MTG Salvation

And yet, Ben Friedman just wrote an article yesterday defending a full playset of Baubles. 16th place at GP Tampa, his 75 had zero copies of Serum Visions or Opt. He also recommended these cards in the flex slots that could be any number of additional Snapcasters, K Commands, Stubborn Denials, and so forth. Even looking at mtgtop 8 averages and totals within the last two weeks shows less than half of the decks are using Visions, and most of them only two copies. The others are using two copies of Sleight of Hand instead.

The combination of Friedman's expertise and these points of data show that this deckbuilding aspect is not as trivial as "Serum Visions/Opt are powerful blue cantrips, play them." In fact, the low number of copies of a single of those effects makes me think they are not particularly impactful.

To add to the Serum Visions vs Sleight of Hand debacle, I believe what divides pilots is the issue of selection now or later. Not too long ago people were saying that Serum Visions' scry is useless in GDS due to the amount of fetching and shuffling involved. Sleight of Hand (or Opt for that matter) digs deeper for the card in your hand now instead of providing a random draw and a setup for later turns. I think this argument anti-Serum is debatable in the sense that Visions' scry makes Bauble and Wraith blind draws better, but it has its own merits.

I've been playing with 4 baubles and 17 lands for a little over a week now. The deck feels much better and less clunky. These are some of the relevant interactions bauble can offer:

- 1 lander w/ Thoughtseize + cantrip: take a look at the top of your library to evaluate if digging for lands is more important than disruption.
- 2 baubles + street wraith: check the top before fetching, reshuffle if you don't like it, try again immediately or next turn. Street Wraiths allow you to cycle into the bauble "scry".
- 1 bauble + cantrip: check the top of your opponent's library to figure out what they're playing. Use cantrip to find what you need to combat their strategy.
- Serum visions + Bauble is a free scry 2 to the top as long as you like both cards. Playsets of Baubles and Wraiths make Visions much more interesting and reliable.
- Bauble + discard spell: look at their top deck before discard to evaluate the best pick.

I'm sure there are many more useful interactions. I highly recommend the following reading: http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/eduardo-sajgalik/optimizing-grixis-shadow

On Stony Silence and the Affinity matchup,

Even in BW builds you're not supposed to keep regular hands. Of course, mulling for stony silences isn't obligatory, but keeping a considerable amount of removal is. The affinity matchup is the only reason why I switched back to 2 Zealous Persecutions instead of Orzhov Pontiffs. An unanswered Overseer is often enough to steal the game, unless you managed to get a crazy chain of Flickerwisps and Displacers until you find removal.

I'd say it is very safe to mull to 6 if your opening hand isn't particularly good vs Affinity. Mulls below that number are always risky.

As for sideboard slots, I've seen people packing 2-3 Stony Silences + 1 Kataki, resembling splits between RiPs and Cages for GY hate. Is Sunlance enough help for Mono W builds?

Hey everyone,

Any updates on your BW Eldrazi & Taxes lists? I was running a playset of Thraben Inspectors, but they had mediocre results. They are often just over costed cantrips. The deck is so tight on mana that actively flickering/blinking them to crack clues is very rare.

With a replacement in mind, I decided to do some digging on mtgtop8 stats. Mind you, I'm just presenting a broad picture of their records of 2 months of play. I don't think any of my conclusions should be set in stone and I'm looking forward to your feedback on these insights. This is what we see:

. Out of the 33 results posted on mtgtop8 under hatebears, 16 correspond to the E&T archetype!
. Lands vary between 22 and 24. Only 2 lists deviate from 22.
. Most lands are consensual except for the 22nd. The last land is either a Godless Shrine, a Wastes, a Sea Gate Wreckage, or the third Shambling Vent. The deck that goes for 24 lands due to Reality Smashers opts for 2 Fetid Heaths instead.
. The flex slots on the main are the following: The 4th Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 2-3 Dark Confidants, 2-3 Reality Smashers for those who go big on lands, and an assortment of meta specific cards. Overall, between extra lands and meta specific calls, these slots cover 4 to 8 cards. Those who stick to maxing out core cards (3 Wasteland Stranglers and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 4-ofs for the rest of the core cards) usually have 4 slots.
. Bobs or no Bobs? Out of the 16 lists, 13 opted for running 2-3 Bobs. The majority (8) sticks to 2 copies. For those who are not a fan of greatness at any cost, another card fills the "value" slot: 1-2 Blade Splicers, 2 Kitchen Finks, and even 2 Wall of Omens.
. Sideboards are much harder to analyze. People agree on just a few cards: don't go out without packing at least 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Stony Silences, and 3-5 removal effects such as Fatal Push, Dismember, Blessed Alliance, Zealous Persecutions, Wasteland Strangler, and Orzhov Pontiffs. 1-2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar seems to be the go-to answer to midrange matchups.

I hope this is a helpful summary for those of you tinkering with the deck! Let me know your thoughts!

Congrats on your results, @grayson290! Would you care to share your list and insights on your card choices?

Much appreciated!

@agua_benta following the Skred Red gameplan, it is advisable that Eternal Scourges are played along Relic of Progenitus or some other form of exiling them in case they naturally hit the GY due to combat damage. Far-fetched thought experiment, but image how interesting it would be to Surgical Extraction the first Scourge to hit the GY in order to tutor the other 3 and set them up to be cast from exile.

@on Surgical Extraction vs. Dredge, from a Grixis perspective, the card is immensely better in Snapcaster Mage decks, as you can cast and flashback it by your turn 2, shutting down their best win cons, namely Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam. They'll still cause a lot of trouble with Life from the Loams into flashback Conflagrates, and if you don't present a decent clock you will eventually be met with several giant Golgari Grave-Trolls. Rest in Peace is definitely the better card for decks with access to white mana.

I had no luck finding Tamada's footage on Worlds. Not sure if he ever got on camera given that he piloted the deck to a 1-3 finish in Modern rounds. Mansfield's Much Abrew About Nothing is what got my attention in the first place, and it is definitely a good watch. It is very unfortunate that he didn't get paired with a lot of problematic decks. I'm sure it would be awesome to listen to his thought process on sideboarding and sequencing.

I definitely feel that the deck has real tools and real threats. Just like UR delver decks, any new tempo tool could do it to push the deck to higher tiers. In my testing, though, I missed more counter spells than just the 3 Remands. Maybe Boros Charm could fix half our problems, and the cool part of it is that every mode is useful to the deck. I just don't know how to properly test these innovations as each cantrip that I take out will eventually make it harder to flip TiTi and turn on Ascension. There is a clear tradeoff between having answers and goldfishing.

A primer to discuss these options is definitely welcome, specially as this deck is getting more attention.

2Jendo87, lvg, esplanades and originalscreename

I feel like Leyline of Sanctity is a double-edged sword. Sure, it is an all-star if it is in my opener in a relevant matchup, but I also understand the argument that if I don't see it in my opener and it happens to come by turn 4 or whatnot, it might as well be a Darksteel Relic because the "damage" is already done. With that thought in mind, I decided to test Mirran Crusader in my 2 slots to shore up most of the same decks (Naya Zoo, Burn and Jund mostly) either by presenting a pro colour creature or just a relevant double-striker that blocks well. It requires further testing to see if it can also help with outrunning non-interactive combo decks.

Anyways, I feel like running 3 Leylines can be a way out, but as I structure my sideboard, the current 2 slots are better served with Crusader. I also need to test if I really need 3 stony silences. Cutting to 2 can give room to 3 Leylines. It can also be the case that I'm being too afraid of mulligans and should risk going to 5 if I see only 2 relevant cards and 4 lands in a 6 cards hand. Lucky for me, a friend of mine has a stock Jund deck that I'll face regularly in kitchen table training.

the introduction and upcoming proliferation of planeswalkers thanks to hogaak's removal and GY deck nerfs means you will need to be better equipped to deal with PW threats such as small teferi, small chandra, w6 and the old but gold big tef and lily veil.

