Whether or not we want to make the trade is a hard question with no obvious answer. Testing will have to show us the way. However, what I can say (based on my experiences yesterday) is that the grindy matchups need some help. In long grindy games, the current version of BG Rock has got to be one of the worst Thoughtseize/Liliana decks ever built. It has 8 discard spells, zero guaranteed two-for-ones like Souls or Huntmaster, and every single threat in the deck can be cleanly answered by both Fatal Push and Path to Exile. This is a very big problem against any midrange mirror and any control matchup. I don't know if this can be solved without splashing for Lingering Souls. Tireless Tracker is the current idea based on the popular decklists, but in my opinion it just isn't nearly as good. I know an unchecked Tracker just wins the game, but the floor is pretty low. When it gets killed on sight, the trade ends up being 3 mana + a clue for a Fatal Push or Bolt or Path. That is definitely not good enough. I think Grim Flayer can help a little bit with fighting token armies because it has trample, but I don't know what else can be done without dipping into white or red.
As for Field of Ruin versus control, it's good against Colonnade but that's about it. Actually, as I'm typing this, that comment makes me remember that 2 Tectonic Edge was extremely common in Jund back in ~2013-2014 when the metagame was dominated by Jund/Twin/UWR Control (i.e. Celestial Colonnade and Raging Ravine were serious concerns), and now that Colonnade is good again perhaps it's time to bring that idea back, but with an upgrade! Like you could play the following mana base in a conservative Abzan build (i.e. playing W just for Souls and maybe Stony Silence):
@ Ayiluss and FlyingDelver: I am not arguing that the mana base is rather inconsistent. The idea was just that you might want to trade off consistency for access to FoR + Souls because of metagame considerations. I think you want FoR because Tron is popular and you want Souls because Control is popular. Maybe it's worth the tradeoff, maybe not. But I think it is clearly a question worth asking because people have played large amounts of Tectonic Edge in Jund or Abzan before to good success when the metagame was right for it. Here are some more examples of major tournament top8 finishes with GBx + a lot of colorless lands:
I would not do that, 8 discard spells is one of the appeals from this deck which makes it great. You see, we don't have endless answers for anything on the board. Discard is really strong in the current metagame, as it prevents opponents from doing their stuff. I think 14 creatures + the manland is enough. Compared to jund thats actually more individual creatures. I know Ravine hits way harder, but thats why you have to run the discards, to slow opponents down.
There is also more chance you have lines like: Turn 1 discard, turn 2 Bob into turn 3 FoR + a second discard. That way you have already disrupted the opponents gameplan twice and also blew up a land from them. I would not cut any discard honestly.
The other BGx decks don't have endless answers either. If you compare the Frankfurt list to traditional Abzan lists, you will see that the Frankfurt list runs the same amount of removal spells as Abzan +/- 1. We see from this comparison that BG Rock makes room for the extra discard spells by cutting threats. Abzan could do that but it doesn't, so I think this is something that requires more careful thought. It's possible that it's right, but throughout the last few years, BGx decks more or less settled on six or seven, so I am highly skeptical.
Flyer, you really seem to be into the rock plan...but isn't a shadow deck better if those are the decks you're trying to beat? I wonder if traverse shadow is dangerous to play due to jeskai and FOR decks.
I don't think 4x scoozes is ever right. That's far too many. What happened to replacing 1x with e wit?
Here is my bold prediction: I think Field of Ruin is a very powerful card that the community is just being slow to adopt because it is not obviously powerful. I think in the long run, Field of Ruin will find its way into in any deck that can reasonably support it. I think every deck in Modern will need a plan to play through Field of Ruin similarly to how every deck in Legacy has to think about how it plays through Wasteland. So yes, I do think that Traverse Shadow has a big flaw that is only going to be exploited more and more over time.
Now for a history lesson: I completely forgot BGx can play Tectonic Edges and do well. Here is a top-4 list from GP Birmingham last year: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16525&d=302196&f=MO
I wonder if we can have our cake and eat it too by following this general template. Here is one proposed decklist:
I've organized the mana base very explicitly to make the counting easier.
Not counting Field of Ruin for anything, this deck has 17 black sources, 16 green sources, and 11 white sources. The white is strictly just to cast Lingering Souls, Stony Silence, and a singleton Path, which takes the "universal removal" slot away from the Dismember/Go for the Throat/Slaughter Pact found in BG Rock. I feel that Path has always been a "necessary evil" in Abzan, but you really can't play very many with this mana base. Essentially if you ever draw two in the early game, it is a complete disaster, and it's possible even the first is wrong.
