Wrecks Affinity, Infect, Twin can't win as long as it's on the field, its quite good against Pod and Jund. It also makes Lingering Souls irrelevant after a cloud has resolved (a card which I first played maindeck after realizing how good NoSB is)
Beseech the Queen is for searching Deathclouds and/or NoSB cause you always want them but as 4-ofs they'd dillute your draws. The idea is to land a big Cloud and beat them down with Treetop Villages. Epochrasite might be worth mentioning as it serves as an early blocker and comes back after a cloud to beatdown.
Azorius Charm is sweet and probably the main reason to go white. But why no Path to Exile?
The main reason for splashing is our troubles with Affinity, Infect, Lingering Souls and stuff like that 4/4 Elephant that cant be countered.
So we should look at which colours improve our bad matchups the most:
White offers Stony Silence which is solid, Path to Exile (worse than Bolt on first turn, better on later?) and Azorious Charm which is super sexy, but Red got Shatterstorm and Izzet Staticaster which is pure awesomeness, maybe we could maindeck him? Sulfur Elemental is very interesting, good catch!
Whats up with all the Snapcasters here? If you got a reliable way to get rid of Deathrite Shamans (Bolt) then we might think about it, but casting a lot of Paths is not a good idea against Jund. And with a white splash you may want to play Rest in Peace?
I have never playtested without the Mana Leaks and I don't know if it's right to keep them out, has anyone playtested without them?
I like the list a lot. Haven't playtested it yet but, as you said, it looks blazing fast and with the entire sideboard dedicated to hate you have a very good chance at beating them. Powerful Hate & Superfast Clock is every comboplayers nightmare and this is exactly what this does. However, I'd add a few Sowing Salts to solve the Tron matchup, seeing how he lost to it twice.
He said he wouldn't even bother with sideboarding for the Jund matchup, which I think is incorrect. Jund will adapt and if we just play the same old 75 we are suddenly gonna lose that matchup. Same with the GW Kibler and BW Token deck, someone testet it against those two?
you are probably right about the 25 lands, the Tolaria West wasn't very exciting either. I'll cut it for an Island and probably a Repeal for the 25th Land. But I'd leave in the Tectonic Edges as they handle the Manlands.
Chaam I really like your list even tho its very unconventional. I thought of cutting the Mana Leaks entirely for the full set of Remands and some Removal or Bounce too, but I never really dared to.
I have some questions: How do you like your Vendilion Cliques? Did you play against Lingering Souls very often? Are the 4 Shackles not polluting your opening sevens? And how did the Repeals perform?
It's obvious that he kept the card and din't say anything, but I don't think he purposefully tried to knock the card off to cheat. when it gets knocked off it looks like it is a part of his hand.
I agree with this. But the fact that he didn't report it makes him very guilty. But what would have happened if he would have reported it? It would have been a Gameloss/Matchloss for drawing extracards.
Im quite happy with the list but I'm still looking for a possible splash to get rid of the Affinity and Lingering Souls problems this deck has.
The Dismember used to be an additional Spellskite, but I wanted to have something against first turn Deathrite Shaman into Liliana of the Veil as well as Infect, so it was either Spell Pierce or Dismember. I think Dismember is slightly better. Well and the Repeal slot looks quite random but by playing an additional cantrip you can cheat on lands (I play just 24 as opposed to the usual 25) and I was never unhappy to draw it. You can try out 1x Engineered Explosives in the main as it takes out Infect guys, random affinity stuff and takes care of tokens while being tutorable with Tolaria West. I take out 2 Mistbind Cliques for Wurmcoil Engine in the Jund matchup (no Ancient Grudge makes it so good). Good luck at the GP!
edit: I wouldn't take out the Mistbind Cliques. I can understand your reluctance towards them as they sometimes dillute your hand and seem very clunky but I think you should run at least 3 mainboard. They get boarded out quite often but for the first game they are quite good, and against certain decks they are like Vedalken Shackles, a simple gg =)
your second list looks more like a Delver deck tbh, where are all the faerie cards?
Scion of Oona: I actually rarely play her as a "dodge your removal" dude but more like a "drop at end of your turn and start bashing". She sucks removal like a Champion which is great, just let her die. In the meanwhile you counter their relevant threats (against jund: Goyfs, Bob, Liliana, Shaman, dont counter their removals) and drop one Mistbind Clique after another until both sides ran out of gas and you drop Shackles and win.
