It's been a while since i've really messed with my Cruel Ultimatums and since i've completed my set of Scalding Tarns I felt like revisiting the drawing board here.
Now I really put a sub emphasis on creatures. They had to have one of two things to be included. Value when cast, and or the natural ability to hit the yard. The reason was two fold, but primarily because Cruel Ultimatum works amazingly well when it can get an "extra spell" from the graveyard. Secondly, I also like getting extra value out of my Rise // Fall. Fall early, and top decking Rise later makes the card very flexible, but Rise really needs to reliably have a target in you're yard less you find those awkward moments when you might have to consider giving an opponent a creature from the yard back just to reuse half of it.
The Creatures Snapcaster Mage really goes without saying. His ability to recast a spell from the yard is just unbeatable. Mulldrifter is a love of mine from days past and i've been using him along side the Shadowborn Demon in my esper deck to great results. Speaking of the Demon... he's awesome. Sometimes he does his thing, then wait's patiently to die forcing opponents to hold off on an attack. Other times, he comes down removes something then demands to be removed lest he win the game on his own. Now Spellstutter Sprite is just something i'm testing out. 1/1 flying flash isn't the worst thing int he world at 2cmc, but it's penchant for saying no to thing's like:
And those are without getting into the possibility of having one of the field when you cast it. That said these can be replaced with most any other valuable creature, i'm just testing them out. Now Augur of Bolas used to be one of my go to dudes, but even with just 4 snapcasters and 4 of him, I felt like he missed too often for me to run him. Add in more dudes to the mix and I just don't think it's worth it.
The Lands
I really wish we could get allied fetches in modern already. Polluted Deta's oh how I miss thee. Until then i'm forced to run a slightly more painful mana base to get thing's done. I do have a few more basic's that normal primarily because an earlier version ran Solemn Simulacrum as an all around value dude, but really the only part of the lands I want to talk about is the last two spots. I decided to throw down the two "faerie" man-lands simply because they COULD help out a spellstutter sprite as a suprise for an unwary opponent, or at least complicate their decision making process when trying to figure out if I can counter something or not. The question is, do I run the cheaper, comes into play UNtapped Mutavault or the produces U but comes into play tapped Faerie Conclave. If the faeries were to be dropped as a whole or at least supporting the 4 main deck, I would probably just run Tectonic Edge as a solid way to answer a Celestial Colonnade.
Thoughts? Opinions? Should I scrap it and go back to the drawing board? Should I play Cruel Faeries? Should I finally go to sleep?
Don't do Faeries. It's not going to work out. At most your countering CMC 6, and that's if you have them all. Only 4CMC if you have just the SS in. Perhaps Mana Leak or Rune Snag if you like the stacking power. And your man lands should be Creeping Tar Pit or Lavaclaw Reaches atleast. These are just some of the things I'd do to it.
Is the sideboard too narrow or one-dimensional, which match-ups would be out of my favor despite post-sideboard?
You run a creature heavy package it seems. I would cut the thundermaw and move it to sb and either an augur or snap. Also I would trade the 2 think twice for 2 thoughtflare. Your curve looks to be high too. Also 4 electrolyze seems like too much in my book.
Edit: I see in your sb you have an extra damnation so move out consume the meek and put in the other damnation that way you have a better chance at seeing it come up and a better removal package. Damnation will get rid of things that consume the meek won't/can't.
I tend to play daily against R/G Tron, as I've mentioned before, as the deck holder is my girlfriends brother so with my experience against him, game 1 is typically in his favor but recently I've been doing a better job at slowing him down if not actually winning g1.
For g2 I absolutely side in sowing salt and slaughter games as a start. Something like -1 Snapcaster Mage -1 Electrolyze -2 Volcanic Fallout[/CARD] for +2 Sowing Salt and +2 Slaughter games. Me personally, I tend to see my sowing salt more often than my slaughter games so I bait out any shunts and hit him with the salt ASAP. Once you land a sowing salt the game is pretty much in your favor. You've slowed them down and rendered their mana ability useless. Slaughter Games I call out Karn before Wurmcoil. It seems to work out for me but sometimes there's a last wurmcoil I forget to take care of and it haunts me and just destroys the field. Should i call the Wurm first or stick with Karn?