The basic Plains looks very bad in this build, but I think you need it because you will sometimes want to find it off of Field of Ruin. The Spellbomb is there just to help turn on the Grim Flayers. It's possible that the Flayers should just be Tireless Trackers, but I felt that 9 three-drops was already a little heavy and Souls occupies the "value" slots that Tracker normally fills. It's also possible Bob is wrong, I suppose.
Another thing: is 4 IoK, 4 TS really needed in the GB rock deck? Usually GBx runs 6 discard spells, sometimes 7. I think trimming one or two of those for additional threats might be right. The deck as is feels threat light to me compared to other GBx. Jund has Raging Ravines to complement their creature suite and Abzan usually has 13 creatures + 4 Souls + manlands. On the other hand, GB Rock has 14 creatures + Hissing Quagmire, but Quagmire is usually much better on defense than on offense.
I am tempted to cut 1 or 2 discard spells for Grim Flayers.
Why are we trying so hard not to play lingering souls?
I couldn't agree more based on my experiences today testing out the GB Rock deck.
I played the Frankfurt list to a 2-4 finish at a ~50-player win-a-Mox-Ruby tournament in NJ today. Two changes: -1 Overgrown Tomb, +1 Twilight Mire in the main (good), -1 LtLH +1 Thrun in the side (awful choice on my part). I beat Abzan and Jund and lost to Abzan, UB Faeries, Tron, and Mardu Pyromancer. Souls tokens, Elemental tokens, and Faerie Rogue tokens kicked my ass all day; Kitchen Finks was also hard to deal with. I didn't get LtLH +1 or Night of Souls Betrayal active, to be fair, but feeling so helpless against anything resembling a two-for-one felt awful. With Jund and Abzan you can "fight value with value" (e.g. Lingering Souls, K Command, Huntmaster, whatever) but GB Rock has no value card of that caliber.
I want to make one tactical point along these lines, for those who are not aware of this interaction: Maelstrom Pulse is dangerous to cast on a squad of tokens against open mana in this context because of if the opponent removes Maelstrom Pulse's target with their own removal spell, Maelstrom Pulse is countered! However, besides the singleton LtLH, this is the only tool in the mainboard to get back to parity against Souls (you can get lucky and sniping a Souls with Ooze, but it's not a complete answer).
I understand that I lost the matchup lottery pretty hard - straight GB is surely the midrange deck that is worst in midrange mirrors, and today I played against five midrange decks. I think that your metagame really has to be dominated by unfair decks for this to be a better choice than Abzan. Abzan has a better all around game just because Lingering Souls makes long games much more winnable. It was very strange playing a GBx midrange deck where I didn't feel like I had the supreme lategame / topdeck ability!
As for other points brought up here: 4 Ooze felt great, I don't know why we never tried that before. It's just the best midgame/lategame threat imaginable, and it gets killed on sight so often that having backup is great. Hissing Quagmire was fine, nothing to write home about. Field of Ruin was excellent. I think it is actually much better than GQ or Tec Edge. Every time I got to snag a manland with Field, it felt amazing. The activation cost is just so cheap and the basic land coming in untapped leads to some pretty great lines.
I think the lesson of GB Rock doing well in Frankfurt is just that (a) playing 4 Scavenging Ooze is actually good right now, and (b) Field of Ruin is really good. Abzan can accommodate more Ooze, but I doubt it is really possible for Abzan to play more than like 1 or 2 Field of Ruin... this is really a tough balancing act.
Hi Polymorph, thanks for the report. Can you say a little more about how Matter Reshaper performed? Was it awkward having no 2-drop threat? Sculler fills the curve kind of nicely IMO
His general opinions about the list going forward:
- He seems really high on Kalitas! Even wanted to play one main.
- Wanted another Thoughtseize main.
- Wanted to play more Fatal Push but didn't have enough enablers for Revolt. Maybe we can play more Push in the 4 Marsh Flats version of the deck. I have always thought Path is super awkward in midrange decks but you just kinda had to play it if you didn't have access to Terminate. Maybe Push is close enough.
- Likes the Ratchet Bomb as a maindeck out to random nonsense like Blood Moon, but is Cast Out just better?
- Surprisingly cuts Smasher for Kalitas in the midrange matchups, not at all what I would have thought. I just don't see the logic here, anyone have any ideas? Usually you just cut all the discard for threats if you expect to be in the classic midrange topdeck war.
- Feels that the big mana decks are not totally hopeless; Fulminator Mage is in the sideboard!
I'd probably put in another Swamp since you seldom need to find the Wastes off of Path and then with another black source swap the Wraths for Damnations. Fragmentize is probably worse than Disenchant. Sorcery speed hurts a lot versus Affinity, which is its primary use. Maybe cut a Thoughtseize or two for more threats, you already have 8 creatures that disrupt your opponent's hand, and these are the worst topdecks. Otherwise looks more or less fine.
