I also went up to 5 sweepers to accommodate. It was more the 5 sweepers were seeming necessary in the meta and karn could also rebuild afterwards. I also feel like STORMY B is an untouchable lol. The card is just so savage and were the only ones keeping him alive!. I would have to tweak the whole sweeper and removal package to feel great about p and k.
Ill deff consider cutting a koth or two, ive thought about it in the past. I think his power is always going to be love/ hate. Hes a walker that doesn't generate cards or protect himself.But hes koth the hammer and wins us a lot of games through his ult and beats. Ive also played the second koth and swung with two mountains so many times lol. I didnt want to drop P and k, they do seem great with karn.I also went up to 5 sweepers to accommodate. It was more the 5 sweepers were seeming necessary in the meta and karn could also rebuild afterwards. I would have to rebuild the whole sweeper package unless i am just looking too hard into not wanting to sweep away our own board even with the traditional 3 sweepers.
i think our removal is poorly suited in the meta right now. anger is still solid but its missing so much. There are so many plaineswalkers right now that skred is really feeling bad. with this sort of artifact build. Even if we dropped stormy b on the top end. We could try galvanic blasts, shrapnel blasts, golem, p and k, pia nalar, even probably try whipflare as a sweeper that doesnt completely stomp us.
skred is barely hanging in the ring as far as modern is concerned. Ive been having some serious ups and downs with it in results. I dont think there is anything we couldnt try for a way forward or just for fun. Its hard to hear that good ole skred red is a back up deck to a lot of people for fun. try your lists and if your feeling strong in the meta try and go for a 5-0! ive had a few 4-1s in friendlies but will be giving a few experimental lists or runs at tourney play. EVEN IF ITS THE MARIT LAGE SPICE!
Im going to work on an arti list to get posted to see what anyone thinks. i really do like the idea of bringing p and k in. Everyone loves mom and pops one stop thopter shop!
bastion would probably be a 2 of? I often like to play higher numbers of scrying sheets but you may have to lower them to like a 2/2 split to make sure your hitting RR consistently. or go all in and run a 4 sheet 2/3 bastion package with a bunch of colorless and artis.
we also have to be careful for koth....runnning to many of any non mountains may hurt us. so 2 is probably a safe bet.
well if your going to run some bastions, maybe pyro and full moon would be the way to go. filter some awkward lands or get to your man lands. But its weird we always want moon but there are so many games where we just flood out
i run a 4 koth, 2 chandra, 2 karn list a the expense of p and k. P and k is relly good, i just didnt know what exactly to cut. so ive gone heavy on sweepers with 2 sweltering suns main as well ( sometimes swap for abrades) I generally run an artifact heavy sideboard, 3 d sphere, 1 grafdiggers, 3 dragons claw, spyglass to help maximize karns clock power post side.
bastion and the new golem are actually really interesting with karn and scrying sheets its just sucks blood moon shuts down their entire interaction lol. and we cant play snow without playing blood moon? Could we load an arti build with galvanic blast? shrapnel blast? full p and k, maybe a pia nalaar 1 of lol? beat people down with the artifact army?
we seem pretty weak to new karn though. without a threat down against him were kinda dead in the water. our removal package really isnt suited for all of the walkers out there karn and all the uw and lilis. We may have to start getting creative on how to keep ourselves alive out there so pyro has to be alteast worth a shot at a build.
Pyromancer does seem good. Is the fact that he gets hit by anger just not good enough? I havent found a creature that ive really liked angering into or one that doesnt have some downside with relic. Were really pretty good in all the matches where he shines though. we can anger away the creatures we planned on chumping and were good in the long game. We can chose to go to bigger creatures like hazoret, or extra walkers like karn. The one thing pyromancer does is give us a filter at a fairly crucial turn in the game. I dont mean to keep talking him up but ive really enjoyed karn scion of urza in skred for the draw or creature. He can sort of flex our hand a bit. I just think we want to spend t 3 mooning,pillaging,angering, or hope we have a mind stone to slam a walker. He is good but im not sure I will really test him as im still happy with karn and dont think he fits with our core values of mainboard relic and anger and big t3 slams
There seems to be a trend so far in horizons, alpine guide, goblin engineer, and seasoned pyromancer, all pitch stuff into the yard.
Alpine guide is potentially useful in cases when we are color splashing, you can get whatever dual land you want, its coming in tapped anyway. There is a small synergy I see with Madblind mountain. You can tutor out this land to help fix your top decks when you have big mana going and are sacking artis for cards, and activating sheets, if you dont like the card you activate and shuffle up. it takes 5 mana for you to sheet and madblind in the same turn. Totally doable in those late game floods. He seems okay v white or path to exile metas where you end up +1 on lands for playing him.
Seasoned pyro is a good card to have added to our maybeboard. I dont see how exactly it fits right now but if yard mechanics get any stronger its a possibility. Hes a bit of a non bo with relics as well. cool card. doesnt live through anger
goblin engineer another non bo with mainboard relics but this is a powerful magic card. If there becomes more grave pay off he could be better. doesnt live through anger. but its good to have this tool down the road. ( goblin arti skred anyone)
magmatic sinkhole- not great in our current build with our relics. but has potential if we keep filling the yard. we need a good 5 damage card, they are all conditional. There may be a time where this condition is best
arcums astrolabe is really nice with the snow synergy off sheets and it can get you that 1 draw. it doesnt help us ramp but its a nice card along with coldsteel hart we have options to evolve
icehide golem- the 2/2 for 1 snow bear honestly aiiiint bad. Again hes nice off the sheets package bad with the anger package
none of these cards can really survive in our existing shell. But i have been playing 2 karn scion of urza for a while now to help me get a little more aggressive at times and pump out chump blockers. Ice hide golem, relic , mind stone karn, karn activate, drop a t3 4/4. at 4 5/5 if uninterrupted. obviously the perfect progression would be another koth for a clock. I have gotten lucky and hit a couple rare t4 kills and a few other t5s without the icehide golem beats added in.
