What do you guys think of playing 2 anguished unmakings in selfeisek's list to battle the Tron threats and the odd keranos?
At three Mana I'd much rather play Blood Moon to battle Tron. The deck can *sometimes* go fast enough to where you can beat Tron before they can cast their big threats when you slam a Blood Moon down and I think Anguished Unmaking doesn't do much of anything to help in that matchup. Against Keranos, we've got Thoughtseize to strip Keranos from their hand before they can resolve it but I don't really think Keranos does much against Mardu Pyromancer.
Also, Corbin Hosler finally gave his version of the deck a spin on tcgplayer's YouTube. Notable differences are no Moon in the main, as well as only 3 Bedlam Revelers in the main, and a playset of Path and two Push main. I'd check it out and let me know what anyone thinks!
He had some white mana problems, but that's to be expected since he copied Selfeseik's manabase but added 4 extra white spells to the main and quite a few to the sideboard as well.
Yeah the Mana base sucks, more Marsh Flats ate definitely needed. Gets every land you need minus the basic Mountain which is no big deal. I also dislike the board; Rest in Peace hurts Bedlam Reveler too much. I'm not sure what else I'd change. I feel like the amount of Paths are too much as well, although it was nice having an answer for every big creatures that was played out of E-Tron.
Im having this deck on my watchlist ever since 'Selfeisk' is dominating with it on mtgo. I made up a - for my meta suitable - decklist, you guys want to have a look and maybe consider some changes?
I suggest no Kambal in the main. He is very matchup dependant and doesn't really do much. I'd test out Rabblemaster or something similar. Monastery Swiftspear has been awesome for me, providing an early threat or more damage later, especially off a Reveler draw where you can play a land on turn 4 or 5 and follow it up with a one Mana spell.
Also, Corbin Hosler finally gave his version of the deck a spin on tcgplayer's YouTube. Notable differences are no Moon in the main, as well as only 3 Bedlam Revelers in the main, and a playset of Path and two Push main. I'd check it out and let me know what anyone thinks!
Sorry to double post, but there is a video Ari Lax did on SCG of this deck, but it is a 4 color version that splashes blue for Snapcaster and cantrips. Gonna post the deck tech link, let me know any thoughts you guys might have!
I know it's a terrible matchup, but what do you guys board against GBx tron assuming you don't let the matchup go? A lot of people here play that deck so I main storm, but I wanted to give the selfeisk lists a try. I'm on 3 moon 2 stony for now, but I have quite a lot of free SB space considering graveyard decks aren't all that common here.
I play the Selfeisek version with some variation. I have the third Moon in the board, which is great against them. I would board in all the artifact hate you can and Blood Moon and hope you see it in your opener or draw it fast. It is a pretty rough matchup for us, but we can at least put the burn spells to their face which helps a lot. Keep lots of pressure on them from the start.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
Thanks! There are obviously games where Blood Moon is a surprise "I win" card on T3; those are nice. But I think it fills a strategic weakness in Mardu Reveler against decks that can go bigger than us. In those matches I find myself grinding out an early edge with Souls or Pyromancer knowing that if I let my opponent turn the corner, so to speak, there's no way for me to regain initiative. In that situation, Blood Moon can buy you an extra turn either through locking down man-lands or strangling an opponent's mana enough that 1 spell at turn isn't going to stop a horde of tokens. It's also not dead in most matches -- I've left it in against aggressive decks like Zoo or Burn because it can lock them off colors and cripple their velocity.
They can still be clunky (and drawing more than 1 a game is nearly always dead), but I try to mitigate that by only playing 3 copies. It's also a prime candidate for tossing to Faithless Looting. I've tried a few different versions of Mardu Reveler and I've felt the most confident playing the builds with Blood Moon because it's frequently a must-answer card.
I was thinking the same thing about Blood Moon as you do, good in certain matchups but when it's bad it can be pitched easily. I'll have to test out more Blood Moons and see how I like it.
What exactly makes the Titanshift matchup so bad? I've never played against that deck, its missing from my local meta as far as I can tell. Hand disruption(TS + LotV and maybe even CB from SB) should buy some time before they can fire off a Scapeshift and they don't seem to have a lot of an early board presence. Are they just way more resilient/redundant than I'm giving them credit for?
The top decks Titanshift has is just always gas. Every land that can't be stripped via Thoughtseize or Inquisition is one land closer to a "bolt" from Valakut and every other ramp spell brings them closer to activating Valakut. Not to mention when they top deck Hour of Promise or the 8-10 other win con spells they might run in the deck makes it challenging. It gets better post board, and matchups like Titanshift is why Blood Moon is so strong in the main deck of Jund nowadays but it's still tough for Jund to power through.
At first glance I'd guess Scapeshift is a tough opponent for you. Tidehollow Sculler is an interesting sideboard choice I hadn't considered despite playing Eldrazi & Taxes before. How are you finding your match-ups with the Nahiri version? Definitely a different path than Pyromancer/Reveler. I'd second that the meta is fairly positive for removal/burn heavy Mardu at the moment.
