Meanwhile I have made quite some adjustments. Also the deck made an appearance on the screen at SCG Tour Indy this weekend. Round 3 and 6 of day one, if I am not mistaken.
For those who play standard, Kethis, the Hidden Hand combo is not something new. The deck got piloted to several great finishes. The power of the deck almost exceeded what one would expect form any standard deck, realy. Kethis in modern is not something I made up myself.There have been several lists circling the web, although it hasn’t been hyped as much a Twiddle Storm for example.
Anyway, the deck looked so much fun that I put some work into making this primer with detailed explanation on the list that I think is a strong and fun list featuring Kethis, the Hidden Hand. My goal is to get this out there so more people can give feedback, try the deck and make the deck better. This is also the reason there isn't a sideboard guide included. There hans't been enough testing to provide solid advice on how to sideboard.
1.1 Translating Kethis to Modern
Modern has a much bigger cardpool than standard, so modern provides a lot more cards to make the deck more streamlined and faster than you could ever dream it could be in standard. Of course modern has a much higher amount of effective hate cards which would pose a serious problem to this deck, since it uses the graveyard and artifacts to effectively go off. That means the sideboard is very important, together with the resilience to hate all together. I think the resilience is not too bad with cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Hope of Ghirapur and Unearth.
This is the reason that this deck might not be super viable in a modern meta with too much focus on artifact and graveyard decks. It is however ridiculously fun to play. It has amazing lines you can use to combo and I guarantee that the opponent will be amazed by what you are actually doing. Also it doesn't happen every day that you can play EIGHT Moxen in a modern deck, it's crazy. The focus of this primer is not to present you the new KCI, because it is not, but just another cool that that is a blast to play.
The strong points of the deck are that the deck can combo as early as turn two, but turn three or four is probably average. Also the deck plays maindeck cards that both protect the combo and are used in the combo itself. this is not always the case in combo decks, so this is a huge plus. (if you're wondering about the turn 2 combo, it involves a turn 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch, a turn 2 Kethis, the Hidden Hand and a great deal of lucky hits ) This baseline of a turn 3 combo, would make it modern viable, although it remains to be seen if this deck can effectively counter the hate cards and still win. All together: a two card combo (with some extra cards, yes I know, it isn't technically a two card combo) is often very strong. Also the fact that the synergy of this deck is through the roof, make it a very consistent deck as well.
To sum up some aspects of the deck:
- The deck has a very elegant balance between artifacts and legendary cards in a very sweet synergy with each other. Mox Amber is turned on by Legendary Creatures/Planeswalkers, Mox Opal is turned on by Artifacts including Mox Amber, Emry uses artifacts and is Legendary. Everything fits together so perfectly.
- you play 8 moxen, which makes the deck very fast.
- Grinding Station, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Diligent Excavator make Unearth basically a tutor for 1 mana.
- Because you mill yourself a lot, Unearth can almost be seen as a 5t-8th Kethis, the Hidden Hand and is just an amazing card on its own when having a way to fill the graveyard.
- Emry, Lurker of the Loch is not only a mill card, she also lets you recast Grinding Station when the artifact gets removed, discarded or milled. Emry can be seen as a 5th-8th Grinding Station.
- Lazav, the Multifarious turns on Mox Amber on turn 2 (This is a good way to produce mana for Kethis. It is also an Unearth on a stick!
- the deck plays 29 legendary cards, which is almost half of the deck! This means you can try to combo off with very little cards in the graveyard and still be able to succeed.
* A sideboard should always be tailored to the meta you are expecting. It's okay to play a different sideboard on each different event. This is just a take on what might be okay, but this can be different from your local meta or even big event you are preparing for.
Play any amount of historic spells from your hand, using Diligent Excavator to target yourself.
Use Kethis, the Hidden Hand to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard, milling yourself with Diligent Excavator.
Once you have enough historic cards in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent.
Use Grinding Station to mill yourself with any artifacts you have in play.
Use Kethis to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard.
With each artifact Grinding Station will untap and you can directly sacrifice the artifact to mill yourself
Play any useful Legendaries, like Teferi, Time Raveler from the graveyard to get rid of any obstacles.
Once you have enough zero costing artifacts in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent
Use Kethis to loop two or more Emry, Lurker of the Loch to mill yourself.
Meanwhile make mana with the Mox Opals and Mox Ambers that you can play out of the GY as well
Play Lazav from your Graveyard
Copy a Diligent Excavator with the Lazav
Keep playing Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard to now mill the opponent.
This last line is much more prone to fizzing, because you need to mill enough legendaries to be able to loop Emry's. With three Emry's this might actually work well, since you will be milling 8 cards every time, which makes the chance on two fodder legendaries a lot higher.
5. Of course there are variations of card combination's which load to one of these standard situations. Because of the overlap between cards, comboing with this deck can be a real puzzle.
Modern offers a lot of legendary lands. However most of them are single color or even colorless, which poses a problem for a four-colored mana base. Here is a list of all the lands that might be good in the deck.
All the lands that consistently produce colored mana and come into play untapped could be in the deck. This gives us quite some cards to work with. Additionally, there are some colorless lands that might have a good synergy with the deck. After some testing the colorless lands seemed too unreliable for the deck. Making colorless mana is really not what the deck wants to do and you can completely be shut down with a colorless land in play and not being able to play your colored spells.
The choice to include 2 of each color might seem a bit strange. Maybe it is correct to cut a Pendelhaven for a Tomb of Urami, since green and white are the least played colors in the deck.
Gemstone Caverns proved to be too unreliable in making colored mana. Exiling a card is a great cost and on the play this land is nothing more than a Waste. Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper comes into play tapped, which is a huge disadvantage for a combo deck. Also the most important Legendary creatures have no colorless mana in their manacost, so its ability is hardly useful.
Because the legendary lands only create a single colored mana, you need other lands that make up for this handicap. It's understandable that it's tempting to play snow-covered basic lands and support one of the best artifacts in the format: Acrum's Astrolabe, but it's impossible to run a 4 colored deck without a manabase that can support a deck that plays so many multicolored spells in four different colors. A solution would be to play fetch lands and shock lands, but there simply isn't room for that if you want to include enough legendary lands. The only solution here is to play rainbow lands. This would normally a painful endeavor, were it not that this deck plays roughly 20-24 artifacts. I think the best lands to play are Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry. The Last spot goes to City of Brass/Mana Confluence.
With cards like Path to Exile, Field of Ruin and Assassin's Trophy in the format, it would be very unwise to not play basic lands. Since blue and black are the most played colors, I think an Island and a Swamp are the obvious choice here.
In conclusion: this manabase provide at least 10 mana sources of the 4 single colors with the important upside that the other 9 out of 19 lands can adapt their color to the single-colored lands you already have in play. I am not a mathematician, but this makes the probability of playing a Kethis on turn 3 very reasonable.
Mox Opal is one of the strongest ramp spells in the format. Most importantly it can create mana of any color, which is crucial in this 4 colored deck. Opal needs enough cheap artifacts to become active, though. This means the deck needs a significant amount of artifacts costing 0 and 1 to make this a reliable source of mana. Because it is legendary you can play this from the graveyard for free with a Kethis activation, and therefor fulfilling a key role in the combo.
Mox amber is used in the Standard version of the deck and is one of the centerpieces of this deck as well. Unlike Mox Opal it isn't a reliable source of colored mana, since it can only be used when you control a legendary creature or planeswalker and can only make a colored mana from the colors among those legendary creatures/planeswalkers. This means that it will most likely only make in the first 2 turns. Once Kethis is out, it can tap for at least 3 colors, which is great to play legendary cards from the graveyard, once Kethis is activated, or to play spells from your hand. Note that Mox Amber can NOT make colorless mana when there is a Hope of Ghirapur in play.
Hope of Ghirapur Might remind some of the old veterans ofXantid Swarm. This card was used to protect combo players against counterspells when comboing off. Hope of Ghirapur is a bit like this card, although you have to sacrifice it to gain its effect. Also it needs to have dealt damage to the opponent in order to activate its ability (Note that you can NOT sacrifice Hope of Ghirapur when the card itself did not deal damage to the opponent. It needs a legal target).
Activating it will clear the way to cast important spells like Grinding Station and Kethis, the Hidden Hand and protect them from removal spells and counterspells.
Hope of Ghirapur can also be used as a Time Walk against decks that rely on casting non creature spells in their own turn. Activating it at the right time will prevent the opponent from playing cards like Karn, the Great Creator, or timewalks decks like Storm and Whirza. Together with Emry, Lurker of the Loch,Hope of Ghirapur can be a repeatable soft lock against those opponents.
Grinding Station is the most effective way to get cards in your own graveyard. It uses artifacts as fuel, which fits perfectly with the whole idea of playing 8 Moxes and 4 hope of Ghirapurs. I have played many decks featuring Grinding Station and the strength of the card is not to be underestimated. Because it untaps with every artifact hitting the battlefield (Both your own and the opponent's! AND it triggers on itself entering as well), for as long as you can play artifacts, this is both your enabler and your win condition.
As said earlier, the decks needs a significant amount of cheap artifacts to make Mox Opal a reliable source of mana. Also these artifacts need to support the game plan a much as possible by drawing cards, or fixing mana. When looking at the artifacts that fulfill these requirement, this is the list of Artifacts that might fit in the deck.
Mishra's Bauble is an auto include. It costs which in incredible and it basically replaces itself for free. It makes Emry, Lurker of the Lake cheaper and turns her into a one sided Howling Mine.
Of the others I find Chromatic Star to be the best one. it can be activated immediately and the "draw a card" trigger also happens when it is sacrificed to a Grinding Station. At this time I only play 2 Chromatic Stars. It is very important to keep a high enough artifact count for both the Mox Opal, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Grinding Station, but too many 'eggs' may cause too much redundancy in the deck, so you should be very cautious when adding these artifacts and not overdo it.
