I just want to say that I've been getting amazing results with this deck. I did a gpt and a modern tournament where I won 66 dollars in credit in total over the weekend. If anyone still cares about this deck I'd love to talk about it.
2 dispel
3 baloth (I'm still loving 4 tbh but three is the absolute minimum)
1 big dude (surrak/inferno, your preference. I like surrak because uncounterable flash is pretty mega)
1 izzet staticaster just the best at what it does)
1 engineered explosives (basically necessary right now)
2 anger of the gods (again, necessary)
Beyond that, I reckon you could get some mileage out of different things. I like chalice. Depends on your expected meta. Some graveyard hate could be decent too. Negate is always a strong option.
Any more questions just ask.
hey Purkle, this is a sideboard plan I came up with.
What I like about this board is that its solid against a meta full of linear aggro. I expect chalice on 1 to do most of the heavy lifting in my matchups. I agree that 4 baloth is good as well, shoring up a lot of my midrange matchups. I moved up to 2 surrak because I felt that I needed an edge against control.
My biggest issues with the list are: No mass artifact hate and low diversity in answers.
My question to you is: Do I have too much hate for the linear matchup? I was looking at my deck and saw that for the burn matchup I side in 9 cards, but only have 8 cards that I can side out easily.
Playing a RUG omens list (had some success a while ago, a some online interest and a couple of star city vs/deck techs).
I've found it to be consistently the fastest version of the deck, and with the added interaction from cryptic and remand, it's very powerful and often just runs people over on turn 4.
Hey, loving this list. Decided that I'll be taking this to a PPTQ this sunday. Was hoping I could get your input on a few questions.
1: Do you side out the omens against BGX?
2: How good is titan really? I've done some testing and found that I would rather have interaction and would eventually draw scapeshift anyway.
3: How good is explore? I felt that I wanted a card that would be more consistently impactful.
4: how are the matchups against linear decks such as burn zoo etc? I ended up putting bolts in the list to make these matchups better but we may not need them.
5: How is gaea's revenge doing? I really like it but perhaps another surak could just be better. (surak -> titan is gross)
6: How do you deal with affinity without grudge/other hate?
Would really love your input! I think you're at the forefront of the archetype. A possible sideboard guide would be awesome too!
Has anybody been thinking of adding Madcap Experiment and a couple of Platinum Emperion to the BtL version?
I've seen this idea in most versions of the deck. Its too susceptible to path and other forms of creature hate game one (also artifact hate). boarding the combo in is interesting against decks that aren't blue. it also gives us a leg up against goryos or adnauseum. Ultimately I don't think its good enough. it dilutes our game too much and I would much rather interact more than run another sort of janky combo. don't forget, it also prevents us from running any other artifact in our deck. Theres defenitely a lot of hype around it right now, but I'll stand by my opinion that its not good enough for modern.
Hey man I love this list and am going to pick up some omen and start testing it out. I remember a while back you were on a tarmogoyf plan and I was wondering if you think it would be a good idea to return to. I recently picked up 4 goyf and would really love to try them out in some sort of rug control shell. How would you paint a Goyf shift list in the current meta? Would it run omen? Thanks.
Dellerium has been hard to trigger so far in testing but I think adding an engineered to the main deck will be helpful. I don't know if this is an improvement on a more standard omen list but its been fun and has worked. Traverse is also not terrible with delerium off especially against bloodmoon decks.
Does anyone want to discuss a new brew with Splendid reclamation? I feel like this card could be really good in a prismatic omen build and act almost as another scapeshift with enough lands in our yard. Lets get the ball rolling.
Splendid reclamation is ceratinly a strong card, but i dont think that it belongs into the current versions of scapeshift. You could put one into your sideboard in case you expect to face a lot of landdestruction (and fetch it with Bring to light)
Other than that, if you want to utilize this card, you have to completely change the deck and build around this card. Here my thoughts:
- You turn your 1 Card combo into a clunky 2 card combo, where you have to resolve two 4 CMC sorceries to win. (Maybe you could try 4 Bring to Light, 2 Scapeshift, 2 Splendid reclamation?)