If you play Spellskites, which you should, Abrupt Decay isn't a big concern. Jund is playing 1-2 so even if you lose one Shackles to Decay you got 2 others in the deck which will, once they hit the battlefield, usually seal the deal in 2-4 turns.
I think the main reason to play this deck over Jund is the Jund matchup. Jund mirrors are always 50/50 while my list got a slight edge. My only concern is the Affinity and probably the Infect matchup, but these 2 decks should naturally disappear with the dominance of Jund. Probably will be playing Faeries over Jund in Bilbao
ps: no I didnt forget it if you read my post again you'll see I mentioned it.
Shackles is the best card in the deck. Period. I don't even want to argue because its like a dogma. Shackles win you games by their own and are the nail in the coffin against combo decks like Infect and Twin. They are the reason why you got a chance at beating Jund. They are the reason to play Faeries. This, cryptic and mutavault are the cards you shouldnt even think of touching. It also answers the Smiter question. With Jund cutting on Abrupt Decay and no Ancient Grudge in the sideboard (we love Rakdos Charm, makes Spellsnare even better) Shackles is even more powerfull than before.
I played Faeries and won PTQs with it, the reason being Shackles. Dont. Cut. It.
To be honest, if you are serious about winning there is no reason to play anything else than Jund. And I guess this is how it works, if there is the "best" deck in the format, all the pros will play and tune it to beat the mirror. Pod is an okay choice, as is Storm, but why should you play those if you can play Jund which has better matchups overall? Nothing really new here, just boooooring...
My point is: Jund is already a 50/50 matchup for us and Infect is a bad matchup, so why would we want to run a card that does poorly against both while boosting the matchups we're already good in (Twin, Storm, UW,...). If you play monoblue you dont even have a way to remove the shaman, if a shackles sticks for several rounds you are winning anyways. Spellskite at least helps in both matchups.
I cannot believe that you playtested Vial. We play maximum 8 creatures on one curve, so at the max you will be flashing in 2-3 creatures in a game, while the rest of the turns it lies dead on the board doing nothing at all. The upside isnt even very good. And besides the card itself we dont have any space, but Id like to see your list maybe I could playtest it a bit so see where you are coming from
I have a question regarding Priority, this came up in a Modern Match a few days ago:
Player A (my opponent) declares attack with his Glistener Elf and asks me if I got any responses. I say no and he taps it to attack, I say go ahead and he casts 2 kicked Vines of Vastwood right behind each other. So by reading your rulings, Eldaron, Player A kept his priority after casting the first Vines of Vastwood and decided to cast the second one, right? As a result I said as a response to your two spells, I play Lightning Bolt, targeting the Elf. He called a judge and told him that he was playing the first Vines of Vastwood and cast the second one only after the first resolved, which was a lie because he cast the two instants right away without asking me for responses. Well the judge decided that he was right and I lost.
How can I avoid getting in such a situation? Should I have called the judge right away? But then I would have given away the advantage he has given me by misplaying?
Faerie Imposter sadly doesn't contribute anything to the gameplan of faeries and neither does Aether vial. You can't afford to mess around with cute stuff that risk being a 2 for 1. The reward is, unlike Mistbind Clique thats risks 2for1 too, very minimal. Bouncing a Mistbind Clique is just win more, if you are in a situation where she lives and you are able to bounce her without any response you are very likely winning already. With faeries, all you want to do is 2 for 1 them and beat them with tempo.
On which number would you set Vial anyways? 3 makes the most sense and even then its not very exciting. I can imagine that it will sit there and do nothing half of the game. 4 is even worse... Merfolk abuses it because they have tons of creatures on one curve and want to spam their Lords. I wouldn't play Snapcaster Mage in a world where the most dominant deck plays 4 Deathrite Shamans. Spellskite does a good job at protection your fragile guys from removal, protects shackles and is like an autowin against infect, a hard matchup.
Besides that, we really don't have any space for them. I'm splashing red and had big trouble finding a spot for Lightning Bolts because the list is so tight. If you'd like to try something fancy, try Repeal, more Spellskites or even a black splash for Thoughtseize.
