I trimmed a little bit the list with path to exile.
| DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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// Artifact 2 Mishra's Bauble // Creature 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Hooting Mandrills 1 Savage Knuckleblade 2 Snapcaster Mage // Instant 2 Thought Scour 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Tarfire 3 Stubborn Denial 2 Spell Snare 2 Mana Leak 1 Deprive 4 Path to Exile // Land 1 Breeding Pool 1 Forest 2 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 1 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 1 Wooded Foothills 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Plains | // Sorcery 4 Serum Visions 3 Traverse the Ulvenwald | // Sideboard // Artifact 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Engineered Explosives // Creature 2 Huntmaster of the Fells 1 Izzet Staticaster // Enchantment 3 Blood Moon // Instant 1 Destructive Revelry 1 Ancient Grudge 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Ceremonious Rejection // Planeswalker 1 Garruk Relentless // Sorcery 1 Firespout |
I'm testing Garruk in side. It's similar to Huntmaster and could be helpful against midrange/control. I hope against shadow too: if you manage to flip it it can spit out deathtouching chumpblocker. Otherwise 2/2 chumpblocker could buy yourself enough time anyway. The more I play Knuckleblade the more it impresses me. Nice addition.
Comparing this list with countercats, I noticed that this one plays less threats but they're bigger and it's overall slower: you can't commit protected by shoal and threats cost more. This list plays more burns and can be useful: I like having 20+ potential burn damage. In countercats we have only 15 counting snapcasters. Here we get to 22.
I feel that both are playable and the choice should be based on playstyle an metagame (as usual).
(I'm joking, obviously. But seeing a Temur Delver without moons feels wierd)
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EDIT: @The Fluff, color identity is a part of the game for a reason. Players generally have a preferred association with certain colors or aspects of the color pie and want to encapsulate those in their style of play. While not everyone is like this, being able to play the colors you want competitively in every format would be a huge win for Magic overall. It’s pretty simple I think.
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I still gotta assume Clique is better than Obstructionist here but neither seem aggressive enough outside of the sideboard where they both have their applications. Stifle is a unique effect that’s very powerful but is a little too narrow for modern at three mana. It’s essentially a more expensive squelch when cycled and is probably too expensive when just hardcast. If you’re bringing it in to hate out something specific it could make sense but game 1 there are too many matchups where it’s just a 3/1 for 3.
Remand is awesome...but you don’t want to be stuck with a hand full of Remands against fast decks like Burn because you won’t get many chances to cast it where they won’t just recast the spell right away and there are quite a few decks it’s bad against. Additionally there are simply spells that we can’t let resolve as our removal sucks so that means Mana Leak in some number is essential here. Remand can complement it as a 1 of which I have done in the past but you primarily have to lean on leak. Against decks like Tron, KCI, Valakut decks, etc Remand is awesome as it provides you the tempo of a hard counter but replaces itself to help you find more interaction. Combined with snapcaster Mage getting a player to tap out two turns in a row to get time walked twice is brutal. This is a true tempo deck and remand is absolutely playable here but I wouldn’t run it over another counterspell, I would run it in the slot of a cantrip because that’s what it is. It just costs two mana with the upside of being a time walk.
Deprive is certainly better then Knot here as we rarely have extra grave fuel to spare but I would only run 3-4 two mana counters in the main at the very most and the rest in the sideboard. Fast decks are hoping game 1 you get clogged up with counterspells as they dump their hand.
4 spirebluff is far too many I would max out at two to give you more basics in order to run Blood Moon in the board, I really wouldn’t play the deck without it.
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After much fiddling with Jace I decided that, while powerful, the number of matchups where I actually wanted to bring him in was abysmally small. It seems fighting off BBE and Humans will take priority in the sideboard for some time to come.
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Gnarlwood Dryad
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Hooting Mandrills
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Curator of Mysteries
Spells:29
4 Serum Visions
3 Mishra's Bauble
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Thought Scour
1 Censor
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Tarfire
1 Roast
2 Vapor Snag
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Feed the Clan
1 Deprive
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Roast
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Savage Knuckleblade
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Blood Moon
After spending a lot of time thinking about which cantrip I wanted to add as the 60th card (3rd scour, 4th bauble, something else entirely) it sort of hit me like a brick, Censor is the perfect one mana cantrip for this deck. It gives me an extra counterspell against decks that I desperately need to interact with on the stack while filtering away against Cavern of Souls or heavy discard. If you get caught holding it up and your opponent plays under it, you can just cycle it and still have a mana available for any interaction you draw. I actually have been keeping it in against Jund over mana leak to fight off Lilliana early and cycle for threats late and I have been seriously impressed. I wouldn't run it over a counterspell, but over a cantrip it's a really solid choice. Paired with Curator and Traverse I feel the deck finally has ways to mitigate the problems that tempo decks have always had without brainstorm, having the right card at the wrong time. They can seem like they have a minor impact as I cycle them frequently but when you want to play the card at face value it feels awesome.
I've been really happy with Roast in the main. It has certainly had its bad moments but no more than players with path/push have against creatureless decks so really almost isn't worth mentioning.
Dropping my single Bojuka Bog and swapping my Firespouts for Anger has definitely seemed correct. Double red hasn't been an issue and if I draw it against Dredge I have yet to lose. Flipping that matchup on its own is worth it.
Huntmaster is probably the singular best card we have against Humans. They absolutely struggle to answer it and rarely hold cards to stop it from flipping. If you kill something like Meddling Mage or Freebooter to turn removal spells back on its pretty much over. I may consider bringing him back up to 2 copies in the future.
I feel the need to reiterate how insane it is to tutor for Magus of the Moon. That ***** is genuinely unfair and I love it.
I don't know if it would be better than other threat options, but after seeing it in action in the format I really believe Dire Fleet Daredevil could be a sideboard piece for us against Jund and decks like it. For starters, 2 power and first strike is the perfect roadblock for a dumb 3/2 elf I know. Against that same deck we struggle to answer their primary threat in Tarmogoyf and Daredevil opens up plenty of opportunities to take down a goyf for 3-4 mana with extra value. We don't have many cards that can do that. Turn three tapping out for a Daredevil and a thoughtseize to rip a threat we can't kill sounds pretty good too. Not to mention the late game shenanigans involving k command or collective brutality.
Other places it's useful:
Against burn, lightning helix would obviously be amazing but any burn is solid when paired with a way to wall guide.
Against Dredge, you can tutor him up to exile a loam, conflagrate, gnaw to bone, or looting as a piece of grave hate. It's niche but solid.
Thoughts?
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Dredge isn't going to be good unless you really dedicate a lot of slots so shoring up other matchups could be worthwhile.