There is one card that benefits by a high amount of artifacts which is Sai, Master Thopterist. Sai is a great buffer against aggro decks, and in the more grindy matches it is a great tool to draw extra cards, but it isn't a win condition and I doubt that relying heavily on this card plus a high amount of artifacts is something you want to do in this deck.
Lastly I think all two drops are out of the question in this deck.
3.5 Creatures
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is the centerpiece of this deck. It doesn't need much explaining. An important note is that it makes all legendary cards cost less to cast. This on its own let's you negate the effect of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, which is an amazing upside as a combo deck. Normally her effect will right out win against a combo like this using cheap cards.
Emry, Lurker of the Loch is already mentioned to be a jack of all trades. She's a card advantage engine, she protects against removal and discard, she helps milling your graveyard and can even function as a combo piece, and she costs only one mana. I wouldn't know if this deck would be any good without her. Providing resilience against very basic interaction like discard and removal is key in a modern format.
Lazav, the Multifarious is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. In Standard this is without doubt an auto include, but in modern, it seems like a mediocre two drop. However, he provides some important synergy with this deck. First of all the manacost. One of the problems of Mox Amber is that it isn't easily turned on before turn 3. There is of course Emry, Lurker of the Loch, but making mana doesn't help you cast a Kethis, the Hidden Hand. Lazav, the Multifarious has black in the cost and is really the only useful legendary creature for two mana that could fill this role. You might say, if you can cast Lazav, the Multifarious with black, you don't need a black Mox anymore. Well, the rainbow land you tapped for Black, can now tap for green to cast Kethis, so it does have its usefulness. Lazav also has a surveil trigger. Decks like Ad Naueam use Scry lands for card selection. Lazav, can make your draws a littlebit better, while filling the graveyard as well! Lastly he is an Unearth on a stick which is very important in this deck!
Reki, the History of Kamigawa is really something special. I think this is a forgotten gem in a time when people cast more legendary spells than they are actually aware of. I think this card is great against decks that attack your hand. Imagine having only a Kethis and a average big graveyard. Use Kethis to reanimate Reki and start casting some Moxen drawing a card every time you do, until you find your other combo piece. Also when Reki the History of Kamigawa hits the board, your opponent has to use valuable removal spells immediately if they do not want to fall behind. At this point it is a one-off and I think it is correct, but it might be a god sideboard card as well against GBx strategies.
Diligent Excavator is a leftover from the standard deck. It's basically a 5th Grinding station which can also be copied by Lazav, the Multifarious in case your Grinding Stations get removed. It needs a little more, but it also triggers on more than just artifacts, making it a very reliable mill card. If only wish it was legendary...
3.6 Sorceries/Instants
Unearth is not a card i would easily put in a modern deck, but in Kethis Combo it steals the show. In your hand it is great against discard. It makes it impossible for the opponent to discard a key piece if you can just play it the next turn for just one mana. I't's also a great answer to counters. Play your key creature and it it get's countered, you just Unearth it and win the game. This card makes the deck super versatile and resilient and has great synergies with both Grinding Station, Diligent Excavator and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Time of Need is something I'm trying at the moment. I chose this card over Eladamri's Call because of the manacost being easier to pay in this deck than a multicolored spell. The downside is of course that it doesn't find Diligent Excavator and it's on sorcery speed. I think the mana cost makes up for these little downsides in the long run, although I may be wrong. I might be wrong to include this card all together. I just haven't found a strong replacement for it yet, so until you prove me wrong for using this card, I think it's great to have a tutor in the deck.
3.7 Planeswalkers
Teferi, Time Raveler is many things in one card. It provides protection against removal, counterspells and other interaction. This is key in a deck that can be attacked on so many different angles. It also removes any obstacles that prevents you from winning the game. Think about cards like Leyline of Sanctity, Kambal, consul of Allocation, or other cards that hinder your combo. You can even use Teferi to bounce on of your own permanents to get an extra trigger on Diligent Excavator, or make mana by bouncing a mox. You can even loop 2 Teferi's during the combo if the situation asks for it.Teferi, Time Raveler fulfills a very important role in the deck, and should never be played without at least 2 in the main deck.
3.8 Cards that don’t make the cut and cards that might be good
Any Legendary Creature with mana cost more than 4 The only time this deck is able to play any big legendary is when the combo is actually happening and you can create enough moxes to cast it. At this point you are winning anyway, so there is really no point to play any such big creature.
Oath of Nissa Oath of Nissa legendary, but it only fixes mana for Planeswalkers.
Ancient Stirrings The deck uses very different card types to win, so spells that only find a specific card type seem not good enough te reliable find the cards you need.
Board the Weatherlight Board the Weatherlight is two mana, which would make it inferior to any 2 mana tutor spell like Eledamri's Call or Time of Need.
Goryo's Vengeance] is perfect to reanimate creatures with a high mana cost, but every creature has a mana cost of 3 or less, so Unearth is clearly the better card in this slot. The only thing Goryo's Vengeance has over Unearth, is that you can immediately activate Emry, but that seems pretty much irrelevant.
Urza, Lord High Artificer. There is really nothing that Urza does for this deck. The only reason why this card should be included in a deck is that making artifacts into Mox Saphires to circumvent cards like Stony Silence. However even then you couldn't win without black mana for Lazav, the Multifarious if you want to combo without activating any artifact abilities.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant How much I would love to have Erayo flipped on the battlefield, the chance that this actually happens pre-combo is almost impossible, which makes this card a very sloppy Teferi, Time Raveler.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Looting once each turn is much worse than Diligent Excavater. Also a flipped Jace accomplishes nothing in this deck since it doesn't play any spells worth flashbacking.
Liliana, the Last Hopeis maybe a good alternative win condition. It has some synergy with the deck and it provides some sort of interaction with the opponent's creatures. Maybe this should be in the deck...
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle This is a great card to counter removal and such. I think, however that the bigger issue is graveyard removal, and Teshar uses he graveyard which means: more of the same strategy without actually fixing the problem.
Gaddock Teeg is a card i have a thing for. I loved it in Lantern Control, but I think it kinda misses the point nowadays. The deck uses creatures, so people will not board out their creature removal against this deck. Also Gaddock Teeg isn't a strong lock anymore since decks rely on a wider variaty of answers. Buying time is nice, but using a turn to cast Teeg, kinda cancels out the tempo gain.
Anafenza, the Foremost Would work against graveyard decks. I think however that this deck can be faster when it is not interacted with. Also Jace, Wielder of Mysteries proves a solid answer against graveyard decks already
4. Sideboard
Again an important note on the sideboard: The sideboard can be different from event to event. This sideboard is just a general idea of how to counter the hate cards of different matchups. Also be aware that the deck has a very fragile balance in the amount or artifacts and legendary cards. Boarding out too many artifacts may cripple the deck immensely. So be careful not to overboard with this deck.
So let’s go through them real quick.
Leyline of Sanctity I think this card is very important. A combo deck is very vulnerable to discard. A hand can very easily turn into a very bad hand when one key card is picked out. Besides that it also protects you from cards like Nihil Spellbomb, which is a nice addition to the effect.
Thoughtseize I am not sure if this is the right approach. It's a great all round card, but Fatal Push might be more effective to battle cards like Collector Ouphe or other hate bears
Oath of Kaya is basically a Lightning Heelix when Kethis is in play, that is very good against burn decks on its own, or you can use two to loop them for enough damage to kill the opponent. Maybe removing some obstacles in the process before winning
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries This card is specifically for matchups that benefit from a filled graveyard. If you end up on less than 12 life against dredge, you can't win anymore because of Creeping Chill, so a way to win without milling the opponent is very good. There are not many ways to remove a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, so it is a fairly safe way to win. It also protects you from Ancient Grudge and bypasses Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Assassin's Trophy is mostly there to fight off planeswalkers and big threats like Karn, the Great Creator. It's also just an amazing all round removal for match ups that rely on big bombs.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is actually something I'm trying out at this moment. It seems the best card against faster combo decks like Vizier of Remedies, and Whirza decks. Although the deck has limited tutor options, it might be worthwhile to play some bullets in the sideboard.
5. Conclusion
Alright, so this is my take on Kethis, the Hidden Hand in modern. I hope my explanation makes sense. Please feel free to give constructive feedback and discuss innovations with me. That's the whole reason I wrote this 'primer': to work on the deck and make it better and more streamlined.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your feedback, I am looking forward to it!
Wouldn't Mystic Forge be a huge engine for this deck? You'll need to edit the deck quite a bit, but it would become more of a KCI kind if deck. You can't really play too many non Artifact cards and lotus bloom also has to go. So the deck might actually be quite different aside from playing the eggs. I don't really have a list in kind, but it must have potential I think. Something with Etherium Sculptor.. I don't know yet.
Well, there is the thing that both players don't know what the other tutors. The card is never shown to the other, so there is that.
I think the card is really good because it let's you both 'redraw' on a brick on top and you don't need to play too many win cons. Yes it's not great pre combo, but I still think it is good enough with so many drawspells.
With modern Horizons I noticed Kess, Dissident Mage. She is an amazing powerhouse, but it's realy hard to actually build a viable grixis deck. A Friend of mine came across an article with Silumgar's Scorn. I wasn't really impressed, but it made me thinking of Wizards Retort and Jeff Hoogland once playing a UR list. THis turned out not to be that great though. But with Kess I started working towards a Grixis list. I think a great additions is the Arcanist and from there I worked up this list:
So Modern Horizons didn;t bring that much to the deck. Just Kess and the canopy land really, but it has only be a short time since WAR is in the modern format so actually it has a lot of new cards.
