds of not finding land at the point I had to decide this were so low that seemed needlessly conservative. Such is life.
R4 I played against Abzan Delirium. G1 I flood out after cycling a bunch, finding nothing. G2 he misplays by not Abrupt Decaying my AF after T3 AF+AV and playing Liliana, the Last Hope instead, thinking he'll be fine. I Blood Moon him, taking away his green and a few turns later I put a bunch of creatures and the combo into play. G3 I try to control him while looking for a LE, which I don't find in the top half of my deck and die. I boarded out a LE here but that's possibly a mistake. Even though I don't need one fast, I do have to also take into account the possibility of it getting discarded (though that didn't happen this game) so perhaps down from 4 to 3 is fine but from 3 to 2 is not.
Even though the result was objectively worse than Thursday, the deck felt a lot better and robust than the all-in version. Also, Surgical Extraction felt like a really good inclusion in this deck because it allows me to tap out for AF without losing interaction potential against combodecks or other fast decks that use the GY. The Storm player remarked that his line was super greedy and would have lost to Surgical if I had it. All in all I'm probably going to try this version again. I also liked flip Jace in this deck, as well as Izzet Charm.
So I played 3 matches tonight and went 1-2.
R1 against Tezzerator with Thopter/Sword combo.
G1 gets Grafdigger's Cage with Whir of Invention to stop me from comboing him quickly. Then he whirs for Sorcerous Spyglass and sees the combo so he names Kiki. My only out at this point is anemic beats or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy ultimate but he also finds Ensnaring Bridge, Witchbane Orb and Chalice of the Void on 0. Yeah..
G2 I have T2 Blood Moon and Abrade in hand but he has Welding Jar and Ratchet Bomb. I kept a 2lander and never find 3rd land in an insane number of draws so I can't quickly enough cast and flip jace to double abrade. This deck plays way too much hate.
R2 against Amulet Titan.
G1 he has a T2 Hive Mind which voids my T3 kill (could have been T2 with a Simian Spirit Guide on the top of my deck) even though he doesn't have a pact to cast yet. Pretty rough to run into this when Hive Mind is no longer commonly played in that deck.
G2 and 3 I have a quick Blood Moon and have all the time in the world to find my combo.
R3 against UR Breach
G1 I mulligan to a 6 without land but with monkey + Faithless Looting and scry an Island to the top. A few draw 2/discard 2 later I'm still stuck on 2 lands while he gets to 5 and tries to go for Breach/Emrakul, which I Izzet Charm. I proceed to draw nothing and I get emrakule'd later.
G2 we're playing draw go a while and on 6 mana he tries to go for Breach. I allow it to resolve and flash in an exarch pitching monkey to tap his emrakul. I untap and go for the combo but he has Surgical Extraction on my Kiki which is pretty harsh. We continue to play and I tap his Emrakul 2 more times, but he keeps finding answers (and has a Jace, TMS in play since T4) for my anemic beats that he eventually can emrakul me anyway. Pretty funny game, but Surgical is really the perfect hoser. I hadn't seen it in a while so that was unfortunate.
So, all in all it feels bad to have 1 kill combo only, but I'm not sure what would be a good plan. Perhaps Thing in the Ice as it avoids the graveyard hate, doesn't get bolted and is quick to flip in this deck. I could also try to put in more interaction such as Remand instead of Serum Visions. Or simply add cyclers to have a less anemic beat-down backup plan and something else to Living End in.
Probably going to only adjust it slightly for tomorrow because 3 matches (including the ultimate hate-list) is hardly enough to dismiss the deck.
Haven't played yet (I'll write about it when I have) but I think you're needlessly pessimistic.
First of all: the deck also has 4 Simian Spirit Guide, which are 4 more (red) mana sources. Also, the deck is full of draw, so finding land isn't an issue. Blood Moon also helps with getting to 3 red. The spirit guides are mainly fast mana, of course. A T1-2 (or even 3 on the play) blood moon can spell game over as well. I have found while goldfishing that I really only need to get 1 basic island to function properly under a blood moon.