G3 is a toss up really. It could go either way depending on how you play your cards since they expect a sowing salt now and slaughter games. I don't tend to board anything in g3, although I pretend I do (I ruffle through my SB and MB a bunch and make them over think) but now I'll put in a pithing needle as an added threat to deal with Karn and just have my games call out other nonsense like wurmcoil now.
From the games I've played and remember, we have a good shot at taking them down g2 and g3. Especially with sowing salt alone.
Other than that the only other deck I remember playing is hatebears and he sweeped me 2-0. I managed to land a cruel when he had a wilt-leaf liege in hand and it completely turned the game around for him and messed me up.
Condescend is an interesting card, and I definitely think it warrants more play than it currently sees. I'd be interested to hear back results. One advantage of condescend is that it can still counter spells late in the game unlike leak, it just becomes a lot more expensive to do so.
As for Thoughtflare, I don't think it's proper to compare it to Blue Sun's Zenith or Revelation. I personally look at flare as a very strong filter spell that just happens to gain card advantage at the same time.
Keep in mind, your late game card advantage engine is Cruel Ultimatum, which also serves as your finisher. Thoughtflare on the other hand keeps your cards flowing smoothly mid-game, and sets up your ultimatum a few turns down the road.
As for Draining Whelk, it seems really expensive what amounts to mystic snake. Have you considered playing Teferi instead?
and for me, what I liked about condescend is that it's a hard counter unlike remand. Don't get me wrong, I like remand but I don't like that it only delays them from playing the card, unless like I said before, we bounce our own but that's why I run a singleton of remand and I'll bump condescend to 2 in my list but the issue is I'm not sure where to take out an extra card..it either comes down to electrolyze or a land cutting my mana base to a low 24
Yeah I want to test out condescend as well but I think I'm going to run 2of instead of 4. For me personally, I like it because of the scry 2. I've been looking for more ways to dig deeper and hitting an ultimatum but I haven't wanted to add more draw spells so this seems to play into the mix pretty well.
Draining Whelk is my solution to my feeling like I am not doing enough / wasting time when keeping counter magic up but not finding a target. I played at my LGS on Modern Wednesday recently and will write a report when I get off work later. I would love to read thoughts in the mean time.
Best,
Zachtraps
I like the idea of Draining Whelk but I'm not convinced as to run him. He's pretty costly and with 4 remands I don't know how that will turn out as it's only delaying them from playing the cards, not putting the cards away. However if you plan on bouncing your own spells back then that's something else.
My question is the choice of draw spells, why would you use say thoughtflare over Blue Sun's Zenith? We always complain about not having sphinx's revelation, my initial impression is that blue sun's zenith would be a better replacement.
Because It's faster and cheaper. For 5 mana you're getting 4 cards where the 4x mana you'd have to tap to draw 4 cards would set your mana cost to 7 with blue sun's zenith. The discard isn't that much of a factor really because of our snaps.
Edit:
Also I was just thinking about Condescend. Thoughts?
My meta is faily simple. It's only a handful of players and theres a range of mil, UTron and R/GTRon, hatebears, equip storm and some other nonsense. I'll have to keep notes of my matches the next time I go in.
Edit: One of the Tron decks at my tourny is my girlfriends brother R/G Tron and I play him on a daily basis and it seems as of lately I've been able to stump him more on game 1 and just take off on games 2 and 3.
And with 25 mana I still feel like I get flooded more than necessary. A lot of turns go by where I just drop mana but wont see a cruel until it's nearly too late. Sometimes I don't even need to land one because I take him down with creeping tar pit and lightning bolt. Game 2 and 3 become a breeze if you're able to stick a sowing salt.
27 might be one too many, but it's not as crazy as you guys might think. The Extended version of this deck had 27 lands, and it had arguably more card draw/cantripping than we had. Even with 27 lands I found myself getting stuck on 5 a few times. If you're playing 25 you're insane, but 26 is defensible in my opinion.