The general idea of the deck is two fold:
1. Playing all spells in your deck seems prety strong
2. Counterspell is a good card
All cards go 1 for 1, with exception of Kolaghan's Command. This creates a bit of a jund/GDS style of play where you can trade off everyting one for one while beating the opponent. Basicly the standard tempo game. The idea is that all creatures provide cardadvantage in some way. Dreadhorde Arcanist, Snapcaster Mage and Kess, Dissident Mage provide the ability that you can play everything twice. So these creatures make a spell go 1 for 2 and leave a body on the field. Dark Confidant provides cardadvantage in a more traditional sense by just drawnig extra cards. THe only problem is that these creatures are not super effective in combat. Even when attacking with a confidant and an arcanist is just 3 damage and when the removal doesn't line up great you probaby have a hard time getting through. Vendilion Clique is a solid beater which might fix this problem. I might even be wrong here to not include a second copy of it. I mean Kess is also 3 power, but a turn slower.
Then there is the spells. It's basicly a mix of just the best spells available for Grixis and arguably in modern. Discard is very strong in the current modern meta. Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt are great removal. The latter is also a wincondition. Bolt, Snap, Bolt is often a great line to win the game. Kolaghan's Command is just amazing with Snapcaster Mage. I don't think you want to include more than 2, but it provides a good mid/late game engine. Dreadbore is debatable. I think the decks needs something to deal with big planeswalkers like Teferi or even Big Karn.
Wizard's Retort functiones as a classic counterspell in this deck. The only thing is that it will be online after turn 3. I think in most cases this is early enough, it's just that keeping up 2 mana all the time is a big investment. Ofcourse there are plenty of instants in the deck that you can cast when there is nothing to counter. It's just very different from keeping up a Stubborn Denial in Shadow, that costs only 1 mana. Retort however counters everything, including creatures. THe manabase is also made so that you have a high chance to have UU in play by turn 3.
Initially I had Serum Visions in the deck, but with all the recursion I think Thought Scour is just the better choice here. It's also better with Retort as it is an instant.
Why not these cards:
Delver of Secrets. Delver is a bad card in modern and this is why. In a deck with only 4 delvers 20 lands and the rest only spells, delver has a flip chance of 60%. modern you have no cantrips that manipulate your top card except for serum visions. so maybe 65%. OFcourse this deck will never see play. You will most likely play 10-14 creatures. so thats 30-34 non-spell cards. This makes the flip change of delver roughly 50% which is just plain bad and unreliable. I agree that a 1 drop would be great in the deck, but I wouldn't add Delver, let alone edit the deck with suboptimal cards to make delver a little more reiable.
Claim // Fame I think this card is great and I initially had it ni the first list. Then I noticed that all spells costs actually just 1 really. so boosting arcanist to a 3/3 doesn't really do anything.
Remand I like this card and it make's me sad that it's not in the deck. Maybe it's better than Wizard's Retort, although I think it's better to permanently deal with threats in modern in stead of delaying them. Also the deck does not p;aly enough counters to chain them, so Remand would just delay something for 1 turn and then you'll be vunerable to that threat without an answer. I think Retort fulfils thisrole better.
There are probably more cards that might seem good, but I think i covered the more obvious ones.
I Expect this deck to do well against cmidrange decks and combo/Big mana decks. I think it will do well against tron, and combo decks that rely on specific pieces to win. I thnik it will have a harder time against Creature decks specificly with disruption (Like Humans) I think control will also be a tough MU since your removal is practicly dead.
Alright, I'm curious what you guys think of the deck. My explanation might be a bit all over the place, so I hope it explains everything wel. It's a rough scetch and I am very open to feedback.
Ofcourse I have followed the spoilers to see if there is something new for the deck.
First of all, the deck is super tight as I play it. You can see the lists above and you just got a few slots actually to change some stuff. OR, you have to cut one combo.
Some thing that I did think about was to reduce both scrap trawler and memnite to a 1 off. This combo is much harder to pull off, doesn't bypass surgical and ant be done on instant speed. I don't know if this is actually good or not. I still feel that you want to leave 1 of each in the deck because trawler provides a lot of synergy with the deck and 1 memnite doesn't really hurt.
Let's start with the tribute mage. I fear this won't make the cut. It's a creature that doesn't really do anything. Also turn 3 is a bit late to the party. Whir is just better.
Goblin engineer. I really like this fellow. It's a 2 drop that puts the sword directly in the graveyard. This is huge. Because often you have to spend a turn to play the sword. This guy tutors any (Artifact) missing piece and even helps against Artifact removal by doing some switcheroo when the opponent gets rid of a grinding station.
It does however costs red. This means you either go to 4 color or you have to cut something.
With 12 red sources it might actually work out...
Another question that I ask myself is: goed goblin. Ake trash for treasure playable in this deck? It is a 3 cost card, so maybe it is just too late for the effect it grands, but then again. It might open up some interesting sideboard options. The downside is that trash is also graveyard based so it is somehow still the same strategy which is vulnerable to sideboard hate
Other questions are: might goblin be enough to cut down the sword count to 3 or even 2? Sword is the centerpiece of the deck, so maybe this is all wrong, but sword is just so bad to have on hand, let alone in multiples. It might make the deck less clunky.
So then there is Urza. I like Urza. Especially because it is also a creature. This might sound weird, but because this deck is actually quite creature heavy, stuff will be hit by removal and then Urza shows up and can steal the game.
Urza means the deck needs to remain focused on blue. So this means Whir is an inclusion and you can't really diverse from this plan. It also means that 4 foundry is probably better than 3. I had 3 in the main and 1 in the side because foundry is pretty bad in multiplesand not great in every MU.
So Urza means there is another combo in the deck, which I like, but Urza won't be much more than an 2 off in my opinion.
A whole other approach is something similar to the deck that was played in the SCG live! Video of last week was it? A very blue focused version with 4 Urza, 4 Whir, 4 foundry and 4 Thoughtcast and.... 4 force of negation in the side. How spicy!
Must admit that Thoughtcast crossed my mind. Especially with Sly Requisitioner I often find myself on turn 3 with a grinding station on the field and just enough artifacts to play a sly, but having to tap the station as well, so the combo actually comes a turn lantern leaving sly vulnerable to removal. Maybe thought cast just draws enough to set up the combo just right.. I am not sure... You might even want to switch to semblance anvil. I really was not a fan of the deck. It was basicly a worse version if this deck, but with the goblin it might actually be consistent enough and it needs less pieces, leaving more room for cantrips artifacts and protection.
Lastly Mirrodin Besieged. I don't thin this is good enough. I have tested Sai and Saheeli and both don't really fit in this archtype. They come down when you already played your hand our, so their effect is very minimal.. Also the win effect is pretty bad. When you have binned 15 artifacts yo uahve either lost the game 5 turns ago, or you have your combo which means you are winning anyway. It Saks target so it is also not an alternative wincondotion.
So here are some lists.
4 Mishra's bauble
4 Mox opal
1 memnite
2 Welding Jar.
4 chromatic star
4 ancient stirrings
4 grinding station
4 sword of the meek
4 Thopter foundry
1 scrap trawler
4 Whir of invention
4 sly requisitioner
2 Urza, Uber Artifact overlord
18 Land of which 2 Darksteel Citadel
With Red
4 Mishra's bauble
4 Mox opal
1 memnite
2 Welding Jar
4 chromatic star
4 thoughtcast
4 gooblin Engineer
4 grinding station
3 sword of the meek
3 Thopter foundry
1 scrap trawler
3 Whir of invention
4 Sly requisitioner
These lists are just brewed up. I havsnt tested them, and they are probably not correct.
I hope this hells a bit. Keep brewing and keep testing!
I think a list based on legacy AggroLoam is great. I think leaving out red is a bad decision however as Seismic Assault is the single reason to play a midrange Loam shell in modern.
While legacy AggroLoam looks like the deck you posted nowadays, if you go back 7-10 years ago, it was a 4 color deck with 3-4 Knight of the Reliquary, 1-2 Countryside Crusher, and 2-3 Seismic Assault along with Punishing Fire. That's because back then, Legacy was a more creature heavy format with old Death and Taxes and Maverick strategies alongside the newly printed Stoneforge Mystic and later Delver of Secrets. That legacy, is a lot more conducive to what we know in modern at present. Nowadays in legacy, casting a 3 mana enchantment isn't good enough because there isn't a lot to kill on board. Though it may be good against a deck like death and taxes, even Death and Taxes will make you wait till turn 4 to cast it with cards like Thalia, Rishadan Port and Wasteland. It's horrible in the legacy metagame, so they shifted to the BGx style as we know in modern and ran with the deck.
In modern we don't have Punishing Fire to kill creatures. In legacy, that is your out against decks that want to play creatures. In modern, a format ruled by hyperaggressive creature decks where you'd want it, we need something to help maintain board control.
Even if we only play red for Seismic Assault, it is worth it in the metagame. Assault lets us have recurring disruption against every aggressive deck and gives us a favorable matchup against the best decks in the format like Izzet Phoenix and Humans. In the old days of the deck, you didn't even have to play 4 Assault; some people just "splashed" red (it's kinda hard to splash a spell that costsRRR but I digress) and played 3 Assault with 3 Loam. I can't stress how good Seismic Assault is, especially now, though I think many people rely on it too hard as the "end all be all."
Assault is really in the deck to give a late game punch. It is a sweeper turn 3 that kills planeswalkers and wipes the board too. You don't deal damage with it to your opponent until you have 10 lands in your hand. Each turn you can deal 6 damage to your opp's board, or choose to hold up the lands to deal say 8 damage to an opposing 6/7 Tarmogoyf. With the new cycling lands, you can deal 10 damage per turn instead once you hit 5 mana. Assault is your sole reason to play red, everything else is a cherry on top.