I'd say this deck is perhaps a bit more graveyard-centric than typical cycling versions, but way less than the version incorporating Goryo's Vengeance. It has less interaction so it's less likely to win a very long game. On the other hand it's also much faster. I say "less interaction", btw, because it certainly doesn't have nothing. Izzet Charm doubles up as removal for problematic creatures and counterspell protection next to its primary use. I'd say this is pretty much on-par in regard to interaction for similar combo decks. Deceiver Exarch is also a great piece of 'interaction' as it can tap them out EoT, tap a potential lethal threat and block/chump another. In the Twin decks of old, I have won many a game on the back of deceiver tapping something down.
Next up, don't forget about Living End itself. I don't need to end the game directly with LE if it's a boardwipe that leaves the opponent with nothing. In most cases, I can safely LE again later to put my combo into play (or hardcast a missing piece if I already had something) without worrying about the creatures I put into play on their side. It takes some pretty specific creatures to break up my combo.
Lastly, there's the sideboard :). Playing UR gives me access to Anger of the Gods which is a very good way of beating the decks I had issues with previously. Finding AF LE on T3 in the cycling version is not consistent enough to be a reliable boardwipe against go-wide aggro decks with a t4 kill (or that leave you so low on t3 that wrathing their board t4 doesn't save you anymore). Being able to just win should also help a lot against combo decks such as storm.
All that said, I do of course realize that my 'combo' is pretty convoluted with needing 4 cards to actually win quickly, 2 of which I have to get into the GY first. Funnily enough, it has been much smoother/easier during goldfishing than I expected with everything as a 4-off. I'll play another FNM this Friday so I can adjust the list after tonight. I can see myself cutting 1 LE and Kiki for something like Remand. The other route could be to swap Serum Visions with Street Wraith for more speed and a back-door way of winning with LE. So far it has felt pretty good to go serum visions into looting though. That's a lot of digging.
Looking at the posted results of others, it seems better to go for cheap interaction and speeding up the combo. I still don't like Street Wraith in this deck because it's so bad against the fast decks that pressure your life total, but Nimble Obstructionist has been pretty great. It's very good against fx Storm, which is a pretty poor matchup as they're just a much faster combodeck. Having main deck spell pierce in addition to path would help a lot of course.
However, I thought of just going full-on combo, with a combo that wins the game on the spot (Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Deceiver Exarch) but can also be played normally to circumvent graveyard hate. Online I found a video (by Oren Lagziel, search for UR Living End Kiki) of someone playing a middle ground version of these 2 concepts by playing only 2 kiki and 4 untap creatures in a shell of 12 cyclers. I don't know what is better, but I first want to try this sort of all-in version:
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
1 Mountain
3 Island
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Tolaria West
Creatures (14)
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Serum Visions
4 Faithless Looting
4 Izzet Charm
1 Manamorphose
2 Blood Moon
4 As Foretold
2 Abrade
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Dispel
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Lightning Axe
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Blood Moon
I'm not playing Goryo's Vengeance and Griselbrand because they also (fully) rely on the graveyard and that makes it way weaker against graveyard hate as well as more a much more painful manabase. A quick Blood Moon also wins games which is not possible in a 3 color deck.
So far it goldfishes nicely to either a quick blood moon or combo kill, but the first real game I can play with it will be Thursday.
@brandioo1
Your Solemnity opponent seems to have had a nombo in their deck. Devoted Druid and Solemnity don't work together because the solemnity prevents you from being able to use the untap ability of the druid.
One thing I am sure about is that this deck doesn't want Street Wraith. The deck is way too slow and controlly to justify paying 2 life for such a marginal creature/effect. Instead, I went up to 21 lands and am playing Glassdust Hulk. It's nice to dodge push/bolt and be able to cycle for white. The ability of Architects of Will never seemed very relevant to me as we have better ways to control the opponent than to reorder the top 3 cards of their deck and the creature itself sucks.
This is my list now, which I just 3-0'd with against Bogles, Ponza and Zoo.
