Against Jeskai Control (the punt with Grisel into getting burned out), I would have done the following:
- TTB Wurm on his second main phase
- If he Paths now, you get the additional mana, if not, you get 3 5|5 Tokens and kill him
This is the by far safest line of play here to ensure a Grisel attack next turn (but if he has double Path, but than you can start to chain draws together (hopefully).
@Poorbrewer, a list would be good, since I know several different iterations from TTB less builds.
Greetings,
Kathal
I don't think when we Breach in the Wurm (and thus whether we try to kill him with 3 tokens or 1 Wurm) matters here? Other than making him commit to a decision earlier with less information if I try to do it on his main 2. is this what you are referring to?
Anyway, I agree. I needed to lead with Breach and make him respond, then plan to Vengeance the Griselbrand. Pressure spot did get the best of me there.
I haven't seen any recent discussions on this, but has anyone considered a version with SSGs and Flame of Keld for accelerated Cathartic Reunion/Flame of Keld starts?
This has been discussed 1.5 years ago and the then-World Champion correctly concluded that SSG was bad. The idea of stuffing Simian Spirit Guide into any aggro/combo deck to make it faster has come up time and again, and unless there is a very good reason for it, it just doesn't work. Speed for speed's sake is not a good reason.
"Let's use SSG in Storm, we can power out Pyromancer Ascension on turn 1"
"Let's use SSG in Amulet, we can make a Titan on turn 1", marred further by the fact that the guy still playing 1 SSG when Amulet became mainstream was a cheater
"Let's use SSG in Cheeri0s, we can power out Puresteel Paladin on turn 1", with Rugged Prairie to fix colors
"Let's use SSG in Hollow One, we can power out H1s on turn 1 with Looting"
There will be a few successes with all these SSG combo decks, which then slowly start to fade as people realize that they were carried by the rest of the deck and not SSG itself. Eventually the accepted stock decklist is one that doesn't have any SSGs in it.
FWIW, the (non-exhaustive) acceptable uses of SSG IMO are:
- casting Through the Breach before turn 5
- casting a turn 1 Chalice of the Void
- casting your kill condition in a draw-your-deck combo like Ad Nauseam or Grishoalbrand
- letting you curve properly because your deck has a hole in the 2 mana slot (Living End)
Thanks. All makes sense to me, although I can see a world where the resiliency of Dredge isn't good in the metagame such that you need to speed up to keep up with the meta a card like SSG is fine. Agree with your acceptable uses of SSG generally, although casting Breach before turn 5 isn't that essential and I can see SSGs/pentad prisms being replaced by generally good cards in the Grixis colors in Grixis Goryo's Vengeance, for example.
And thanks for the heads up on Dangerous wager. I was caught up on brewing with Flame of Keld in other shells that it slipped that Dangerous Wager is already a thing.
I haven't seen any recent discussions on this, but has anyone considered a version with SSGs and Flame of Keld for accelerated Cathartic Reunion/Flame of Keld starts?
Here's what I sketched out for my GP Vegas list. I'll work on a tournament report soon. Went 11-4 but 2 of my losses were literal punts out of the stadium and the other two were very close, so this conceivably could've been very different. In the meantime hopefully people will find this helpful. Have some other random thoughts too for some MUs
not much rationale. testing for PT and the no ban list open left me no time to contemplate much about a new list so I thought I'd try something new.
Lavamancer is pretty good vs some major matchups. Word on the street was KCI and storm will be running amok so I thought I'd sacrifice some oomph on the individual SB cards for flexibility. Did get Paul Muller once in the QF with Rakdos charm before he promptly swept me away.
Don't think Leyline's any good right now. Very little GBx.
