There's definitely an argument for that. My worry though is that the people who created the deck felt it was more like a UR thing deck than a pyromancer deck. Also, personally I'm a tad worried about people playing a bunch of aggro to beat the jace decks, and Thing is great vs those decks. (definitely would side thing out tho against jace decks).
That said, if I did 4 peezer I'd look and see if I could have another threat. Maybe Clique or Copter for more jace killing?
Why? Cause I gotta pay rent this month. If I had jace money lying around I'd play this
Creature (10)
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Thing in the Ice
Sorcery (5)
4 Serum Visions
1 Roast
Jace (3)
3 Jace the Mindsculpter
Instant (20)
4 Opt
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Snare
2 Remand
2 Mana Leak
1 Logic Knot
2 Electrolyze
3 Cryptic Command
Land (22)
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
5 Island
1 Mountain
3 Field of Ruin
But anyway, my logic for this. I like the breach combo but I feel like this'll be better for the meta. I feel like the best decks moving forward will be the real actual jace decks (uwx control, grixis, etc), aggro decks punishing people for playing too slow, big mana, and fast combo. Especially fast combo as that's always been a problem for control. So for us, I wanna fit into this meta by going under the jace decks with our peezy, using TitI to help us fight aggro, and use counters + peezy to fight these combo decks. We wont be the greatest against the real jace decks but we'll have a gameplan while running a deck to take out the rest of the meta. Roast is in there incase a lot of people are trying out BBE decks, but I could see that being an abrade easily. Also, I tend to like the blood moon plan more than the feild of ruin plan, but if we're running 3 jaces we need to make room for instants and sorceries for peezy, so field over BM. And jace is there because jace (again, 3 is the max while running peezy).
I think the jace question is a bit tough actually. We're not going to outgrind whichever deck is built to run jace, so we need to be able to race that deck or find some other way to beat em unless we wanna just give up that matchup. Maybe peezy or all in on a combo? Combo to just go over jace or peezy to overwhelm them? I think remand + bolt deck is going to be great in this new meta as remand is good against jace and bolt is good against the decks racing jace. I just don't see us then trying to close the game with jace, cause the UWx jace deck is just going to be better than us at that.
For Claim // Faim we already have Life // Death as a card and that saw no play in jund shadow. Yeah, returning snapcasters is better and claim//faim is a little more efficient, but not by a whole lot when the card is not that useful otherwise. Small little effects like this work much better as part of a package of utility effects.
Grixis Deaths Shadow is taking over the meta, but it is because it's a fair deck that can actually beat big mana for once. It's matchups vs other fair decks aren't that great (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSCBh_r20p4) the issue is that those other fair decks aren't good enough to fight big mana or good enough in the meta overall otherwise to be worth it. So why play one of those decks to beat deaths shadow when you can just focus on building the best deaths shadow deck and be better in the mirror?
Just banning DS or an enabler card to "weaken" it doesn't solve the problem with the format it just bandaids it. If you kill DS, the format goes back to the next fastest thoughtsieze/push based midrange deck as the format's only midrange. Probably jund. I'm worried because it always feels like wizards likes it's baindaid solutions instead of trying to curate the format on a deeper level. What we need for modern to be healthy is a format where you have multiple options for grindy strategies.
The main way I can see that is unbanning SFM. D&T/Hatebears just had a good tournament but overall still didn't do that well (just 3 in the top 64), and hasn't been putting up more that tier 2ish results. Wx midrange seems to have the tools to fight GDS, but no individual build seems to be able to hold down a tier 1 meta percentage cause no single build is powerful enough against the meta overall. SFM would give one of those Wx midrange that boost it needs and provide a fair competitor to GDS. It's especially nice since Deaths Shadow and Stoneforge cannot be in the same deck, and that Grixis has a very fair tool (k command) to fight SFM to keep the mystic from being too powerful. It feels like it would be a balanced match.
I could also see them, forgive me for falling into a meme for a second, bringing back twin at some point. Especially if they do decide to ban DS. Then we'd have twin beats tron, tron beats jund, jund beats twin metagame clock again. And if twin is a little too strong they could always ban deciever or bring back BloodBraid Elf.
Speaking of BBE, it is a bit of an obnoxious card but would bring back jund into consideration. If BBE Jund and GDS do end up being the two midrange decks it would be two thoughtsieze k command based decks though, which could get a little repetitive. The other one on the list is Jace. Personally I don't think Jace is safe but I could be wrong on that.
We just have to wait til august, but unfortunately wizards is very reluctant on unbannings and heavy on bannings, so I don't think they'll do something to make a two midrange deck format.