This really doesnt work with anger and really do not want to be a deck dependent on artifacts or a deck that gets blown out by strong forms of hate which are out there. and I dont see anything in this set that can take us away from anger. Whipflare? Shrapnel blast to make use of dead artis? I dont think theres any real reason to flex our deck now to much. but now we have a few directions for the future.
tradition/dragon/ artifact/graveyard/ goblin skred ( hasnt seemed horribly far off in testing, skirk prospector and squee was fun)
We also got 1 very solid upgrade! I think 4x pillage will be the package in the sideboard. gets around welding jar and wrecks tron and is just super flexible.
but this set is great for us as a community! Modern horizons is keeping our theme alive and well with a handful of cards that have potential in the future! Hope the last spoilers show us even more love! But if not the light is brighter then it has been in a while.
I play a ton of merfolk as well but the meta seems solid again for skred red.But I did just jam a few friendly leagues with skred. 4-1 and a 3-2. Tron,uw Humans and phoenix are all solid matches for us as top dogs. I will play it a few times for sure when the league formatting changes again on mtgo! So lets get skreddin!!
Ive been having reasonable success with list similar to this, and what Ive had the few recent 4-1s with. I understand there is a major difference between the two. One if creature aggro and one is control. They play different and try and do different things. What are the matches that are improved by playing dragons skred?. I dont think dragon skred is bad I just dont think its better then traditional skred. Outside of Dragon skred Sarkhan IS a bad planeswalker. He cannot defend himself or advance play the turn he comes down unless its late in the game where you dont need the mana for dragons anyway. Stand alone he isnt good, in dragon skred he is a very good engine. Cavalry that list above does look like a pretty dang strong aggro punch. But it has less hate towards graveyard decks, less action v linear decks, and combo.How does it do v early go wide strategy decks? I would love to here more about the comparisons but more specifically on the matches that get worse or better? Again I do not play Dragon skred as I have been on the OG path for years.There has just not been enough to make me think its time to convert! Sounds like Cavalry is the guy for dragon skred! Im looking forward to the primer! Your always keeping it insightful, thanks for giving us the update on the primer!
* again im struggling with toughness four and up as it creeps up in the meta with traditional skred. Having bodies to fight the bigger goons seems to be better in dragon skred. But my concern would be you dont land enough of them fast enough to put up that fight. Are you stabilizing better v pheonix?, are you putting up a fight v shadows and gurmags? Are you able to fight big bogles or do we still need to get lucky on the t3 sweeper? I deff see where heart of Kiran dropping early can give you defensive/offensive firepower against these bad boys and can help double up to threaten off attacks.
so cav maybe you can put that in the primer? The decks that we are strong against and the decks that we struggle against. And maybe the differences in those between the two decks?
I havent had any experience attempting dragon skred. But the problem I see with it from the beginning is I dont think it improves our odds against much of anything we are having troubles with. In dragon skred the fastest clock you can land is t 4. Koth/chandra is often still the best wincon, the dragons do most certainly help there but often its the ult that can get us through in the tricky matches.Were downgrading our great walkers for one who on his is own is just not good. He doesn't speed the clock the turn he drops and he cannot defend himself. Tossing heart of kiran in the ring to make up for this is just taking up extra slots, to do things our other walkers just do better. And Sarkhan is interesting and dragon skred seems really fun because who doesnt like smashing people with dragons. But im not sure there is much of a reason to convert other then fun. Traditional skred is still probably better in combo and control with a little bit harder hate in the side and the walker ultimate win cons.
If there is a time for heart of kiran the time to try him is now. Stony Silence is at a low but remember when that is back in the meta the crew is shut off and that card will be completely dead. So experiment now boys and girls and give us the results! but im not sure its better then anything were doing. It has a high ceiling but a pretty dang low floor.
Thundermaw hellkite in dragon or traditional skred is also near the point where he can probably be considered into making into 75s. Stormy b is still the main man and glorybringer is a nice complimentary piece. But the flying threats may be getting dense enough that the hellkite is worth it. But generally we dont struggle against the decks that go wide with creatures. He is really the biggest body we have access to as well as far as base stats.
Good luck out there Dragon Skredders!
However I am noticing a trend in having difficulty with toughness 4+. It seems to be creeping up. We struggle with shadow, a flipped thing,tron creatures, big goyfs or trackers, tasi, gurmag,big bogles,infect pumps hollow one, big humans or spirits, the baneslayer angel that comes in the side of the uw match. Dragon skred does seem to have a little more substance for that sort of fight that is a little bit of a struggle. Skred just had a really nice window in the meta that may be closing on us a little bit right now. We can still put up wins but as far as consistently beating a lot of tier 1 without dropping games to boggles letting a pheonix game slip, randomly facing add naus or dropping an unlucky game to tron. Control isnt always perfect. We can get wins in a lot of those matches but getting a 5-0 run seems hard at the moment. Ive turned in some 4-1s recently in comp leagues but my results can be streaky. Anyone noticing the toughness 4 trend? Is dragon skred doing better against these creatures or these decks? I am not sure without playing but I would imagine its not improving that problem all that much.
jankoz my man good work. Your doing some very aggressive stuff and testing a lot of items at once for a big tournament. So props to you for all that! So ive been jamming a ton of friendly and com tournaments with a variating lists feating karn 5 sweepers.