Scapeshift is not what you want to see. But it's not as bad as it looks. Discard spells, Liliana and Nahiri are allright against them. We have a lot of ways to deal with the first Titan, so we don't die right away. We have some decent options out of the sideboard (Sculler, Surgical, more copies of Brutality). But if this MU is a big concern, the sideboard should be different (we have all sort of good sideboard options against them).
How am I finding the MUs?
Well, I played quite a few CoCo decks (Humans and Spirits are very popular online right now), and I like to play these MUs. They're tricky but if you play it right you usually win.
I also did well against Affinity and, surprisingly, Burn (traditionally I'm having trouble with Burn whenever I play Mardu decks). The thing is I have 4 Helix and 4 Brutality here. It's quite a lot for them to take.
I played just a couple times vs Grixis Death's Shadow, won both times 2-0. It's not a big sample but I know for a fact Death's Shadow decks are a good MU for a deck like this one.
Eldratron is tight. I know it looks like a bad MU for us, but actually it's if they don't have the nut draws it's reasonable. Our two ladies planeswalkers are very good against them and I find Souls pretty good against them too. Crackling Doom is obviously nuts in this MU. I bring in all Scullers, Wear//Tear and the Stony Silences. I'd rather play against something else but I prefer them to Valakut decks.
Midrange decks are positive MUs. They have too many dead draws and their answers do not line up well against our threats (Souls, Liliana, Nahiri). We have quite a lot of graveyard hate.
Control decks such as UW and Jeskai are tricky. I would call them 50-50. It looks like we should be favored (a ton of discard, Liliana, Souls, grave hate for Snappy) but I found Cryptic Command to be backbreaking for us. Fun fact: yesterday I played a "Nahiri mirror" against a Jeskai version and I got to Crackling Doom their Emrakul and win with my own Emrakul the following turn.
In general one reason I never quite got to love Pyromancer/Reveler type of Mardu decks is the fact the cards in a Nahiri build like this one are so much stronger individually. And whenever I play with Dark Confidant and Soulfire Grand Master + a ton of Burn I always have that "bad BGx deck" type of feeling, where I'm like Jund with no Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and Abrupt Decay. So I have to say although I think all Mardu decks aren't quite good enough that I would take them to a big tournament, if I were to choose, it would be Nahiri.
Robert Mania top 8 a SCG event recently with his Mardu Nahiri deck by the way, and it's not the first time he does that.
You convinced me to give Mardu Nahiri a try. I think there's a "core" in Mardu/Rakdos that's well placed at the moment, so I was curious how that would translate. I played 7 matches with a list similar to yours and ended up 3-4, although I probably should've picked up another win if I'd played tighter. Not a terrible record; if I'd been playing the Reveler version I may have won one more based on the match-ups, may not. You're right that the cards are more individually powerful in the Nahiri version. I struggled to get full value out of them at points versus creature heavy decks though. Playing Liliana or Nahiri when you're behind feels bad. Maybe I was on the wrong side of variance, but I always felt behind on tempo. That was a surprise after playing the Reveler version.
I can understand why Reveler superficially feels like a bad Jund, especially if you're playing Soulfire Grand Master and Dark Confidant. The difference I've found in my current version is that going wide with Pyromancer and Souls makes you a lot harder to disrupt with spot removal. And board wipes? Not so scary when you've only invested a card or two and generated tokens from doing what you'd be doing anyway -- creature removal or burn. The current iteration generates a lot of incremental/virtual card advantage while maintaining tempo. Threatening Blood Moon helps as well. I think the match-ups are similar for both versions, based on your comments (appreciate you sharing!). My hunch is that the Reveler version is more consistent in the positive MUs at the expense of some points versus the negative. I keep record of my matches so maybe I can delve more into how the Reveler version has fared in a future post.
Speaking of records -- I racked up my first 5-0 in a competitive league this morning! I'm stoked. Beat the mirror (first time I've faced it), three good MUs (Grixis Death's Shadow, Humans x2), and rode Moon/Rabblemaster over ETron. Let's see if it gets published. If not, I can share my list although it's very similar to what I last posted.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
Hey Humans players, so I've recently been drawn to this deck because of it's D&T feel, but it also plays personal favorites like Noble Hierarch and Mantis Rider. So, I have a question: is it worth getting into the hype, or do you all think cards that have spiked in price like Meddling Mage will go down in price after the initial hype before buying into it? I already have most of the deck minus a few Caverns and the Ziggurats and Meddling Mage.
4 drops can get interesting in such a land-light deck. Running it through the hypergeometric calculator (and ignoring mulligan decisions), on the play with a 20 land deck you'll have at least 4 land on turn 5 ~62% of the time; on the draw that becomes ~70%. Those numbers are better than I thought. I wouldn't expect to play either Hazoret or Chandra on curve though, probability drops closer to 50/50.
Off the top of my head I think Chandra is more powerful in a vacuum, although she requires protection versus Hazoret requiring being turned on. Hazoret could potentially limit one of my favorite plays -- hoarding two land in hand to dump to Faithless Looting. Maybe I'd just toss those lands to her ability anyway and it's nice that it's untargeted damage. Chandra's first +1 also has that advantage although I wish it dumped into the GY rather exile.