"I need to think about it a bit more, but I think I like the idea. His motivations for wanting more cantrips are basically the same as my motivations for wanting Mana Leak - I view this as more of a tempo deck than an attrition-y midrange deck, and am trying to maximize that angle. So I guess I need to see if I have a set of Sleight of Hands lying around."
I would imagine then that remand is the card you'd want. Keeps up the decks turbo mode nature and plays the tempo game.
As for sideboards, magma spray could be a consideration. While not great, it's extra exile removal against the gy decks, extra spot removal against the low to the ground deck, and hits Mirran crusader if that tech becomes too problematic
I'm really really interested in ari's list going full turbo xerox mode.
I really like 3 gurmags. I really like minimizing the land count and maximizing the efficiency. The deck already focuses on turns 3-5 where ds is online, so going a stulid number of cantrips for the early game seems okay by me. And with that many cantrips, the 1 k command and the 3 snaps are still great, and youre going to hit good stuff in the late game more often.
I don't know if all 16 cantrips is right but I definitely want to try this list.
I might go -1 terminate and +1 stubborn denial, cause stubborn denial is just so god damn efficient, and the extra negate effect might help possibly against early chalices. I also wonder if we can find a way to hedge against land destruction strategies. Even if its something as stupid as putting an extra land in the sideboard.
@tasighoul, fair points about spell snare all around.
I still like the idea of counterspells and the idea of looking for mirror breakers. Thoughts on the list that went 11th at GP Kobe? Stillmoon seems a bit too spicy but I really like the idea of playing deprive in this deck as a surprise catch all counterspell and for more stack protection (although I might only like 1. 2 seems a tad much).
I also really several other ideas that list is doing. I like the idea of playing a 3-1 gurmaug tasigur split, as gurmaug eats their tasigurs and gurmaug enables temur battle rage better (even if one or more end up in the sideboard). I love the 1 of dismember. Slightly harder to flashback but otherwise just seems much better than the second terminate. I also really like playing 3 street wraiths. As good as 4 are, they also interfere with mulliganing, so maybe it's okay to shave 1. That said, shaving a street wraith and playing an extra gurmaug angler feels a bit loose. Obs he's the one who top 16'd a gp, so something was clearly working for him, but if I were cutting a wraith for something I'd look for another delve enabler. With so many people on vizier decks my first thought is a main board collected brutality.
Idk, just spitballing. We seem to have a near consensus on a "stock" list, which is awesome, but now that we have that I'm interested in looking for some ways to "break" that and keep the opponent guessing.
So the idea is I want to try out a bigger counterspell package cause I don't like playing 6 discard spells, as I feel that discard is pretty weak late game and playing the "hope they don't topdeck" game is unnecessary in a blue deck running snapcasters. So I'm cutting inquisitions. I'm also shaving a street wraith and playing 3 - 1 tasigur gurmaug split without the inquisitions as the deck is a tad bit more reactive with counterspells. We loose some speed but gain the topdeck security of running counterspells.
The idea behind spell snare is it's a replacement 1 cmc spell thats really good vs snapcaster, which is important if grixis DS becomes the main DS deck, and it is a pretty strong card for most stages of the game anyway. Snare is also just good against affinity, burn, and coco decks, which are all really popular, and i do think we need at least the coco help. The deprive then acts as counterspells number 5 and just answers everything, with the land return thing allowing us to reduce our life total for DS to offset the downside.
My other thought is 3 stubborn denials and 2 deprives if the snares don't work out. Thoughts?
(Also, I went 4 push and 1 bolt cause I like push better rn, but I should probably stick with 3 push and 2 bolt as the "standard" while I test out the counterspell packages)
If you throw twin in right now, I think it'll have a bunch of 50/50 matchups in tier 1. In the twin vs junk matchup junk would be favored. In the twin versus DSJ matchup I think DSJ would be favored, especially since game one would probably strongly favor DSJ. I think bant eldrazi would be 50/50 and I honestly don't know who it would favor. Twin with combo plus dispel and blood moon in the sideboard would have a lot of ways to fight eldrazi, but eldrazi would in turn have a lot of ways to fight twin. It's got plenty of mainboardable answers and hate for twin (cavern, spellskite, path, dismember), ancient stirrings and thought not are hugely powerful cards that would put twin on the back foot, and with the massive spaghetti monsters putting pressure twin would have to play combo more that the value mode. Bant eldrazi would have to change up their landbase and sideboard a bit to fight through blood moon, but all in all I think it would be a matchup that helps keep twin from being too powerful.