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Seachrome Coast
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Tolaria West
3 Field of Ruin
7 Island
1 Plains
Creatures
1 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Curator of Mysteries
2 Glassdust Hulk
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Serum Visions
3 Path to Exile
4 Remand
4 As Foretold
3 Cryptic Command
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Stony Silence
2 Timely Reinforcements
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Path to Exile
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
In all games I've played so far I never wanted to suspend Living End. It would never be relevant and the white cards are way more impactful than the black. I definitely view this deck as a control deck with an unusual win con. If I had it, I'd play a 2nd Obstructionist over the 2nd Glassdust Hulk. I've never played the mono-U version but I don't see the upside with a significantly worse SB and only 3 white cards MD.
Speaking of Jace, this deck really got a big boost from this card, imho. I think those who are saying that this deck doesn't really want Jace or maybe only 1-2 are nuts and have never played with it. Not only does Jace find As Foretold, it gets annoying creatures of the battlefield to buy time, controls their draws and is a wincon that doesn't use the graveyard or the combat phase. With our ability to clear the board, Jace slices and dices and gives you a whole new angle of attack that also works very well with the rest of the deck. I own 3 Jaces and play 3, but I wouldn't be surprised if 4 is actually correct. Fortunately the deck plays a lot of draw so finding one isn't really an issue.
Jace basically means we're not just looking for a 4-off in As Foretold, but now have up to 8 win cons to find which makes this deck much more consistent.
My current list is this:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Seachrome Coast
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Tolaria West
3 Field of Ruin
6 Island
1 Plains
Creatures
1 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Curator of Mysteries
3 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Serum Visions
2 Path to Exile
4 Remand
4 As Foretold
3 Cryptic Command
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Stony Silence
2 Bottle Gnomes
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Path to Exile
For the 3 Jaces, I cut the 4th Cryptic, 4th Street Wraith and put the 3rd Path in the SB. I felt that I can't have too many 4-drops, Street Wraith is poor anyway and with the added draw (and bounce) from Jace I could get away with 2 paths main. Last FNM I went 3-1 and Jace felt awesome, as expected. What didn't feel awesome was 20 land and 3 street wraiths. I mulled almost every 7 due to too few lands (or awkward lands like tolaria west, bojuka bog + field of ruin) and the deck seems too slow to really consider street wraith a free cycler. 3 was already better than 4, but the creature is so meh and the free cycling almost irrelevant that I rather play more Obstructionist, more land and perhaps another 1 mana cycler, like Architects of Will, even though I think the creature itself is even worse than Street Wraith.
This deck seemed pretty good against control so far (I also beat UW Jace control in the last FNM) so if control gets played more, that should be good. My main concern is that there may simply be other 'control' decks that are better Jace shells, making LAF just a worse Jace deck.
The best we can hope for is that they unban Eye of Ugin (and probe) in some lapse of judgement ;).
Ok, well, I haven't seen chalice from U tron yet but that is certainly a bit annoying. On the other hand, they need it all to even come close to have a chance because they're slow as hell. Maybe with the nutdraw they have a chance but it's still very hard to believe it's merely even. Chalice is at most a 4-off that they need to have in the top 8-9 cards and even if they do, they need to actually do something or you wish for decay and kill them.
With RG tron, I disagree completely. In the treasure cruise era, I tested a lot against a friend of mine. Even after sideboarding and with him on the play, I had like an 80% win rate. T3 karn on the play is not good enough. It only became interesting if I couldn't combo off through it immediately and he had a follow-up O-stone ready to blow (or I just bricked completely). Even though we don't have cruise anymore, that doesn't change much in this case. Before their T4, they can do practically nothing of importance and our goldfish is definitely faster than that.
I've only played against Living End when I ran multiple Silence, so perhaps that's why I thought it was a cakewalk. Still, a boardwipe is not really all that impressive considering we have fatestitchers to go off right after anyway. Not to mention what they might be returning to our battlefield with living end.
Lantern doesn't play that much hand disruption that it can stop you from playing any mana dorks/wishes/cantrips. A deck that is half cantrip is pretty hard to lock out and without a hard lock they're not winning because we don't care about bridge. Sure, it's possible to lose if they happen to take your wish/JAC and surgical it + have a soft lock to mill us out before we can find an out, but it seems pretty unlikely. Also, all this is basically assuming that your opponent knows the matchup. If any of these decks keep a reasonable hand in the dark, chances are they get completely steamrolled and then it's easy to win 1 out of 2 SB games.