1) your land count seems low but you seem to be making up for it with those early jets. what are your utility lands. im on 3 sheets 1 mouth of ronom. I still think the filter is super valid. i could go back to but if your rolling its a solid play and its a solid play to go along with magma jets. I have thought about going to a 2/2 split with mouth of ronom with all the toughness 4 and up
2)4x jet is a lot, have you ran into problems where the 2x isnt enough or your having to rip it off just to mostly filter and not really have a great target? once your rolling im actually a big fan of what magma jet brings to the table. Meta seems a little rough for jet damage wise, but so is the rest of the red removal suit. 2 damage just seems really low for how big and how fast the threats can come. I personally have been running 2x suns for a total of 5 sweepers main. the 1 point of damage is relevant and its obviously wider. I personally chose to just sweep anthing t3 or less. I do like jet on the curve but it seems risky in this meta, it isnt hitting a lot. And if your using it to filter on t2 you may not have a target at all and thats not really using the card optimally. I know your coming in with p and k to help ping, and dark dwellers to help double cast to finish people off. Those are very intensive plays that I hope your able to pull off. Again your style is aggressive and i like that but it seems a risky at first glance. Jet is still just card disadvantage with little power on the upside without an ideal target. Also the fact of playing relic and attempting to snap back cards like magma jet is also just a non bo in your deckbuilding plan
3) hazoret is the man in this meta. He was out of my 75 above but i have recently swapped 1 for 1 of y squees. I really dont hate the second either. For me it would probably be in the side. But in the current meta it probably wouldnt burn you there. But it may become hard to reduce your hand if your stuck with 4 drops on the search for mana in a 21 land deck. Pitching it is more then fine but you really want to be casting your bombs unless there is no other option.
4) Stormbreath dragon is more then just a pro white beater. Storm breath dragon cant be killed by bolt or fatal push. Hes immune to all the basic forms of removal in the format. He has haste.He has flying And he has the nuke. I really am not sure playing with out old faithful is the way to go. I personally have gone to 2/1 split for the reason that path to exile is low. So i have chose glorybringer to help with toughness 4 targets and extra removal. Again as point 2 dark dwellers is just sort of non bo in deck building with 4x relics. Flying and haste and pro white and nuke is just better then menace, hes likely to deal 4 atleast on the turn he comes down. And all of that is not dependent of you having something in the yard. Dark dwellers is fun and aggressive if your yard is full of goodies. Stormbreath stays with the deckbuilding plan. Dark dwellers seems to stray from it.
5) lava coil i do like in the main and i have considered a roast recently but i just cant do it. Glorybringer is my option along with mouth of ronom to go with skred and chandra to deal with toughness 4 main. I have recently chosen a Combust in my sideboard in the current meta. Baneslayer angel is the big miss i see from lava coil but the uncounterable clause and instant speed v uw is helpful. It hits uw creatures at instant speed, vanifar pod, vizier combo, thing, humans, spirits. Obviously it has some big misses too. Tasigur, fishy, shadows, and goyfs, hollow oness. but 4 damage is not enough v most of those anyway. Shadow seems a rough match to begin with. I do like the lava coil/roast/combust call somewhere in the 75. props there
6) surgical i have wanted to experiment with for a while. It seems okay graveyard decks we could always use a little help in. I just dont own the extractions so ive never tried. With you relic clearing the yard it doesnt seem optimal though. In addition too its nice. Im sure we can hit some bombs with our ld and removal and possibly on things like cryptic or creatures we strugle to remove if someone like shadow pitches any into the yard. Grave decks this is an obvious plus. I would like to here more at the results you have with this card
7) you went haaaaard in the pain on lifegain lol. IM glad you could find room to make that call. burn seems to be a 40/60. I currently run 3 dragons claw and hope for the best. Your list actually may be slightly better v burn. Its a strangle matchup. Skreds can be horribly slow v burn if were on the draw. jets can atleast ping the player and get value. But the meta is prime to just dumpster burn with 6 lifegainers. Power meta gaming and that was the right call I just cannot find the spaces.
8) why are you giving up on the main man goblin rabblemaster in the side? i stil find him to be super helpful in getting a clock established on board. Your list is already weak to fighting other lists with ground troops and youve gone away with flying and your strongest clocks, and your strongest clock in the side
9) you seeem to be straight up punting combo. D sphere is amazing right now in the meta. It destroys amulet titan and tron and is good v pheonix. Still wrecks storm, its not great v add naus but it can be helpful. Since hive mind though that match has gone back to straight up unwinnable im playing 3 at the moment. designating 6 cards to burn seems to be a lot when its already winnable with tight play and 1 piece of hate. Again a good meta call for your tournament. Do you use the lifegain v pheonix ( i havent been able to make the slots available in my board when i do. I use the spheres.) just curious if that 6 card density helps in the match or if you find life gain just isnt enough to help v IZZET PHEONIX (mono red its obviously good). You have those jets to help filter for red spells so it ma be better for you.
