MTG Salvation

I hate Scour, but it's definitely a necessary evil while playing Delve or Threshold cards.

By the way, I'm also inclined to test Pteramander in the Tarmogoyf slot. The flying clause is huge, and instead of conflicting with Mandrills it needs the same work we already do to grow Nimble. Maybe it's too cute, but I'll definitely try it.

Fresh first place in a 5 rounds tornament (+ top8). Let's start from the list.




Let's analyze it.

1) No Snapcaster Mage? You crazy, bro?

The more we go in a Tempo direction, the less Snapcaster Mage appeals to me. For a certain period I was even playing the fifth (Jace, Vryn's Prodigy) maindeck. That was the time we durdled, with multiple Kommands in the maindeck. That time is over. I often found myself with dead Snappies in hand, casting them on turn two just for the purpose of having another body on the field. They are a great engine, don't get me wrong. But we are a deck which lives on one cc spells. Snapcaster, to have at least a marginal utility, needs to be cast as a three cc spell. An enormity.

2) This is a Jund list without green.

Yes, it is. I'm actually playing Traverse Shadow without green. Fact is, Traverse is such a bad magic card. I played my fair share of Jund Shadow, Sultai Shadow and 4C Shadow. Half the time I would have preferred a cantrip instead of it. Some other times is rendered useless by opponent's grave hate. Some other times drawing into threats instead of... anything else is actually a liability. Other than that, while Tarmogoyf is a very resilient creature, the ability of casting delve treaths for just one mana has made a HUGE difference, in my testing process. Simply put:

a) Scour > Traverse
b) Grixis Mana > 4C Mana (and Stubborn Denial > playing without Stubborn Denial)
c) Tarmogoyf == Gurmag Angler + Tasigur

I DO want, from the Traverse approach, the high number of cc1 plays (7 discard spells + 4 Stubb, other than all the cantrips!) plus the ability to deploy an early threat (so, one more Delve creature to find, and the set 4 Scours + 2 Looting in order to cast them with consistency).

3) What about the sideboard?

This deck can't play the value game in the traditional fashion. You basically operate on 2-4 lands for the whole match (and Looting is actually crazy good at discarding excess mana), so I'm avoid the "planeswalker trap". Young Peezy is important, though, against most grindy match-ups such as Control and BGx (other than acting as an additional threat versus certain typologies of combo decks). You can deploy it on the field on turn two, most of the time, cause it will exacerbate the opponent's removal before they can eat your "real" threats. I do like Spellbomb more than Surgical at the moment, and I would play Leyline as alternative in this list.

----

The tournament.

Swiss.

Round1// G-Tron 2-0
Round2// G-Tron 2-1
Round3// URw Phoenix 2-0
Round4// Abzan Company 2-0
Round5// Humans I.D.

Quarter// GB Rock 2-1
Semi// Spirits 2-1
Final// Amulet Titan 2-0


I close unbeaten. Very satisfatory result. Humans is probably the worst preboard matchup you can face, when playing with four Stubbs. Four Stubbs were an all-star the whole day, though, against the other archetypes. My sideboard is well tuned for Tron, which I consider a slightly positive match-up, and in testing I absolutely wrecked Phoenix and any kind of Combo deck. GB Rock is nowhere near to Jund's grindy level (though I would much likely play Rock in this meta, and that's good for us) and we can actually overrun them pretty easily unless they have nutdraws, thanks to the low-lands count. I fear more HS Affinity (again, the side is decently tuned for it) and Humans + hard Control.

I do think this should be the future for the archetype, at least in the incoming months.

Still trying to understand how the new Kaya should be a "great card", by the way.

I would definitely play some amount of Unmoored Ego and three Field of Ruin maindeck, if I were to give Esper another try.