Blue moon also never felt that hard to me. They have no clock and blood moon is only impressive if they also kill all your dorks, which is pretty hard with caryatid. If you also happen to run manamorphose it's not a problem at all.
I think Infect is less favorable than even because they can be as fast and have disruption even though we have little to no disruption for them. This is why I like running a slaughter pact because it doubles as free spell and interaction that they can't ignore (unless they probe you, of course). Also, I think most aggro decks should be not so favorable because you easily deal tons of damage to yourself which can seriously speed up their clock, putting you under a lot of pressure to find your combo quickly or die.
Jund, Abzan and Burn should be in another category: agony :P.
I like TBR because it is both 'pump' and trample, but I only run 3 because I only really need 1 and they are bad top decks.
When stormchaser mage was just legal, I made an URg prowess deck (splashing for Atarka's Command) that ran 2 twisted image, which I think is a fine number. Worst case scenario is that you can't cast it due to no legal targets so it's not without risk to run 4 and thus I wouldn't.
If you can't chain multiple spells easily (which is why I run manamorphose), I agree that TBR is less exciting. With Delver, it's definitely not exciting unless you run mutagenic growth. On the other hand, if you do get to 4+ power, TBR is great and deals tons of damage. Without trample, I don't think Titan's Strength is better than lava spike. In the best case scenario it deals the same amount of damage and in the worst case scenario you can't even cast one and the other still does the same. It's also great to be able to rip burn from the top to finish someone off after they wipe the board or have a bunch of blockers.
Main deck, a deck like this should not try to hedge against problem cards like kitchen finks because you can't afford to be so slow against combo. If there are enough kitchen finks to warrant main deck pillar of flame, then this is not the deck to play to begin with. Bloodghast is no problem, btw. It can't block :).
Lastly, Distortion strike doesn't exile itself permanently. On the rebound, provided that you can cast it, it will end up in your gy. It also pumps power, which should not be ignored. Just like the 1 life from vapor snag adds up, this does too. With bedlam reveler I prefer TBR because just TBR already gives trample and the damage potential is way higher.
I also think you want some number of Forked Bolt. You don't really want to bolt their birds, but forked bolt is great for that and it's only 1 mana, contrary to electrolyze.
I'm a bit surprised you don't play Temur Battle Rage in this deck, though. So much pump and prowess. Seems unlikely that someone can put more toughness in front of something than the power of your slipped creature, meaning that TBR would deal effectively more damage with in some cases (if they aren't dead) the added benefit of killing the blocker(s).
Also, in general burn is better than pump because burn is much more flexible and (almost, Leyline of Sanctity
If you use the [.deck] and [./deck] tags around your list (without dots) you get the above result. With deck=Something you can also give it a specific name because the default is to give it the poster's name (which is mine now, funnily enough).
17 land seems a bit light with snapcaster mage which is pretty much a 3 mana play. Even though snapcaster is great, I don't really want it in this deck and think bedlam reveler is just better to be able to reload and have a big beater. Reveler also doesn't get killed by anger of the gods, which everything else does.
I'm actually leaning towards including a mutagenic (instead of electrolyze which I think is too expensive and a bit redundant next to 2 forked bolt) in my list because I also run temur battle rage. As you said, it also saves your prowess dudes from bolts, which is nice. Counterspells aren't great in this deck, true, but I think it would be a mistake to run none. I chose spell pierce as a singleton in the main deck to be as catch-all as possible at the cheapest cost so it can be used to protect your stuff while you pump your dudes with lava spikes etc. Also, to keep them honest, as they say.
Maybe Spreading Seas is good enough, but I like how this deck (if tuned for it) can basically ignore blood moon itself while locking other decks completely out. Spreading seas can never do that.
What's the Bonfire for?
My current list I would run is this, btw:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
3 Steam Vents
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
Creatures (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Stormchaser Mage
2 Bedlam Reveler
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Mutagenic Growth
2 Forked Bolt
1 Spell Pierce
2 Vapor Snag
4 Lava Spike
4 Manamorphose
3 Temur Battle Rage
1 Blood Moon
2 Blood Moon
2 Dispel
1 Negate
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Ancestral Vision
1 Roast
2 Dragon's Claw