I've made a few other small changes to the list as well. I cut a Damnation for a Pyroclasm, as 'clasm is basically just a Wrath in this format anyway. I also cut an Augur and the Tribute for a Spell Snare and an Izzet Charm. I hate not having early answers to things like Deathrite Shaman, Bob, and Liliana, and these things up the answer count.
I run 25 lands in my list and I do well getting the 7 I need fairly well. It's Seeing a Cruel more often that would make me happy but I feel adding a 3rd may be a bit too much. Maybe it's what I need? Who knows.
Don't do Faeries. It's not going to work out. At most your countering CMC 6, and that's if you have them all. Only 4CMC if you have just the SS in. Perhaps Mana Leak or Rune Snag if you like the stacking power. And your man lands should be Creeping Tar Pit or Lavaclaw Reaches atleast. These are just some of the things I'd do to it.
You run a creature heavy package it seems. I would cut the thundermaw and move it to sb and either an augur or snap. Also I would trade the 2 think twice for 2 thoughtflare. Your curve looks to be high too. Also 4 electrolyze seems like too much in my book.
Edit: I see in your sb you have an extra damnation so move out consume the meek and put in the other damnation that way you have a better chance at seeing it come up and a better removal package. Damnation will get rid of things that consume the meek won't/can't.
How? Isn't IoK touching CMC of 3-? How could he have taken your Cryp if it's 4..
For g2 I absolutely side in sowing salt and slaughter games as a start. Something like -1 Snapcaster Mage -1 Electrolyze -2 Volcanic Fallout[/CARD] for +2 Sowing Salt and +2 Slaughter games. Me personally, I tend to see my sowing salt more often than my slaughter games so I bait out any shunts and hit him with the salt ASAP. Once you land a sowing salt the game is pretty much in your favor. You've slowed them down and rendered their mana ability useless. Slaughter Games I call out Karn before Wurmcoil. It seems to work out for me but sometimes there's a last wurmcoil I forget to take care of and it haunts me and just destroys the field. Should i call the Wurm first or stick with Karn?
G3 is a toss up really. It could go either way depending on how you play your cards since they expect a sowing salt now and slaughter games. I don't tend to board anything in g3, although I pretend I do (I ruffle through my SB and MB a bunch and make them over think) but now I'll put in a pithing needle as an added threat to deal with Karn and just have my games call out other nonsense like wurmcoil now.
From the games I've played and remember, we have a good shot at taking them down g2 and g3. Especially with sowing salt alone.
Other than that the only other deck I remember playing is hatebears and he sweeped me 2-0. I managed to land a cruel when he had a wilt-leaf liege in hand and it completely turned the game around for him and messed me up.
and for me, what I liked about condescend is that it's a hard counter unlike remand. Don't get me wrong, I like remand but I don't like that it only delays them from playing the card, unless like I said before, we bounce our own but that's why I run a singleton of remand and I'll bump condescend to 2 in my list but the issue is I'm not sure where to take out an extra card..it either comes down to electrolyze or a land cutting my mana base to a low 24
I like the idea of Draining Whelk but I'm not convinced as to run him. He's pretty costly and with 4 remands I don't know how that will turn out as it's only delaying them from playing the cards, not putting the cards away. However if you plan on bouncing your own spells back then that's something else.
Because It's faster and cheaper. For 5 mana you're getting 4 cards where the 4x mana you'd have to tap to draw 4 cards would set your mana cost to 7 with blue sun's zenith. The discard isn't that much of a factor really because of our snaps.
Edit:
Also I was just thinking about Condescend. Thoughts?
Edit: One of the Tron decks at my tourny is my girlfriends brother R/G Tron and I play him on a daily basis and it seems as of lately I've been able to stump him more on game 1 and just take off on games 2 and 3.
And with 25 mana I still feel like I get flooded more than necessary. A lot of turns go by where I just drop mana but wont see a cruel until it's nearly too late. Sometimes I don't even need to land one because I take him down with creeping tar pit and lightning bolt. Game 2 and 3 become a breeze if you're able to stick a sowing salt.
I run 25 lands in my list and I do well getting the 7 I need fairly well. It's Seeing a Cruel more often that would make me happy but I feel adding a 3rd may be a bit too much. Maybe it's what I need? Who knows.
true. Wasn't thinking of that when I thought about shunt.