That used to be my favorite deck to play during that Standard format. I honestly don't think it would work in Modern, the format is choke full of linear fast decks that would just destroy it.
I guess it's fine. I'm on 2 Victim of Night, 3 Decay, 1 Pulse, 2 Damnation. I had Cut but I already have 2 Tasigurs and the Goyfs so I wanted to preserve some of the GY. Will probably try Dismember. I recently lost a match to a Grixis deck playing Anglers, that damn thing is a Zombie, so Victim was a dead card.
Drawing Darkslick Shores as my 4th or 5th land hasn't happened a lot. Also, regarding Blood Moon, you're probably cutting down on Shores to add other nonbasics, so it should be the same thing.
I've been considering Disfigure MD (as our really poor's man Bolt) but went with Darkblast instead.
During my initial tests I had 1 Spell Snare and liked it. Since then I replaced it with 1 Darkbast because MTGO has lots of random creature decks and Darkblast is also awesome against Affinity, but it's dead a lot of times.
I also tried a Jund-like version with Bob and leaving only Jace AoT as the 4 drop. Problem is we just don't have enough cheap impactful cards like Bolt and Ooze (who provide lifegain to counterbalance Bob's effect). It had more velocity but also less late game power.
I went up to 4 Darkslick Shores cutting one Breeding Pool. Also tried 23 lands but was mana screwed some times and went back to 24.
Stubborn Denial could work, but the "noncreature" clause makes me doubt how good it would be. That said, I don't usually have problems removing Goyfs and Tasigurs (I'm playing 3 Decays, 1 Pulse, 2 Victim of Night and 2 Damnation), so it might be good.
I'm liking Monastery Siege. Doubles up as anti-Burn tech g1. I'm even considering going to 2 MD copies (probably replacing the Compulsive Research, which's good too).
Another card I'm considering now is Shadow of Doubt. Amulet and Tron are everywhere (at least online) and this is even maindeckable. I'm thinking 1 copy MD, 2-3 SB (replacing the Fulminators). We don't have K Command to recur Fulminators, but we do have 3 Snapcasters to recur Shadow of Doubt.
On the other hand, Tron and Amulet are on the rise (which, in turn, will bring these other three back). Modern is defined by linear fast decks, unfortunately.
Dominus, I do agree with you. In the general picture, I'd rank the BGx decks Abzan > Jund > Sultai (just because Jund is big now, and Abzan has the edge on the pseudo-mirror and great SB options).
I play all three decks. But I love playing blue cards, so that's why I keep tuning Sultai and testing it. I do think that Sultai is better than the others against Tron, Amulet, Storm and probably other linear decks because you have discard + counters. That said, our "4 drops" are Damnation and Cryptic, and these cards aren't able to close games like Rhino and Olivia/Huntmaster. Liliana is also a better mirror breaker and superior to the 3 drops on Sultai.
You can get 10 life quite often (Iok into Goyf into Feed the Clan, for example). Scavenging Ooze algo gets bigger as the game goes and you kill their guys.
That said, sometimes you'll just cast it for 5 life, yes. That + IoK + Duress is not the same thing as gaining 10 life, but still pretty decent.
Yeah, Ashiok is definitely good against BGx decks. I had 1 in the SB for a while, but removed due to lack of space. I don't like it MD because it's just dead too often in the format and we need flexible cards MD.
I top 8d a PRE event two weeks ago with Ashiok in the SB and won a game against Soul Sisters by milling my opponent while using Jace's +1 to stall the board. That was fun.
I like Dismember too. Can see the list with 1 Victim/1 Dismember. I played against Grixis with Angler this weekend and, well, Angler is a zombie, so that wasn't fun.
Affinity is the reason I'm playing Victim over Go for the Throat. I'm currently testing 3 Fulminators because Amulet and Tron are the flavor of the week, but I actually had 1 Creeping Corrosion there before. Night of Souls' Betrayal is really good against them (just make sure they don't stick an Overseer or Ravager, all the rest is dead). Between the early discard, Decay, Darkblast (a house against that deck), Disfigures, Snapcaster, the matchup is okay unless they have these ridiculous nut draws that even more copies of Creeping Corrosion wouldn't be able to beat.