I agree with you that most of the new cards are traps for the deck. The Dragon and Rioter are a little loose and not as powerful as the deck can be. Rioter may be powerful but has to be built around, and I don't think would just slot in well to the archetype. Tectonic Reformation could be good, but has many applications where it just doesn't do much. The cycling cost on it may make it playable in the archetype but slots are limited in the deck.
Faithless Looting in our deck says "Draw 2 cards, Flashback, Draw 2 cards." Even if you don't have loam, discarding cards that you want to be in the graveyard practically makes it card advantage. With Wrenn now too, you can get back those lands you discard over 2 turns, serving the same role as loam.
On top of this, Wrenn and Six at worst makes us hit land drops every turn. At best, it gets us cycling lands to draw cards. It gets back Ghost Quarter against tron (in testing had this happen, best feeling in my life). It gets back Blast Zone vs decks like Bogles. And with our board control, it ticks up to its ultimate, which practically says "Win the Game." Don't sleep on this card.
You laugh at Flame Jab, but that card is often just a 1 of for control. You have your opponent at 6 life after a gruelingly grindy game of playing around countermagic and barely killing planeswalkers with creature lands. Over 2 turns with Loam and Flame Jab, you win the game. There aren't many cards in modern that let you win out of your yard like this that see a lot of play. Conflagrate does it but is more vulnerable to countermagic. It also kills creatures more often than you would think, with it being a win con vs Affinity and keeping problematic planeswalkers in check. It is a pretty loose spell in terms of density, but a 1 of Flame Jab wins games.
One of the biggest upsides to your list compared to RG is the straightforward midrange gameplan. Discard spells, removal, and cheap threats.
When you explained that I was honestly very confused because that is what every midrange deck in modern does. The most played version of AssaultLoam is Jund, which has the same packages and gameplan with a better lategame. Here's a 5-0 list from January that shows the basic outline of the deck:
Now I will say I disagree with a lot of the choices of this deck, but it shows the basic outline of the gameplan. Discard spells, cheap threats, and endgame card advantage. The red splash is just for Assault and Looting, and the rest of the deck is a BG deck with a Traverse package. I don't think the Traverse package is necessary, and in fact would just rather them play a playset of Dark Confidant but this deck is like the original deck back when the archetype was brought into modern; Jund+. It's like Jund but you have this late game card advantage engine. I have my own Jund Loam list on the primer which will be posted in the next two days, but it's pretty similar to this one in terms of removal packages just differing in threat choice. There are gonna be about 6 archetypes covered in the primer and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The RG list has been discussed at length on here recently because it was formerly almost unplayable but has found new upgrades over time to make it competitive in the current metagame.
Now in your Abzan AggroLoam list, I feel like the worst card is Life from the Loam. I would honestly go down to 2 as you only need one in the late game as you are cycling through your deck. Over that, I think one Nourishing Peatland would be a good card to go fetch with KOTR or another cycling land would be satisfactory.
End of Essay... cue tomorrow getting more spoilers and more testing
Hey Cryptic Commander,
Thanx for taking the time to reply to my post.
Yes this is very true. I played legacy around that time, althugh it was my friend who played aggro loam back then (I played standstill/Fow based strategies at that time). I remember the list from back then, confidants, Mox diamonds, Tarmogoyfs, Chalice of the Void, Crusher just replaced Terravore, and indeed seismic assault. And yes the meta was very different. I might even be talking about 10-15 years back when Loam was Jund colors, because I don;t really remember punishing fie being a thing back then.
I totally understand the power of seismic assault. It's is the card that makes you win the game, it clears boards, it does almost everything you want. It is certainly extremely good in a creature heavy meta. It is the artillery of the deck that supports your ground troops.
However, I think playing red is a choice you make on how you want your deck to work. Like tarmogoyf is a great creature, the best value for it's cost, but you will not include this in an elves deck, because that is not what you want your deck to do, no matter how good tarmogoyf is as a creature. I know, this sounds a bit like I am explaingin magic to a chaild, i mean no offense. I am just saying that Assault is amazing in the deck where it works. And again you can choose how you want your deck to work.
I am glad that we share the opinion on these new loam cards they printed in Horizons. Although I disagree with 'the cherry on top' statement. In my opinion you choose to play less good cards to be able to play 1 really good one (Seismic asaault). Playing stugg like Wrenn*, Crusher, Koth and the like is a cost, not a welcome addition to the deck. Don't get me wrong, often it is good to play some less good cards to be able to play a game winner. Often this is more than worth it.
(* Wrenn looks great as an individual card. It provides tons of synergy. I like to judge cards on their worst scenario rather than just seeing the upsides. Playing against humans on the draw: You play wren, shoot down their Noble Hierarch, pass Turn, they play a Mantis Rider, put a counter on their Champion and kill Wren. Wren is pretty bad without protection. so it's most likely a 3 or even 4 drop. I do not particularly like this card a lot.)
You might be right on the faithless looting, I probably judged that card too quickly based on my general modern experience.
Flame Jab. I remember going to a GP a couple years back and a friend of mine made day two with a list with multiple flame jabs, loam and assault. He stil lis a big fan of the card and I certainly see the value. In a format with a lot fo creatures this is excelent removal ad, as you mentioned, a game winning card.
So we have: Assault, Looting and Flame Jab that are very good reasons to play red in loam. I read your arguments and I agree with this.
then we come back to the choice thing. I think choices should be made on at least the meta, a full analysize of the deck (does it do what it's supposed to do, does it do that effectively, consistently and can ti win from meta decks?) and and your personal playstyle. The last thing is arbitrary so let's not go into that too much. The meta changes, so that's also something that is a little bit arbitrary. I mean last year You had to be able to win from Shadow, last couple of months it was Phoenix and now it's Humans and Tron and who knows what comes after horizons. GR loam has not that much interaction, except from it's on board interaction, so I think its control and combo MU are rather bad. I hoped to adress those deck more with my list.
I understand that my explanation was a bit confusing, since I basicly esplained what every midrange deck tries to do. I get that, but not everyone is as focussed on competitive play and deckbuilding as others, so that's why.
About the Loam in the deck. It's already on a 2 off. So I think we share our thoughts about this card in the deck. As I mentioned before. I thought of Peatland, but I thought the cycling lands would be enough. Your argument that Knight can find the Peatland, which doesn't work with the cycle lands, is a solid argument to include at least one. Thanx for that.
Yes, more spoilers, more testing. Today I will test the deck so I'll know more after that. Maybe t is indeed just bad, I don't know. Midrange decks are very hard to judge on paper.
Thanx again for your feedback! Looking forward to more discussions about the deck in this group.
@Selene I think your assessment of looting is a little off - RGx Loam is generally built with more grave synergies than GWx. This helps break the disadvantage of looting when you can not only discard lands for later but also conflagrate, driven//despair, raven’s crime, or what have you. As for the rest of why you would play red, I personally think Seismic assault is worth it, it’s won me a ton of games by letting me deal >10 damage in one turn. The onslaught lands make me even more sure of this. However, it’s not to say there’s only room for GRx lists.
As for abzan/junk lists, I like what you have so far. Maybe playing another land-destruction land or 2 might help? One of the reasons I like KotR in Loam lists is that it lets you get one part of the ghost quarter lock from your deck. I’d also recommend at least one Urborg to help with the double black costs.
I totally agree on the seismic assault. That card has been a powerhouse since the early '00. It is certainly a reason to play red. In Modern however you don't have Mox diamond so you have to go pretty deep in red to be able to cast this consistently. But once this is on the field, this will go all the way, certainly.
Looting is good. It's just not what looting is in decks like dredge or Phoenix. I think they get better over the course of the game, but turn one, I don't know. But you're probably right. NY basic point was that red has a few strong cards, but you have to play too many suboptimal cards to fill the gap that seismic assault leaves with its RRR cost.
Thnx for the feedback. I Think Urborg is indeed a good addition. With Urborg there is also more room for colorless utility lands. That makes sense. Thanx again.
Going more aggro loam I'd find room for 1 sejiri steppe as added protection. You can probably go down 1 cycle lands, 2 is all you really need.
Edit: you'd probably benefit from some amount of urborg, tomb of yawgmoth as well. Helps ensure you get the double black early and can cast your hand hate t1
Thanx,
Yeah I thought about Urborg. Probably would be smart when so heavy on black. The steppe I don't know. I like the effect, but the white mana feels a bit off.
2 cycle land. Even with knights it's not too easy to get them, because you can't sac them to the knight. Maybe you are right. I mean 2 in the bin are enough. But with just 2 in the deck. You don't have such big cha ce to have them both.
I saw this threat is for all loam related decks (as I saw different versions in the first post, so I felt free to put a different version here too.
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So I have done some brewing. I am sure this isn't the best possible list. I'm not a veteran midrange player and midrange is a very difficult archtype to build in Modern, so feedback is very much appreciated. But alright here we go:
4 knight of the reliquary
4 tarmogoyf
3 dark Confidant
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Eladamri's Call
2 life from the loam
3 Path to exile
4 Fatal Push
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
Sideboard:
1 collector ouphe
1 eidolon of rhetoric
2 fulminator Mage
1 Kambal, consul of allocation
2 graveyard hate Spellbomb/surgical
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
1 Sorin, Vengeful BloodLord
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
Alright so the deck is a little bit based on 4c Legacy Loam and uses a lot of aspect from modern midrange decks and old legacy aspects.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
Alongside this, it has solid beaters. Tarmogoyf and Knight are a quick clock when not appropriate dealt with. This follows a Jund-like pattern of play.
Knight can also tutor any land you need and has big synergy with loam.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Eledamri's Call provides a small toolbox. The maindeck isn't too exciting. Although Teeg can provide some nice on board hate against Tron and UW. Scooze is for GY strategies. Kalithas too. And it provides life to compensate the lifeloss from Confidant. The sideboard provides all kinds of hate card. Since most of them cost 3 mana, you can play them nicely on curve. Turn 2 E.Call EOT when you see what the opponent is up to and tutor the appropriate hate creature and play it on 3.