I want to give you props for the positive finish. I dont mean to sound aggressive in my summary but i love talking mtg. Your list is on the aggressive side where you may be able to string together pay offs im not seeing. There does seem to be a few non bos in building but some very awesomevthings going on as weell that i wouldnt have had to sack to attempt in a gp. So I will always give dues to people getting aggressive and pushing the envelope in deck builds. Good luck with skredding hope to keep the skred chats alive!
Artifact consciousnesses is deff a thing. Ive wanted to try heart of kiran a few different times but I cannot bring myself to do it for more then just fun. It is shut off by stony silence. Karn is at least making some use of your artifacts if you get shut off. ( as far as I know the removal of a counter is an artifact activation) I havent had a problem without having enough artifacts, he fits both needs, karn can build a clock on his own, and he can defend himself and create creatures post sweepers.
I am not sure i will ever go back to eternal scourge. There doesnt seem to be much of reason to. Playing out of your graveyard or exile is exponentially more powerful.. You dont always just have relics kicking round even though you have 4. The format calls for you to crack them early in a lot of these graveyard matches. I understand he has worse stats and is a legend. But specifically you can cast squee into counterspells, you can discard it to lili, and you can repeatedly block with our without a relic. Ive thought about scourge in addition too, but control and midrange arent problems as is. You also get the small perk of giving rabblemaster additional +1. You dont have the colorless chump blocker for pro red but you have mouth of ronom and your new artifacts tokens to fill similar roles. Additional walkers also take damage off of you as a player, people still do not want to give you free artifacts or cards. I recommend givings Karn a try I dont see many others trying it. But im having fairly decent results and fun with karn added.
As for SSG. He wasnt in my original plans but with adding karn to all the other walkers, extra sweepers,dragons, moons, and spheres/rains/rabblers in the side. Churning things out a turn early is almost essential. 4 mind stone is solid and a 5th mana rock or magma jet is a solid option but over my couple hundreds of skred games ive really liked SSG. He gets you out a turn early, he can test removal and counter magic, chump block or go all the way as 2/2 beater. Simian is not a card that is set in stone in my book. But having a mana in hand to hit a relic or push through a counter spell payment.
Skred is a deck which plays big devastating bomb cards. You will lose the game if you do not get to 3 and probably 4 mana. Simian helps that fail safe of getting to 4 mana to play koths and chandras and get the mana rolling. The meta is so fast right now i dont see any other way. Skred is almost of the map completely because it is a mono red control/midrange deck in a meta that is fast and diverse. We need to hit our mana, and we need walkers, and we need big plays.
Scab-Clan Berserker just seems to cute . You get bonus from goblin rabblemaster without attacking by receiving free goblins. Also in the decks where you are purely racing and will not be disrupted rabblemaster will surely do more damage. 1/4/6/8 damage when left attacking and unchecked for 19. scab-clan Berserker would have to attack its first turn for 2 and cast a spell. an opponent to cast 1.5 spells the next turn and attack for 3. and then the third turn you to attack for 3 and cast 2.5 spells to keep up the same average of 19 if my math is close. 11 damage in attacking. and then potentially you get the other 8 damage if our opponent casts 4 spells. He may have potential to do more damage, but by the time you do the game would be over from rabblemaster. I could see them potentially actually working together. Scab Clan preventing you from getting combo killed and clocking for damage with rabbler at the same time but there just arent enough slots. Playing damping sphere just is probably better for the combo aspect and doesnt compete on your curve.
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Sarkhan as a stand alone walker is just not good. He cannot protect himself, he doesnt do anything for you when your topdecking, and he cannot use his minus ability on average on curve. The fact that he is a a 3 drop walker and left unchallenged he does a few things throughout the game while filtering or an early dragon is going to feel good. People are having some success with dragon builds and sarkhan but he deff is a build around card if you want to optimize his power he is nowhere near the power or koth add mana or attack or chanda does something for you that turn in any of her 3 modes, Or in the case of my build, karn, can draw you a card, or make a body to defend himself.
just put up two 4-1's with this list over the weekend
2-0 v amulet titan
2-1 v grishoalbrand
2-0 counters company
2-0 titanshift
0-2 vengvine
-----------------------------
2-1 Storm
2-0 amulet titan
2-1 Tron
0-2 Tron
2-0 Titanshift
deff some favorable matches in there. But not dropping matches to the combo decks and a lot of tier 1 in the line up. Tron still just seems like we need a little land a clock as well as the removal. Simian spirit guide and karn were really nice pieces in the tournies. Having 4 sphere helped masssively in these matches, even pulled 1 out on a t1. The 0-2 vengvine, it seems pretty much t3 sweeper or bust. Skred struggles to get a creature into our yard early and aggressively cracking the relics inst enough without the sweeper and i didnt find one in either game. The 0-2 to tron i just got troned on. G1 no moon in opener, they hit t3 tron, gg. The sideboard game i hit plenty of hate i couldnt get anyone down to start clocking and just naturually got to 7 mana. Couple rough losses but Lets go Skred red!
