This is what I played tonight. I went 3-1-1 (beat Zoo, Hollow One, and UW Control, went to time against UR Phoenix and lost to a Gravecrawler/Bloodghast/Stitcher's Supplier/Loam brew).
Aetherspouts out of the board overperformed against Phoenix and the other graveyard recursion deck. Maindeck Surgical has been super key in my meta, and was actually great tonight against every deck I played, whether I was exiling Arclight Phoenixes, Flamewake Phoenixes, or Cryptic Commands.
Mostly I'm just excited to play this deck once we get proper Counterspell in Modern Horizons... I think it will be a big upgrade for this deck.
Totally agree! I've been Iok for several weeks now and it's much better than remand.
Interesting. That's pretty radical - I think of Remand as the core 2 mana interaction. I trimmed Nexus of Fate, 1 Remand, and 1 Growth Spiral for the 3 IoK.
I've played a couple dozen matches with this deck at my lgs and have been really impressed. I'm mostly playing a stock Ftzz list, but the card I've added that I can't believe nobody is talking about is Inquisition of Kozilek.
I'm running 3 IoK main and find it fills a key gap - one mana interaction for turn one and for turn 2 off growth spiral. It's much less situational than Spell Snare or even Push, our other one mana interaction.
IoK is obviously much better in the first few turns, but I think that's exactly where this deck struggles most, especially on the draw. It's a phenomenal card that fits the deck well and I recommend trying it out.
Hello! I've been playing Devoted Druid for a while and want to try a new combo deck that's more interactive. This is a great primer.
One question: has anyone tried playing Reshape? If Whir is Chord of Calling, then Reshape is pretty close to Eldritch Evolution in this deck. It's one mana more expensive, but you don't risk the thing you searched up dying to bolt right when it hits the field. Would love to hear about anyone's experience testing Reshape.
ha didnt think of that, a lot of the time i find i have them dead on board if my architect or master can survive until the next turn this just seems like a low cost way to help that situation, with the bonus of buying a turn against storm and ad nauseam rather than it being its soul purpose, i can see how it could just be a little to cute though
I've definitely been in that spot, and it could definitely put you over the edge in some games. It is legendary, so I want to try it as a 2/2 split with Judge's Familiar. Seems definitely worth testing.
Hey Neal. I was the janky pro black player. I should have followed my heart and played this deck I thought the pro black taxes angle was a decent meta choice with Death Shadow variants everywhere. Saw exactly 0. Go figure.
Hey Shane! sorry about the unkind words. my friend called it the racism deck as I was describing it to him and I thought it was a funny summary of a deck where everything hates on black. I still think it's a really fun idea, you just gotta find some way to protect that Painter's Servant. Maybe run that Pentarch Ward like you suggested - it even cantrips!
I also got a chance to play this deck at Grand Prix Las Vegas. It was a blast, and I got a chance to talk to Zac a bit on day 2 about his experience with it. Though I won my first three rounds, I didn't do nearly as well as Zac and ended up 4-4-1, which I attribute mostly to him being a much better magic player than I am, to my cutting the Pithing Needle out of my sideboard at 2am the night before the tournament (which cost me a really important match), and to me forcing a tie in round 6, ensuring matchups with decks trying to stall out the game for the rest of the day. I'll throw my poor tourney report up here for the sake of good science.
My lessons -
Don't leave your Pithing Needle at home. It's incredible against Affinity and Counters Company and Bant Eldrazi and you can find it with Trinket Mage.
Academy Ruins is awesome for grindy matchups. When you've run out of gas, ensuring that you'll topdeck a Ballista or a Lodestone Golem is amazing. I definitely prefer it over Cavern of Souls.
Throne of the God Pharaoh won me a bunch of games, and was pretty much never a dead draw thanks to Blinkmoth Nexus. Highly recommend playing two.
Basilisk Collar (and Trinket Mage to find it) is MVP if you get stuck fighting janky creature decks in the loser's bracket.
Master of Etherium is a ******* house. He gives the deck a lot of reach by boosting the fliers. I wished I was playing the 4th one.
Take the loss over the tie with this deck at a big tournament cause prison decks are a nightmare.
Matches -
Round 1 - Racist.deck - 2-0
Got matched with a janky mono-white deck where all the creatures had protection from black, and he was running Painter's Servant to turn everything black. Would actually have been pretty hard to battle through all that unblockable lifelink except that G1 and G2 I got Basilisk Collar on Walking Ballista to shoot first Painter's Servant and then the rest of his board.