Something like:

Hooting Mandrills is a subpar card, IMHO. It's played because there isn't anything better. IF you have Scour in hand and the opponent doesn't play grave hate (Relic in Tron, for example), it can be a turn two play. Which is slower than turn one creature anyway, and it makes you spend the entire turn casting it. While, playing critter on turn one, double cantrip on turn two (or cantrip + removal/disruption) feels way better against most decks. If you don't have any Scour in hand, it's a dead card until you hit the requirements.

Pteramander and Tarmogoyf DON'T conflict with each other. It's a thing, yes, don't pretend it isn't. The argument for Fatal Push is also kinda farfetched. All of your other creatures die from it anyway. They are going to find a target for Push, in a way or another. That said, Push isn't superpopular right now. Most decks are running Bolt (Hollow One, UR Phoenix, Jeskai Control...) or different kinds of removals (Walking Ballista, Oblivion Stone, Ugin...). Or directly Path, which hits anything from our maindeck. Flying is, also, usually better compared to trample, which is a plus for Pteramander. When was the last time you faced Lingering Souls in the format?

I would suggest you guys to try this configuration before dismissing it. Mandrills RUG wasn't a good option for the meta. We can talk about this or that, the truth doesn't change. What we can change, though, is the velocity of the deck. Which matters, to say the least, in the current Modern.

So.

I took a 5-6 months break from MTG and I'm (partially) back. I noticed that all of my posts went deleted (dunno why), hope most of you still remember me and my schizoid lists. I'm not yet in the game, once again, because I managed to find a good balance in my life and Time is a harsh component of it. But, every now and then, I will take a short break and come here to discuss about our favourite game.

What I wanted to say.

If people still remember me, you should be aware of this: I was the first huge proponent of maindecks high on Dismember, Ballista and no Chalices. I do think I was right, and my previous win ratio confirmed it (last time I played, half a year ago, I had a 71% win rate overall). When I was back, though, I noticed the metagame changed quite a bit. There are Phoenixes everywhere, Dredge is a thing again, Burn percentage increased, Grixis Shadow had a comeback. Chalices in this metagame is HUGE. Walking Ballista, which I adore, became a huge "spend here your excess mana" from the "play it and devastate opponent's little creatures" it was in the past. When Affinity was Affinity instead of Hardened Scales and Elves were rampant, I had them in the deck even if they were "bad" against anything else, because Ballistas were winning those two games by themselves. Now, I find them pretty much underwhelming. Not "bad", just "a spot that could be something more impactful". Same goes for Dismember. It's - finally - the time for me to switch to Spatial Contortion. With Burn, Phoenixes & Hardened Scales running rampant, I feel like it's the correct choice. That said, I'm still unsure about this last point. I yet have to make real tests, putting aside one small tournament.

What did I try.

• Sideboard (15)
  
• 1x Chalice of the Void
  
• 2x Nimble Obstructionist
  
• 4x Relic of Progenitus
  
• 1x Spatial Contortion
  
• 3x Dismember
  
• 3x Negate
  
• 1x Tectonic Edge

For the first time ever, I'm willing to play baby Karn. Without Talismans, of course (you all should know what I think about them). Guess what? I'm liking the four planeswalkers configuration a lot. From the printing of Assassin's Trophy I felt like we needed to up the count of our walkers. The deck is now working way better than before when it comes to fight opponents that are eager to kill our Tron lands. Having three Wurmcoils plus 2 Karns as "linear, efficient threats" (plus the two big Ugin) makes postboard games way more playable than before. AND, it really helps a lot vs Control, cause lately (before taking a break) I had very good results against the field, but UW and Jeskai made a meatball out of me, after all the goodies WOTC printed.


How my tests went.

Last week I tried to enter a tournament with the old list. Steamrolled by Burn, Phoenix & Miracles, while winning against Humans, for the final 1-3. I took changes, and that's the result:


Round1// Jeskai Delver 2-0

Chalice of the Void really shines here. Geist was a huge problem, having less blockers than before, but Chalice#1 locks them out of half spells (even more) and I was able to chain Remand into Remand into Tron both games before ultimating Ugin.