14 black sources is Karsten's minimum recommendation for reliable T1 Thoughtseizes, and BGx has historically run around 16, so 13 is not not super far off. However, I think you are definitely right that I am probably overestimating the importance of playing through Ceremonious Rejection and random other blue permission, but I want at least a couple Caverns to at least make it possible to play around it.
As for fetches/targets, I've almost never found myself in a situation where I had somehow managed to land all my targets and yet was stuck on 4 or 5 lands, nevermind the situation where that happened and 4 or 5 lands was not enough to play out my hand as I wished. I guess I just feel like the marginal value of a useful land over a dead fetch is pretty small when you already have 4-5+ lands, whereas the marginal value of a fetch over a target is very high in the early game. In any case, if I were to add targets, I'd sooner play another basic than a second Shrine. In my years of experience playing BGx midrange decks, I have often found myself in situations where I've drawn early multiple shocks against an aggressive deck and wished the second shock was literally any other land.
Awesome play report, iostream! Thanks. I like your land package, looks like the only barrier to T2 Sculler is having Temple or both Swamps in a two-land keep. Seems to me you could cut Fetid Heath for another dual (a shock maybe?) since you have all those Caverns for C. I agree that threat density is important, though, which is why I like the Mutavaults for now. The fact that Eternal Scourge is so hard to get rid of has also seemed to help me with my threat density. I love Pithing Needle in the side BTW, but I also love having Anguished Unmaking in the 75. Cast Out seems like a reasonable replacement for Unmaking, especially in the main. Both Needle and Cast Out (and O=Ring) seem much worse than Unmaking against UW Control, though, which can bounce with Cryptic Command and also neutralize permanent-based hate with Detention Sphere.
Heath for another dual is probably fine, although I'd really like to squeeze in a Mutavault or two. But I'd like to go on a quick aside about playing multiple shocklands, since I think this is a mistake:
- I don't like the second Godless Shrine. As soon as you have one, the second immediately becomes a painful draw, and in my mana base you have 4 Flats to find it. I really don't think you need 2 of these.
- In general, from playing a ton of Legacy, I strongly prefer to play fewer targets than fetches. Just look at any Legacy land base, there are always at least as many fetches as targets, even in decks that don't run Brainstorm. This is because the fetch is always better to draw than any of its targets since the fetch can get any target, and if you have no targets, it means you have a lot of lands in play.
- I only play 4 targets because I want enough basics to fetch against Path to Exile. If I never had to play through Path, I'd probably cut the second Swamp.
Anyway, about Mutavault:
I was looking through some of my old BW writeups (for instance, this one), and I think we can afford to be somewhat greedier. I'll test the following manabase:
Counting Cavern, there are 17 black sources and 16 white sources, and without Cavern there are 13 black and 12 white sources. A more conservative person might run a split between Cavern and Mutavault instead of Concealed Courtyard and Mutavault, but I really want to cast Reality Smasheron curve. This mana base is a bit greedy for a deck that's trying to cast turn 1 Thoughtseize, but not greedier than what I was playing in February 2016
I'll give this a shot (with Pack Rats!) at a local Modern 1k in a week and a half.
As for Cast Out versus alternatives, I agree that it's not the best type of this effect against UW control, but I think it's the most maindeckable choice since it cycles.
1) Go-wide creature decks like Company, Elves, and Merfolk are currently not addressed adequately by current builds, but I think those matchups are very fixable without conceding too much in other matchups. We just need to run some sweepers.
2) Pure control decks. I know we beat the more midrangy snapcaster decks pretty badly, but it felt awful to look across the table from 6-drop Elspeth or Gideon, AOZ. We need some plan against counterspells-into-planeswalkers, and I think there are many playable options here. Needles, Vindicate effects, O Ring effects, etc. I don't know what is the right idea. Actually Pack Rat maindeck might be very helpful here since it sort of forces them to find Supreme Verdict or bust.
3) Big mana decks. Tron and Valakut have just always been hard matchups for midrange decks and require significant concessions in other matchups since you need to play so many cards to turn those matchups around. Historically, Jund players who really wanted to beat Tron had to play like 4 Fulminators and 2 Slaughter Games. But it's not even clear to me that this is enough since Eldrazi Tron is the most popular big mana deck now. Eldrazi Tron can operate perfectly well without Tron online, so even the traditional choices like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter may not be good, and Karn isn't as good of a name with Slaughter Games (or in our case, Cranial Extraction) as it is against traditional Tron. I have to be honest, I don't know how we would fix that matchup even in principle. I think the strategy is to just strip their hand, race as fast as you can, and hope they draw too many bricks before we kill them.