Hey yall. As everyone else i have had to redevelop my skred list. It took a me a little while to find something that was working but ive got the win rate back and seem to be doing reasonably well. Recently i have been playing karn scion on urza and 5 sweepers. Karn seems to be that body in those matches that chandra right now is not providing. I have had a lot of games where karn is really saving my butt. With 3 simians spirits guides helping out the mind stones with larger percentage t2-t3 moons/walkers. Karn can develope a strong board state,or draw you cards, generally it seems the opponent will give you lands but that feeds into our scrying sheets plans fairly well. Modern seems to be so strong right now in its diversity that i think we just want to be playing our bombs. I think simian, and the karns give us the punching power or that devestating haymaker power we love about skred. Getting out early moons walkers and dragons is what its all about! Squee the immortal to me just seems like a massive upgrade to scourge. I cannot tell you how many times that his graveyard mechanic has been so relevant and i have won solely on his beats alone. He along with our 3 simian spirit guides seems great in control. If we cant cheat those simians out early we just bait some counter magic or get in with a 4 damage heavy hitting ape and goblin team. Skred as you all know has always been a deck with some swingy matches and we desire to keep the aggro match as something we do not want to drop wins too. 5 sweepers seems to be necessary to make sure we hit 2 to put the nail into some of these decks. I hate losing to aggro with 3 sweepers and just not being able to see one. The meta has just sped into hyper aggro mode that we need to make sure were hitting 1 if not 2. Now we have to lose something somewhere to accommodate so i have unfortunately cut the mom and pop one stop thopter shop. P and k just are slow in the meta right now and we have added 2 karns on that curveslot. I love P and K and could possibly see them make the comback or into 75s or local meta calls. love me some stormbreath but we cut 1 and added a glorybringer. The exert is powerful and I wanted to make up for the little more removal from cutting 2 skred.
the SB is pretty generic. In the past i have always considered to sort of have a few flex slot in the standard side. We are missing our ricochet traps that used to be played in most side boards. I am trying to find the right balance in the side. Could possibly shave a sphere for a trap, or a boil and just keeping our numbers high on our bomb cards. Pithing needle, spyglass, grafdiggers, extra rabblers ,4th moon, boil, crumble to dust. Batterskull is also a nice card if you can land him. 4 sphere seems sort of excessive but now that we have Karn. We are really maximizing the power of those spheres and dragons claws in our sides with our ability to develop some bodies if we can land out walkers. Im leaning heavy there for how weak or combo matches generally are and a desire to really hamper big mana strategies i think its atleast a 3+. Abrade is a card i would love to fit in more of but i just havent exactly found the balance when ive tried it in higher numbers.
I would love to hear a little feedback or talk through any ideas anyones has in the current meta!
Ill deff consider cutting a koth or two, ive thought about it in the past. I think his power is always going to be love/ hate. Hes a walker that doesn't generate cards or protect himself.But hes koth the hammer and wins us a lot of games through his ult and beats. Ive also played the second koth and swung with two mountains so many times lol. I didnt want to drop P and k, they do seem great with karn.I also went up to 5 sweepers to accommodate. It was more the 5 sweepers were seeming necessary in the meta and karn could also rebuild afterwards. I would have to rebuild the whole sweeper package unless i am just looking too hard into not wanting to sweep away our own board even with the traditional 3 sweepers.
i think our removal is poorly suited in the meta right now. anger is still solid but its missing so much. There are so many plaineswalkers right now that skred is really feeling bad. with this sort of artifact build. Even if we dropped stormy b on the top end. We could try galvanic blasts, shrapnel blasts, golem, p and k, pia nalar, even probably try whipflare as a sweeper that doesnt completely stomp us.
skred is barely hanging in the ring as far as modern is concerned. Ive been having some serious ups and downs with it in results. I dont think there is anything we couldnt try for a way forward or just for fun. Its hard to hear that good ole skred red is a back up deck to a lot of people for fun. try your lists and if your feeling strong in the meta try and go for a 5-0! ive had a few 4-1s in friendlies but will be giving a few experimental lists or runs at tourney play. EVEN IF ITS THE MARIT LAGE SPICE!
Im going to work on an arti list to get posted to see what anyone thinks. i really do like the idea of bringing p and k in. Everyone loves mom and pops one stop thopter shop!
we also have to be careful for koth....runnning to many of any non mountains may hurt us. so 2 is probably a safe bet.
i run a 4 koth, 2 chandra, 2 karn list a the expense of p and k. P and k is relly good, i just didnt know what exactly to cut. so ive gone heavy on sweepers with 2 sweltering suns main as well ( sometimes swap for abrades) I generally run an artifact heavy sideboard, 3 d sphere, 1 grafdiggers, 3 dragons claw, spyglass to help maximize karns clock power post side.
bastion and the new golem are actually really interesting with karn and scrying sheets its just sucks blood moon shuts down their entire interaction lol. and we cant play snow without playing blood moon? Could we load an arti build with galvanic blast? shrapnel blast? full p and k, maybe a pia nalaar 1 of lol? beat people down with the artifact army?
we seem pretty weak to new karn though. without a threat down against him were kinda dead in the water. our removal package really isnt suited for all of the walkers out there karn and all the uw and lilis. We may have to start getting creative on how to keep ourselves alive out there so pyro has to be alteast worth a shot at a build.
Alpine guide is potentially useful in cases when we are color splashing, you can get whatever dual land you want, its coming in tapped anyway. There is a small synergy I see with Madblind mountain. You can tutor out this land to help fix your top decks when you have big mana going and are sacking artis for cards, and activating sheets, if you dont like the card you activate and shuffle up. it takes 5 mana for you to sheet and madblind in the same turn. Totally doable in those late game floods. He seems okay v white or path to exile metas where you end up +1 on lands for playing him.
