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  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    Quote from Vancanos »

    How were your matchups against the unfair decks like dredge, KCI, and also the verry fast Arclight Phoenix decks?


    You have all power of white sideboard. RIP is best card in Universe vs Dredge, also very powerful vs KCI, Hardened Affinity and even Phoenix. Stony silence shuts down all artifact decks. Surgical extraction destroys combos. We have 4 maindeck Lingering Souls - awesome card vs BG decks. We have a lot of spot removal and 4 Wraths - it's easy to destroy Humans. We have 8 Gideons that opponent should kill before he could kill us - great tool vs burn and many other decks. So just try it. From all my decks in MTGO: Jund, Junk, The Rock, T&N, RG Ponza - BW Control seems to be the most reliable right now.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)


    That primer is outdated and that thread was mostly about green devotion decks.

    Quote from Vancanos »


    The problem with the deck is: GB Rock / Jund / Junk / Abzan is getting more popular again. Discard hurts us too badly, Thoughtseize, IoK... Same is true for fatal push, bolts, even Assasins Trophy, which kills a basic land that is enchanted with Growth or Sprawl....

    I am verry disappointed about it. You lose so much gas, when you are targeted with discard and spot removal.

    Is it only me? I dont know. But if this goes on, I will have to keep focus on other decks to play.

    Background is: I am searching for a competitive, well placed deck for the current meta. I will attend several GP´s next year, as well as MKM Series.

    Thanks in advance.


    As BG player I should say that "fair" interactive decks are in bad position now, while unfair decks like this always can win from nowhere, cause we don't care about out opponent board state, we just need 9 mana and T&N.

    Don't think much about discard. just play like if opp don't have it. We still have more mana and our PWs can provide advantage - cards from Kiora, beasts from Garruk. Also we have Eternal Witness to return good card from GY. If you still think too much about discard you can try Leyline of Sanctity or Witchbane Orb.

    About well placed deck: try this.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    If Xenagos is in hand we can still put it on table with T&N.

    It's very rarely that he is not in hand/library. If he isn't just think what is better for you right now. Sometimes it's enough to put 2 giants on the table: Ulamog and Emra. If you have enough mana you can search for Witness, if there are some useful stuff in your grave. If it's post-side and you need life look for Elderscale Wurm. If you want to stop massive creatures on opposite side just put on the table Hornet Queen.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on The Rock
    How do you play vs Hardened Affinity? Deck is a pain in the ass. Hard to deal with all that stuff.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    The main reason I run Anger of the Gods in sideboard is its exile ability. This card is maybe the only way to win or totally slow down decks like Dredge, Bridgewine, Arclight Red. It's also cool against Elves, Spirits, Human. You can see it in sideboard of RG Ponza, which also has a lot of mana dorks, cause it worth it. We can lose dorks, but still have auras/planeswalkers on table, and so have card advantage.
    1RR cost is castable on turns 2-3. You play Utopia on Red, then untap it and have 2 Red mana. Also we have enough fetchlands to find second Red source.
    Pyroclasm sees no play nowadays, nor does Firespout. I played these cards in 2015, but today with all that GY stuff these cards are obsolete. Same is true about Bonfire, though we can play 1-of in sideboard as red analog of Damnation.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Jund
    Quote from FlyingDelver »
    Upon high demand I made a counterpart for my recently published Rock compact SB Guide for Jund as well. So I present you the newest addition to the primer, a compact SB Guide for Jund, which you can download. It features the gauntlet used in the primer as a guide to quickly have access to the ins and outs of a particular matchup. Right now I have linked V1.0, but I will keep it updated. I hope this handy tool will serve you well! You can find the link in the primer.

    Good job, but some matchups missed. What about Amulet Titan, Death and Taxes, BW Eldrazi?
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    Yeah, this is the list by Uegjo, a guy who played Tooth and Nail for several years on MTGO. Big respect, maybe my reddit post inspired him to return to this deck.