- You suddenly are very vullnerable to graveyard hate
- You probably have to play more fetches. This deck does not has a lot of place them
+ You can probably cut some amount of ramp, if you have a good mill plan you can get 3+ lands into play at once
+ (I know it is very mana intensive) Snapcastermages can flash back parts of the milled combopieces
+ You are good vs Liliana and non exiling Land destruction
well said. after several unsuccessful tests I stopped using it. I am now using traverse the ulvenwald with a creature package in main + side with an omen shell. seems to be doing well.
Does anyone want to discuss a new brew with Splendid reclamation? I feel like this card could be really good in a prismatic omen build and act almost as another scapeshift with enough lands in our yard. Lets get the ball rolling.
I personally think bolt is a meta call. My meta is rampant with infect elves and other degenerate aggro strategies. I have never drawn bolt and been upset about it. I run 4 bolt, 2 anger, 2 charm, and 2 electrolyze main and I consistently get prize support at fnm level tournaments. I also got 4th at an scg states event.
Flooded Grove can't be fetched as well right? To me hinterland harbor is not so good in an opening hand but same would apply for flooded grove. But as a top deck I think both are equally good.
Another card that suddenly came to mind that could work in a RUG version is Ral Zarek. Seems it could work as a one off, potentially replacing one explore. Any thoughts?
doesn't dig/give you additional land drops like explore does. Remember, its not about getting more mana, its about getting more land. With Ral at 4, and explore at 2, this doesn't look like a potential include for scapeshift.
In almost every game I play, I side out all 4 remand. Why do we play remand? when do we actually keep them in the main for games 2/3? I understand that it slows the game down, digs, disrupts, etc. but if the card was good enough, why do we side it out in almost every single matchup? I'm asking because the thought of cutting it from the deck for harder disruption seems good to me.
It was quite the ride indeed!
In the mana base I ran 1 flooded grove, 2 breeding pool, temple, a tarn and misty for the flex spots. I thought this would be good as it gives me more fetch targets and more access to turn one suspend.
I sided out a scapeshift because I really wanted the removal against affinity. My logic for it was if I side out SS for primal command, Im still winning the game by casting one spell. It worked pretty well, having double electrolyze and an izet charm let me play through bloodmoon easily until I got my green sources.
Ammulet titan is very rough. I cryptic'd one of his karoos and it felt right, but theres really nothing we can do against cavern on giant. Given that and the fact that there are tons of ways for him to tutor pact of negation into hand, this matchup becomes almost impossible.
Hope that gives you some insight, Ill be tunning the list now to the extreme sggro meta at my gaming store and will be doing small tournament for quite a while.
Write up for the Starcity games State and provincial championship tournament I went to on Sunday. It was a 64 person tournament with 6 rounds of swiss. Thats pretty big when you live in Maine.
Round one against affinity.
I lost game one, he had a very good hand.
Sided out remands, 1 scapeshift and something else for the hate, inferno and also primal command.
game two he resolved a turn 2 blood moon. I fetched for a forest at the end of his turn. we exchanged resources until he had 1 card in hand and I had an inferno titan. he scoops and I'm at 5 life.
Game three was another turn 2 bloodmoon, but this time I had no green. the game goes on for quite some time and we stall each other out effectively. again I closed the game with inferno titan.
Round two against abzan.
I win game one with grace.
Sided out 4 remand 2 anger 1 electrolyze for 2 baloth 1 needle 1 primal 1 wurmcoil 1 titan and 1 EE.
I topdeck wurmcoil while he has lethal on the board. I cast it and pass. he puts 4 tokens on the board and sends it over. I calculate that if I swing with wurmcoil, I'll be able to get him down to scapeshift range and have enough life to survive the crackback. I drop to 1 life and then topdeck the land I need to win.
Round three against BW Spirits.
This felt like a buy, the deck was not very well tuned.
Round four against Thopter-Sword Polymorph Combo.
Game one I take a mulligan to 5 and do much of nothing.
I side out most of my burn and side in baloths needle cliques and teferi. I might of done more but I cant quite remember.