Round 2 - Burn - 2-1
G1 he got the nut draw and roasted me and my slow opener. Game 2 I was manascrewed so he dropped the second Eidolon, which totally ended up hosing himself after Judge's Familiar and Blinkmoth got enough hits in. Once I got a third land and dropped architect into double Golem it was over. G3 I had a turn 3 Golem, a turn 4 master and wanderer and T5 Wurmcoil Engine was just overkill. This was the only game I cast one the Wurmcoils in my board.
Round 3 - Jund - 2-0
In both of my games, I don't think I actually hit him for damage with anything except Mausoleum Wanderer, Copter, and Blinkmoth, but between that and Bob it was enough to kill him. Mausoleum Wanderer is great in multiples.
Round 4 - Counters Company - 0-2
Got matched with Eric Severson (7-3 in PT Amonkhet) coming in off his 3 byes. Game 1 I mull to 5 on the play, and I actually have him dead on board when he untaps on turn 6 and proceeds to go infinite. G2 he plays T2 Devoted Druid, T3 Vizier into Duskwatch Recruiter into Walking Ballista. I got him to play me a third game and I ran over him with double Lodestone Golem (the first time I drew one all match) and killed him turn 4.
Round 5 - Bant Eldrazi - 1-2
G1 I mulled to 5 and got ran over by t3 thought-knot t4 smasher. Game 2 I got Golems on turn 3 and 4, a Master of Etherium on turn 5, and wrecked him. Game 3 was a grinder and a huge mistake on my part. I had two Trinket Mages in my opener. Punt 1 - playing a Trinket Mage on turn three with no way to play the Basilisk Collar I searched up that turn when he had both Eldrazi Displacer and Thought Knot on the board so he just blinked Thought Knot on his turn and took the collar. Punt 2 - Rifling through my deck t4 off the second Trinket Mage looking for a Pithing Needle only to realize I'd cut it from my board the night before. RIP.
Round 6 - Abzan Junk - 1-1-1
G1 - he removed everything I cast, and beat me down with Lili and Goyf.
G2 - I stablizhed early with Basilisk Collar and Walking Ballista, then won with Lodestone Golem and Smuggler's Copter.
G3 - He removed everything I played again, and one Grim Flayer went almost all the way. I had repeatedly suggested we play fast when the game was starting, but he said wasn't worried about time, so I somewhat vindictively forced the tie with a Walking Ballista double block. Huge mistake - I hadn't realized that at a giant tournament, when you have a tie, you'll always be matched with people with ties. 2 of my 3 next matches were with prison decks.
Round 7 - Angel Chord - 2-1
G1 he got turn 3 Archangel on Thune, turn 4 Spike Feeder for infinite life and counters on his birds. Game 2 I ground him out with flyers, and game 3 I won on the back of Throne of the God Pharaoh, which did 8-10 damage and killed him through a Worship.
Round 8 - Enduring Ideal - 0-2
Ghostly Prison tribal is a ******* terrible matchup. I got him down pretty low both of the first two games, but failed to draw into a Throne that would have won me the game through his lock in either.
Round 9 - RW Prison - 1-2
Game 1 I ran him over with the usual creatures and Throne, but the next two games I mulled to 5 twice and got locked out with planeswalkers, ghostly prison, and removal.
This is my list. The sideboard is reflective of my fear of Affinity, Eldrazitron, Grixis Shadow, and Dredge, none of which I faced at any point.
I went 3-1 tonight at Tuesday Modern. I beat Storm 2-1, UR Kiln Fiend stuff 2-0, and BG Tron 2-0, and I lost to Dredge 0-2. Running two Thalias in the main was critical for beating Storm, and I feel really good about her. 6 main deck tax effects definitely disrupted others' disruption, and it felt really synergistic with Mausoleum Wanderer.
Dredge was disappointing - in game 2 I got the turn one relic, but popped it before he started dredging in earnest. In for-fun game three he coached me a bit on how to use the relic properly against Dredge and I won the game.
Next time I definitely want to try Judge's Familiar over Signal Pest. Pest was lackluster, and Mausoleum Wanderer felt amazing. I also want to try running a single Academy Ruins - it seems like it would be great after running out of gas. I am also looking forward to trying Chalice and Oboro and the 4th Blinkmoth Nexus once I get those cards.
Hey all, I've been lurking on this thread for a while and pretty excited to say I just ordered all the cards to start playing this deck. Thanks to everyone here to all their work refining this deck. I have a couple ideas for cards that seem like they'd do well in this deck (mostly sideboard), and I wanted to run them by you folks to see what you thought about them.
Bottled Cloister - Fishbowling this deck a bit, it seems like it's easy to get all your threats on the board, but that it doesn't have many options to come back from a board wipe - Supreme Verdict or Damnation or Anger of the Gods seem totally game ending. Drawing two cards per turn seems like a great insurance policy against cards like that, and it seems like this deck could land it on turn 3 easily.