All things considered, I think you can't gear your deck to beat everything, and right now, I'd rather concede the Etron matchup in the current metagame than the wide creature matchups + dedicated control matchups. That being said, it's possible we can somehow gear the deck to go underneath them better, which should theoretically also help out against Control, but I don't know how to do this well off the top of my head.
As for specific cards:
Have not tested Eternal Scourge. Have looked at Knight of Glory, and it's just worse than Crusader in this build IMO. With my mana base, Crusader is just as castable, it's a slightly faster clock, and it has applications against more traditional BGx decks as well. Reality Smasher is already as big or bigger than everything except a powered up DS, so I'm not sure Exalted really matters.
I think your mana is the best for getting sculler on turn 2. Do you think it's too greedy going down 2 caverns for 2 mutavaults?
In addition, I agree on going up to 4 smashers.
Squeezing in 2 smugglers copters could be really strong. It has great synergy with lingering souls and will help with your dead top decks.
How did you feel about your sideboard? I love mirran crusader but is it really needed in this deck?
As stated before someone was bought Gideon was win more. Would Sorin be more powerful?
Are the additional RIP's needed? Would graffdiggers cage be more versatile?
Also how about ratchet bomb, Lilliana last hope, flaying tendrils to kills tokens and go wide strategies?
Main concern with Copter is that it's such a bad topdeck. It's just the worst on an empty board.
An idea that just came to mind: Pack Rat?! Craig Wescoe beat my ass with Pack Rat + Lingering Souls in day 2 of GP Worcester in 2014, and that's a memory that just bubbled up when I was thinking about this issue. It plays really well with Mutavaults, as well.
Sideboard was just OK, it needs tuning. I basically just made little changes to Braverman's list, but I was not really satisfied. As for specific cards:
- Crusader is an EZ win button versus any black discard deck with Lightning Bolt being so unpopular these days. Loved it.
- Gideon wasn't very good, and Sorin doesn't seem much better. These are cards that made more sense when GBx and blue-based control decks were more prevalent. But now Modern is a format where the best midrange deck is running a pile of one-mana Negates in the maindeck, so I think that's not the angle you want to take. Maybe Blight Herders would be better?
- RiP was my attempt at 100% locking down the graveyard-based matchups and DS matchups since I expected those to be the two most popular kinds of strategies at the GP. Those decks can pace your Relics, especially in post-board games, and I liked having access to them to make sure nothing goes wrong. That being said, they are certainly not addressing weaknesses, and I can understand cutting them if you expect a more diverse field.
- All your sweeper suggestions seem totally reasonable, and I have no idea which is best. I like Liliana, the Last Hope the most since in addition to being a good x/1 killer, I can actually imagine sneaking it under Stubborn Denial to out-grind DS decks. A second Damnation might also be a reasonable choice.
- One thing I felt was missing in the sideboard was some sort of Needle effect. Planeswalkers are really good against us.
EDIT: regarding Mutavault, if I were to make room for 2 Mutavault, I'd probably try cutting 2 Courtyards just because those coming into play tapped as your fourth land sometimes screws you out of an on-curve Smasher, i.e. the drawback is real in this deck.
I scrubbed out really hard in GP Vegas (2-4) playing a deck very close to Michael Braverman's 10th place deck from SCG Charlotte. Frustrating since I was straight crushing it in side events the previous day. I had a bye, beat Burn, and lost to Merfolk, Eldrazi Tron, UW Control, and 8-Rack. Against Merfolk and UW control, in two games each match, I got screwed by multiple Spreading Seas...
The deck felt quite good although a bit threat light. Cavern made Tidehollow Sculler reliably castable, but losing Mutavault made it hard to back up the hand disruption with appropriate pressure. For instance, in a match against 8-rack (traditionally a good matchup for midrange Lingering Souls decks), I just couldn't get there since I didn't draw enough threats to outpace my opponent, and I didn't have Mutavault to fall back on. Similarly, in my match against UW Control, I just didn't have enough ways to pressure his planeswalkers, which seemed completely unbeatable every time they resolved (although in fairness, the Spreading Seas issue I mentioned before definitely was relevant). Some of this can be chalked up to variance, like sometimes you play really tight and your draws just don't come together. But it definitely suggests upping the threat count.
That being said, I think Cavern over Mutavault is right because Tidehollow Sculler is just that good and because Ceremonious Rejection is a real card now. People in this thread seem way too worried about the opponent getting the card back, but that's not the point. They usually have to spend a card to get the card back, and the point is that you get to limit their options by taking the appropriate card. For instance, you will sometimes see a hand with Terminate and Push, and you're supposed to take Push so that they have to Terminate your otherwise-non-threatening 2/2 to get their card back (instead of, say, Terminating a Reality Smasher). Another example: you can usually slow Burn down by a turn by taking the most tempo-positive card in their hand like Boros Charm or Lightning Helix. If they leave the Sculler alone, it's better than an Inquisition, and otherwise they have to burn a Bolt and some tempo to get their card back, which has the same effect overall. Sculler makes it so easy to plan your next few turns, I love it.