Also, if twin would introduce a deck running maindeck counterspells back into the tier 1 metagame without breaking the metagame, I'm all for it. Counterspells in modern have always been pretty bad and wizards isn't printing any new ones. And I never got "the metagame is stale" as an argument. It's an eternal format, it's supposed to be stable.
Hahaha Kevin Jones's match up was heartbreaking!! Great though.
I also like his list a lot, my only major disagreement is that I think dismember is just not good. It should either be a push or a terminate, and I think push is the better option.
Also, I feel so vindicated about my love of blood moon lol
Another thing to note is that these low to the ground lists also ran 2 tasigur and 2 gurmaug. Gurmaug is a faster clock and can be run easier in the 1 drop heavy builds so it does make sense
That said, if I did 4 peezer I'd look and see if I could have another threat. Maybe Clique or Copter for more jace killing?
Creature (11)
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Thing in the Ice
1 V clique
3 Young Pyromancer
Sorcery (4)
4 Serum Visions
Instant (21)
3 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Opt
4 Remand
1 Abrade
3 Spell Snare
Enchantment (3)
3 Blood Moon
Land (21)
1 Desolate Lighthouse
6 Island
1 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
Why? Cause I gotta pay rent this month. If I had jace money lying around I'd play this
Creature (10)
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Thing in the Ice
Sorcery (5)
4 Serum Visions
1 Roast
Jace (3)
3 Jace the Mindsculpter
Instant (20)
4 Opt
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Snare
2 Remand
2 Mana Leak
1 Logic Knot
2 Electrolyze
3 Cryptic Command
Land (22)
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
5 Island
1 Mountain
3 Field of Ruin
But anyway, my logic for this. I like the breach combo but I feel like this'll be better for the meta. I feel like the best decks moving forward will be the real actual jace decks (uwx control, grixis, etc), aggro decks punishing people for playing too slow, big mana, and fast combo. Especially fast combo as that's always been a problem for control. So for us, I wanna fit into this meta by going under the jace decks with our peezy, using TitI to help us fight aggro, and use counters + peezy to fight these combo decks. We wont be the greatest against the real jace decks but we'll have a gameplan while running a deck to take out the rest of the meta. Roast is in there incase a lot of people are trying out BBE decks, but I could see that being an abrade easily. Also, I tend to like the blood moon plan more than the feild of ruin plan, but if we're running 3 jaces we need to make room for instants and sorceries for peezy, so field over BM. And jace is there because jace (again, 3 is the max while running peezy).
Just banning DS or an enabler card to "weaken" it doesn't solve the problem with the format it just bandaids it. If you kill DS, the format goes back to the next fastest thoughtsieze/push based midrange deck as the format's only midrange. Probably jund. I'm worried because it always feels like wizards likes it's baindaid solutions instead of trying to curate the format on a deeper level. What we need for modern to be healthy is a format where you have multiple options for grindy strategies.
The main way I can see that is unbanning SFM. D&T/Hatebears just had a good tournament but overall still didn't do that well (just 3 in the top 64), and hasn't been putting up more that tier 2ish results. Wx midrange seems to have the tools to fight GDS, but no individual build seems to be able to hold down a tier 1 meta percentage cause no single build is powerful enough against the meta overall. SFM would give one of those Wx midrange that boost it needs and provide a fair competitor to GDS. It's especially nice since Deaths Shadow and Stoneforge cannot be in the same deck, and that Grixis has a very fair tool (k command) to fight SFM to keep the mystic from being too powerful. It feels like it would be a balanced match.
I could also see them, forgive me for falling into a meme for a second, bringing back twin at some point. Especially if they do decide to ban DS. Then we'd have twin beats tron, tron beats jund, jund beats twin metagame clock again. And if twin is a little too strong they could always ban deciever or bring back BloodBraid Elf.
Speaking of BBE, it is a bit of an obnoxious card but would bring back jund into consideration. If BBE Jund and GDS do end up being the two midrange decks it would be two thoughtsieze k command based decks though, which could get a little repetitive. The other one on the list is Jace. Personally I don't think Jace is safe but I could be wrong on that.
We just have to wait til august, but unfortunately wizards is very reluctant on unbannings and heavy on bannings, so I don't think they'll do something to make a two midrange deck format.
I would imagine then that remand is the card you'd want. Keeps up the decks turbo mode nature and plays the tempo game.
As for sideboards, magma spray could be a consideration. While not great, it's extra exile removal against the gy decks, extra spot removal against the low to the ground deck, and hits Mirran crusader if that tech becomes too problematic
I really like 3 gurmags. I really like minimizing the land count and maximizing the efficiency. The deck already focuses on turns 3-5 where ds is online, so going a stulid number of cantrips for the early game seems okay by me. And with that many cantrips, the 1 k command and the 3 snaps are still great, and youre going to hit good stuff in the late game more often.