Round2// Naya Burn 2-1

On the draw. Won game one thanks to Chalice#1 into a pair of Contortion, then I proceed to counter everything until I ultimate Ugin again. Game two he has turn three the same amount of Guides on the field. Game three I'm able to chain a pair of Remands on his Eidolon until I hardcast a Wurmcoil on turn six.

Round3// UR Phoenix 2-0

Chalice#1 won me the first game. Relic + Dismember on Thing won me the second.

Round4// BG Goodstuff 2-0

Karn actually did it in both games. We traded resources for a bit, he tried to keep me out of Tron on the first, but I end up being refuelled constantly by Karn until I hit a Slaver. In the second game he has Trophy into Fulminator into Fulminator into double Field of Ruin activation. I keep killing his stuff with Dismember and Contortion, then I slam Karn into Wurmcoil into another Wurmcoil and laugh.

----

How's the deck positioned?

Can't say for sure. I tested a little bit in the last two weeks, against all the forms of Tron (Gx, Eldrazi), UR Storm, Humans, Hardened Scales, Phoenix, Burn (Mardu, Boros, Naya). It still seems to have plenty of games against those strategies (with Hardened Scales being, by far, the worse between them). Had a 45-55 ratio against G-Tron, 40-60 against HS Affinity, 55+/% against the others.

I'm thinking about fourth Chalice in the main, and I'd like to have one Commit too. Crucible in the side seems to be in a good spot, but dunno what to take out for it.

I apologize in case I forgot how to write in English, please bear with it. I hope you all can find this analysis interesting.

Quote from jayjayhooks »

I disagree with those who think the deck can support 3 Snapcaster Mage. Serum Visions and Verdict are subpar targets for SCM imo. The rest of the spells that he can target (other than path) are late Mid-late game spells, where this deck shines anyways. What the deck needs is early interaction, and opening on multiple snapcasters is a death sentence. For that reason, I actually only play 1.

1 is definitely wrong. If a game goes beyond T6, I generally want to see at least two of them, and having just a single copy in the deck means you are never going to see two of them, and will frequently not even see that singleton. I can't think of a competitive blue deck in Modern history that played a single Snapcaster; maybe some oddball lists but no archetypes as a whole.

2 vs. 3 is debatable, and we can agree that 4 is too many. I prefer 3 because the card opens up so many decision trees and I want to maximize my options in a control deck. It's particularly valuable in G2-G3 where you have key instants and sorceries sided in and want to recast them as much as possible. For instance, Snapcaster + Dispel is spectacular in the Burn matchup. Snapcaster + Rejection singlehandedly transforms the Tron (Gx/E-Tron) matchup from "inevitable gameloss" to "counter everything." Snapcaster + Verdict is also spectacular; decks that lose to Verdict generally can't beat re-bought Verdicts over multiple turns.

Quote from ctaylor33 »

For what it is worth, three Snapcasters in Benny-style UW seems like too many to me too. I want to see him mid to late game, which makes two the perfect number.

I want to see him all the time. Against aggro, I want to see T1-T2 Path and T3 Snapcaster into Path. I want to T2-T3 Leak/Negate and then have T4 Cryptic and T5 Snapcaster + Leak/Negate to hold the line. I want to Ambush Viper a Leonin Arbiter or a Tidehollow Sculler. If it's T3 and I miss my land draw, I want to Snapcaster into SV to ensure T4 goes smooth.

In general, I play UW Control because I have lots of options, decisions, and opportunities to try and outplay an opponent. Snapcaster is a huge variance decreaser and a huge opportunity increaser, so I want to play that third copy.

Quote from ctaylor33 »

Maybe it is my own definition of draw-go but I do not consider Benny's list draw-go. Tapping out for 4 Seas and 2 Walls and for 5 planeswalkers does not feel like draw-go to me. But like I said, maybe it is just my own definition.

This is what I consider draw-go:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/689854#paper

Or this:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/596297#paper

But I am fine agreeing to disagree.

