Round 1
I beat the pants off bushwhacker zoo
Round 2
I flooded against jeskai control and was 1 mana short from casting nissa after I made him burn the cryptic command he was holding
Round 3
Lost to jund even though he was stuck on 2 lands most of the game. I never found an impactful card after turn 3 even though I had 5 lands in play
Round 4
I beat the pants off jund recurring fulminator mage with kolaghan's command and liliana, the last hope
Round 5
I drew with GB Rock. That matchup was insane. It was pretty much just people dropping haymakers all day. It was really interesting how the games were so swingy.
When the deck fired on all cylinders, I felt like I literally could never lose. When it flooded and/or ran out of gas, it felt terrible. That being said, I would sleeve up the exact same 75 again if there was another GP tomorrow, though I never got to try leyline.
Here is another take on Jund for the GP in Atlanta. I cut the maelstrom pulse to add a second fatal push to lower the curve a little bit allowing for a 24 land build while keeping 4 Dark Confidant and 4 Bloodbraid Elf. I think my mana base follows the rules set forth by FlyingDelver. I do have a couple questions regarding my list.
1) Does Leyline of the Void affect how your mana base is built due to aggressive mulligans and a CMC of 4?
2) Can a 24 land build support a 5 mana planeswalker out of the sideboard?
3) Is my manabase built correctly with the cards I have chosen thus far?
According to what I've read, my mana base doesn't support Kitchen Finks so I've added the 3rd Fulminator Mage since big mana decks did so well at the SCG Open. But now, I have no idea what to run as slots 14 and 15 in the sideboard. Basically I'm trying to keep the mana curve low so as to not overload myself with expensive cards post sideboard with only 24 lands. I find myself being tempted to add more 4 and/or 5 drops. I Need some help here with these last 2 slots. Here is the list for reference.
So taking everything I've been learning about Jund over the last few days, this is where I am currently at with the list I am working on for the Modern GP in Atlanta. I plan to take this exact 75 (or something very close to it) for a test drive this weekend at my local card store.
So if you are on the Leyline plan, do you bring it in against control because of Snapcaster Mage and Search for Azcanta? Against UW Control if you run Surgical you can hit Terminus, with Nihil Spellbomb you can wipe their GY out in response to a snapcaster mage, but what about Leyline? Does it fit in against UW and Jeskai Control?
Hello everyone! I am working on my decklist for the Grand Prix coming up in November. This is where I am at currently but by no means is final. Any and all feedback would be appreciated.
Went to SCG Louisville and had one of the worst tournament experiences in recent memory. Merfolk performed better than I expected. My team dropped after 3 losses. In my matches, I lost to RG Valakut and the new -1/-1 Dryad infinite mana combo (he combo'd me on turn 3 two games in a row). Now why was my experience bad? I played REALLY well during the Team competition beating Bob Huang (on Grishoalbrand 2-0) my Legacy teammate also beat Anuraag Das and then the next day during the Legacy Classic, i dropped at 0-2 after several punts. Some of these include allowing myself to be dazed while I had a mana floating, being late to my match and getting a game loss, not casting my black spells while Urborg was in play because "i didn't have any black mana", also not catching my opponent using Cavern of Souls for colorless mana therefore missing the fact I could have countered his creature. The Legacy classic put me on tilt so bad, I figured the best thing to do was to drop and go draft to take my mind off of how much I screwed up. Drafted a pretty sweet B/W Zombies list, but lost my first round because his creatures had bigger toughness I wasn't really able to push through his defenses very well.
I don't know what happened between Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I played really tight magic, made good decisions, won more of my matches than I lost, beat a pro player and his team, and then the next day, it was like I was back to playing Magic for the first time. Incompetent, inexperienced, it was awful. But this just goes to show that no matter how long you've been playing this game, you have your good days and your bad days.
I played rothgar's exact 75 and I used the sideboard guide from the front page of this primer.
I have a big Modern tournament coming up soon. What is the latest and greatest Merfolk decklist? Also, some general sideboarding tips would be useful as well (unless you want to go into detail which is fine too)
i think blessed alliance is better right now than either electrolyze or lightning helix. so i think it's fine to be played in the maindeck until the meta or the banned list changes.
I think grixis is probably the best or at least most popular version of control at the moment. I base this off of the results on mtggoldfish I never counted but it seems like it pops up more than the others.