The best options in modern are:

Dreadbore
+ most efficient in our colors
+ gives nothing back unlike trophy
- may require more pain from lands to cast t2 due to color
- sorcery speed (doesn't matter with smol tef)

Magmatic Sinkhole
+ Singular color means easy castability
+ delve make for incredibly efficient casts in the midgame
+ instant speed
+ actually competent as a creature removal
- needs thought scour to go live early
- does little for walkers over 5 loyalty

Bedevil
+ hits 3 relevant types in the current meta, with artifacts being a very useful addition against urza, affinity, tron
+ instant speed
- technically highest cmc since sinkhole has delve
- also the most difficult to cast in terms of color

My take is: you probably can run 2 sinkholes if you run a full playset of thought scours. Without thought scours, even a single sinkhole will not be feasible since without the GY support it's basically dead until the midgame, which is too late against the problematic w6 and smol teferi. Dreadbore is probably a must, the question is, 1 or 2? Bedevil is not something to sleep on for the decks that only splash R. It's quite a real contender for the 3-slot if Kommand is being given up.

You should play dreadbore over terminate IMO. Id play 1 Dreadbore 1 Magmatic since you have no delve over Terminate. Pwers are a big issue so you want a good 1-2 mana answer

Quote from TheMcFearless »

Wrenn & Six's addition brought a lot of early value to the deck in a seemingly bolt-proof card. The games my opponent resolved a turn 2 W&6 often led to multiple cycling land redraws and a threat towards a game-winning ultimate. After some consideration I realized that both Bolt and K Commands were lackluster in this position, as the 3 damage is hardly relevant and the discard mode is also neutered. While the general plan to side out discard and pack better topdecks makes sense, it clearly leaves more room for an early W&6 to take control of the game. In this sense, what cards do you generally side in and out? What is your gameplan against Jund? Does it make sense to up discard count and early interaction such as Spell Snare or Spell Pierce in order to avoid the scenario described above?

Thank you for your advice.

Off the top of my head, Spell Snare is a very neat answer that also hits Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and etc in just that match up. It'd rarely be a dead card in a match up. For more niche answers, the other I think of is Chandra's Defeat, which answers it later as well as while it's on the stack. However, I can't really see where else the card would be used - there must be a better answer elsewhere. Perhaps Dreadbore or Hero's Downfall?

Quote from TheMcFearless »

Hey everyone,

I'd like to promote a discussion about our cantrip selection. I've seen many decks recently split our cantrips in 3 copies of Thought Scour, Bauble, Serum Visions/Opt, and 1-2 Faithless Looting. I firmly believe that 4 Thought Scours are needed in order to power up our early delve threats. Likewise, if our goal is to get those threats on the board ASAP, I don't see how the first copy of Serum Visions/Opt is better than the 4th copy of Bauble. I'd much prefer to pop 2 Baubles and play a discard spell T1 than T1 discard with Visions/Opt in hand.

Since our deck is no longer designed to grind (1 or 0 K commands, 3 Snaps, no LoTV) I don't see how spending mana on Serum Visions or Opt can be beneficial for our strategy. For example, if the pilot feels they constantly need to dig for land, the 18th land should be preferable than one the 2-3 loose copies of extra blue cantrips.

What's your experience with these splits and what are the pros and cons of your split? I'm currently running 4 Thought Scour, 4 Baubles and 18 lands. I'm very happy about it, specially due to being able to hit land drops for 3 CMC spells in the sideboard.

Looking forward to hearing your comments!

I run 4 scour, 2 serum visions, 1 looting, and 3 bauble. It feels perfect to me. I like this because I agree with you, the 4 scours are necessary, and I love the looting game one to bin useless cards.