My hand this game was 1 needle 2 baloth and two stomping grounds. I kept the hand knowing I wouldn't get screwed by Lili, but it was honestly a bad hand to keep against a combo deck. he resolves polymorph and I lose to emrakul.
So far I'm at 3-1. I need to win my next two matches to secure a seat at top 8.
round five against Abzan.
I was pretty tilted this game due to losing to polymorph and also because the pilot of this deck is much better at magic than I am. I end up losing game one due to not being able to deal with tassigur and for making some extremely horrendous misplays.
I recoup and sideboard same as before, knowing that this match should be bye tier.
My opponent mulligans to five (justice!) and scoops out of frustration. sweet.
Game three plays out very nicely. I primal command a lilli away and tutor a wurmcoil engine. I make sure to resolve a value snap before dropping the engine to protect against lili. Once wurmcoil is on the battlefield, the game turns into him casting feed the clan multiple times off tassigurs ability and me gaining 2 life every turn off wurmcoil. later on when I have scapeshift in my hand, he mills a thoughtseize off tassigur. I give him the thoughtseize knowing he wont cast it so that he can get more value off tassigur. My turn comes around, I swing him down to 19 (feed the clan in hand for him) and then scapeshift him for 36. felt good to #nextlevelplays a very experienced player.
Round Six against BGw Elves.
I played against my friend this round, he even saw my decklist. that being said he was very surprised when I bolted a creature to prevent myself from losing, remarking that he thought they were in the sideboard. cast scapeshift at 2 for game.
I win game 2 as well, was fairly easy. Elves is a great matchup for us. I just saved my charms and bolts for his lords and kept him off anything constructive with cryptic/charm mana to counter coco/chord. All in all the match felt like a bye because of how good of a matchup elves are for this deck.
TOP 8! I topped an invitational before, but this was my first top 8 where I got a mat and pin etc. felt very nice.
Round 1 of finals I played against UB faeries Control.
This was probably the hardest magic I played today. very back and forth, very good games. he manages to squeeze in enough damage with tarpits to finally close out the game.
side out my removal for teferi cliques inferno, primal command, pithing needle, and keranos.
Game two was a great game, I had pithing needle on his mutavault and it was very back and forth. I was going to win by casting clique to rip his dispell, then casting scapeshift with charm backup to counter the flashback cryptic. unfortunately we never got there.He was issued a game loss for playing with an illegal deck, he dropped a card on the floor between games.
Game 3 was also good. he had played a spellskite, and I put the needle on it. the game grinds out like the other 2 until I have enough mana to cast scapeshift with cryptic and charm backup. I win!
Round 2 of the finals against UG amulet Titan.
As much as I hate to say it, this match was a bye for my opponent. with pacts of negation and uncounterable primetimes, there was very very little I could do to stop his deck from simply running me over. looking back, I should of sided in spellskite to steal the lands pump effects, but it was really a fruitless effort. I'm thinking about siding a Plow under for this matchup and for the mirror.
There it is! 3rd place at the state and provincial championship with Quirions RUG scapeshift list (I only changed some lands around). Thanks so much for the write up, really helped me sideboard effectively. Scapeshift is back in town and I look forward to brewing with this sick shell.
Hey Quarion, or anyone else really, how would you sideboard quarions list against Abzan, UG infect, grishoalbrand, or burn? These are the decks I expect to see piloted by the better players at states tomorrow and was wondering if there were some more aideboard plans we could talk about.
Love the list Quarion, playing a version of it that is too similar to call my own tomorrow. Thanks for the awesome report.
hey Purkle, this is a sideboard plan I came up with.
What I like about this board is that its solid against a meta full of linear aggro. I expect chalice on 1 to do most of the heavy lifting in my matchups. I agree that 4 baloth is good as well, shoring up a lot of my midrange matchups. I moved up to 2 surrak because I felt that I needed an edge against control.
My biggest issues with the list are: No mass artifact hate and low diversity in answers.
My question to you is: Do I have too much hate for the linear matchup? I was looking at my deck and saw that for the burn matchup I side in 9 cards, but only have 8 cards that I can side out easily.