I would say that it's probably right to just cut some of the maindeck interaction for more creatures that can beat face. Cast Out was actually fine as a maindeck out to random permanents like Karn, and I'd like to keep playing it. The cycling mode is great when you don't need it. I would probably cut the Dismember and the Collective Brutality for the fourth Reality Smasher and some other threat. Both those cards were pretty medium and seemed more like sideboard material. But it's possible you're supposed to cut all 3 one-of's for more threats.
I don't like Displacer since we don't want to take turns off to flicker stuff. Shriekmaw also seems a bit below curve; 3/2 for 5 is just not where we want to be, and its trigger is not a may ability, which means it might get stranded in hand against Grixis Shadow, which is just unacceptable. Hangarback Walker is an old piece of BR Processors tech that might fit the bill in small numbers. Matter Reshaper? Smuggler's Copter?
On the mana side, I hated Fetid Heath, that card plays so awkwardly when you want to use a colored mana on your turn to cast a discard spell or creature but also want to hold up a colored mana for a removal spell on your opponent's turn. At least once I had to time a removal spell incorrectly. Also makes Spreading Seas better against us. Should have just been the fourth Courtyard. Marsh Flats was also great. With full playsets of Cavern, Flats, Courtyard, and Caves, your mana is 100% pristine, everything is always castable, it's great. Perhaps it's too good, and we should get greedy and cut some of it for Mutavaults?!
Also, note I played the 24th land, I really think it's correct. We're trying to cast 5 drops and get full value out of Souls in the late game...
Overall I feel like the deck is really well-positioned and plays great. It just beats the ***** out of Death's Shadow and all the GY decks. I know that's weird to say having just gotten completely wrecked at Vegas, but sometimes you play well and the draws just don't come together. There's a lot of tuning left to be done with this archetype, and I think it's worth working on with Modern so wide open. I refuse to believe that a format where Taking Turns can top 8 is a format where this deck can't.
Sorry, I must be a bit thick, since I am not quite understanding and need slightly more explanation. I assume what we're actually interested in is Rubble since otherwise we'd just play Mana Leak, but I can't imagine a situation where I would want to take a turn off from flashing back Faithless Looting or whatever in order to sort-of Time Walk our opponent.
As for Field of Ruin versus control, it's good against Colonnade but that's about it. Actually, as I'm typing this, that comment makes me remember that 2 Tectonic Edge was extremely common in Jund back in ~2013-2014 when the metagame was dominated by Jund/Twin/UWR Control (i.e. Celestial Colonnade and Raging Ravine were serious concerns), and now that Colonnade is good again perhaps it's time to bring that idea back, but with an upgrade! Like you could play the following mana base in a conservative Abzan build (i.e. playing W just for Souls and maybe Stony Silence):
With the FoR present to help against Control. It obviously isn't as good as 4 FoR versus Tron, but it's something.
top 4 at GP Birmingham 2017: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16525&d=302196&f=MO
top 8 at MKM Madrid 2016: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=13028&d=276044&f=MO
top 16 at GP Kobe 2014: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8053&d=246401&f=MO
winner at GP Boston 2014: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=7905&d=245457&f=MO
top 8 at GP Boston 2014: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=7905&d=245452&f=MO
All those mana bases look pretty bad. But they did well regardless because the metagame was right for it.
The other BGx decks don't have endless answers either. If you compare the Frankfurt list to traditional Abzan lists, you will see that the Frankfurt list runs the same amount of removal spells as Abzan +/- 1. We see from this comparison that BG Rock makes room for the extra discard spells by cutting threats. Abzan could do that but it doesn't, so I think this is something that requires more careful thought. It's possible that it's right, but throughout the last few years, BGx decks more or less settled on six or seven, so I am highly skeptical.
Here is my bold prediction: I think Field of Ruin is a very powerful card that the community is just being slow to adopt because it is not obviously powerful. I think in the long run, Field of Ruin will find its way into in any deck that can reasonably support it. I think every deck in Modern will need a plan to play through Field of Ruin similarly to how every deck in Legacy has to think about how it plays through Wasteland. So yes, I do think that Traverse Shadow has a big flaw that is only going to be exploited more and more over time.