Loam is not a 4 off in this deck. This is because loam is not the main plan of this deck. It functions as a support factor for everything else. You can switch to the loam plan late game against grindy decks, if need be.
It provides card advantage with cycle lands, Fuels liliana of the Veil, the dredge part makes tarmogoyf bigger and lastly it recurs the lands from knight while also filling the grave. It can strip your opponents had. Late game and put down a landlock.
About the landbase. 3 cycle land might seem not enough. Remember that without loam they are even worse basics, so I rather hfind them later in the game than to be stuck with 2 in my opener. The rest is pretty basic I think. Some utility lands. Fetches and shocks. Since the deck plays confidant and already a draw engine with cycle land, I don't thing canopy lands are a good fit with the lifeloss.
So again, I don't know if this is it, Midrange decks always look great on paper, but often prove to be not so great on cardboard.
I like your imput, feedback and suggestions.
One thing I am not sure of is the Call. It's a great tutor. But the 2 mana might prove to be too costly. I thought about traverse, but I think delerium is not easily achieved in this deck. Glittering wish would be another alternative, although that changes the idea a bit. Call is instant, but one might say in this type of deck, that doesn't really matter.
Things I have considered:
Tireless tracker: a less good 3 drop than knight and a draw engine that costs 2 in stead of 1 like the cycle lands.
Birds of paradise: since the curve goes to 3 (and Kalithas) I think mana dorks of any kind really lower the value of individual cards in comparison to the ramp they provide.
Beat Assault= is really not a card you need in this archtype.
Other planeswalkers: I don't think you need them or want them. They need to be extremely good and fully align with this strategy. I think the new Sorin is okay in the side against burn like decks and as recursion. Maybe Kaya is okay but I would not really want to play too many planeswalkers.
I probably thought of more but can't really remember because I have dismissed them in an earlier stage.
Alright , thanx for reading and let me know if you have something add or adjust to this brew
Pernicious deed is still live, or at least a homage to it, they will probably printing it as "non-land permanents" Is this something that might happen?
I have played Grixis like 4 years back. Haven't touched it since, but this card looks pretty nice. What do you guys think about this? I can't really evauate it, but it seems printed for this archtype. Will it change anything or not? (with all the artifact hate printed, I will most likely switch to a control archtype and grixis might just be it)
The following video is quite cool.
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/kethis_combo_with_collins_mull.html
Im sure this deck can become something serious.
I don't have time to go into full detail now, but I hope this gives more to talm about
1. Introduction
Hello my dear brewer friends,
For those who play standard, Kethis, the Hidden Hand combo is not something new. The deck got piloted to several great finishes. The power of the deck almost exceeded what one would expect form any standard deck, realy. Kethis in modern is not something I made up myself.There have been several lists circling the web, although it hasn’t been hyped as much a Twiddle Storm for example.
Anyway, the deck looked so much fun that I put some work into making this primer with detailed explanation on the list that I think is a strong and fun list featuring Kethis, the Hidden Hand. My goal is to get this out there so more people can give feedback, try the deck and make the deck better. This is also the reason there isn't a sideboard guide included. There hans't been enough testing to provide solid advice on how to sideboard.
1.1 Translating Kethis to Modern
Modern has a much bigger cardpool than standard, so modern provides a lot more cards to make the deck more streamlined and faster than you could ever dream it could be in standard. Of course modern has a much higher amount of effective hate cards which would pose a serious problem to this deck, since it uses the graveyard and artifacts to effectively go off. That means the sideboard is very important, together with the resilience to hate all together. I think the resilience is not too bad with cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Hope of Ghirapur and Unearth.
This is the reason that this deck might not be super viable in a modern meta with too much focus on artifact and graveyard decks. It is however ridiculously fun to play. It has amazing lines you can use to combo and I guarantee that the opponent will be amazed by what you are actually doing. Also it doesn't happen every day that you can play EIGHT Moxen in a modern deck, it's crazy. The focus of this primer is not to present you the new KCI, because it is not, but just another cool that that is a blast to play.
The strong points of the deck are that the deck can combo as early as turn two, but turn three or four is probably average. Also the deck plays maindeck cards that both protect the combo and are used in the combo itself. this is not always the case in combo decks, so this is a huge plus. (if you're wondering about the turn 2 combo, it involves a turn 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch, a turn 2 Kethis, the Hidden Hand and a great deal of lucky hits
To sum up some aspects of the deck:
- The deck has a very elegant balance between artifacts and legendary cards in a very sweet synergy with each other. Mox Amber is turned on by Legendary Creatures/Planeswalkers, Mox Opal is turned on by Artifacts including Mox Amber, Emry uses artifacts and is Legendary. Everything fits together so perfectly.
- you play 8 moxen, which makes the deck very fast.
- Grinding Station, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Diligent Excavator make Unearth basically a tutor for 1 mana.
- Because you mill yourself a lot, Unearth can almost be seen as a 5t-8th Kethis, the Hidden Hand and is just an amazing card on its own when having a way to fill the graveyard.
- Emry, Lurker of the Loch is not only a mill card, she also lets you recast Grinding Station when the artifact gets removed, discarded or milled. Emry can be seen as a 5th-8th Grinding Station.
- Lazav, the Multifarious turns on Mox Amber on turn 2 (This is a good way to produce
- the deck plays 29 legendary cards, which is almost half of the deck! This means you can try to combo off with very little cards in the graveyard and still be able to succeed.
4 Spire of Industry
4 Glimmervoid
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pendelhaven
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's storehouse
1 City of Brass
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Chromatic Star
4 Grinding Station
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Amber
4 Mox Opal
Artifact Creatures
4 Hope of Ghirapur
Creatures
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
4 Kethis, the Hidden Hand
2 Lazav, the Multifarious
1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
1 Diligent Excavator
Planeswalkers
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Sorcery
4 Unearth
1 Time of Need
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thoughtseize
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Oath of Kaya
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
* A sideboard should always be tailored to the meta you are expecting. It's okay to play a different sideboard on each different event. This is just a take on what might be okay, but this can be different from your local meta or even big event you are preparing for.
2. The Combo
1. The most known combo is the combo from standard using Diligent Excavator, Kethis, the Hidden Hand and an amount of historic spells.
Play any amount of historic spells from your hand, using Diligent Excavator to target yourself.
Use Kethis, the Hidden Hand to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard, milling yourself with Diligent Excavator.
Once you have enough historic cards in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent.
2. Another straight forward way is to use Grinding Station plus Kethis, the Hidden Hand.
Use Grinding Station to mill yourself with any artifacts you have in play.
Use Kethis to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard.
With each artifact Grinding Station will untap and you can directly sacrifice the artifact to mill yourself
Play any useful Legendaries, like Teferi, Time Raveler from the graveyard to get rid of any obstacles.
Once you have enough zero costing artifacts in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent
3. There is another line that is a little more difficult using 2+ Emry, Lurker of the Loch and a Kethis, the Hidden hand.
Use Kethis to loop two or more Emry, Lurker of the Loch to mill yourself.
Meanwhile make mana with the Mox Opals and Mox Ambers that you can play out of the GY as well
Play Lazav from your Graveyard
Copy a Diligent Excavator with the Lazav
Keep playing Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard to now mill the opponent.
This last line is much more prone to fizzing, because you need to mill enough legendaries to be able to loop Emry's. With three Emry's this might actually work well, since you will be milling 8 cards every time, which makes the chance on two fodder legendaries a lot higher.
5. Of course there are variations of card combination's which load to one of these standard situations. Because of the overlap between cards, comboing with this deck can be a real puzzle.
4. Lastly there is a soft lock in the deck using Teferi, Time Raveler and Hope of Ghirapur and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Attack the opponent with Hope of Ghirapur and sacrifice it.
Use Emry, Lurker of the Loch to cast Hope of Ghirapur from the graveyard.
Together with Teferi, Time Raveler you now have a soft lock in which the opponent is never able to cast non-creature spells.
3. Card Choices
3.1 Legendary lands
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pendelhaven
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Modern offers a lot of legendary lands. However most of them are single color or even colorless, which poses a problem for a four-colored mana base. Here is a list of all the lands that might be good in the deck.
Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper
Academy Ruins
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Gemstone Caverns
Inventors' Fair
Eiganjo Castle
Flagstones of Trokair
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
Pendelhaven
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Tomb of Urami
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
All the lands that consistently produce colored mana and come into play untapped could be in the deck. This gives us quite some cards to work with. Additionally, there are some colorless lands that might have a good synergy with the deck. After some testing the colorless lands seemed too unreliable for the deck. Making colorless mana is really not what the deck wants to do and you can completely be shut down with a colorless land in play and not being able to play your colored spells.
The choice to include 2 of each color might seem a bit strange. Maybe it is correct to cut a Pendelhaven for a Tomb of Urami, since green and white are the least played colors in the deck.
Gemstone Caverns proved to be too unreliable in making colored mana. Exiling a card is a great cost and on the play this land is nothing more than a Waste. Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper comes into play tapped, which is a huge disadvantage for a combo deck. Also the most important Legendary creatures have no colorless mana in their manacost, so its ability is hardly useful.
Besides of being legendary, all these lands provide great utility for the deck. Using Hope of Ghirapur as a blocker? Make it a 2/3 with Pendelhaven. Want to use Emry, Lurker of the Loch multiple times in a turn? Unap her with Minamo, School at Water's Edge. Want to save Lazav, the Multifarious from a Lightning Bolt? Prevent 2 damage with Eiganjo Castle. Need to push that damage through for the win? Give something fear with Shizo, Death's Storehouse. There are countless small interactions that might just give you that small egde to win!