Heres my list for referance
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
3 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Breeding Pool
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Cryptic Command
4 Remand
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Prismatic Omen
3 Scapeshift
3 Primeval Titan
2 Izzet Charm
1 Anger of the Gods
Side
4 Obstinate Baloth
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Dispel
2 Engineered Explosives
- 2 electro, -2 Charm, -4 remand seems simple, but I feel like I want to put in +4 baloth, +3 chalice, +2 dispell
What do? Diversify my sideboard? anything in the main look blatantly wrong? is this ok? am I being to critical? set me straight.
IF you made it this far, thanks again.
Donk.
Hey, loving this list. Decided that I'll be taking this to a PPTQ this sunday. Was hoping I could get your input on a few questions.
1: Do you side out the omens against BGX?
2: How good is titan really? I've done some testing and found that I would rather have interaction and would eventually draw scapeshift anyway.
3: How good is explore? I felt that I wanted a card that would be more consistently impactful.
4: how are the matchups against linear decks such as burn zoo etc? I ended up putting bolts in the list to make these matchups better but we may not need them.
5: How is gaea's revenge doing? I really like it but perhaps another surak could just be better. (surak -> titan is gross)
6: How do you deal with affinity without grudge/other hate?
Would really love your input! I think you're at the forefront of the archetype. A possible sideboard guide would be awesome too!
Thanks again, Donk.
I've seen this idea in most versions of the deck. Its too susceptible to path and other forms of creature hate game one (also artifact hate). boarding the combo in is interesting against decks that aren't blue. it also gives us a leg up against goryos or adnauseum. Ultimately I don't think its good enough. it dilutes our game too much and I would much rather interact more than run another sort of janky combo. don't forget, it also prevents us from running any other artifact in our deck. Theres defenitely a lot of hype around it right now, but I'll stand by my opinion that its not good enough for modern.
My eyes are peeled!!
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
3 Forest
spells
4 Prismatic Omen
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Scapeshift
4 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
2 Izzet Charm
2 Traverse the Ulvenwald
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Primeval Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spellskite
3 Tarfire
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Pithing Needle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Spellskite
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Keranos, God of Storms
Dellerium has been hard to trigger so far in testing but I think adding an engineered to the main deck will be helpful. I don't know if this is an improvement on a more standard omen list but its been fun and has worked. Traverse is also not terrible with delerium off especially against bloodmoon decks.
well said. after several unsuccessful tests I stopped using it. I am now using traverse the ulvenwald with a creature package in main + side with an omen shell. seems to be doing well.
doesn't dig/give you additional land drops like explore does. Remember, its not about getting more mana, its about getting more land. With Ral at 4, and explore at 2, this doesn't look like a potential include for scapeshift.
In almost every game I play, I side out all 4 remand. Why do we play remand? when do we actually keep them in the main for games 2/3? I understand that it slows the game down, digs, disrupts, etc. but if the card was good enough, why do we side it out in almost every single matchup? I'm asking because the thought of cutting it from the deck for harder disruption seems good to me.
In the mana base I ran 1 flooded grove, 2 breeding pool, temple, a tarn and misty for the flex spots. I thought this would be good as it gives me more fetch targets and more access to turn one suspend.
I sided out a scapeshift because I really wanted the removal against affinity. My logic for it was if I side out SS for primal command, Im still winning the game by casting one spell. It worked pretty well, having double electrolyze and an izet charm let me play through bloodmoon easily until I got my green sources.
Ammulet titan is very rough. I cryptic'd one of his karoos and it felt right, but theres really nothing we can do against cavern on giant. Given that and the fact that there are tons of ways for him to tutor pact of negation into hand, this matchup becomes almost impossible.
Hope that gives you some insight, Ill be tunning the list now to the extreme sggro meta at my gaming store and will be doing small tournament for quite a while.
Round one against affinity.
I lost game one, he had a very good hand.
Sided out remands, 1 scapeshift and something else for the hate, inferno and also primal command.
game two he resolved a turn 2 blood moon. I fetched for a forest at the end of his turn. we exchanged resources until he had 1 card in hand and I had an inferno titan. he scoops and I'm at 5 life.
Game three was another turn 2 bloodmoon, but this time I had no green. the game goes on for quite some time and we stall each other out effectively. again I closed the game with inferno titan.