Now for a history lesson: I completely forgot BGx can play Tectonic Edges and do well. Here is a top-4 list from GP Birmingham last year: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16525&d=302196&f=MO
I wonder if we can have our cake and eat it too by following this general template. Here is one proposed decklist:
3 Blooming Marsh
4 Field of Ruin
2 Hissing Quagmire
(fetchables)
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
(fetches)
3 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
4 Dark Confidant
2 Grim Flayer
3 Lingering Souls
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Fatal Push
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
1 Flaying Tendrils
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I've organized the mana base very explicitly to make the counting easier.
Not counting Field of Ruin for anything, this deck has 17 black sources, 16 green sources, and 11 white sources. The white is strictly just to cast Lingering Souls, Stony Silence, and a singleton Path, which takes the "universal removal" slot away from the Dismember/Go for the Throat/Slaughter Pact found in BG Rock. I feel that Path has always been a "necessary evil" in Abzan, but you really can't play very many with this mana base. Essentially if you ever draw two in the early game, it is a complete disaster, and it's possible even the first is wrong.
The basic Plains looks very bad in this build, but I think you need it because you will sometimes want to find it off of Field of Ruin. The Spellbomb is there just to help turn on the Grim Flayers. It's possible that the Flayers should just be Tireless Trackers, but I felt that 9 three-drops was already a little heavy and Souls occupies the "value" slots that Tracker normally fills. It's also possible Bob is wrong, I suppose.
I am tempted to cut 1 or 2 discard spells for Grim Flayers.
I played the Frankfurt list to a 2-4 finish at a ~50-player win-a-Mox-Ruby tournament in NJ today. Two changes: -1 Overgrown Tomb, +1 Twilight Mire in the main (good), -1 LtLH +1 Thrun in the side (awful choice on my part). I beat Abzan and Jund and lost to Abzan, UB Faeries, Tron, and Mardu Pyromancer. Souls tokens, Elemental tokens, and Faerie Rogue tokens kicked my ass all day; Kitchen Finks was also hard to deal with. I didn't get LtLH +1 or Night of Souls Betrayal active, to be fair, but feeling so helpless against anything resembling a two-for-one felt awful. With Jund and Abzan you can "fight value with value" (e.g. Lingering Souls, K Command, Huntmaster, whatever) but GB Rock has no value card of that caliber.
I want to make one tactical point along these lines, for those who are not aware of this interaction: Maelstrom Pulse is dangerous to cast on a squad of tokens against open mana in this context because of if the opponent removes Maelstrom Pulse's target with their own removal spell, Maelstrom Pulse is countered! However, besides the singleton LtLH, this is the only tool in the mainboard to get back to parity against Souls (you can get lucky and sniping a Souls with Ooze, but it's not a complete answer).
I understand that I lost the matchup lottery pretty hard - straight GB is surely the midrange deck that is worst in midrange mirrors, and today I played against five midrange decks. I think that your metagame really has to be dominated by unfair decks for this to be a better choice than Abzan. Abzan has a better all around game just because Lingering Souls makes long games much more winnable. It was very strange playing a GBx midrange deck where I didn't feel like I had the supreme lategame / topdeck ability!
As for other points brought up here: 4 Ooze felt great, I don't know why we never tried that before. It's just the best midgame/lategame threat imaginable, and it gets killed on sight so often that having backup is great. Hissing Quagmire was fine, nothing to write home about. Field of Ruin was excellent. I think it is actually much better than GQ or Tec Edge. Every time I got to snag a manland with Field, it felt amazing. The activation cost is just so cheap and the basic land coming in untapped leads to some pretty great lines.
I think the lesson of GB Rock doing well in Frankfurt is just that (a) playing 4 Scavenging Ooze is actually good right now, and (b) Field of Ruin is really good. Abzan can accommodate more Ooze, but I doubt it is really possible for Abzan to play more than like 1 or 2 Field of Ruin... this is really a tough balancing act.
His general opinions about the list going forward:
- He seems really high on Kalitas! Even wanted to play one main.
- Wanted another Thoughtseize main.
- Wanted to play more Fatal Push but didn't have enough enablers for Revolt. Maybe we can play more Push in the 4 Marsh Flats version of the deck. I have always thought Path is super awkward in midrange decks but you just kinda had to play it if you didn't have access to Terminate. Maybe Push is close enough.
- Likes the Ratchet Bomb as a maindeck out to random nonsense like Blood Moon, but is Cast Out just better?
- Surprisingly cuts Smasher for Kalitas in the midrange matchups, not at all what I would have thought. I just don't see the logic here, anyone have any ideas? Usually you just cut all the discard for threats if you expect to be in the classic midrange topdeck war.
- Feels that the big mana decks are not totally hopeless; Fulminator Mage is in the sideboard!