Seasoned pyro is a good card to have added to our maybeboard. I dont see how exactly it fits right now but if yard mechanics get any stronger its a possibility. Hes a bit of a non bo with relics as well. cool card. doesnt live through anger
goblin engineer another non bo with mainboard relics but this is a powerful magic card. If there becomes more grave pay off he could be better. doesnt live through anger. but its good to have this tool down the road. ( goblin arti skred anyone)
magmatic sinkhole- not great in our current build with our relics. but has potential if we keep filling the yard. we need a good 5 damage card, they are all conditional. There may be a time where this condition is best
arcums astrolabe is really nice with the snow synergy off sheets and it can get you that 1 draw. it doesnt help us ramp but its a nice card along with coldsteel hart we have options to evolve
icehide golem- the 2/2 for 1 snow bear honestly aiiiint bad. Again hes nice off the sheets package bad with the anger package
none of these cards can really survive in our existing shell. But i have been playing 2 karn scion of urza for a while now to help me get a little more aggressive at times and pump out chump blockers. Ice hide golem, relic , mind stone karn, karn activate, drop a t3 4/4. at 4 5/5 if uninterrupted. obviously the perfect progression would be another koth for a clock. I have gotten lucky and hit a couple rare t4 kills and a few other t5s without the icehide golem beats added in.
This really doesnt work with anger and really do not want to be a deck dependent on artifacts or a deck that gets blown out by strong forms of hate which are out there. and I dont see anything in this set that can take us away from anger. Whipflare? Shrapnel blast to make use of dead artis? I dont think theres any real reason to flex our deck now to much. but now we have a few directions for the future.
tradition/dragon/ artifact/graveyard/ goblin skred ( hasnt seemed horribly far off in testing, skirk prospector and squee was fun)
We also got 1 very solid upgrade! I think 4x pillage will be the package in the sideboard. gets around welding jar and wrecks tron and is just super flexible.
but this set is great for us as a community! Modern horizons is keeping our theme alive and well with a handful of cards that have potential in the future! Hope the last spoilers show us even more love! But if not the light is brighter then it has been in a while.
I play a ton of merfolk as well but the meta seems solid again for skred red.But I did just jam a few friendly leagues with skred. 4-1 and a 3-2. Tron,uw Humans and phoenix are all solid matches for us as top dogs. I will play it a few times for sure when the league formatting changes again on mtgo! So lets get skreddin!!
1x mouth of ronom
3x Scrying Sheets
18x Snow-Covered Mountain
Creature (6)
1x Glorybringer
1x Hazoret the Fervent
2x Squee, the Immortal
2x Stormbreath Dragon
Sorcery (5)
3x Anger of the Gods
2x Sweltering Suns
Planeswalker (8)
2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
4x Koth of the Hammer
Instant (8)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Skred
Artifact (8)
4x Mind Stone
4x Relic of Progenitus
Enchantment (3)
3x Blood Moon
Sideboard (15)
1x Combust
3x Damping Sphere
3x Dragon's Claw
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
1x abrade
1x shattering spree
3x Molten Rain
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
Ive been having reasonable success with list similar to this, and what Ive had the few recent 4-1s with. I understand there is a major difference between the two. One if creature aggro and one is control. They play different and try and do different things. What are the matches that are improved by playing dragons skred?. I dont think dragon skred is bad I just dont think its better then traditional skred. Outside of Dragon skred Sarkhan IS a bad planeswalker. He cannot defend himself or advance play the turn he comes down unless its late in the game where you dont need the mana for dragons anyway. Stand alone he isnt good, in dragon skred he is a very good engine. Cavalry that list above does look like a pretty dang strong aggro punch. But it has less hate towards graveyard decks, less action v linear decks, and combo.How does it do v early go wide strategy decks? I would love to here more about the comparisons but more specifically on the matches that get worse or better? Again I do not play Dragon skred as I have been on the OG path for years.There has just not been enough to make me think its time to convert! Sounds like Cavalry is the guy for dragon skred! Im looking forward to the primer! Your always keeping it insightful, thanks for giving us the update on the primer!
* again im struggling with toughness four and up as it creeps up in the meta with traditional skred. Having bodies to fight the bigger goons seems to be better in dragon skred. But my concern would be you dont land enough of them fast enough to put up that fight. Are you stabilizing better v pheonix?, are you putting up a fight v shadows and gurmags? Are you able to fight big bogles or do we still need to get lucky on the t3 sweeper? I deff see where heart of Kiran dropping early can give you defensive/offensive firepower against these bad boys and can help double up to threaten off attacks.
so cav maybe you can put that in the primer? The decks that we are strong against and the decks that we struggle against. And maybe the differences in those between the two decks?
If there is a time for heart of kiran the time to try him is now. Stony Silence is at a low but remember when that is back in the meta the crew is shut off and that card will be completely dead. So experiment now boys and girls and give us the results! but im not sure its better then anything were doing. It has a high ceiling but a pretty dang low floor.
Thundermaw hellkite in dragon or traditional skred is also near the point where he can probably be considered into making into 75s. Stormy b is still the main man and glorybringer is a nice complimentary piece. But the flying threats may be getting dense enough that the hellkite is worth it. But generally we dont struggle against the decks that go wide with creatures. He is really the biggest body we have access to as well as far as base stats.
Good luck out there Dragon Skredders!