Glad you have been finding success. White seems interesting, although I'm a bit skeptical I'd like to try it. Splashing a third color is something I've always been hesitant to do because a big strength of BR Grishoalbrand was a very clean mana base. Children seems a bit too nichey with it having no relevant text without Griselbrand unless you're dying by a thousand cut. Would love to hear how you find it. I plan on testing more Griselbrand nonsense like these and maybe stream it after the pt
speaking of which, Gerry Thompson suggested a new deck idea that foregoes the borby package and jams soul spikes and Torgaar. Idea is cool in theory, but I see a few problems with it, such as not being able to win at instant speed, Torgaar being a ground attacker, not being able to beat Bridge nearly as easily, etc. Cool concept though so I'll probably try it out at some time.
i was feeling degenerate so i impulse bought my fateful showdowns. i found that the combo was pretty embarrassing sometimes. i turn 2 and turn 3d a griselbrand and led to me drawing 21 blanks. i forgot how much shoal helps this deck. there were a few times where ssgs were the bottleneck so i guess plunges may be a necessary evil even though the card looks mopey.
loved the neonates over the hugs as a blocker and a pinger. i think i would play a few md interactions as additional discard outlets.
the deck feels fun but I'm not sure if i can handle what i think is a meaningfully higher fail rate than grishoalbrand
My team scraped in 24th with a record of X-5. Across the course of the 14 rounds I had 10 turn 2 wins, 7 of them against Tron, 3 of those through hate.
Given the opportunity to play it again I'd change 1 Bontu's Reckoning to an Anger of the Gods.
I don't have the time right now to write out my entire sideboard notes as they include play/draw for most match ups but this sideboard is pretty tight. I did not feel the need for a Grave Titan or an Emrakul in the board. All of my losses were to variance against match ups with a clock (Humans, Affinity, Affinity)
Great job! punish those durdley players
I'm not sure if Chalice of the Void is appropriate in this meta - did you find yourself bringing them in much?
I actually feel not too bad against the shadow decks. It's still bad, but sometimes you can just kill them with Fateful Showdown for a moderate amount if they get too aggro on their life total. I've stolen more than one game that way.
I'd imagine it's better for your list because of those 3 extra win cons. I was talking about for shoal where there was no way for me to ever punish the low life total besides the actual combo
Yeah, Morphose is probably worth making it fit. Especially since Cathartic is so unimpressive. I plan on trying the extra Grave Titans. I tried the Neonates just now, and they allowed for some nice trickery with holding reanimation targets in hand until the last moment, and, like you said, chip shot damage pre-emrakul. (3-2 in that league) I liked having access to them. Defense Grid is definitely worth trying too.
I suspect you're probably right about which build is better, mainly because the life gain is really good right now. I feel about 50/50 against Hollow One and Affinity, a little worse against Burn, and can almost never beat Humans (I'm like 1-8 against them so far). But I think there's some promise here if the issues can be fixed, if only because it's a little more consistent about putting a fatty into play since Goryo's can target Emrakul, and unlike older Grisebrand/Emrakul builds it has a fairly consistent combo-kill off Griselbrand once it's in play. Though probably not as consistent as Grishoalbrand's combo-kill.
Maybe the secret is to pick the right tertiary color. Blue seems natural due to the card selection, but we could play stuff like Lingering Souls, or even Angel's Grace + Ad Nauseum --- Fateful Showdown is a kill for that combo too.
ad naus+angel's grace idea is so far fetched and degenerate that I may have to try..
also, don't worry about humans. just as how I felt vs GDS when they were popular, I just hope to win 2 sideboarded games and turn 2 them or draw all of my sweepers and pray. awful matchup
A one of Lavaclaw Reaches actually sounds kinda interesting...
I considered Defense Grid, but EOT Goryo's/Emrakul + untap try again is a common line against blue decks, often splicing onto a ritual in order to get multiple uses. But maybe it's worth giving up those lines to really put the hurt on countermagic. I really wish Field of Ruin wasn't everywhere in the blue decks so that the land which grants uncounterable was better.
More Grave Titans does sound pretty sweet. I'd really like a haymaker that the countermagic decks can't deal with. Something like Dromoka, but castable.
Wanting manamorphose to filter the mana for Griselbrand hasn't come up much in my experience, but shrinking the deck size is interesting. I'm not entirely sure how to fit it in though. Shaving a Cathartic is easy, but after that I dunno.
Someone on reddit suggested trying 1-2 Insolent Neonate instead of Cathartics, since it sometimes will be great with Infernal Plunge to help power out Breach those T2/3 breaches. I think it's worth trying.
well, you kinda were pioneering manamorphose in traverse shadows so I had assumed you would like that situation:p
I think both defense grid and EOT spell/splice limits the effectiveness of countermagic. I like that it severely restrictes the lines of play from control decks which gives you more options. Plus it's permanent based hate that your opponent should have no answers for. And agree, Boseiju ceased to be viable as soon as Field of Ruin started seeing widespread play.