As for fetches/targets, I've almost never found myself in a situation where I had somehow managed to land all my targets and yet was stuck on 4 or 5 lands, nevermind the situation where that happened and 4 or 5 lands was not enough to play out my hand as I wished. I guess I just feel like the marginal value of a useful land over a dead fetch is pretty small when you already have 4-5+ lands, whereas the marginal value of a fetch over a target is very high in the early game. In any case, if I were to add targets, I'd sooner play another basic than a second Shrine. In my years of experience playing BGx midrange decks, I have often found myself in situations where I've drawn early multiple shocks against an aggressive deck and wished the second shock was literally any other land.
- I don't like the second Godless Shrine. As soon as you have one, the second immediately becomes a painful draw, and in my mana base you have 4 Flats to find it. I really don't think you need 2 of these.
- In general, from playing a ton of Legacy, I strongly prefer to play fewer targets than fetches. Just look at any Legacy land base, there are always at least as many fetches as targets, even in decks that don't run Brainstorm. This is because the fetch is always better to draw than any of its targets since the fetch can get any target, and if you have no targets, it means you have a lot of lands in play.
- I only play 4 targets because I want enough basics to fetch against Path to Exile. If I never had to play through Path, I'd probably cut the second Swamp.
Anyway, about Mutavault:
I was looking through some of my old BW writeups (for instance, this one), and I think we can afford to be somewhat greedier. I'll test the following manabase:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mutavault
1 Plains
2 Swamp
Counting Cavern, there are 17 black sources and 16 white sources, and without Cavern there are 13 black and 12 white sources. A more conservative person might run a split between Cavern and Mutavault instead of Concealed Courtyard and Mutavault, but I really want to cast Reality Smasheron curve. This mana base is a bit greedy for a deck that's trying to cast turn 1 Thoughtseize, but not greedier than what I was playing in February 2016
I'll give this a shot (with Pack Rats!) at a local Modern 1k in a week and a half.
As for Cast Out versus alternatives, I agree that it's not the best type of this effect against UW control, but I think it's the most maindeckable choice since it cycles.
1) Go-wide creature decks like Company, Elves, and Merfolk are currently not addressed adequately by current builds, but I think those matchups are very fixable without conceding too much in other matchups. We just need to run some sweepers.
2) Pure control decks. I know we beat the more midrangy snapcaster decks pretty badly, but it felt awful to look across the table from 6-drop Elspeth or Gideon, AOZ. We need some plan against counterspells-into-planeswalkers, and I think there are many playable options here. Needles, Vindicate effects, O Ring effects, etc. I don't know what is the right idea. Actually Pack Rat maindeck might be very helpful here since it sort of forces them to find Supreme Verdict or bust.
3) Big mana decks. Tron and Valakut have just always been hard matchups for midrange decks and require significant concessions in other matchups since you need to play so many cards to turn those matchups around. Historically, Jund players who really wanted to beat Tron had to play like 4 Fulminators and 2 Slaughter Games. But it's not even clear to me that this is enough since Eldrazi Tron is the most popular big mana deck now. Eldrazi Tron can operate perfectly well without Tron online, so even the traditional choices like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter may not be good, and Karn isn't as good of a name with Slaughter Games (or in our case, Cranial Extraction) as it is against traditional Tron. I have to be honest, I don't know how we would fix that matchup even in principle. I think the strategy is to just strip their hand, race as fast as you can, and hope they draw too many bricks before we kill them.
All things considered, I think you can't gear your deck to beat everything, and right now, I'd rather concede the Etron matchup in the current metagame than the wide creature matchups + dedicated control matchups. That being said, it's possible we can somehow gear the deck to go underneath them better, which should theoretically also help out against Control, but I don't know how to do this well off the top of my head.
As for specific cards:
Have not tested Eternal Scourge. Have looked at Knight of Glory, and it's just worse than Crusader in this build IMO. With my mana base, Crusader is just as castable, it's a slightly faster clock, and it has applications against more traditional BGx decks as well. Reality Smasher is already as big or bigger than everything except a powered up DS, so I'm not sure Exalted really matters.
Main concern with Copter is that it's such a bad topdeck. It's just the worst on an empty board.
An idea that just came to mind: Pack Rat?! Craig Wescoe beat my ass with Pack Rat + Lingering Souls in day 2 of GP Worcester in 2014, and that's a memory that just bubbled up when I was thinking about this issue. It plays really well with Mutavaults, as well.
Sideboard was just OK, it needs tuning. I basically just made little changes to Braverman's list, but I was not really satisfied. As for specific cards:
- Crusader is an EZ win button versus any black discard deck with Lightning Bolt being so unpopular these days. Loved it.
- Gideon wasn't very good, and Sorin doesn't seem much better. These are cards that made more sense when GBx and blue-based control decks were more prevalent. But now Modern is a format where the best midrange deck is running a pile of one-mana Negates in the maindeck, so I think that's not the angle you want to take. Maybe Blight Herders would be better?