Round two against abzan.
I win game one with grace.
Sided out 4 remand 2 anger 1 electrolyze for 2 baloth 1 needle 1 primal 1 wurmcoil 1 titan and 1 EE.
I topdeck wurmcoil while he has lethal on the board. I cast it and pass. he puts 4 tokens on the board and sends it over. I calculate that if I swing with wurmcoil, I'll be able to get him down to scapeshift range and have enough life to survive the crackback. I drop to 1 life and then topdeck the land I need to win.
Round three against BW Spirits.
This felt like a buy, the deck was not very well tuned.
Round four against Thopter-Sword Polymorph Combo.
Game one I take a mulligan to 5 and do much of nothing.
I side out most of my burn and side in baloths needle cliques and teferi. I might of done more but I cant quite remember.
My hand this game was 1 needle 2 baloth and two stomping grounds. I kept the hand knowing I wouldn't get screwed by Lili, but it was honestly a bad hand to keep against a combo deck. he resolves polymorph and I lose to emrakul.
So far I'm at 3-1. I need to win my next two matches to secure a seat at top 8.
round five against Abzan.
I was pretty tilted this game due to losing to polymorph and also because the pilot of this deck is much better at magic than I am. I end up losing game one due to not being able to deal with tassigur and for making some extremely horrendous misplays.
I recoup and sideboard same as before, knowing that this match should be bye tier.
My opponent mulligans to five (justice!) and scoops out of frustration. sweet.
Game three plays out very nicely. I primal command a lilli away and tutor a wurmcoil engine. I make sure to resolve a value snap before dropping the engine to protect against lili. Once wurmcoil is on the battlefield, the game turns into him casting feed the clan multiple times off tassigurs ability and me gaining 2 life every turn off wurmcoil. later on when I have scapeshift in my hand, he mills a thoughtseize off tassigur. I give him the thoughtseize knowing he wont cast it so that he can get more value off tassigur. My turn comes around, I swing him down to 19 (feed the clan in hand for him) and then scapeshift him for 36. felt good to #nextlevelplays a very experienced player.
Round Six against BGw Elves.
I played against my friend this round, he even saw my decklist. that being said he was very surprised when I bolted a creature to prevent myself from losing, remarking that he thought they were in the sideboard. cast scapeshift at 2 for game.
I win game 2 as well, was fairly easy. Elves is a great matchup for us. I just saved my charms and bolts for his lords and kept him off anything constructive with cryptic/charm mana to counter coco/chord. All in all the match felt like a bye because of how good of a matchup elves are for this deck.
TOP 8! I topped an invitational before, but this was my first top 8 where I got a mat and pin etc. felt very nice.
Round 1 of finals I played against UB faeries Control.
This was probably the hardest magic I played today. very back and forth, very good games. he manages to squeeze in enough damage with tarpits to finally close out the game.
side out my removal for teferi cliques inferno, primal command, pithing needle, and keranos.
Game two was a great game, I had pithing needle on his mutavault and it was very back and forth. I was going to win by casting clique to rip his dispell, then casting scapeshift with charm backup to counter the flashback cryptic. unfortunately we never got there.He was issued a game loss for playing with an illegal deck, he dropped a card on the floor between games.
Game 3 was also good. he had played a spellskite, and I put the needle on it. the game grinds out like the other 2 until I have enough mana to cast scapeshift with cryptic and charm backup. I win!
Round 2 of the finals against UG amulet Titan.
As much as I hate to say it, this match was a bye for my opponent. with pacts of negation and uncounterable primetimes, there was very very little I could do to stop his deck from simply running me over. looking back, I should of sided in spellskite to steal the lands pump effects, but it was really a fruitless effort. I'm thinking about siding a Plow under for this matchup and for the mirror.
There it is! 3rd place at the state and provincial championship with Quirions RUG scapeshift list (I only changed some lands around). Thanks so much for the write up, really helped me sideboard effectively. Scapeshift is back in town and I look forward to brewing with this sick shell.
Love the list Quarion, playing a version of it that is too similar to call my own tomorrow. Thanks for the awesome report.