Cards that makes us lose life are to avoid, imho. Engineered Explosives also isn’t the best, but it’s very versatile and it deals with most walkers in the current Modern.
How did you feel about the mana? Blast zone over Field and 3x waterlogged grove?
The manabase is an open project. I did like Blast Zone, but it’s also due to the decks I faced. Field of Ruin may be better suited for the archetype, but again, I was pleased with the former. What I truly disliked, though, were the Groves. Cycle lands aren’t the best when we actually want to make landrops, and this thing deals a friggin’ damage to us for every activation. We use a lot of mana. Not going to run mor than one, but I’ll probably just remove them altogether.
I do like your Stirring Wildwood suggestion. The problem I see with it is being non-blue. I want my non-basics being Choke-resilient (and yes, Choke is a real card, you’ll end up losing games to it otherwise). Then, obviously there is the dissinergy with Cryptic Command.
—————-
I saw a very spicy list online, and I’m certainly going to try it (with some tweakings).
Perhaps my initial idea of going hard control with Karn GC as our finisher is the right build for him. I've found hard control to be a better game plan for us over being a medium big mana midrange deck.
Same conclusion I came to. Instead of running lots of utilities in the board, we could just make the space for threats, while running more permission and removals in the main. Which would mean:
Where Relic of Progenitus also act as a cantrip fetchable by Karn when you”re short on targets. I would definitely run a sixth piece of Grave hate while Hogaak is still legal, probably instead of the Ghost Quarter.
@BloodyRabbit_01 I have been a big fan of your posts, I loved and fully embraced your innovation of maxing out on dismembers and ballistae to great success. However, after reading your analysis of Karn GC I have to disagree with you. To expand on why, I have laid out my thoughts on Karn's unique strengths/advantages
Thank you for your appreciation.
Regarding Karn: I’m not pretending this card never existed, I simply have few time to test this deck while taking care of my exams and testing different strategies. So, I stick to what I know it works.
That said, implementing Karn in the previous build isn’t that difficult. You can just trim one Snapcaster Mage, one Ugin and one Wurmcoil in order to make space for it. I was actually considering this change. It sucks to eat sideboard space, but it may be worth it in order to provide a game ending threat for the right matchup (I was considering Chalice of the Void, Mindslaver, Wurmcoil Engine and Mycosynth Lattice, other than utility cards such as another Walking Ballista or Oblivion Stone, Crucible of Worlds and something for the graveyard. But, see? How many cards left in the sideboard?
Force of Negation has been bonkers in my (limited) testing. There is no reason not to run the full set, imho. I already explained the reasons before, and it’s basically the only cards with whom we can interact with the opponent on turn zero/one. Or WHILE we are fetching with Map, WHILE we are bouncing a one drop, and so on. It gives the deck the consistency it needs.
I know there are lots of people on this thread who are complaining about being impossible to play a Snap-Bolt deck competitively.
All I’ll say is that I top8’d in the last 3 out of 4 tournaments with Blue Moon, since we got new toys (Force, Shinkole, Charm, Ashiok). Just to give ya’ll some hope. Deck feels super good right now.
To me it looks like a decent to mediocre card against most non-Blue opponents, that happens to hate on certain archetypes while not being utterly dead against the field. It also enables several interesting game-in-the-game, like stopping Cascade spells, making Spell Queller a better card and giving an opportunity to the owner to Combo off in his turn. Perfectly balanced, though.
The manabase is an open project. I did like Blast Zone, but it’s also due to the decks I faced. Field of Ruin may be better suited for the archetype, but again, I was pleased with the former. What I truly disliked, though, were the Groves. Cycle lands aren’t the best when we actually want to make landrops, and this thing deals a friggin’ damage to us for every activation. We use a lot of mana. Not going to run mor than one, but I’ll probably just remove them altogether.
I do like your Stirring Wildwood suggestion. The problem I see with it is being non-blue. I want my non-basics being Choke-resilient (and yes, Choke is a real card, you’ll end up losing games to it otherwise). Then, obviously there is the dissinergy with Cryptic Command.
—————-
I saw a very spicy list online, and I’m certainly going to try it (with some tweakings).