- RiP was my attempt at 100% locking down the graveyard-based matchups and DS matchups since I expected those to be the two most popular kinds of strategies at the GP. Those decks can pace your Relics, especially in post-board games, and I liked having access to them to make sure nothing goes wrong. That being said, they are certainly not addressing weaknesses, and I can understand cutting them if you expect a more diverse field.
- All your sweeper suggestions seem totally reasonable, and I have no idea which is best. I like Liliana, the Last Hope the most since in addition to being a good x/1 killer, I can actually imagine sneaking it under Stubborn Denial to out-grind DS decks. A second Damnation might also be a reasonable choice.
- One thing I felt was missing in the sideboard was some sort of Needle effect. Planeswalkers are really good against us.
EDIT: regarding Mutavault, if I were to make room for 2 Mutavault, I'd probably try cutting 2 Courtyards just because those coming into play tapped as your fourth land sometimes screws you out of an on-curve Smasher, i.e. the drawback is real in this deck.
My decklist was:
4 Caves of Koilos
3 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Cast Out
1 Dismember
2 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Lingering Souls
3 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Wasteland Strangler
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disenchant
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
The deck felt quite good although a bit threat light. Cavern made Tidehollow Sculler reliably castable, but losing Mutavault made it hard to back up the hand disruption with appropriate pressure. For instance, in a match against 8-rack (traditionally a good matchup for midrange Lingering Souls decks), I just couldn't get there since I didn't draw enough threats to outpace my opponent, and I didn't have Mutavault to fall back on. Similarly, in my match against UW Control, I just didn't have enough ways to pressure his planeswalkers, which seemed completely unbeatable every time they resolved (although in fairness, the Spreading Seas issue I mentioned before definitely was relevant). Some of this can be chalked up to variance, like sometimes you play really tight and your draws just don't come together. But it definitely suggests upping the threat count.
That being said, I think Cavern over Mutavault is right because Tidehollow Sculler is just that good and because Ceremonious Rejection is a real card now. People in this thread seem way too worried about the opponent getting the card back, but that's not the point. They usually have to spend a card to get the card back, and the point is that you get to limit their options by taking the appropriate card. For instance, you will sometimes see a hand with Terminate and Push, and you're supposed to take Push so that they have to Terminate your otherwise-non-threatening 2/2 to get their card back (instead of, say, Terminating a Reality Smasher). Another example: you can usually slow Burn down by a turn by taking the most tempo-positive card in their hand like Boros Charm or Lightning Helix. If they leave the Sculler alone, it's better than an Inquisition, and otherwise they have to burn a Bolt and some tempo to get their card back, which has the same effect overall. Sculler makes it so easy to plan your next few turns, I love it.
I would say that it's probably right to just cut some of the maindeck interaction for more creatures that can beat face. Cast Out was actually fine as a maindeck out to random permanents like Karn, and I'd like to keep playing it. The cycling mode is great when you don't need it. I would probably cut the Dismember and the Collective Brutality for the fourth Reality Smasher and some other threat. Both those cards were pretty medium and seemed more like sideboard material. But it's possible you're supposed to cut all 3 one-of's for more threats.
I don't like Displacer since we don't want to take turns off to flicker stuff. Shriekmaw also seems a bit below curve; 3/2 for 5 is just not where we want to be, and its trigger is not a may ability, which means it might get stranded in hand against Grixis Shadow, which is just unacceptable. Hangarback Walker is an old piece of BR Processors tech that might fit the bill in small numbers. Matter Reshaper? Smuggler's Copter?
On the mana side, I hated Fetid Heath, that card plays so awkwardly when you want to use a colored mana on your turn to cast a discard spell or creature but also want to hold up a colored mana for a removal spell on your opponent's turn. At least once I had to time a removal spell incorrectly. Also makes Spreading Seas better against us. Should have just been the fourth Courtyard. Marsh Flats was also great. With full playsets of Cavern, Flats, Courtyard, and Caves, your mana is 100% pristine, everything is always castable, it's great. Perhaps it's too good, and we should get greedy and cut some of it for Mutavaults?!
Also, note I played the 24th land, I really think it's correct. We're trying to cast 5 drops and get full value out of Souls in the late game...
Overall I feel like the deck is really well-positioned and plays great. It just beats the ***** out of Death's Shadow and all the GY decks. I know that's weird to say having just gotten completely wrecked at Vegas, but sometimes you play well and the draws just don't come together. There's a lot of tuning left to be done with this archetype, and I think it's worth working on with Modern so wide open. I refuse to believe that a format where Taking Turns can top 8 is a format where this deck can't.
Surprising that he thinks the deck is well positioned against Eldrazi Tron but not against normal Tron.