A guy whose opinion I respect told me he thinks the straight UW GQ/Tec Edge/crucible deck is the best control version out there.
i don't think Jeskai Nahiri was ever truly Tier 1. I think whenever new decks come out, they do well for a little while and then either disappear or goes down to tier 2 as soon as people figure out how the deck plays and how to beat it. Peter Ingram did very well for himself but I have to imagine most of that success came from the unknowing of his opponents. Not so much unknowing whether or not Nahiri was in the deck, but unknowing as in how to play against it, good cards and deck choices against it, good plays against it, etc. That being said, with the banning of Gitaxian Probe I think the deck is better than it was prior to the Probe banning but I think it has the same problem it always had. 3 color control decks can be good but they're not quite good enough.
The problem I have with control deck in Modern is this:
It is really really difficult (if not impossible) to lock your opponent out of the game. Let's evaluate how control in Legacy works. In a deck like Miracles you can wipe the board, play a threat and then lock out whatever they try to play next with Counterbalance. It almost works like a prison strategy. In Modern, you either seem to not have enough spot removal for however many creatures they have, or you tap out to board wipe and they're able to just refill instantly. I'm finding it very very difficult to turn the corner in my Modern control matchups or grind the game out to where my opponent runs out of gas. So many games I feel like I'm behind the entire time and sometimes I'm able to catch up and take control of the game, but most of the others I feel like I spent the whole time trying to come back from behind and could never quite get there. Perhaps modern control decks could use more prison like cards in the format.
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
// Spells
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Choke
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Dark Confidant
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
// Spells
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Finished day 1 at GP Atlanta at X-2-1
Round 1
I beat the pants off bushwhacker zoo
Round 2
I flooded against jeskai control and was 1 mana short from casting nissa after I made him burn the cryptic command he was holding
Round 3
Lost to jund even though he was stuck on 2 lands most of the game. I never found an impactful card after turn 3 even though I had 5 lands in play
Round 4
I beat the pants off jund recurring fulminator mage with kolaghan's command and liliana, the last hope
Round 5
I drew with GB Rock. That matchup was insane. It was pretty much just people dropping haymakers all day. It was really interesting how the games were so swingy.
When the deck fired on all cylinders, I felt like I literally could never lose. When it flooded and/or ran out of gas, it felt terrible. That being said, I would sleeve up the exact same 75 again if there was another GP tomorrow, though I never got to try leyline.
1) Does Leyline of the Void affect how your mana base is built due to aggressive mulligans and a CMC of 4?
2) Can a 24 land build support a 5 mana planeswalker out of the sideboard?
3) Is my manabase built correctly with the cards I have chosen thus far?
According to what I've read, my mana base doesn't support Kitchen Finks so I've added the 3rd Fulminator Mage since big mana decks did so well at the SCG Open. But now, I have no idea what to run as slots 14 and 15 in the sideboard. Basically I'm trying to keep the mana curve low so as to not overload myself with expensive cards post sideboard with only 24 lands. I find myself being tempted to add more 4 and/or 5 drops. I Need some help here with these last 2 slots. Here is the list for reference.
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Raging Ravine
1 Twilight Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Planeswalkers 4
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Spells 17
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells 21
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Choke
1 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Leyline of the Void
// Deck: Jund (60)
// Lands
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
// Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
// Spells
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Anger of the Gods
SB: 2 Collective Brutality
SB: 3 Fulminator Mage
SB: 2 Kitchen Finks
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
I don't know what happened between Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I played really tight magic, made good decisions, won more of my matches than I lost, beat a pro player and his team, and then the next day, it was like I was back to playing Magic for the first time. Incompetent, inexperienced, it was awful. But this just goes to show that no matter how long you've been playing this game, you have your good days and your bad days.
I played rothgar's exact 75 and I used the sideboard guide from the front page of this primer.
There is a typo on this line. Maelstrom Pulse is misspelled and therefore the link does not show the card image.
A guy whose opinion I respect told me he thinks the straight UW GQ/Tec Edge/crucible deck is the best control version out there.
It is really really difficult (if not impossible) to lock your opponent out of the game. Let's evaluate how control in Legacy works. In a deck like Miracles you can wipe the board, play a threat and then lock out whatever they try to play next with Counterbalance. It almost works like a prison strategy. In Modern, you either seem to not have enough spot removal for however many creatures they have, or you tap out to board wipe and they're able to just refill instantly. I'm finding it very very difficult to turn the corner in my Modern control matchups or grind the game out to where my opponent runs out of gas. So many games I feel like I'm behind the entire time and sometimes I'm able to catch up and take control of the game, but most of the others I feel like I spent the whole time trying to come back from behind and could never quite get there. Perhaps modern control decks could use more prison like cards in the format.