2 Blast Zone
2 Celestial Colonnade
3 Glacial Fortress
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
5 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-covered Forest
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Removal (5)
4 Path to Exile
1 Winds of Abandon
Counters (10)
4 Force of Negation
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
Consistency (4)
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
Creatures (12)
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
2 Dragonlord Ojutai
2 Celestial Purge
1 Surgical Extraction
4 Rest In Peace
2 Collector Ouphe
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Dovin's Veto
3 Blessed Alliance
a) goes to the opponent’s face
b) helps dealing with planeswalkers
b) it grows Goyf
C) doesn’t give us autoloss vs Vial decks
It is a flex slot for sure, but it’s better than what it looks like. Especially in g1 vs Combo decks, where it helps racing.
Same conclusion I came to. Instead of running lots of utilities in the board, we could just make the space for threats, while running more permission and removals in the main. Which would mean:
Mindslaver
Wurmcoil Engine
Mycosynth Lattice
Crucible of Worlds (which is sort of a finisher against many decks)
Without any Bridge, Chalice, O-Stone, Trini and such. It wouldn’t be that much of a Wishboard, this way.
1x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Mycosynth Lattice
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Tormod’s Crypt
4x Relic of Progenitus
3x Spatial Contortion
2x Dismember
1x Ghost Quarter
Where Relic of Progenitus also act as a cantrip fetchable by Karn when you”re short on targets. I would definitely run a sixth piece of Grave hate while Hogaak is still legal, probably instead of the Ghost Quarter.
This would be the list with Karn, for reference.
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
7 Island
1 River of Tears
1 Field of Ruin
1 Blast Zone
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
3 Walking Ballista
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Torrential Gearhulk
Artifacts (6)
4 Expedition Map
2 Oblivion Stone
Spells(21)
4 Condescend
3 Remand
4 Force of Negation
4 Repeal
2 Echoing Truth
4 Thirst For Knowledge
3 Karn, the Great Creator
Thank you for your appreciation.
Regarding Karn: I’m not pretending this card never existed, I simply have few time to test this deck while taking care of my exams and testing different strategies. So, I stick to what I know it works.
That said, implementing Karn in the previous build isn’t that difficult. You can just trim one Snapcaster Mage, one Ugin and one Wurmcoil in order to make space for it. I was actually considering this change. It sucks to eat sideboard space, but it may be worth it in order to provide a game ending threat for the right matchup (I was considering Chalice of the Void, Mindslaver, Wurmcoil Engine and Mycosynth Lattice, other than utility cards such as another Walking Ballista or Oblivion Stone, Crucible of Worlds and something for the graveyard. But, see? How many cards left in the sideboard?
Force of Negation has been bonkers in my (limited) testing. There is no reason not to run the full set, imho. I already explained the reasons before, and it’s basically the only cards with whom we can interact with the opponent on turn zero/one. Or WHILE we are fetching with Map, WHILE we are bouncing a one drop, and so on. It gives the deck the consistency it needs.
Play 4 Force of Negation. Seriously, it changes the flow of so many games against so many decks. Tron is one of them.
All I’ll say is that I top8’d in the last 3 out of 4 tournaments with Blue Moon, since we got new toys (Force, Shinkole, Charm, Ashiok). Just to give ya’ll some hope. Deck feels super good right now.
2 Blast Zone
2 Celestial Colonnade
3 Waterlogged Grove
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
5 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-covered Forest
Planeswalkers (5)
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
4 Path to Exile
1 Winds of Abandon
2 Blessed Alliance
Counters (6)
4 Force of Negation
2 Cryptic Command
Consistency (6)
4 Opt
2 Sleight of Hand
Creatures (12)
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
1 Mystic Snake
2 Celestial Purge
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Rest In Peace
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Dovin's Veto
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Settle the Wreckage
Faced Mono Red Phoenix (2-1), GR Titanshift (2-0), Mono Red Blistercoil (2-0), Altarvine (2-1). The list is working the way it’s intended to do.
About Growth Spiral, I already pinpointed the problem with the card: moving between turns 2-4 doesn’t apport much to us, most of the time.
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Wooded Foothills
2x Spirebluff Canal
2x Fiery Islet
1x Forest
1x Island
2x Steam Vents
2x Breeding Pool
Creatures (15)
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Hooting Mandrills
3x Hexdrinker
4x Sleight of Hand
4x Thought Scour
1x Faithless Looting
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Tarfire
3x Vapor Snag
4x Force of Negation
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Deprive
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Disdainful Stroke
1x Magmatic Sinkhole
1x Dismember
1x Roast
2x Abrade
4x Surgical Extraction
1x Ravenous Trap
As a reference.
I said ‘while NOT being utterly dead against the field’.
IMHO is simply all about powerlevel in Modern. It went up, I don’t see why denying this.