I still am on the serum visions because I like how it grinds. You mentioned our deck is no longer meant to grind, but I think that is partly incorrect because there are definitely matchups where we do grind them out still - the meta is just a bit too fast to want the 4th snap and playset of visions in our mb.

Those are just my initial thoughts from your comment. Hope this provides a somewhat different viewpoint to the visions argument.

Here's the list that I have been tinkering with, using the baubles.




A couple of things to note here:

Swapped the Terminate to Dreadbore as a nod to the increase of JTMS and Jund. I don't think one would really need a 4th Bauble given that we already have enough cantrips, though its synergy with our cantrips and messing with the opponent's topdeck via Thought Scour is very powerful. The biggest change I've included is Vapor Snag. Seems like cute tech at first, but there's a lot of notable lines of play, especially with our playset of Snapcaster Mages. We can bounce him back for more usage, time walk opponents who tap out for a creature cast, mess with combat math by pumping our Death's Shadows, etc. As for the total number of Snags is up for debate and might be a sideboard card in the end; not sure yet, needs more testing.

As for the sideboard, I just coalesced sideboards of players that did well at the major events. I've been considering a Spell Pierce as the 4th Stubborn Denial simply due to it being better in the early game when we don't have ferocious. Of course, do tinker your sideboard to your local meta.

For the current meta, I'm of the opinion that GDS still has viability but one cannot just pick up the deck and expect to perform well -- a lot of grinding and practice is required.

I like it a lot. I personally have been pondering the idea of making GDS more aggressive and less controlish-hybrid.
TBR has continued to impress me out of the board because of what Friedman says, it gives you the "Oops i win" button which you opponents can either respect it and enter the "False Tempo" theory, or die to it. I'm really looking to move them MB.

The only card i'm not sold on is Dismember. While it powers some fast Death's Shadows, it's bad in multiples and with Snapcaster Mage, and it's mediocre against the card Death's Shadow itself. That should make the mirror a bit worse i guess?. If you are banking in TBR so much, you will lose a lot when you don't draw it.

I will test his list and see if it really matters.

PS: The list with 16 lands seems spicy and could be a even less hybrid version of Friedman's. It drops Snapcaster and plays more cantrips, that makes sense if you are planning to aggro you opponent out.

I would replace Reality Smasher with Blade Splicer. Reality Smasher is a great card, but Splicer is a very easy card to abuse with Displacer. Maybe cut one Displacer and one Selfless Spirit for a couple of Restoration Angel? Not sure if that is correct, but I love Resto.

Its true that in some situations, delving away chaff for Tasigur can be sweet, but I find more often that I want removal AND delve fodder to clog the board with a fatty early game. With how the meta has been lately, I don't prioritize activating Tas's ability as much as having another no-setup 1 mana removal spell early game.

Cut is also not nearly as easy to flash back with Snapcaster, and its Push's interaction with Snappy that I think makes it really shine in our deck.

Quote from TheMcFearless »

@deathstroke99

And yet we see another take on the manabase! Did you guys watch the streaming? Was the 2+1 split of Spirebluff Canals and Darkslick Shores relevant? I'd love to hear Jones' reasoning!

I got to watch a little, his round versus Affinity was great. I did find it fascinating that he only had 8 Fetchlands and only 2 Spirebluff Canal , clearly it worked for his particular style of deck. Other curiosity was 2 Electrolyze and only 1 Kolaghan's Command mainboard (with another in sideboard), but again I guess it comes down to play style. 2 Painful Truths in the sideboard...I guess he was expecting more controlling matchups?

However, his games reinforce that I don't think you need Gurmag Angler and only need Tasigur. Regarding only 2 Terminates, I don't think it's that bad. He also has the Murderous Cut too, so there's that.

I love the idea of Thoughtseize in the board, have they been working for you.

Pontiff has been REALLY good for me. I often want to top-deck it and it has helped close out games very quickly with flicker/displacer tricks. I play 1 MD and 1 SB.