Let me say that a few months ago I would have been the first person insisting on staying Mono Blue, but time has changed and we need to adapt accordingly so I toyed around with a white splash for Path to Exile and Sideboard Baneslayer Angel and Stony Silence which wasn't very good, so I moved on to red which was way better.
Bloodmoon and Wurmcoils are for Jund, Electrickery for Infect, Affinity, Manabirds and Lingering Souls, additional Spellskite for Infect, Jund and random Burn. I cut down on Spellsnare and Im thinking of cutting down Mistbind Cliques and maybe even Cryptic Command. I board out 1 Mistbind in a lot of matchups like Infect, Affinity and Jund so I could see only running 3 of them. The Cascade Bluffs are for reliably casting the Shatterstorm, Im not very happy with them tho. Im testing Electrickery over Grim Lavamancer because they are too slow in the problem matchups like Infect and Affinity.
Wrecks Affinity, Infect, Twin can't win as long as it's on the field, its quite good against Pod and Jund. It also makes Lingering Souls irrelevant after a cloud has resolved (a card which I first played maindeck after realizing how good NoSB is)
3 Deathcloud
3 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
2 Beseech the Queen
4 Explore
4 Farseek
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
Beseech the Queen is for searching Deathclouds and/or NoSB cause you always want them but as 4-ofs they'd dillute your draws. The idea is to land a big Cloud and beat them down with Treetop Villages. Epochrasite might be worth mentioning as it serves as an early blocker and comes back after a cloud to beatdown.
The main reason for splashing is our troubles with Affinity, Infect, Lingering Souls and stuff like that 4/4 Elephant that cant be countered.
So we should look at which colours improve our bad matchups the most:
White offers Stony Silence which is solid, Path to Exile (worse than Bolt on first turn, better on later?) and Azorious Charm which is super sexy, but Red got Shatterstorm and Izzet Staticaster which is pure awesomeness, maybe we could maindeck him? Sulfur Elemental is very interesting, good catch!
Whats up with all the Snapcasters here? If you got a reliable way to get rid of Deathrite Shamans (Bolt) then we might think about it, but casting a lot of Paths is not a good idea against Jund. And with a white splash you may want to play Rest in Peace?
I have never playtested without the Mana Leaks and I don't know if it's right to keep them out, has anyone playtested without them?
He said he wouldn't even bother with sideboarding for the Jund matchup, which I think is incorrect. Jund will adapt and if we just play the same old 75 we are suddenly gonna lose that matchup. Same with the GW Kibler and BW Token deck, someone testet it against those two?
you are probably right about the 25 lands, the Tolaria West wasn't very exciting either. I'll cut it for an Island and probably a Repeal for the 25th Land. But I'd leave in the Tectonic Edges as they handle the Manlands.
Chaam I really like your list even tho its very unconventional. I thought of cutting the Mana Leaks entirely for the full set of Remands and some Removal or Bounce too, but I never really dared to.
I have some questions: How do you like your Vendilion Cliques? Did you play against Lingering Souls very often? Are the 4 Shackles not polluting your opening sevens? And how did the Repeals perform?
I agree with this. But the fact that he didn't report it makes him very guilty. But what would have happened if he would have reported it? It would have been a Gameloss/Matchloss for drawing extracards.
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Scion of Oona
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Spellskite
4 Spellsnare
4 Cryptic Command
3 Mana Leak
3 Remand
3 Vedalken Shackles
1 Dismember
1 Repeal
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
2 Tectonic Edge
16 Island
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Spell Pierce
Im quite happy with the list but I'm still looking for a possible splash to get rid of the Affinity and Lingering Souls problems this deck has.
The Dismember used to be an additional Spellskite, but I wanted to have something against first turn Deathrite Shaman into Liliana of the Veil as well as Infect, so it was either Spell Pierce or Dismember. I think Dismember is slightly better. Well and the Repeal slot looks quite random but by playing an additional cantrip you can cheat on lands (I play just 24 as opposed to the usual 25) and I was never unhappy to draw it. You can try out 1x Engineered Explosives in the main as it takes out Infect guys, random affinity stuff and takes care of tokens while being tutorable with Tolaria West. I take out 2 Mistbind Cliques for Wurmcoil Engine in the Jund matchup (no Ancient Grudge makes it so good). Good luck at the GP!
edit: I wouldn't take out the Mistbind Cliques. I can understand your reluctance towards them as they sometimes dillute your hand and seem very clunky but I think you should run at least 3 mainboard. They get boarded out quite often but for the first game they are quite good, and against certain decks they are like Vedalken Shackles, a simple gg =)
your second list looks more like a Delver deck tbh, where are all the faerie cards?