    Things I don't like here are Kiora's followers, that have no advantage over satyrs, but hard casting cost. Also I'm not sure about Trackers over removal in form of Rifts. I think they are a bit slow for us and both planeswalkers are better four drops.

    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    I'm going to update info on matchups with video examples in second post. 1st entry is GR Vengevine. You're welcome.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    Continue working on and playing this deck, had a great match against Boggles today (Friendly League Matches Score 3-0 against Aura Hexproof so far). Ideal hand in game 3, want to share it with you, just watch this little videoclip.

    As you can see, turn 3 combo win consists of 2 any lands, 1 Utopia Sprawl, 1 Overgrowth, 1 Arbor Elf and 1 Tooth and Nail. Elf, Utopia and 2 lands are our strongest combination to reach 4 mana at turn 2. Then we need to cast either 3-mana Overgrowth like in video, or 4-mana Kiora, Master of The Depths. Both these cards lead us to guaranteed 9+ mana at turn 3, which means that we can cast Tooth and Nail! Kiora in fact is casted for free, cause it can return 4 mana for us with her +1 ability, which allow us to do some dirty tricks with it, play Garruk or another aura/dork/anything...

    Another powerful play with 4 mana on Turn 2 includes Garruk Wildspeaker. We can play it, untap 2 lands and play more dorks/auras/some spicy Blood Moon for up to 3 mana, which will lead us to turn 3 win or big advantage too.
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    Have you thought about running Kiora's Follower instead of Voyaging Satyr? It untaps any Permanent at the same CMC, providing pseudo Vigilance (that catches people off guard quite often). In the version I run, it also goes infinite with Kiki-Jiki which is an added benefit!

    Kiora's Follower has tough manacost for this deck, so maybe it'll be hard to play it on turn 2 when we don't have bird or utopia. It's not relevant about Kiora: we can only play her on T2 if we have 2 lands, Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl - so we can always cast Utopia for blue mana. Also my plan for this deck frequently includes boarding in Blood Moons against some decks like Tron, and in this case I generally board out all Blue cards from maindeck for more consistency. Also untapping permanent is not necessary for us, we just need to untap lands.

    Any reason you're not running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx? If not, add a couple and post your deck in this Primer thread: Green Nykthos Devotion (includes Tooth & Nail) - Tooth and Nail-lists need more love in the thread Smile

    That thread is more about classic devotion decks with a lot of creatures and genesis waves and behemot. Personally I don't like that type of builds much. =) In this deck Nykthos is not very good. We can win - and do it most frequently - with only few permanents on table: elf, one-two auras and PW. Witnesses die as chump-blockers. So we won't have enough devotion on the table to make Nykthos great. But as another colorless land it's awful as turn1 - turn2 land. It's bad to draw it when you have one-lander. In maindeck I only have 1 colorless land - KFR, and I think it's more useful. But if you want you can try and play Nykthos of course. =)
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    Matchup Analysis and Games Examples

    GR Vengevine
    Game 1: ~ Game 2/3: ~
    GR Vengevine is easier for us then BR Hollow One cause of less interaction, absence of discard and Burning Inquiry. But it can also beat harder and from different angles: GY haste Vengevines and Flamewake Phoenixes, Burning-Tree Emissary + Reckless Bushwhacker combos from hand.
    GY hate is good here. Sometimes you will face 2 Hollow Ones before you even put your first land into play, thats just the deck, we cant do much about it.
    Cyclonic Rift shines here. Primal Command can help with all its options: even shuffle their graveyard is awesome. Post-side Anger of the Gods and Elderscale Wurm can win a game for us.
    Board out: Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Kiora, Master of the Depths, Primeval Titan, Acidic Slime
    Board in: Anger of the Gods, Elderscale Wurm, Obstinate Baloth, Ancient Grudge, Grafdigger's Cage.