My list is pretty similar to BH's with 4 Seas, 2 Walls, and 4-5 walkers depending on what I'm playing around with. It's still very draw-go, but it has some early outs against different decks. For example, holding up Leak against Tron on T2 is significantly worse than Seas on a Tronland. Similarly, I'd rather drop T2 Wall on the play against Burn's MS/Guide than hold for Leak. Later, Wall and Seas are cheap enough that you can play them on T4+ while holding up some other countermagic. Overall, all of this is to say that the BH version is extremely draw-go. You can probably (mis)play it by jamming stuff blindly, but just because the deck has non-instant cards, doesn't disqualify it as draw-go.

and you have GQuarters or SSeas (if you play them) to shut them off.
We wouldn't play those cards if big mana decks weren't a big chunk of the meta.

this doesn't count since you adapt and use X card against X meta decks anyway


Attacking their lands isn't "gearing towards", because G.Quarter/T.Edge are a given in every single Control deck.
They are a given BECAUSE of big mana decks. When bigmana weren't a large share of the meta, control usually played just 1of Ghost Q (usually to deal with manlands) and Seas/Crumble just in the SB.

mana denial is a thing that is used by control strategies because the meta is mana dependant, be it big mana decks or tri color ones so that arg also doesn't count as well



other points you made are correct tho, i just wanted to say something about these two

SFM is 100% safe. There is no scenario where a 4/4 lifelink vigilance creature is too fast on turn 3 - we're letting people Karn Liberated people on the same turn. I'm sorry but there is no way one is fair but not the other. Moreover, batterskull can be taken out from the hand after its searched with ubiquitous thoughtseize or thought-knot seer in addition to just having the germ token fatal pushed or the whole sfm-batterskull pair taken out by Kolaghan's command. In addition to dying to removal, it also dies to a lot of the interaction of the format while being slower and more vulnerable than other cards seeing play right now. Artifacts have a hard time in modern because there are already plenty of decks getting hated out by artifact hate. The answers already see wide and common play.

How is it possibly justifiable to say that TKS/karn/lily are a reasonable turn 3 play, but SFM crosses the line? SFM is in good company with other very strong cards that will win the game if not dealt with - something white is notably in short supply of.

I'm coming from a much more liberal philosophy in regards to the banned list, where I would not have banned many of the cards recently. Modern is a format full of powerful interactions leading to extremely aggressive games. I don't think SFM could possibly be a threat to the meta overall, and that the most likely result of an unban would be similar to the Ancestral Vision or Wild Nacatl unban: a card that fits into decks looking for the particular tool, but not strong enough to build towards in decks already boasting strong plans (most decks). This isn't Legacy, we've got Umezawa's Jitte banned.

Comment Hidden

Quote from Kozlak »

Hi guys,

What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.

If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.

My decklist for reference

I think your sample sizes are still too small to say anything. Affinity is not a bad matchup. Outside of a resolved Champion you should be able to just kill all their stuff and beat them. On the other hand, you have a really good winrate against Burn, which is not a favorable matchup for us. You're definitely right about control being bad, though. That might be our worse.

In the matches I've won against control, it's been when I had a lot of discard to pick off all their removal and an early threat to kill them before they found more. That's how you beat them, you have to tempo them out. Trying to play for a long grindy game is a losing proposition, because they will out-card advantage you in the long run. You want all your discard, so board in your Brutalities. You also want all your Denials. In your list, I would board in the Fulminators just cause they are additional threats that net you a 2-for-1 when they eventually have to try to kill it, but I really don't like Fulminator in the deck, Liliana is just better and is a good way to beat control. They only have Detention Sphere and Cryptics to stop her once she resolves. I would board out your battle rage, terminates, pushes, and bolt. Also, you should play 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Inquisition, Thoughtseize is the best card in the deck.

I am surprised by people not running grave hate, and more surprised to hear about people complaining that they have to run it.