I've been testing Grave Titans in the grishoalbrand SB. I'd imagine it'd be better in your shell due to all of the ramp. I like that it creates immediate value and can win the game on its own. Also like that it's a viable Breach thread because 6 power haste which leaves 8 powers of damage will win the game sometime.
Cathartic has been the worst card in my grishoalbrand lists by far. I've been actively looking for other solutions (like MD lightning axe or brutality). Neonate seems interesting as a roadblock/extra ways to get them down to 15. Great with infernal Plunge obviously. I'm leaning towards the list not being better than Grishoalbrand, but it looks interesting enough/fun enough that I want to give it a try and challenge people to a showdown.
Basically, I think you can think about this deck as the BR Griselbrand/Emrakul Fury of the Horde build, except it has a more consistent combo kill with Griselbrand that doesn't _have_ to use the combat step, though it typically does, and is better at putting the opponent away after getting a nonlethal Emrakul hit in, since Fateful Showdown for 3 or whatever is not hard to assemble. missed this function of the card. pretty sweet
Attempts to combo kill with Griselbrand have two fail cases: 1) you don't draw Fateful Showdown. This happens sometimes, and is a reason to consider not drawing the last 7 cards if going that low will be dangerous. 2) Not drawing enough mana to cast Showdown. This is usually only a problem when you're going for it on turn 2/3 and don't have the luxury of leaving untapped lands up. But Plunge REALLY helps you pull this one off. Also, sometimes you can just put a hasty Emrakul into play before the combat step instead of hitting with Griselbrand for 7 and trying to find the last pieces to Showdown them. This is obviously preferable to taking a chance on missing the needed pieces. Note also that if you have excess mana, you can use Looting and Cathartic to dig further to find the showdown. Just make sure you don't deck yourself with Showdown (see below)!
I'm not entirely sure how strong the deck is. I do think it's better than the Fury of the Horde builds, but I don't know about Grishoalbrand just because I have so little experience with that archetype. I do like being able to Goryo's Emrakul, which is a thing you can't do with Worldspine Wurm. I'm still bitter about learning that the hard way.Agree it feels better than the fury version. I've tried a variety of non-shoal, non-Borby versions, such as straight BR, Grixis, BR with blood moon etc. I felt like there were too many instances where a cheated fatty didn't end the game on the spot, or the combo was too hard to assemble consistently. A big draw to playing Grishoalbrand is the fact that you can win at instant speed on the spot and its great burn matchup. I felt like all of the non-borby/shoal versions suffered from a bad blue matchup as well as anything remotely linear. With borby blue decks are great to play against
I also played it in an IQ over the weekend, and went 3-3. Perhaps with some absurd variance. For example round 1 I played against BR Hollow One, and had a turn 3 "kill" (i.e. put a fatty into play) in my opener all three games. Game 1 I Griselbrand + Showdowned him. Game 2 he killed me on turn 3 (he was on the play). Game 3 he had turn 0 Leyline, and my turn 3 kill would have used Goryo's. Similarly, in round 6 I had a turn 3 kill in my opener against Bushwhacker Zoo all three games. Game 1 I Emrakulled him to death. Game 2 he killed me on turn 3 (again, he was on the play). Game 3 I had the turn 3 kill, but he was clearly representing Deflecting Palm. So I passed, put Griselbrand into play at the end of his turn 3, then on my turn 4 added Emrakul and attacked. I went to 4 after he Palmed because of lifelink, but put him on no permanents and at something like 8 life. He found a fetch and went to 5, then killed me before I could power up my Fateful Showdown for lethal. Dems da breaks.i sympathize.. one of the most frustrating thing I experienced playing the non-combo version was finishing the opponent off. Playing bad cards like Lavaclaw Reaches isn't the answer either.