Scion of Oona: I actually rarely play her as a "dodge your removal" dude but more like a "drop at end of your turn and start bashing". She sucks removal like a Champion which is great, just let her die. In the meanwhile you counter their relevant threats (against jund: Goyfs, Bob, Liliana, Shaman, dont counter their removals) and drop one Mistbind Clique after another until both sides ran out of gas and you drop Shackles and win.
I think the main reason to play this deck over Jund is the Jund matchup. Jund mirrors are always 50/50 while my list got a slight edge. My only concern is the Affinity and probably the Infect matchup, but these 2 decks should naturally disappear with the dominance of Jund. Probably will be playing Faeries over Jund in Bilbao
ps: no I didnt forget it if you read my post again you'll see I mentioned it.
I played Faeries and won PTQs with it, the reason being Shackles. Dont. Cut. It.
Play Jund, there is no reason not to.
I cannot believe that you playtested Vial. We play maximum 8 creatures on one curve, so at the max you will be flashing in 2-3 creatures in a game, while the rest of the turns it lies dead on the board doing nothing at all. The upside isnt even very good. And besides the card itself we dont have any space, but Id like to see your list maybe I could playtest it a bit so see where you are coming from
Player A (my opponent) declares attack with his Glistener Elf and asks me if I got any responses. I say no and he taps it to attack, I say go ahead and he casts 2 kicked Vines of Vastwood right behind each other. So by reading your rulings, Eldaron, Player A kept his priority after casting the first Vines of Vastwood and decided to cast the second one, right? As a result I said as a response to your two spells, I play Lightning Bolt, targeting the Elf. He called a judge and told him that he was playing the first Vines of Vastwood and cast the second one only after the first resolved, which was a lie because he cast the two instants right away without asking me for responses. Well the judge decided that he was right and I lost.
How can I avoid getting in such a situation? Should I have called the judge right away? But then I would have given away the advantage he has given me by misplaying?
edit: grammar
On which number would you set Vial anyways? 3 makes the most sense and even then its not very exciting. I can imagine that it will sit there and do nothing half of the game. 4 is even worse... Merfolk abuses it because they have tons of creatures on one curve and want to spam their Lords. I wouldn't play Snapcaster Mage in a world where the most dominant deck plays 4 Deathrite Shamans. Spellskite does a good job at protection your fragile guys from removal, protects shackles and is like an autowin against infect, a hard matchup.
Besides that, we really don't have any space for them. I'm splashing red and had big trouble finding a spot for Lightning Bolts because the list is so tight. If you'd like to try something fancy, try Repeal, more Spellskites or even a black splash for Thoughtseize.
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Scion of Oona
1 Spellskite
3 Veldalken Shackles
4 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
3 Mana Leak
3 Spellsnare
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
2 Cascade Bluffs
10 Island
3 Bloodmoon
3 Relict of Progenitus
3 Shatterstorm
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Electrickery
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Spellskite
Let me say that a few months ago I would have been the first person insisting on staying Mono Blue, but time has changed and we need to adapt accordingly so I toyed around with a white splash for Path to Exile and Sideboard Baneslayer Angel and Stony Silence which wasn't very good, so I moved on to red which was way better.
Bloodmoon and Wurmcoils are for Jund, Electrickery for Infect, Affinity, Manabirds and Lingering Souls, additional Spellskite for Infect, Jund and random Burn. I cut down on Spellsnare and Im thinking of cutting down Mistbind Cliques and maybe even Cryptic Command. I board out 1 Mistbind in a lot of matchups like Infect, Affinity and Jund so I could see only running 3 of them. The Cascade Bluffs are for reliably casting the Shatterstorm, Im not very happy with them tho. Im testing Electrickery over Grim Lavamancer because they are too slow in the problem matchups like Infect and Affinity.