That's like whining that you have to be able to answer creatures, or you have to have an answer for control/midrange. Graveyards are a part of the game and a ton of top tier decks rely on their graveyard to a point that running grave hate is not just a hedge against Dredge, it is fhe correct thing to do in the format.

Quote from Cody_X »

I think your comment about the lack of results of a lot of people in this thread is a little unfair.
I've never attended any state championship event, but I've never tried. The problem is lack of ambition, IMO.

I'm really not that great at Magic, and I have much less ambition than most when it comes to this game. That being said, I played in 2 50+ player events with this deck and got top 8 in 1 and top 4 in another. At FNMs if I fail to top 8 I consider the day to be a failure where I either got very unlucky or something is fundamentally flawed with my deck, which leads to hours of tuning before the next event. This applies not just to this deck, but to the random janky Control decks I played back when I bothered with Standard.

Maybe I'm just a Spike-type player and this is an "agree to disagree" moment. You gotta understand that someone who's "gone infinite" in FNMs but picks up the 2014 builds of this deck and 2-2-drops isn't going to be convinced by any amount of theorycrafting. Something is fundamentally wrong with the deck's power level in the evolving Modern metagame; I tried fixing it by using Thirst for Knowledge to accelerate the draw engine, but I like Wafo's Serum Vision plan better.

Quote from GoodPastor »

I come from a scientific college background as a graduated student in psychology. There, we have learned to make a difference between opinions and facts. We have also explored the grey areas where opinions can be possible facts...Now on the SV topic, I side with the clinical evaluation of the card (hundred of threaders having thousands of games experience) instead of an incomplete empirical evaluation. Over the past 3 months, we haven't see more than 30 lists of the deck getting official results. You can see that many in a week for jund shadow. Saying that because many of them used SV, that it is correct to use the card is not a FACT but an opinion. When you go deeper into the philosophical foundation of the deck, you can tell that SV is not what we are looking for, but that is my OPINION.

So please, when you argue, care. Some people here talk like they own the fking truth when all they master is their opinion. Amalek, good job for your results, even tho I wouldn't play without my 3 pushes.

Last thing, if you think that the experience from a couple hundred thousand games from every active contributor here is not worthy and that a couple mtgo 5-0 can overthrow everything, why are you here? To tell us we are doing it wrong? What's the point? If our clinical evaluation ( that has been evolving since birthing pod) is less accurate than the 2 lists you can find on mtg goldfish, well save yourself the trouble (and save us too) and just contemplate those perfect list/players.

Yes, countless hours of theorycrafting backed up by mediocre results can be overturned in my mind by 20 or so posted results. Even Donny ran an updated list and got his first 5-0. If you try to tell yourself that Magic is a game ruled by variance and these things are flukes, you're fundamentally misunderstanding the game. You shouldn't base your evaluation of a deck on something like going 300-150 in matches against random opponents; you should be able to "feel" the power level of your deck and how it's performing. Magic's a game of intuition, especially when it involves Control decks.
[sidenote: you need to go at least 3/1 (75%) to top 8 an FNM and 7/2 (78%) to simply Day 2 a GP. 78% against progressively more difficult opponents, thanks to the modified Swiss system]

But hey, all of this has produced perhaps the most positive thread on the forum. People enjoy this stuff and I'm clearly the outlier. You asked why I'm even here and I'm not really sure myself; must be the allure of soapboxing. I may come back to seriously playing this deck now that they banned Miracles but in the meantime, I'll leave well enough alone. Sorry if I offended anyone and have a good night.

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of clerics and faeries suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Quote from Brentane »

I'm still a bit iffy about buying the snapcasters needed to finish off this deck. In testing I seem to only win with the combo. I hit with Clique and Pestermite as much as I can in testing against my friends and I still have to use the combo to win against them as I can't get there with the damage. I've been told that players here rarely go for the combo and win through damage. Am I doing something wrong here?

Yes. Snapcaster is the best card in the deck. Not even up for debate.
The reason you never win by damage is because you don't have snaps.