However I am noticing a trend in having difficulty with toughness 4+. It seems to be creeping up. We struggle with shadow, a flipped thing,tron creatures, big goyfs or trackers, tasi, gurmag,big bogles,infect pumps hollow one, big humans or spirits, the baneslayer angel that comes in the side of the uw match. Dragon skred does seem to have a little more substance for that sort of fight that is a little bit of a struggle. Skred just had a really nice window in the meta that may be closing on us a little bit right now. We can still put up wins but as far as consistently beating a lot of tier 1 without dropping games to boggles letting a pheonix game slip, randomly facing add naus or dropping an unlucky game to tron. Control isnt always perfect. We can get wins in a lot of those matches but getting a 5-0 run seems hard at the moment. Ive turned in some 4-1s recently in comp leagues but my results can be streaky. Anyone noticing the toughness 4 trend? Is dragon skred doing better against these creatures or these decks? I am not sure without playing but I would imagine its not improving that problem all that much.
1) your land count seems low but you seem to be making up for it with those early jets. what are your utility lands. im on 3 sheets 1 mouth of ronom. I still think the filter is super valid. i could go back to but if your rolling its a solid play and its a solid play to go along with magma jets. I have thought about going to a 2/2 split with mouth of ronom with all the toughness 4 and up
2)4x jet is a lot, have you ran into problems where the 2x isnt enough or your having to rip it off just to mostly filter and not really have a great target? once your rolling im actually a big fan of what magma jet brings to the table. Meta seems a little rough for jet damage wise, but so is the rest of the red removal suit. 2 damage just seems really low for how big and how fast the threats can come. I personally have been running 2x suns for a total of 5 sweepers main. the 1 point of damage is relevant and its obviously wider. I personally chose to just sweep anthing t3 or less. I do like jet on the curve but it seems risky in this meta, it isnt hitting a lot. And if your using it to filter on t2 you may not have a target at all and thats not really using the card optimally. I know your coming in with p and k to help ping, and dark dwellers to help double cast to finish people off. Those are very intensive plays that I hope your able to pull off. Again your style is aggressive and i like that but it seems a risky at first glance. Jet is still just card disadvantage with little power on the upside without an ideal target. Also the fact of playing relic and attempting to snap back cards like magma jet is also just a non bo in your deckbuilding plan
3) hazoret is the man in this meta. He was out of my 75 above but i have recently swapped 1 for 1 of y squees. I really dont hate the second either. For me it would probably be in the side. But in the current meta it probably wouldnt burn you there. But it may become hard to reduce your hand if your stuck with 4 drops on the search for mana in a 21 land deck. Pitching it is more then fine but you really want to be casting your bombs unless there is no other option.
4) Stormbreath dragon is more then just a pro white beater. Storm breath dragon cant be killed by bolt or fatal push. Hes immune to all the basic forms of removal in the format. He has haste.He has flying And he has the nuke. I really am not sure playing with out old faithful is the way to go. I personally have gone to 2/1 split for the reason that path to exile is low. So i have chose glorybringer to help with toughness 4 targets and extra removal. Again as point 2 dark dwellers is just sort of non bo in deck building with 4x relics. Flying and haste and pro white and nuke is just better then menace, hes likely to deal 4 atleast on the turn he comes down. And all of that is not dependent of you having something in the yard. Dark dwellers is fun and aggressive if your yard is full of goodies. Stormbreath stays with the deckbuilding plan. Dark dwellers seems to stray from it.
5) lava coil i do like in the main and i have considered a roast recently but i just cant do it. Glorybringer is my option along with mouth of ronom to go with skred and chandra to deal with toughness 4 main. I have recently chosen a Combust in my sideboard in the current meta. Baneslayer angel is the big miss i see from lava coil but the uncounterable clause and instant speed v uw is helpful. It hits uw creatures at instant speed, vanifar pod, vizier combo, thing, humans, spirits. Obviously it has some big misses too. Tasigur, fishy, shadows, and goyfs, hollow oness. but 4 damage is not enough v most of those anyway. Shadow seems a rough match to begin with. I do like the lava coil/roast/combust call somewhere in the 75. props there
6) surgical i have wanted to experiment with for a while. It seems okay graveyard decks we could always use a little help in. I just dont own the extractions so ive never tried. With you relic clearing the yard it doesnt seem optimal though. In addition too its nice. Im sure we can hit some bombs with our ld and removal and possibly on things like cryptic or creatures we strugle to remove if someone like shadow pitches any into the yard. Grave decks this is an obvious plus. I would like to here more at the results you have with this card
7) you went haaaaard in the pain on lifegain lol. IM glad you could find room to make that call. burn seems to be a 40/60. I currently run 3 dragons claw and hope for the best. Your list actually may be slightly better v burn. Its a strangle matchup. Skreds can be horribly slow v burn if were on the draw. jets can atleast ping the player and get value. But the meta is prime to just dumpster burn with 6 lifegainers. Power meta gaming and that was the right call I just cannot find the spaces.
8) why are you giving up on the main man goblin rabblemaster in the side? i stil find him to be super helpful in getting a clock established on board. Your list is already weak to fighting other lists with ground troops and youve gone away with flying and your strongest clocks, and your strongest clock in the side
9) you seeem to be straight up punting combo. D sphere is amazing right now in the meta. It destroys amulet titan and tron and is good v pheonix. Still wrecks storm, its not great v add naus but it can be helpful. Since hive mind though that match has gone back to straight up unwinnable im playing 3 at the moment. designating 6 cards to burn seems to be a lot when its already winnable with tight play and 1 piece of hate. Again a good meta call for your tournament. Do you use the lifegain v pheonix ( i havent been able to make the slots available in my board when i do. I use the spheres.) just curious if that 6 card density helps in the match or if you find life gain just isnt enough to help v IZZET PHEONIX (mono red its obviously good). You have those jets to help filter for red spells so it ma be better for you.