If anyone gives either a try definitely share how it goes, where you found them beneficial, etc. At first glance they don't seem out of place, so I can't think of a reason not to test them. Which do we think would be more beneficial in our bad match-ups?
Sorry for the double post, meant to reply to this as well but I'm on my phone and it isn't very easy to do this from a phone haha. I thought the same as you do about Chandra and Hazoret, and it deserves some testing I think. They're both good inclusions but requires the 20th land.
Hello everyone
#Darkest_before_dawn - Just to mention, remember hypergeometric calc also doesnt take into account the use of fetches; since they "land-thin" the deck, the odds you calculated may actually be a bit lower than 62 /70%
I wonder if we could play 2 or 3-of Monastery Mentor in this deck; it definitely goes along with the midrange plan, and adds a bit of redundancy to the deck.
I´m also thinking in maybe 1 or maximum 2 copies of Rally the peasants, since we can easily discard it to Bedlam Reveler or Faithless looting if we need to, and it can net us a lot of damage out of nowhere. Im still finding space for that cards, ill try to post a list ASAP.
I think Mentor looks good at first, but it doesn't go well with Bedlam Reveler sometimes discarding spells we might need with Mentor. Mentor also wants a full hand and this deck tries to operate on a smaller hand size than what Mentor wants. Plus you'd have to hit your land drops no matter what, and sometimes that isn't going to happen in this deck. I think it could work but you have to drop Bedlam Revelers and Swiftspears for Mentors I think.
Yeah, I meant running at least 20 lands to support a 4 drop.
I figured that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure! Thank you! From my testing I can hit 4 lands pretty consistently now. I wonder how Chandra, ToD would do over Hazoret instead. Has anyone tested either of these?
At three Mana I'd much rather play Blood Moon to battle Tron. The deck can *sometimes* go fast enough to where you can beat Tron before they can cast their big threats when you slam a Blood Moon down and I think Anguished Unmaking doesn't do much of anything to help in that matchup. Against Keranos, we've got Thoughtseize to strip Keranos from their hand before they can resolve it but I don't really think Keranos does much against Mardu Pyromancer.
Yeah the Mana base sucks, more Marsh Flats ate definitely needed. Gets every land you need minus the basic Mountain which is no big deal. I also dislike the board; Rest in Peace hurts Bedlam Reveler too much. I'm not sure what else I'd change. I feel like the amount of Paths are too much as well, although it was nice having an answer for every big creatures that was played out of E-Tron.
I suggest no Kambal in the main. He is very matchup dependant and doesn't really do much. I'd test out Rabblemaster or something similar. Monastery Swiftspear has been awesome for me, providing an early threat or more damage later, especially off a Reveler draw where you can play a land on turn 4 or 5 and follow it up with a one Mana spell.
Also, Corbin Hosler finally gave his version of the deck a spin on tcgplayer's YouTube. Notable differences are no Moon in the main, as well as only 3 Bedlam Revelers in the main, and a playset of Path and two Push main. I'd check it out and let me know what anyone thinks!
4 Color Bedlam Reveler Deck Tech: https://youtu.be/YWjY5CYnF64
I play the Selfeisek version with some variation. I have the third Moon in the board, which is great against them. I would board in all the artifact hate you can and Blood Moon and hope you see it in your opener or draw it fast. It is a pretty rough matchup for us, but we can at least put the burn spells to their face which helps a lot. Keep lots of pressure on them from the start.
So a Temur Vengevine list 5-0'd a Modern league. It's super spicy and I like it. What do you guys think?
I was thinking the same thing about Blood Moon as you do, good in certain matchups but when it's bad it can be pitched easily. I'll have to test out more Blood Moons and see how I like it.
The top decks Titanshift has is just always gas. Every land that can't be stripped via Thoughtseize or Inquisition is one land closer to a "bolt" from Valakut and every other ramp spell brings them closer to activating Valakut. Not to mention when they top deck Hour of Promise or the 8-10 other win con spells they might run in the deck makes it challenging. It gets better post board, and matchups like Titanshift is why Blood Moon is so strong in the main deck of Jund nowadays but it's still tough for Jund to power through.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
Sorry for the double post, meant to reply to this as well but I'm on my phone and it isn't very easy to do this from a phone haha. I thought the same as you do about Chandra and Hazoret, and it deserves some testing I think. They're both good inclusions but requires the 20th land.
I think Mentor looks good at first, but it doesn't go well with Bedlam Reveler sometimes discarding spells we might need with Mentor. Mentor also wants a full hand and this deck tries to operate on a smaller hand size than what Mentor wants. Plus you'd have to hit your land drops no matter what, and sometimes that isn't going to happen in this deck. I think it could work but you have to drop Bedlam Revelers and Swiftspears for Mentors I think.
I figured that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure! Thank you! From my testing I can hit 4 lands pretty consistently now. I wonder how Chandra, ToD would do over Hazoret instead. Has anyone tested either of these?