Some useful notes:
Pact of Negation felt awful, since we can't usually win at instant speed, and in many matchups where you want Pact, Emrakul isn't typically lethal. After the IQ, I've replaced it with Guttural Response, and it's felt a lot better. Have you tried defense grid? I'm not sure how often you'd be using splice tricks in this version, and I feel like defense grid would make life harder for your opponent even if it costs more to do EoT spells. Guttaral seems like a reasonable option as well, or just play more discards
If you have more cards in hand than in your library when you cast a lethal Fateful Showdown, you will draw the game. Even if you discard an Emrakul this way. But if you have a spare mana and can Faithless Looting away an Emrakul before you cast Showdown, that's usually enough to keep Showdown from also killing you.
Fateful Showdown is also secretly interaction and card selection. A common line is to kill something like a Scavenging Ooze while cycling 4+ cards in your hand, possibly putting a Griselbrand into the graveyard.
Note that if you need to be sure you hit Showdown to win with Griselbrand and you've had to filter several away, you can always discard an Emrakul to shuffle them back in.
This deck really wants better card selection more than anything else you might try to improve. Not that I think better options exist.yup, feel your pain. need a black serum vision obviously.
I don't know how much this shows up in other builds, but I've hardcast a lot of Griselbrands with this shell. There's just so much fast mana. happens sometimes but not very often. I could see your list going up in # of Grave Titans with all of your mana accelerants. You could also play some manamorphoses as cantrips/ways to filter mana into casting griselbrand from your red mana
IRL I have an EE over the Lightning Axe.
People on MTGO seem to get upset when you finish them off with Showdown after a nonlethal Emrakul. harvest all of the salt
I don't think when we Breach in the Wurm (and thus whether we try to kill him with 3 tokens or 1 Wurm) matters here? Other than making him commit to a decision earlier with less information if I try to do it on his main 2. is this what you are referring to?
Anyway, I agree. I needed to lead with Breach and make him respond, then plan to Vengeance the Griselbrand. Pressure spot did get the best of me there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/8sxd08/tournament_report_modern_gp_vegas_punting_my_way/
And thanks for the heads up on Dangerous wager. I was caught up on brewing with Flame of Keld in other shells that it slipped that Dangerous Wager is already a thing.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gT0JOfZUeFdIt-WjDmS2ZwqWYq3ZhjvF_8ol11aT9w4/edit?usp=sharing
Lavamancer is pretty good vs some major matchups. Word on the street was KCI and storm will be running amok so I thought I'd sacrifice some oomph on the individual SB cards for flexibility. Did get Paul Muller once in the QF with Rakdos charm before he promptly swept me away.
Don't think Leyline's any good right now. Very little GBx.
speaking of which, Gerry Thompson suggested a new deck idea that foregoes the borby package and jams soul spikes and Torgaar. Idea is cool in theory, but I see a few problems with it, such as not being able to win at instant speed, Torgaar being a ground attacker, not being able to beat Bridge nearly as easily, etc. Cool concept though so I'll probably try it out at some time.
loved the neonates over the hugs as a blocker and a pinger. i think i would play a few md interactions as additional discard outlets.
the deck feels fun but I'm not sure if i can handle what i think is a meaningfully higher fail rate than grishoalbrand
I'm not sure if Chalice of the Void is appropriate in this meta - did you find yourself bringing them in much?
also, don't worry about humans. just as how I felt vs GDS when they were popular, I just hope to win 2 sideboarded games and turn 2 them or draw all of my sweepers and pray. awful matchup
well, you kinda were pioneering manamorphose in traverse shadows so I had assumed you would like that situation:p
I think both defense grid and EOT spell/splice limits the effectiveness of countermagic. I like that it severely restrictes the lines of play from control decks which gives you more options. Plus it's permanent based hate that your opponent should have no answers for. And agree, Boseiju ceased to be viable as soon as Field of Ruin started seeing widespread play.
I've been testing Grave Titans in the grishoalbrand SB. I'd imagine it'd be better in your shell due to all of the ramp. I like that it creates immediate value and can win the game on its own. Also like that it's a viable Breach thread because 6 power haste which leaves 8 powers of damage will win the game sometime.
Cathartic has been the worst card in my grishoalbrand lists by far. I've been actively looking for other solutions (like MD lightning axe or brutality). Neonate seems interesting as a roadblock/extra ways to get them down to 15. Great with infernal Plunge obviously. I'm leaning towards the list not being better than Grishoalbrand, but it looks interesting enough/fun enough that I want to give it a try and challenge people to a showdown.
Interesting stuff! Have some thoughts in red..