Ghost Quarter - GQ seems like a great main deck disruption option. It seems more attractive than Cavern of Souls since I see a lot more Tron than counter spells in my meta. Curious if people have tried it and what the floor seems to be for a number of blue lands.
Fetches - Is it deliberate that you folks aren't running fetches? The thinning seems like a marginal but pretty standard decision.
Other cards that I have seen discussed in this forum but don't understand why they aren't included recently -
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - For this more aggressive, all-in build, this seems like a super-powerful effect. I know it's not an artifact, but it does attack with gusto. Why hasn't it been making the cut?
Chalice of the Void - It seems like most of our best cards are at the 0 and 3 cmc slots, and DS and Storm and Burn have their best cards at 1 and 2 slots. Throw in Trinket Mages and this seems like solid gold for the sideboard - why hasn't it made it?
This is what I played tonight. I went 3-1-1 (beat Zoo, Hollow One, and UW Control, went to time against UR Phoenix and lost to a Gravecrawler/Bloodghast/Stitcher's Supplier/Loam brew).
1 Field of Ruin
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Hinterland Harbor
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Breeding Pool
2 Watery Grave
4 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
Other (10)
3 Wilderness Reclamation
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Damnation
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
3 Opt
3 Remand
4 Growth Spiral
4 Cryptic Command
3 Mystical Teachings
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pulse of Murasa
1 Logic Knot
2 Dispel
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Fatal Push
1 Spell Snare
1 Bile Blight
1 Life Goes On
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Nature's Claim
1 Aetherspouts
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Devour Flesh
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Consume the Meek
Aetherspouts out of the board overperformed against Phoenix and the other graveyard recursion deck. Maindeck Surgical has been super key in my meta, and was actually great tonight against every deck I played, whether I was exiling Arclight Phoenixes, Flamewake Phoenixes, or Cryptic Commands.
Mostly I'm just excited to play this deck once we get proper Counterspell in Modern Horizons... I think it will be a big upgrade for this deck.
Interesting. That's pretty radical - I think of Remand as the core 2 mana interaction. I trimmed Nexus of Fate, 1 Remand, and 1 Growth Spiral for the 3 IoK.
I'm running 3 IoK main and find it fills a key gap - one mana interaction for turn one and for turn 2 off growth spiral. It's much less situational than Spell Snare or even Push, our other one mana interaction.
IoK is obviously much better in the first few turns, but I think that's exactly where this deck struggles most, especially on the draw. It's a phenomenal card that fits the deck well and I recommend trying it out.
One question: has anyone tried playing Reshape? If Whir is Chord of Calling, then Reshape is pretty close to Eldritch Evolution in this deck. It's one mana more expensive, but you don't risk the thing you searched up dying to bolt right when it hits the field. Would love to hear about anyone's experience testing Reshape.
Thanks!
I've definitely been in that spot, and it could definitely put you over the edge in some games. It is legendary, so I want to try it as a 2/2 split with Judge's Familiar. Seems definitely worth testing.
Hey Shane! sorry about the unkind words. my friend called it the racism deck as I was describing it to him and I thought it was a funny summary of a deck where everything hates on black. I still think it's a really fun idea, you just gotta find some way to protect that Painter's Servant. Maybe run that Pentarch Ward like you suggested - it even cantrips!
My lessons -
Matches -
Round 1 - Racist.deck - 2-0
Got matched with a janky mono-white deck where all the creatures had protection from black, and he was running Painter's Servant to turn everything black. Would actually have been pretty hard to battle through all that unblockable lifelink except that G1 and G2 I got Basilisk Collar on Walking Ballista to shoot first Painter's Servant and then the rest of his board.
Round 2 - Burn - 2-1
G1 he got the nut draw and roasted me and my slow opener. Game 2 I was manascrewed so he dropped the second Eidolon, which totally ended up hosing himself after Judge's Familiar and Blinkmoth got enough hits in. Once I got a third land and dropped architect into double Golem it was over. G3 I had a turn 3 Golem, a turn 4 master and wanderer and T5 Wurmcoil Engine was just overkill. This was the only game I cast one the Wurmcoils in my board.
Round 3 - Jund - 2-0
In both of my games, I don't think I actually hit him for damage with anything except Mausoleum Wanderer, Copter, and Blinkmoth, but between that and Bob it was enough to kill him. Mausoleum Wanderer is great in multiples.
Round 4 - Counters Company - 0-2
Got matched with Eric Severson (7-3 in PT Amonkhet) coming in off his 3 byes. Game 1 I mull to 5 on the play, and I actually have him dead on board when he untaps on turn 6 and proceeds to go infinite. G2 he plays T2 Devoted Druid, T3 Vizier into Duskwatch Recruiter into Walking Ballista. I got him to play me a third game and I ran over him with double Lodestone Golem (the first time I drew one all match) and killed him turn 4.