I think this deck actually has a better matchup against Tron and Amulet than Jund and Abzan, at least game 1 (g2 Abzan can side Stony Silence, which's probably the best anti-Tron card and Jund can go greedy with Blood Moon to crush Amulet).
Here's the description I copied from Tappedout:
Victim of Night is a poor's man Terminate. It's definitely greedy, but the deck is capable of hitting BB quite consistently. Urborg is probably worth a try, but I'm happy with the current manabase.
I had a 1/1 split of Victim and Murderous Cut but I already have 2 Tasigur and Goyfs, so I don't want to delve that much.
I removed both Ashioks from the MD. Tested Phyrexian Arena first and now I'm trying Monastery Siege. The Khans mode draws an extra card and feeds Tasigur/Goyf, which's nice. The Dragons mode is decent against Burn albeit a bit too slow at 3cc, but it's also good against random decks.
An earlier version had 1 Jace AoT but I wanted to lower the curve while still keeping 2 Cryptics and 2 Damnations, so Jace had to go. It's probably a good SB option.
If you're feeling extra greedy, you can cut down to 23 lands but I like to be sure I won't get stuck at 2-3 lands and Serum Visions helps a lot to avoid flooding.
I feel one slot from the SB should be geared towards the grindy BGx and URx matchups. I had a Wurmcoil Engine there (castable under Blood Moon) but another Thragtusk is also an option.
For a while I had 4 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize but Tron and Amulet basically require the turn 1 discard to be beatable and Thoughtseize is better than IoK against Tron.
Gee, not touching MTGO for Modern for at least a few weeks. Tron and Amulet (and the always annoying and popular Burn) will be everywhere. Trying to play fair in this format is extremely frustrating - it's by far the most non-interactive format I ever played in 13 years of Magic =/
One thing to consider is that, first, the meta shifted towards Bolt. Then we got more decks playing Tas/Angler (to dodge both Decay and Bolt), so we also got more decks playing Terminate (also as a result of Kolaghan's Command being so good in a format where Affinity is strong). So now we have more decks with threats resilient to Bolt and hence why I think it makes sense that you move from RUG to BUG when the meta calls for it. Ari Lax recently wrote about all these shifts, it's interesting.
Of course, Snapcaster + Bolt still is one of the best "fair' things you can be doing in Modern and gives your deck a lot of reach, so it's nothing to sneeze at.
Played this list http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/29-05-15-CIJ-sultai-control/ yesterday on a PRE on MTGO (http://goo.gl/fopHsK) to a top 8, beating Twin, Burn, Soul Sisters, U Tron and losing to Mono Green Stompy in the top 8 (the guy went on to win it all, dropping only 3 games, one to me - he had a lot of hate cards like Thrun, Choke and Dungrove Elder, so basically not finding a Damnation equals a defeat).
Deck behaved well. I feel like I have too many 4 drops, but they were all great anyway. Victim of the Night is totally greedy but I wanted a 2cc kill spell that also worked against Affinity (hence removing Go for the Throat).
OK just went 3-1 and lost in the quarterfinals vs SplinterTwin in the free Modern tournament. I'm playing shoktroopa's list +1 Tolaria West and a Chalice maindeck (replacing repeal and snapcaster no.2) and just a couple different cards in side. Both games I lost against Twin I felt like I should have been in control, but ended up running out of resources and they comboed off in spite of careful play. One thing in common with both games was I kept 5-land hands.
(...)
Anyway, just wondering what you guys thought if these were mulligans or not.
Yeah, I'd say these hands are a bit lacking in action. They're not bad, but suboptimal for sure. The hand with Repeal and Snap + lands is a bit better than the other one, especially on the draw, but still not really a balanced opening grip.