I don't know if all 16 cantrips is right but I definitely want to try this list.
I might go -1 terminate and +1 stubborn denial, cause stubborn denial is just so god damn efficient, and the extra negate effect might help possibly against early chalices. I also wonder if we can find a way to hedge against land destruction strategies. Even if its something as stupid as putting an extra land in the sideboard.
This is also a good temur battle rage matchup
I still like the idea of counterspells and the idea of looking for mirror breakers. Thoughts on the list that went 11th at GP Kobe? Stillmoon seems a bit too spicy but I really like the idea of playing deprive in this deck as a surprise catch all counterspell and for more stack protection (although I might only like 1. 2 seems a tad much).
I also really several other ideas that list is doing. I like the idea of playing a 3-1 gurmaug tasigur split, as gurmaug eats their tasigurs and gurmaug enables temur battle rage better (even if one or more end up in the sideboard). I love the 1 of dismember. Slightly harder to flashback but otherwise just seems much better than the second terminate. I also really like playing 3 street wraiths. As good as 4 are, they also interfere with mulliganing, so maybe it's okay to shave 1. That said, shaving a street wraith and playing an extra gurmaug angler feels a bit loose. Obs he's the one who top 16'd a gp, so something was clearly working for him, but if I were cutting a wraith for something I'd look for another delve enabler. With so many people on vizier decks my first thought is a main board collected brutality.
Idk, just spitballing. We seem to have a near consensus on a "stock" list, which is awesome, but now that we have that I'm interested in looking for some ways to "break" that and keep the opponent guessing.
15 creatures
4 snap
4 deaths shadow
3 street wraith
3 tasigur
1 gurmaug
26 instants + sorcery
4 serum
4 thoughtscour
4 thoughtseize
2 stubborn denial
2 spell snare
1 deprive
2 k command
2 terminate
4 fatal push
1 bolt
So the idea is I want to try out a bigger counterspell package cause I don't like playing 6 discard spells, as I feel that discard is pretty weak late game and playing the "hope they don't topdeck" game is unnecessary in a blue deck running snapcasters. So I'm cutting inquisitions. I'm also shaving a street wraith and playing 3 - 1 tasigur gurmaug split without the inquisitions as the deck is a tad bit more reactive with counterspells. We loose some speed but gain the topdeck security of running counterspells.
The idea behind spell snare is it's a replacement 1 cmc spell thats really good vs snapcaster, which is important if grixis DS becomes the main DS deck, and it is a pretty strong card for most stages of the game anyway. Snare is also just good against affinity, burn, and coco decks, which are all really popular, and i do think we need at least the coco help. The deprive then acts as counterspells number 5 and just answers everything, with the land return thing allowing us to reduce our life total for DS to offset the downside.
My other thought is 3 stubborn denials and 2 deprives if the snares don't work out. Thoughts?
(Also, I went 4 push and 1 bolt cause I like push better rn, but I should probably stick with 3 push and 2 bolt as the "standard" while I test out the counterspell packages)
Also, if twin would introduce a deck running maindeck counterspells back into the tier 1 metagame without breaking the metagame, I'm all for it. Counterspells in modern have always been pretty bad and wizards isn't printing any new ones. And I never got "the metagame is stale" as an argument. It's an eternal format, it's supposed to be stable.
* Twin was at a healthy percentage in the meta: http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-121-1231/
* Twin was also at a high point then. Here's a meta game from 5 months before it's ban where no single twin deck was tier 1, but grixis control was: http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-81-831/
* The number of viable decks in modern hasn't changed since the twin ban: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/64mke1/the_number_of_decks_in_modern_hasnt_changed_much/?sort=top
* Banning twin did not lead to a bunch of 3cmc cards being playable, we're still a format that revolves around GBx and path, but counterspells are now at a low: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all
* Counterspell heavy strategies have mostly stayed at tier 2 since the ban: http://modernnexus.com/metagame-breakdown-feb-17/ http://modernnexus.com/metagame-breakdown-jan-17/ http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-dec-16/
I also like his list a lot, my only major disagreement is that I think dismember is just not good. It should either be a push or a terminate, and I think push is the better option.
Also, I feel so vindicated about my love of blood moon lol
Another thing to note is that these low to the ground lists also ran 2 tasigur and 2 gurmaug. Gurmaug is a faster clock and can be run easier in the 1 drop heavy builds so it does make sense