Round 5 - Bant Eldrazi - 1-2
G1 I mulled to 5 and got ran over by t3 thought-knot t4 smasher. Game 2 I got Golems on turn 3 and 4, a Master of Etherium on turn 5, and wrecked him. Game 3 was a grinder and a huge mistake on my part. I had two Trinket Mages in my opener. Punt 1 - playing a Trinket Mage on turn three with no way to play the Basilisk Collar I searched up that turn when he had both Eldrazi Displacer and Thought Knot on the board so he just blinked Thought Knot on his turn and took the collar. Punt 2 - Rifling through my deck t4 off the second Trinket Mage looking for a Pithing Needle only to realize I'd cut it from my board the night before. RIP.
Round 6 - Abzan Junk - 1-1-1
G1 - he removed everything I cast, and beat me down with Lili and Goyf.
G2 - I stablizhed early with Basilisk Collar and Walking Ballista, then won with Lodestone Golem and Smuggler's Copter.
G3 - He removed everything I played again, and one Grim Flayer went almost all the way. I had repeatedly suggested we play fast when the game was starting, but he said wasn't worried about time, so I somewhat vindictively forced the tie with a Walking Ballista double block. Huge mistake - I hadn't realized that at a giant tournament, when you have a tie, you'll always be matched with people with ties. 2 of my 3 next matches were with prison decks.
Round 7 - Angel Chord - 2-1
G1 he got turn 3 Archangel on Thune, turn 4 Spike Feeder for infinite life and counters on his birds. Game 2 I ground him out with flyers, and game 3 I won on the back of Throne of the God Pharaoh, which did 8-10 damage and killed him through a Worship.
Round 8 - Enduring Ideal - 0-2
Ghostly Prison tribal is a ******* terrible matchup. I got him down pretty low both of the first two games, but failed to draw into a Throne that would have won me the game through his lock in either.
Round 9 - RW Prison - 1-2
Game 1 I ran him over with the usual creatures and Throne, but the next two games I mulled to 5 twice and got locked out with planeswalkers, ghostly prison, and removal.
This is my list. The sideboard is reflective of my fear of Affinity, Eldrazitron, Grixis Shadow, and Dredge, none of which I faced at any point.
4 Etherium Sculptor
4 Chief Engineer
4 Grand Architect
4 Walking Ballista
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Smuggler's Copter
3 Master of Etherium
2 Throne of the God Pharaoh
1 Trinket Mage
1 Basilisk Collar
17 Island
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Academy Ruins
3 Unified Will
3 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Trinket Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Aethersphere Harvester
Dredge was disappointing - in game 2 I got the turn one relic, but popped it before he started dredging in earnest. In for-fun game three he coached me a bit on how to use the relic properly against Dredge and I won the game.
Next time I definitely want to try Judge's Familiar over Signal Pest. Pest was lackluster, and Mausoleum Wanderer felt amazing. I also want to try running a single Academy Ruins - it seems like it would be great after running out of gas. I am also looking forward to trying Chalice and Oboro and the 4th Blinkmoth Nexus once I get those cards.
3 Signal Pest
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Etherium Sculptor
3 Chief Engineer
4 Grand Architect
4 Master of Etherium
4 Walking Ballista
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Smuggler's Copter
2 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
3 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Trinket Mage
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Unified Will
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Basilisk Collar
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Quicksilver Fountain
Bottled Cloister - Fishbowling this deck a bit, it seems like it's easy to get all your threats on the board, but that it doesn't have many options to come back from a board wipe - Supreme Verdict or Damnation or Anger of the Gods seem totally game ending. Drawing two cards per turn seems like a great insurance policy against cards like that, and it seems like this deck could land it on turn 3 easily.
Ghost Quarter - GQ seems like a great main deck disruption option. It seems more attractive than Cavern of Souls since I see a lot more Tron than counter spells in my meta. Curious if people have tried it and what the floor seems to be for a number of blue lands.
Fetches - Is it deliberate that you folks aren't running fetches? The thinning seems like a marginal but pretty standard decision.
Other cards that I have seen discussed in this forum but don't understand why they aren't included recently -
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - For this more aggressive, all-in build, this seems like a super-powerful effect. I know it's not an artifact, but it does attack with gusto. Why hasn't it been making the cut?
Chalice of the Void - It seems like most of our best cards are at the 0 and 3 cmc slots, and DS and Storm and Burn have their best cards at 1 and 2 slots. Throw in Trinket Mages and this seems like solid gold for the sideboard - why hasn't it made it?
Cheers all