I want to give you props for the positive finish. I dont mean to sound aggressive in my summary but i love talking mtg. Your list is on the aggressive side where you may be able to string together pay offs im not seeing. There does seem to be a few non bos in building but some very awesomevthings going on as weell that i wouldnt have had to sack to attempt in a gp. So I will always give dues to people getting aggressive and pushing the envelope in deck builds. Good luck with skredding hope to keep the skred chats alive!
I am not sure i will ever go back to eternal scourge. There doesnt seem to be much of reason to. Playing out of your graveyard or exile is exponentially more powerful.. You dont always just have relics kicking round even though you have 4. The format calls for you to crack them early in a lot of these graveyard matches. I understand he has worse stats and is a legend. But specifically you can cast squee into counterspells, you can discard it to lili, and you can repeatedly block with our without a relic. Ive thought about scourge in addition too, but control and midrange arent problems as is. You also get the small perk of giving rabblemaster additional +1. You dont have the colorless chump blocker for pro red but you have mouth of ronom and your new artifacts tokens to fill similar roles. Additional walkers also take damage off of you as a player, people still do not want to give you free artifacts or cards. I recommend givings Karn a try I dont see many others trying it. But im having fairly decent results and fun with karn added.
As for SSG. He wasnt in my original plans but with adding karn to all the other walkers, extra sweepers,dragons, moons, and spheres/rains/rabblers in the side. Churning things out a turn early is almost essential. 4 mind stone is solid and a 5th mana rock or magma jet is a solid option but over my couple hundreds of skred games ive really liked SSG. He gets you out a turn early, he can test removal and counter magic, chump block or go all the way as 2/2 beater. Simian is not a card that is set in stone in my book. But having a mana in hand to hit a relic or push through a counter spell payment.
Skred is a deck which plays big devastating bomb cards. You will lose the game if you do not get to 3 and probably 4 mana. Simian helps that fail safe of getting to 4 mana to play koths and chandras and get the mana rolling. The meta is so fast right now i dont see any other way. Skred is almost of the map completely because it is a mono red control/midrange deck in a meta that is fast and diverse. We need to hit our mana, and we need walkers, and we need big plays.
Scab-Clan Berserker just seems to cute . You get bonus from goblin rabblemaster without attacking by receiving free goblins. Also in the decks where you are purely racing and will not be disrupted rabblemaster will surely do more damage. 1/4/6/8 damage when left attacking and unchecked for 19. scab-clan Berserker would have to attack its first turn for 2 and cast a spell. an opponent to cast 1.5 spells the next turn and attack for 3. and then the third turn you to attack for 3 and cast 2.5 spells to keep up the same average of 19 if my math is close. 11 damage in attacking. and then potentially you get the other 8 damage if our opponent casts 4 spells. He may have potential to do more damage, but by the time you do the game would be over from rabblemaster. I could see them potentially actually working together. Scab Clan preventing you from getting combo killed and clocking for damage with rabbler at the same time but there just arent enough slots. Playing damping sphere just is probably better for the combo aspect and doesnt compete on your curve.
[/quote]
2-0 v amulet titan
2-1 v grishoalbrand
2-0 counters company
2-0 titanshift
0-2 vengvine
-----------------------------
2-1 Storm
2-0 amulet titan
2-1 Tron
0-2 Tron
2-0 Titanshift
deff some favorable matches in there. But not dropping matches to the combo decks and a lot of tier 1 in the line up. Tron still just seems like we need a little land a clock as well as the removal. Simian spirit guide and karn were really nice pieces in the tournies. Having 4 sphere helped masssively in these matches, even pulled 1 out on a t1. The 0-2 vengvine, it seems pretty much t3 sweeper or bust. Skred struggles to get a creature into our yard early and aggressively cracking the relics inst enough without the sweeper and i didnt find one in either game. The 0-2 to tron i just got troned on. G1 no moon in opener, they hit t3 tron, gg. The sideboard game i hit plenty of hate i couldnt get anyone down to start clocking and just naturually got to 7 mana. Couple rough losses but Lets go Skred red!
22 lands:
18 snow mountains
3 scrying sheets
1 mouth of ronom
spells:
4 bolt
2 skred
3 anger of the gods
2 sweltering suns
3 blood moon
the artis:
4 relic
4 stone
The walkers:
4 koth
2 chandra
2 karn, scion of urza
creatures:
2 stormbreath dragon
1 glorybringer
3 simian spirit guide
2 squee the immortal
sideboard:
4 molten rain
4 damping sphere
2 goblin rabblemaster
3 dragons claw
1 abrade
1 shattering spree
the SB is pretty generic. In the past i have always considered to sort of have a few flex slot in the standard side. We are missing our ricochet traps that used to be played in most side boards. I am trying to find the right balance in the side. Could possibly shave a sphere for a trap, or a boil and just keeping our numbers high on our bomb cards. Pithing needle, spyglass, grafdiggers, extra rabblers ,4th moon, boil, crumble to dust. Batterskull is also a nice card if you can land him. 4 sphere seems sort of excessive but now that we have Karn. We are really maximizing the power of those spheres and dragons claws in our sides with our ability to develop some bodies if we can land out walkers. Im leaning heavy there for how weak or combo matches generally are and a desire to really hamper big mana strategies i think its atleast a 3+. Abrade is a card i would love to fit in more of but i just havent exactly found the balance when ive tried it in higher numbers.
I would love to hear a little feedback or talk through any ideas anyones has in the current meta!