I was in the event too (Crazy88) and got stomped by Stompy (!) in the top 8, the guy just won it all, going 7-0 im matches and destroying all blue decks in his way with Chokes and Thruns. I believed you and me ID'd into Top 8 (then played for fun). Good luck on the next event!
I removed Jace AoT as Lingering Souls are not that big anymore. My "planeswalker" slot is filled with Monastery Siege at this moment.
I've been considering Disfigure MD (as our really poor's man Bolt) but went with Darkblast instead.
I also tried a Jund-like version with Bob and leaving only Jace AoT as the 4 drop. Problem is we just don't have enough cheap impactful cards like Bolt and Ooze (who provide lifegain to counterbalance Bob's effect). It had more velocity but also less late game power.
I went up to 4 Darkslick Shores cutting one Breeding Pool. Also tried 23 lands but was mana screwed some times and went back to 24.
Stubborn Denial could work, but the "noncreature" clause makes me doubt how good it would be. That said, I don't usually have problems removing Goyfs and Tasigurs (I'm playing 3 Decays, 1 Pulse, 2 Victim of Night and 2 Damnation), so it might be good.
I'm liking Monastery Siege. Doubles up as anti-Burn tech g1. I'm even considering going to 2 MD copies (probably replacing the Compulsive Research, which's good too).
Another card I'm considering now is Shadow of Doubt. Amulet and Tron are everywhere (at least online) and this is even maindeckable. I'm thinking 1 copy MD, 2-3 SB (replacing the Fulminators). We don't have K Command to recur Fulminators, but we do have 3 Snapcasters to recur Shadow of Doubt.
I play all three decks. But I love playing blue cards, so that's why I keep tuning Sultai and testing it. I do think that Sultai is better than the others against Tron, Amulet, Storm and probably other linear decks because you have discard + counters. That said, our "4 drops" are Damnation and Cryptic, and these cards aren't able to close games like Rhino and Olivia/Huntmaster. Liliana is also a better mirror breaker and superior to the 3 drops on Sultai.
That said, sometimes you'll just cast it for 5 life, yes. That + IoK + Duress is not the same thing as gaining 10 life, but still pretty decent.
I top 8d a PRE event two weeks ago with Ashiok in the SB and won a game against Soul Sisters by milling my opponent while using Jace's +1 to stall the board. That was fun.
I like Dismember too. Can see the list with 1 Victim/1 Dismember. I played against Grixis with Angler this weekend and, well, Angler is a zombie, so that wasn't fun.
Affinity is the reason I'm playing Victim over Go for the Throat. I'm currently testing 3 Fulminators because Amulet and Tron are the flavor of the week, but I actually had 1 Creeping Corrosion there before. Night of Souls' Betrayal is really good against them (just make sure they don't stick an Overseer or Ravager, all the rest is dead). Between the early discard, Decay, Darkblast (a house against that deck), Disfigures, Snapcaster, the matchup is okay unless they have these ridiculous nut draws that even more copies of Creeping Corrosion wouldn't be able to beat.
I think this deck actually has a better matchup against Tron and Amulet than Jund and Abzan, at least game 1 (g2 Abzan can side Stony Silence, which's probably the best anti-Tron card and Jund can go greedy with Blood Moon to crush Amulet).
Here's the description I copied from Tappedout:
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Of course, Snapcaster + Bolt still is one of the best "fair' things you can be doing in Modern and gives your deck a lot of reach, so it's nothing to sneeze at.
Deck behaved well. I feel like I have too many 4 drops, but they were all great anyway. Victim of the Night is totally greedy but I wanted a 2cc kill spell that also worked against Affinity (hence removing Go for the Throat).
Yeah, I'd say these hands are a bit lacking in action. They're not bad, but suboptimal for sure. The hand with Repeal and Snap + lands is a bit better than the other one, especially on the draw, but still not really a balanced opening grip.
I was in the event too (Crazy88) and got stomped by Stompy (!) in the top 8, the guy just won it all, going 7-0 im matches and destroying all blue decks in his way with Chokes and Thruns. I believed you and me ID'd into Top 8 (then played for fun). Good luck on the next event!