    Game Videos
    MTGO Friendly League Nov 04 2018 (2-1): watch it. 1st game perfectly reflects power of maindeck Cyclonic Rift.

    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on Temur Tooth and Nail (feat. Kiora, Master of the Depths)
    So it's time to have some fun!

    You know, a few days ago I found Deck Registration Sheet for oul local Nationals in 2015. And there was this sweet deck. Its original version. I remembered how awesome it was to win with it and wanted to feel that feelings again. So I made some changes and created this deck in MTGO. It only costed me 20 Tix to upgrade my Gr Land Destruction to this, and then I started Friendly Modern League. All games were insane, and I finished 4-1. And then I decided to share tis build with you, guys.

    The Idea

    The idea of deck is simple. We play dorks and manaramp spells, trying to get 9 mana to play Tooth and Nail for Entwine cost. Then we look for Emrakul and Xenagos, put them on table and 30-30 haste Emra destroys are opponents' hopes.

    Key features

    We play 4 copies of Kiora, Master of the Depths in this deck. Not the best PW in Magic history, but absolutely brilliant for our purposes. With single land with two auras - Utopia Sprawl and Overgrowth - and one dork we can produce up to 16 mana on turn 3 and just hard-cast Emrakul from our hand! Yes, it's the best case, but you catch the idea. We can play the most enormous and fun creatures in all Modern format - and win with them very fast.

    Deck Construction

    Landbase
    20-22 Lands; 21 is golden standard.
    We need 7-9 green fetch lands. Pick less expensive, it doesn't matter, we only have basic Forests. We need at least 2 GR Shocks to have ability to play Anger of The Gods without dorks and Utopia Sprawl. Also we need 2 UG Shocklands to be able to play Kiora/Cyclonic Rift and sideboard stuff. Kessig Wolf Run (1 copy) - can make our dorks dangerous. And the others are basic forests.
    Wooded Foothills (4 copies)
    Windswept Heath (3-4 copies)
    Misty Rainforest (0-1 copies)
    Stomping Ground (2 copies)
    Breeding Pool (2 copies)
    Kessig Wolf Run (1 copy)
    Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (0-1 copy)
    Forest (7-8 copies)


    Mana Ramp
    We have 16 mana ramp spells in this deck: 8 creatures and 8 enchantmants. Our Planeswalkers mainly do same thing, but we'll talk about them later.
    Arbor Elf (4 copies): A solid G dork that turns into incredible ramp in conjunction with Utopia Sprawl. A turn 1 Arbor Elf followed by a turn 2 Sprawl is GGUU or GGRR mana on turn 2 and that makes it possible to cast one of our PWs and make some other dirty stuff.
    Birds of Paradise (1-2 copies): 1-mana mana dork numbers 5 & 6 these help with consistently seeing 3 mana on turn 2. Not anywhere near as good as Arbor Elf but is useful as it produces mana of any color. You will typically play the Elf first to attempt the turn 2 4-mana play. However if you are confident that your opponent has removal for your turn 1 play drop the Birds first a bait.
    Voyaging Satyr (2-3 copies): 2-mana Arbor Elf. "Untap a land" effect is great enough to play it even at that cost.
    Utopia Sprawl (4 copies): The vast majority of the time, it should enchant a basic Forest. Enchanting a Shockland with a Sprawl can be necessary, but it is not desirable. Post-Moon (our main sideboard card), shocklands are no longer a Forest and Sprawl falls off. Choosing your color is also important. Before sideboarding you should always choose U for 1st Sprawl. After sideboard, if you sided in Anger of the Gods and/or Blood Moon or Ancient Grudge first Utopia in majority of time should be R. Each situation requires consideration, always make your choices off of the lands in your hand, what you want to play turn 2, and what effect Blood Moon (if you sided it in) will have on your plays. It is worth familiarizing yourself with the ways opponents can take advantage of Utopia Sprawl. Destroying the enchanted land is a 2 for 1, more commonly you will see Spreading Seas which causes the land to lose the forest typing, causing Sprawl to fall off. If you expect enchantment removal or land destroy (or Cryptic Command which can return your land to your hand) it is often wise to spread out which lands you enchant in order to hedge your bets against removal. Otherwise you should enchant one land with all auras to maximize mana gaining from untapping it.
    Overgrowth (4 copies): it's so powerful with all that untapping stuff around. You can enchant any land with it with no restrictions (it should only produce a mana). Spreading Seas on your enchanted land won't cause Overgrowth to fall off. If you expect enchantment removal or land destroy (or Cryptic Command which can return your land to your hand) it is often wise to spread out which lands you enchant in order to hedge your bets against removal. Otherwise you should enchant one land with all auras to maximize mana gaining from untapping it.