3.2 Lands
4 Glimmervoid
4 Spire of Industry
1 City of Brass
1 Island
1 Swamp
Because the legendary lands only create a single colored mana, you need other lands that make up for this handicap. It's understandable that it's tempting to play snow-covered basic lands and support one of the best artifacts in the format: Acrum's Astrolabe, but it's impossible to run a 4 colored deck without a manabase that can support a deck that plays so many multicolored spells in four different colors. A solution would be to play fetch lands and shock lands, but there simply isn't room for that if you want to include enough legendary lands. The only solution here is to play rainbow lands. This would normally a painful endeavor, were it not that this deck plays roughly 20-24 artifacts. I think the best lands to play are Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry. The Last spot goes to City of Brass/Mana Confluence.
With cards like Path to Exile, Field of Ruin and Assassin's Trophy in the format, it would be very unwise to not play basic lands. Since blue and black are the most played colors, I think an Island and a Swamp are the obvious choice here.
In conclusion: this manabase provide at least 10 mana sources of the 4 single colors with the important upside that the other 9 out of 19 lands can adapt their color to the single-colored lands you already have in play. I am not a mathematician, but this makes the probability of playing a Kethis on turn 3 very reasonable.
3.3 Legendary Artifacts
4 Mox Opal
4 Mox Amber
4 Hope of Ghirapur
Mox Opal is one of the strongest ramp spells in the format. Most importantly it can create mana of any color, which is crucial in this 4 colored deck. Opal needs enough cheap artifacts to become active, though. This means the deck needs a significant amount of artifacts costing 0 and 1 to make this a reliable source of mana. Because it is legendary you can play this from the graveyard for free with a Kethis activation, and therefor fulfilling a key role in the combo.
Mox amber is used in the Standard version of the deck and is one of the centerpieces of this deck as well. Unlike Mox Opal it isn't a reliable source of colored mana, since it can only be used when you control a legendary creature or planeswalker and can only make a colored mana from the colors among those legendary creatures/planeswalkers. This means that it will most likely only make
Hope of Ghirapur Might remind some of the old veterans ofXantid Swarm. This card was used to protect combo players against counterspells when comboing off. Hope of Ghirapur is a bit like this card, although you have to sacrifice it to gain its effect. Also it needs to have dealt damage to the opponent in order to activate its ability (Note that you can NOT sacrifice Hope of Ghirapur when the card itself did not deal damage to the opponent. It needs a legal target).
Activating it will clear the way to cast important spells like Grinding Station and Kethis, the Hidden Hand and protect them from removal spells and counterspells.
Hope of Ghirapur can also be used as a Time Walk against decks that rely on casting non creature spells in their own turn. Activating it at the right time will prevent the opponent from playing cards like Karn, the Great Creator, or timewalks decks like Storm and Whirza. Together with Emry, Lurker of the Loch,Hope of Ghirapur can be a repeatable soft lock against those opponents.
3.4 Artifacts
4 Grinding Station
4 Mishra's Bauble
2 Chromatic Star
Grinding Station is the most effective way to get cards in your own graveyard. It uses artifacts as fuel, which fits perfectly with the whole idea of playing 8 Moxes and 4 hope of Ghirapurs. I have played many decks featuring Grinding Station and the strength of the card is not to be underestimated. Because it untaps with every artifact hitting the battlefield (Both your own and the opponent's! AND it triggers on itself entering as well), for as long as you can play artifacts, this is both your enabler and your win condition.
As said earlier, the decks needs a significant amount of cheap artifacts to make Mox Opal a reliable source of mana. Also these artifacts need to support the game plan a much as possible by drawing cards, or fixing mana. When looking at the artifacts that fulfill these requirement, this is the list of Artifacts that might fit in the deck.
Mishra's Bauble
Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere
Terrarion
Ichor Wellspring
Mind Stone
Mishra's Bauble is an auto include. It costs
Of the others I find Chromatic Star to be the best one. it can be activated immediately and the "draw a card" trigger also happens when it is sacrificed to a Grinding Station. At this time I only play 2 Chromatic Stars. It is very important to keep a high enough artifact count for both the Mox Opal, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Grinding Station, but too many 'eggs' may cause too much redundancy in the deck, so you should be very cautious when adding these artifacts and not overdo it.
There is one card that benefits by a high amount of artifacts which is Sai, Master Thopterist. Sai is a great buffer against aggro decks, and in the more grindy matches it is a great tool to draw extra cards, but it isn't a win condition and I doubt that relying heavily on this card plus a high amount of artifacts is something you want to do in this deck.
Lastly I think all two drops are out of the question in this deck.
3.5 Creatures
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is the centerpiece of this deck. It doesn't need much explaining. An important note is that it makes all legendary cards cost
Emry, Lurker of the Loch is already mentioned to be a jack of all trades. She's a card advantage engine, she protects against removal and discard, she helps milling your graveyard and can even function as a combo piece, and she costs only one mana. I wouldn't know if this deck would be any good without her. Providing resilience against very basic interaction like discard and removal is key in a modern format.
Lazav, the Multifarious is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. In Standard this is without doubt an auto include, but in modern, it seems like a mediocre two drop. However, he provides some important synergy with this deck. First of all the manacost. One of the problems of Mox Amber is that it isn't easily turned on before turn 3. There is of course Emry, Lurker of the Loch, but making
Reki, the History of Kamigawa is really something special. I think this is a forgotten gem in a time when people cast more legendary spells than they are actually aware of. I think this card is great against decks that attack your hand. Imagine having only a Kethis and a average big graveyard. Use Kethis to reanimate Reki and start casting some Moxen drawing a card every time you do, until you find your other combo piece. Also when Reki the History of Kamigawa hits the board, your opponent has to use valuable removal spells immediately if they do not want to fall behind. At this point it is a one-off and I think it is correct, but it might be a god sideboard card as well against GBx strategies.
Diligent Excavator is a leftover from the standard deck. It's basically a 5th Grinding station which can also be copied by Lazav, the Multifarious in case your Grinding Stations get removed. It needs a little more, but it also triggers on more than just artifacts, making it a very reliable mill card. If only wish it was legendary...
3.6 Sorceries/Instants
Unearth is not a card i would easily put in a modern deck, but in Kethis Combo it steals the show. In your hand it is great against discard. It makes it impossible for the opponent to discard a key piece if you can just play it the next turn for just one mana. I't's also a great answer to counters. Play your key creature and it it get's countered, you just Unearth it and win the game. This card makes the deck super versatile and resilient and has great synergies with both Grinding Station, Diligent Excavator and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Time of Need is something I'm trying at the moment. I chose this card over Eladamri's Call because of the manacost being easier to pay in this deck than a multicolored spell. The downside is of course that it doesn't find Diligent Excavator and it's on sorcery speed. I think the mana cost makes up for these little downsides in the long run, although I may be wrong. I might be wrong to include this card all together. I just haven't found a strong replacement for it yet, so until you prove me wrong for using this card, I think it's great to have a tutor in the deck.
3.7 Planeswalkers
Teferi, Time Raveler is many things in one card. It provides protection against removal, counterspells and other interaction. This is key in a deck that can be attacked on so many different angles. It also removes any obstacles that prevents you from winning the game. Think about cards like Leyline of Sanctity, Kambal, consul of Allocation, or other cards that hinder your combo. You can even use Teferi to bounce on of your own permanents to get an extra trigger on Diligent Excavator, or make mana by bouncing a mox. You can even loop 2 Teferi's during the combo if the situation asks for it.Teferi, Time Raveler fulfills a very important role in the deck, and should never be played without at least 2 in the main deck.
3.8 Cards that don’t make the cut and cards that might be good
Any Legendary Creature with mana cost more than 4 The only time this deck is able to play any big legendary is when the combo is actually happening and you can create enough moxes to cast it. At this point you are winning anyway, so there is really no point to play any such big creature.
Oath of Nissa Oath of Nissa legendary, but it only fixes mana for Planeswalkers.
Ancient Stirrings The deck uses very different card types to win, so spells that only find a specific card type seem not good enough te reliable find the cards you need.
Board the Weatherlight Board the Weatherlight is two mana, which would make it inferior to any 2 mana tutor spell like Eledamri's Call or Time of Need.
Goryo's Vengeance] is perfect to reanimate creatures with a high mana cost, but every creature has a mana cost of 3 or less, so Unearth is clearly the better card in this slot. The only thing Goryo's Vengeance has over Unearth, is that you can immediately activate Emry, but that seems pretty much irrelevant.
Urza, Lord High Artificer. There is really nothing that Urza does for this deck. The only reason why this card should be included in a deck is that making artifacts into Mox Saphires to circumvent cards like Stony Silence. However even then you couldn't win without black mana for Lazav, the Multifarious if you want to combo without activating any artifact abilities.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant How much I would love to have Erayo flipped on the battlefield, the chance that this actually happens pre-combo is almost impossible, which makes this card a very sloppy Teferi, Time Raveler.
Fblthp, the Lost is a great Mox Amber enabler, but so is Emry and I don;'t think this deck wants a Elvish Visionary really.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Looting once each turn is much worse than Diligent Excavater. Also a flipped Jace accomplishes nothing in this deck since it doesn't play any spells worth flashbacking.
Liliana, the Last Hopeis maybe a good alternative win condition. It has some synergy with the deck and it provides some sort of interaction with the opponent's creatures. Maybe this should be in the deck...
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle This is a great card to counter removal and such. I think, however that the bigger issue is graveyard removal, and Teshar uses he graveyard which means: more of the same strategy without actually fixing the problem.
Gaddock Teeg is a card i have a thing for. I loved it in Lantern Control, but I think it kinda misses the point nowadays. The deck uses creatures, so people will not board out their creature removal against this deck. Also Gaddock Teeg isn't a strong lock anymore since decks rely on a wider variaty of answers. Buying time is nice, but using a turn to cast Teeg, kinda cancels out the tempo gain.
