I don’t recommend removing overseer vs tokens, he makes your entire deck beat theirs. Also if they play Lingering souls, signal Pest to 0 copies is my first cut — they get picked off too easily.
I personally believe that trying to pack 2-3 answers to a card that is a potential 1-3 of in our opponent’s deck, is a really bad proposition. Logically speaking, it makes very little sense to play a color-requiring card to answer their card that shuts off all but 4 of our colored sources.
You are right, it doesn’t make much sense to pack so much answers for a sideboard hate card. When my meta runs sooooooo much Affinity hate, it tends to irritate me in trying to answer it as well.
This is why I rarely play Affinity at my LGS anymore. People can hate us out very easily, so I just play durdle decks at FNM/TNM. Like tron or storm... the kind of decks I want people to prepare for at bigger events
I personally believe that trying to pack 2-3 answers to a card that is a potential 1-3 of in our opponent’s deck, is a really bad proposition. Logically speaking, it makes very little sense to play a color-requiring card to answer their card that shuts off all but 4 of our colored sources.
I don’t think the meta is *that* hostile. Clunky BBE/JTmS decks aren’t gonna get any points unless they’re genuinely well-built, at which point they’re still increasing their curves to accommodate those spells. (Read: they have fewer slots for interactive spells and more clunky hands).
My partner and I have tested a ton of the BBE Jund MU in the last few weeks, the inclusion of Bolt > Push for most of the lists makes our deck better than it used to be vs them. Their 4drop is better now (BBE is marginally better than Huntmaster/Kalitas) but they’re playing 4 now, so fewer interactive pieces. Color me excited for them to have higher CMCs to flip off their Bobs.
Since there's been some talk about sideboarding, I just want to share my thoughts on my tentative sideboard plan, even though it's about a month later.
My rather extensive sideboard plans that I am using for this deck are as follows: (again, this is tentative)
Mirror:
-1 Canyon Slough (on the play)
-1 Rekindling Phoenix (on the play)
-2 Scrapheap Scrounger (on the draw)
-1 Heart of Kiran
+1 Battle at the Bridge
+2 Settle the Wreckage
Grixis Energy:
-2 Heart of Kiran (-1 on the play)
-1 Abrade
-4 Walking Ballista (on the draw)
-1 Canyon Slough (on the play)
-1 Rekindling Phoenix (on the play)
+3 Duress
+1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained (on the draw)
+2 Cast Out (on the draw)
+1 Profane Procession
+1 Chandra’s Defeat
+2 Authority of the Consuls
+2 Cast Out
+2 Settle the Wreckage
+1 Battle at the Bridge
Any commentary/suggestions on my plans is welcome. These plans could very well change over the next few weeks as I play with the deck more, and I'll be happy to share my edits as I figure the deck out.
Very helpful for someone new to the deck, thanks for this!
What do you think about 2 Harvester in the MB moving forward?
Master is generally worth more than 5 dmg if she sticks, but I see where you’re coming from. I’ve been meaning to test her but haven’t yet — been testing standard for a few weeks for the SCG event
I look at shaheens list in every format to figure out what the biggest possible impact sideboard cards are for every match, because that's how he builds his decks--piles of the biggest impact cards. With little or no regard for having a cohesive deck or gameplan in a matchup he doesn't pre-plan bombs for.
If you look at his mtgo results, he's pretty consistently worse than most of the dedicated modern control streamers. Donny is probably a 60% winrate in competitive leagues if he puts in the reps on Esper. That's as good as shaheen's usual win rate in paper events, which have a softer field and a wider variety of decks.
I don’t think the leagues are stronger fields than Day 2 of GPs or the PT — where he’s been spotted a dozen times.
Maintaining a high winrate on MTGO is cool and all, but the prize payout for T8 a premier event is exponentially higher. So Test online, tweak, and play your heart out — but don’t treat it as canon.
As an aside: I’ve never seen someone skip their entire turn in a paper event, or yield through lethal combat, or suddenly stop responding for 10 minutes and then lose. The field is soft
I’m definite adding a third mainboard Etched Champion and cutting a Memnite, once that hits the field, pretty much our best way to get in there for damage to our opponent or in this case now days, against a Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I do admit, it’ll be odd for cutting a turn one 0 drop for a 3 drop eventually.
I’ll tell you have it does tomorrow at my meta’s Modern Monday tournaments.
Ive been on 3 Champion/2master/2 memnite MB for a long time, it’s never felt wrong. Hazoret is interesting, curious to hear how he pans out. I’ll be testing with 1/1 split at TNM
I play three basics, 2 swamp 1 forest. 4 catacombs 1 foothills 1 mire. 4 blackcleave, 3 grove 1 tomb 1 stomping 1 blood crypt (19 total). Post board my fetches only grab basics unless I already have them in hand. Swamp cycles everything except ceradon. Once you have blood moon, swamp + any land = all your mana required.
The only one of those that moon is relevant for is Grixis, the other two very easily could play blood moon.
I played 3 moon for a long time in board, now down to just 2 and considering a singleton
Sorry for the confusing comment. I just play against these decks a lot because i found them to be quite tricky matchups and i test a lot of diefferent sideboard startegies against them and thought you might be interested in the testing results. No correlation to Moon though for Burn and Affinity. Its just the matchups im most familiar with.
I just feel like sideboarding with LE is the most difficult aspect of the deck, especially for new players.
Ah I see — yes very interested to know how you fare vs affinity and burn post-board, good luck in testing!
I don’t recommend removing overseer vs tokens, he makes your entire deck beat theirs. Also if they play Lingering souls, signal Pest to 0 copies is my first cut — they get picked off too easily.
This is why I rarely play Affinity at my LGS anymore. People can hate us out very easily, so I just play durdle decks at FNM/TNM. Like tron or storm... the kind of decks I want people to prepare for at bigger events
Doomfall, gonti, etc
My partner and I have tested a ton of the BBE Jund MU in the last few weeks, the inclusion of Bolt > Push for most of the lists makes our deck better than it used to be vs them. Their 4drop is better now (BBE is marginally better than Huntmaster/Kalitas) but they’re playing 4 now, so fewer interactive pieces. Color me excited for them to have higher CMCs to flip off their Bobs.
Very helpful for someone new to the deck, thanks for this!
What do you think about 2 Harvester in the MB moving forward?
I don’t think the leagues are stronger fields than Day 2 of GPs or the PT — where he’s been spotted a dozen times.
Maintaining a high winrate on MTGO is cool and all, but the prize payout for T8 a premier event is exponentially higher. So Test online, tweak, and play your heart out — but don’t treat it as canon.
As an aside: I’ve never seen someone skip their entire turn in a paper event, or yield through lethal combat, or suddenly stop responding for 10 minutes and then lose. The field is soft
Vs decks I want the moons, life loss doesn’t really matter very often
Ive been on 3 Champion/2master/2 memnite MB for a long time, it’s never felt wrong. Hazoret is interesting, curious to hear how he pans out. I’ll be testing with 1/1 split at TNM
Ah I see — yes very interested to know how you fare vs affinity and burn post-board, good luck in testing!
Ahh yes, my favorite line... 😉