    Sample Decklist


    Different Builds

    Mulligan guide and perfect opening hand

    Just watch this little videoclip to see how perfect opening hand looks like.

    As you can see, turn 3 combo win consists of 2 any lands, 1 Utopia Sprawl, 1 Overgrowth, 1 Arbor Elf and 1 Tooth and Nail. Elf, Utopia and 2 lands are our strongest combination to reach 4 mana at turn 2. Then we need to cast either 3-mana Overgrowth like in video, or 4-mana Kiora, Master of The Depths. Both these cards lead us to guaranteed 9+ mana at turn 3, which means that we can cast Tooth and Nail! Kiora in fact is casted for free, cause it can return 4 mana for us with her +1 ability, which allow us to do some dirty tricks with it, play Garruk or another aura/dork anything...

    Another powerful play with 4 mana on Turn 2 includes Garruk Wildspeaker. We can play it, untap 2 lands and play more dorks/auras/some spicy Blood Moon for up to 3 mana, which will lead us to turn 3 win or big advantage too.

    About non-ideal first hands. Always try to have first drop in it, 2-3 lands, one of our manaramp auras and some stuff to play on turn 2-3. If you can, it always will be good games for you.

    Gameplay videos

    Friendly Modern League 20 Oct 2018. 4-1.
    2-1 vs Burn
    2-0 vs Infect
    2-1 vs Shaman Stompy
    1-2 vs Dredge
    2-1 vs Amulet Titan

    You can watch all matches here on my channel. 1st game vs Shaman Stompy is my favorite. Started with 1 land, didn't draw second, opponent killed my dork... But I had Kiora in hand! =) Watch it, it was awesome!

    Reddit deck topic

    I'm going to work on this deck again, 3 years after I originally built it, and want to write about my success/fails in this topic. Also I'll expand this first post with further explanation, card choices, tactics and more soon. I'll be happy if it will interest you, and will be glad to receive feedback in any form!
    Posted in: Deck Creation (Modern)
  • posted a message on [Primer] RG Ponza / Modern Land Destruction
    Modified deck a bit and played a great match against Comp. Modern League champion Beicodegeia (32 undefeated trophies this season) and his UR Storm. You can find decklist in "more info" video section.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on [Primer] RG Ponza / Modern Land Destruction
    Played 4-1 MTGO Competitive League Today:

    2-0 Gr Tron
    0-2 GR Vengevine
    2-0 GR Vengevine
    2-0 Gr Tron
    2-0 GR Moon Aggro

    Second game vs GR Vengevine was so cool that I uploaded it on YouTube. You can watch it if you want.

    Anyway BR Hollow One and GR Vengevine are tough matchups for Land Destruction.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on [Primer] RG Ponza / Modern Land Destruction
    It would be cool if people would read at least 4-5 pages before asking questions. There were a lot of thoughts on Nissa from everyone and some thoughts on Huntmaster from me.

    HoF is cool against any aggro. It's ok to play 1 copy. 2 blockers, +2 HP, strong beater after flip.
    Posted in: Midrange
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