Anafenza, the Foremost Would work against graveyard decks. I think however that this deck can be faster when it is not interacted with. Also Jace, Wielder of Mysteries proves a solid answer against graveyard decks already
4. Sideboard
Again an important note on the sideboard: The sideboard can be different from event to event. This sideboard is just a general idea of how to counter the hate cards of different matchups. Also be aware that the deck has a very fragile balance in the amount or artifacts and legendary cards. Boarding out too many artifacts may cripple the deck immensely. So be careful not to overboard with this deck.
So let’s go through them real quick.
Leyline of Sanctity I think this card is very important. A combo deck is very vulnerable to discard. A hand can very easily turn into a very bad hand when one key card is picked out. Besides that it also protects you from cards like Nihil Spellbomb, which is a nice addition to the effect.
Nature's Claim Of course the most hurtful cards are Damping Sphere, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void. Nature's Claim is a good way to fight these cards. It also works on Chalice of the Void on zero if the opponent decides to battle you on that angel.
Thoughtseize I am not sure if this is the right approach. It's a great all round card, but Fatal Push might be more effective to battle cards like Collector Ouphe or other hate bears
Oath of Kaya is basically a Lightning Heelix when Kethis is in play, that is very good against burn decks on its own, or you can use two to loop them for enough damage to kill the opponent. Maybe removing some obstacles in the process before winning
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries This card is specifically for matchups that benefit from a filled graveyard. If you end up on less than 12 life against dredge, you can't win anymore because of Creeping Chill, so a way to win without milling the opponent is very good. There are not many ways to remove a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, so it is a fairly safe way to win. It also protects you from Ancient Grudge and bypasses Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Assassin's Trophy is mostly there to fight off planeswalkers and big threats like Karn, the Great Creator. It's also just an amazing all round removal for match ups that rely on big bombs.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is actually something I'm trying out at this moment. It seems the best card against faster combo decks like Vizier of Remedies, and Whirza decks. Although the deck has limited tutor options, it might be worthwhile to play some bullets in the sideboard.
5. Conclusion
Alright, so this is my take on Kethis, the Hidden Hand in modern. I hope my explanation makes sense. Please feel free to give constructive feedback and discuss innovations with me. That's the whole reason I wrote this 'primer': to work on the deck and make it better and more streamlined.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your feedback, I am looking forward to it!
Love,
Selene
I think the card is really good because it let's you both 'redraw' on a brick on top and you don't need to play too many win cons. Yes it's not great pre combo, but I still think it is good enough with so many drawspells.
With modern Horizons I noticed Kess, Dissident Mage. She is an amazing powerhouse, but it's realy hard to actually build a viable grixis deck. A Friend of mine came across an article with Silumgar's Scorn. I wasn't really impressed, but it made me thinking of Wizards Retort and Jeff Hoogland once playing a UR list. THis turned out not to be that great though. But with Kess I started working towards a Grixis list. I think a great additions is the Arcanist and from there I worked up this list:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Kess, Dissident Mage
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Dreadbore
4 Wizard's Retort
2 Spell Pierce
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Thought Scour
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Spirebluff Canal
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Abrade
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
So Modern Horizons didn;t bring that much to the deck. Just Kess and the canopy land really, but it has only be a short time since WAR is in the modern format so actually it has a lot of new cards.
The general idea of the deck is two fold:
1. Playing all spells in your deck seems prety strong
2. Counterspell is a good card
All cards go 1 for 1, with exception of Kolaghan's Command. This creates a bit of a jund/GDS style of play where you can trade off everyting one for one while beating the opponent. Basicly the standard tempo game. The idea is that all creatures provide cardadvantage in some way. Dreadhorde Arcanist, Snapcaster Mage and Kess, Dissident Mage provide the ability that you can play everything twice. So these creatures make a spell go 1 for 2 and leave a body on the field. Dark Confidant provides cardadvantage in a more traditional sense by just drawnig extra cards. THe only problem is that these creatures are not super effective in combat. Even when attacking with a confidant and an arcanist is just 3 damage and when the removal doesn't line up great you probaby have a hard time getting through. Vendilion Clique is a solid beater which might fix this problem. I might even be wrong here to not include a second copy of it. I mean Kess is also 3 power, but a turn slower.
Then there is the spells. It's basicly a mix of just the best spells available for Grixis and arguably in modern. Discard is very strong in the current modern meta. Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt are great removal. The latter is also a wincondition. Bolt, Snap, Bolt is often a great line to win the game. Kolaghan's Command is just amazing with Snapcaster Mage. I don't think you want to include more than 2, but it provides a good mid/late game engine. Dreadbore is debatable. I think the decks needs something to deal with big planeswalkers like Teferi or even Big Karn.
Wizard's Retort functiones as a classic counterspell in this deck. The only thing is that it will be online after turn 3. I think in most cases this is early enough, it's just that keeping up 2 mana all the time is a big investment. Ofcourse there are plenty of instants in the deck that you can cast when there is nothing to counter. It's just very different from keeping up a Stubborn Denial in Shadow, that costs only 1 mana. Retort however counters everything, including creatures. THe manabase is also made so that you have a high chance to have UU in play by turn 3.
Initially I had Serum Visions in the deck, but with all the recursion I think Thought Scour is just the better choice here. It's also better with Retort as it is an instant.
Why not these cards:
Delver of Secrets. Delver is a bad card in modern and this is why. In a deck with only 4 delvers 20 lands and the rest only spells, delver has a flip chance of 60%. modern you have no cantrips that manipulate your top card except for serum visions. so maybe 65%. OFcourse this deck will never see play. You will most likely play 10-14 creatures. so thats 30-34 non-spell cards. This makes the flip change of delver roughly 50% which is just plain bad and unreliable. I agree that a 1 drop would be great in the deck, but I wouldn't add Delver, let alone edit the deck with suboptimal cards to make delver a little more reiable.
Claim // Fame I think this card is great and I initially had it ni the first list. Then I noticed that all spells costs actually just 1 really. so boosting arcanist to a 3/3 doesn't really do anything.
Wizard's Lightning I think this decks doesn't need more than 4 bolts
Remand I like this card and it make's me sad that it's not in the deck. Maybe it's better than Wizard's Retort, although I think it's better to permanently deal with threats in modern in stead of delaying them. Also the deck does not p;aly enough counters to chain them, so Remand would just delay something for 1 turn and then you'll be vunerable to that threat without an answer. I think Retort fulfils thisrole better.
There are probably more cards that might seem good, but I think i covered the more obvious ones.
I Expect this deck to do well against cmidrange decks and combo/Big mana decks. I think it will do well against tron, and combo decks that rely on specific pieces to win. I thnik it will have a harder time against Creature decks specificly with disruption (Like Humans) I think control will also be a tough MU since your removal is practicly dead.
Alright, I'm curious what you guys think of the deck. My explanation might be a bit all over the place, so I hope it explains everything wel. It's a rough scetch and I am very open to feedback.
Selene
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38716_Hexdrinkers-Impact-On-Modern-Could-Be-Massive.htmlq
Ofcourse I have followed the spoilers to see if there is something new for the deck.
First of all, the deck is super tight as I play it. You can see the lists above and you just got a few slots actually to change some stuff. OR, you have to cut one combo.
Some thing that I did think about was to reduce both scrap trawler and memnite to a 1 off. This combo is much harder to pull off, doesn't bypass surgical and ant be done on instant speed. I don't know if this is actually good or not. I still feel that you want to leave 1 of each in the deck because trawler provides a lot of synergy with the deck and 1 memnite doesn't really hurt.
Let's start with the tribute mage. I fear this won't make the cut. It's a creature that doesn't really do anything. Also turn 3 is a bit late to the party. Whir is just better.
Goblin engineer. I really like this fellow. It's a 2 drop that puts the sword directly in the graveyard. This is huge. Because often you have to spend a turn to play the sword. This guy tutors any (Artifact) missing piece and even helps against Artifact removal by doing some switcheroo when the opponent gets rid of a grinding station.
It does however costs red. This means you either go to 4 color or you have to cut something.
With 12 red sources it might actually work out...
Another question that I ask myself is: goed goblin. Ake trash for treasure playable in this deck? It is a 3 cost card, so maybe it is just too late for the effect it grands, but then again. It might open up some interesting sideboard options. The downside is that trash is also graveyard based so it is somehow still the same strategy which is vulnerable to sideboard hate
Other questions are: might goblin be enough to cut down the sword count to 3 or even 2? Sword is the centerpiece of the deck, so maybe this is all wrong, but sword is just so bad to have on hand, let alone in multiples. It might make the deck less clunky.
So then there is Urza. I like Urza. Especially because it is also a creature. This might sound weird, but because this deck is actually quite creature heavy, stuff will be hit by removal and then Urza shows up and can steal the game.
Urza means the deck needs to remain focused on blue. So this means Whir is an inclusion and you can't really diverse from this plan. It also means that 4 foundry is probably better than 3. I had 3 in the main and 1 in the side because foundry is pretty bad in multiplesand not great in every MU.
So Urza means there is another combo in the deck, which I like, but Urza won't be much more than an 2 off in my opinion.
A whole other approach is something similar to the deck that was played in the SCG live! Video of last week was it? A very blue focused version with 4 Urza, 4 Whir, 4 foundry and 4 Thoughtcast and.... 4 force of negation in the side. How spicy!
Must admit that Thoughtcast crossed my mind. Especially with Sly Requisitioner I often find myself on turn 3 with a grinding station on the field and just enough artifacts to play a sly, but having to tap the station as well, so the combo actually comes a turn lantern leaving sly vulnerable to removal. Maybe thought cast just draws enough to set up the combo just right.. I am not sure... You might even want to switch to semblance anvil. I really was not a fan of the deck. It was basicly a worse version if this deck, but with the goblin it might actually be consistent enough and it needs less pieces, leaving more room for cantrips artifacts and protection.
Lastly Mirrodin Besieged. I don't thin this is good enough. I have tested Sai and Saheeli and both don't really fit in this archtype. They come down when you already played your hand our, so their effect is very minimal.. Also the win effect is pretty bad. When you have binned 15 artifacts yo uahve either lost the game 5 turns ago, or you have your combo which means you are winning anyway. It Saks target so it is also not an alternative wincondotion.
So here are some lists.
4 Mishra's bauble
4 Mox opal
1 memnite
2 Welding Jar.
4 chromatic star
4 ancient stirrings
4 grinding station
4 sword of the meek
4 Thopter foundry
1 scrap trawler
4 Whir of invention
4 sly requisitioner
2 Urza, Uber Artifact overlord
18 Land of which 2 Darksteel Citadel
With Red
4 Mishra's bauble
4 Mox opal
1 memnite
2 Welding Jar
4 chromatic star
4 thoughtcast
4 gooblin Engineer
4 grinding station
3 sword of the meek
3 Thopter foundry
1 scrap trawler
3 Whir of invention
4 Sly requisitioner
These lists are just brewed up. I havsnt tested them, and they are probably not correct.
I hope this hells a bit. Keep brewing and keep testing!
Love,
Selene
Hey Cryptic Commander,
Thanx for taking the time to reply to my post.
Yes this is very true. I played legacy around that time, althugh it was my friend who played aggro loam back then (I played standstill/Fow based strategies at that time). I remember the list from back then, confidants, Mox diamonds, Tarmogoyfs, Chalice of the Void, Crusher just replaced Terravore, and indeed seismic assault. And yes the meta was very different. I might even be talking about 10-15 years back when Loam was Jund colors, because I don;t really remember punishing fie being a thing back then.
I totally understand the power of seismic assault. It's is the card that makes you win the game, it clears boards, it does almost everything you want. It is certainly extremely good in a creature heavy meta. It is the artillery of the deck that supports your ground troops.
However, I think playing red is a choice you make on how you want your deck to work. Like tarmogoyf is a great creature, the best value for it's cost, but you will not include this in an elves deck, because that is not what you want your deck to do, no matter how good tarmogoyf is as a creature. I know, this sounds a bit like I am explaingin magic to a chaild, i mean no offense. I am just saying that Assault is amazing in the deck where it works. And again you can choose how you want your deck to work.
I am glad that we share the opinion on these new loam cards they printed in Horizons. Although I disagree with 'the cherry on top' statement. In my opinion you choose to play less good cards to be able to play 1 really good one (Seismic asaault). Playing stugg like Wrenn*, Crusher, Koth and the like is a cost, not a welcome addition to the deck. Don't get me wrong, often it is good to play some less good cards to be able to play a game winner. Often this is more than worth it.
(* Wrenn looks great as an individual card. It provides tons of synergy. I like to judge cards on their worst scenario rather than just seeing the upsides. Playing against humans on the draw: You play wren, shoot down their Noble Hierarch, pass Turn, they play a Mantis Rider, put a counter on their Champion and kill Wren. Wren is pretty bad without protection. so it's most likely a 3 or even 4 drop. I do not particularly like this card a lot.)
You might be right on the faithless looting, I probably judged that card too quickly based on my general modern experience.
Flame Jab. I remember going to a GP a couple years back and a friend of mine made day two with a list with multiple flame jabs, loam and assault. He stil lis a big fan of the card and I certainly see the value. In a format with a lot fo creatures this is excelent removal ad, as you mentioned, a game winning card.
So we have: Assault, Looting and Flame Jab that are very good reasons to play red in loam. I read your arguments and I agree with this.
then we come back to the choice thing. I think choices should be made on at least the meta, a full analysize of the deck (does it do what it's supposed to do, does it do that effectively, consistently and can ti win from meta decks?) and and your personal playstyle. The last thing is arbitrary so let's not go into that too much. The meta changes, so that's also something that is a little bit arbitrary. I mean last year You had to be able to win from Shadow, last couple of months it was Phoenix and now it's Humans and Tron and who knows what comes after horizons. GR loam has not that much interaction, except from it's on board interaction, so I think its control and combo MU are rather bad. I hoped to adress those deck more with my list.
I understand that my explanation was a bit confusing, since I basicly esplained what every midrange deck tries to do. I get that, but not everyone is as focussed on competitive play and deckbuilding as others, so that's why.
About the Loam in the deck. It's already on a 2 off. So I think we share our thoughts about this card in the deck. As I mentioned before. I thought of Peatland, but I thought the cycling lands would be enough. Your argument that Knight can find the Peatland, which doesn't work with the cycle lands, is a solid argument to include at least one. Thanx for that.
Yes, more spoilers, more testing. Today I will test the deck so I'll know more after that. Maybe t is indeed just bad, I don't know. Midrange decks are very hard to judge on paper.
Thanx again for your feedback! Looking forward to more discussions about the deck in this group.
I totally agree on the seismic assault. That card has been a powerhouse since the early '00. It is certainly a reason to play red. In Modern however you don't have Mox diamond so you have to go pretty deep in red to be able to cast this consistently. But once this is on the field, this will go all the way, certainly.
Looting is good. It's just not what looting is in decks like dredge or Phoenix. I think they get better over the course of the game, but turn one, I don't know. But you're probably right. NY basic point was that red has a few strong cards, but you have to play too many suboptimal cards to fill the gap that seismic assault leaves with its RRR cost.
Thnx for the feedback. I Think Urborg is indeed a good addition. With Urborg there is also more room for colorless utility lands. That makes sense. Thanx again.
Thanx,
Yeah I thought about Urborg. Probably would be smart when so heavy on black. The steppe I don't know. I like the effect, but the white mana feels a bit off.
2 cycle land. Even with knights it's not too easy to get them, because you can't sac them to the knight. Maybe you are right. I mean 2 in the bin are enough. But with just 2 in the deck. You don't have such big cha ce to have them both.
Thanx for your imput!
I saw this threat is for all loam related decks (as I saw different versions in the first post, so I felt free to put a different version here too.
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So I have done some brewing. I am sure this isn't the best possible list. I'm not a veteran midrange player and midrange is a very difficult archtype to build in Modern, so feedback is very much appreciated. But alright here we go:
4 knight of the reliquary
4 tarmogoyf
3 dark Confidant
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Eladamri's Call
2 life from the loam
3 Path to exile
4 Fatal Push
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
4 verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 temple Garden
1 Godless shrine
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Stirring Wildwood
Sideboard:
1 collector ouphe
1 eidolon of rhetoric
2 fulminator Mage
1 Kambal, consul of allocation
2 graveyard hate Spellbomb/surgical
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
1 Sorin, Vengeful BloodLord
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
Alright so the deck is a little bit based on 4c Legacy Loam and uses a lot of aspect from modern midrange decks and old legacy aspects.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
Alongside this, it has solid beaters. Tarmogoyf and Knight are a quick clock when not appropriate dealt with. This follows a Jund-like pattern of play.
Knight can also tutor any land you need and has big synergy with loam.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Eledamri's Call provides a small toolbox. The maindeck isn't too exciting. Although Teeg can provide some nice on board hate against Tron and UW. Scooze is for GY strategies. Kalithas too. And it provides life to compensate the lifeloss from Confidant. The sideboard provides all kinds of hate card. Since most of them cost 3 mana, you can play them nicely on curve. Turn 2 E.Call EOT when you see what the opponent is up to and tutor the appropriate hate creature and play it on 3.
Loam is not a 4 off in this deck. This is because loam is not the main plan of this deck. It functions as a support factor for everything else. You can switch to the loam plan late game against grindy decks, if need be.
It provides card advantage with cycle lands, Fuels liliana of the Veil, the dredge part makes tarmogoyf bigger and lastly it recurs the lands from knight while also filling the grave. It can strip your opponents had. Late game and put down a landlock.
About the landbase. 3 cycle land might seem not enough. Remember that without loam they are even worse basics, so I rather hfind them later in the game than to be stuck with 2 in my opener. The rest is pretty basic I think. Some utility lands. Fetches and shocks. Since the deck plays confidant and already a draw engine with cycle land, I don't thing canopy lands are a good fit with the lifeloss.
So again, I don't know if this is it, Midrange decks always look great on paper, but often prove to be not so great on cardboard.
I like your imput, feedback and suggestions.
One thing I am not sure of is the Call. It's a great tutor. But the 2 mana might prove to be too costly. I thought about traverse, but I think delerium is not easily achieved in this deck. Glittering wish would be another alternative, although that changes the idea a bit. Call is instant, but one might say in this type of deck, that doesn't really matter.
Things I have considered:
Tireless tracker: a less good 3 drop than knight and a draw engine that costs 2 in stead of 1 like the cycle lands.
Birds of paradise: since the curve goes to 3 (and Kalithas) I think mana dorks of any kind really lower the value of individual cards in comparison to the ramp they provide.
Beat Assault= is really not a card you need in this archtype.
Other planeswalkers: I don't think you need them or want them. They need to be extremely good and fully align with this strategy. I think the new Sorin is okay in the side against burn like decks and as recursion. Maybe Kaya is okay but I would not really want to play too many planeswalkers.
I probably thought of more but can't really remember because I have dismissed them in an earlier stage.
Alright , thanx for reading and let me know if you have something add or adjust to this brew
Love,
Selene
I have played Grixis like 4 years back. Haven't touched it since, but this card looks pretty nice. What do you guys think about this? I can't really evauate it, but it seems printed for this archtype. Will it change anything or not? (with all the artifact hate printed, I will most likely switch to a control archtype and grixis might just be it)