MTG Salvation

@LoveFromTheLoam - Big creatures is something Green/Red just doesn't handle particularly well on its own. That's why the Jund lists are popular. You get access to Liliana of the Veil, Fatal Push, Terminate, Abrupt Decay, and Maelstrom Pulse. All of which deal with creatures, regardless of their size. Splashing for a set of Path to Exile seems weak if you aren't going to utilize the white for something like Knight of the Reliquary or the strong sideboard cards white has available to it.

If you haven't played with Countryside Crusher in the deck, you should give it a try with or over Tireless Tracker it makes sure you are always drawing gas and gets big fairly quick. It's a very strong card. Courser of Kruphix is underwhelming in comparison and I think you really should get a fourth Faithless Looting in there for digging and filtering.

I'd play Field of Ruin over Tectonic Edge. You aren't going to be color screwing any of the control or mid-range decks often enough with Tec Edge. So it is just a way to interact with utility lands. Which Field does but doesn't put you down a land. Field also works a turn faster than Tec Edge. Ghost Quarter hits Tron and Eldrazi fastest; so I'd run those over Tec Edge as well. If it was me, I'd run a 3-2 split of Field and Quarter.

With the number of basic Forest you are running, I would have to think Thicket is pretty important for being able to cast Assault on curve. I get that you want to play around your own Blood Moons but how often do you need more than 2 Forests in play? Could you up the number of dual lands while cutting from your Forests? Like, -2 Forest, +1 Stomping Ground, +1 Sheltered Thicket? As far as other utility lands, if you had some form of recursion (Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator), Ramunap Ruins could be a decent inclusion. Otherwise, Treetop Village is a decent man-land. Horizon Canopy has draw a card printed on it. Kessig Wolf Run gives Trample and can buff your guys. As does Skarrg, the Rage Pits. And I believe that's all the relevant stuff.

How has Molten Vortex been for you? I like that it comes in under counter magic but I've lost games to not being able to activate it enough to stabilize or kill my opponents. I usually run 3 Assaults in my deck. Though I run a Temur version of the deck. So I have a bit more dig with Serum Visions and counter magic of my own to help Assaults stick.

The removal spells allow me to permanently remove creatures, rather than just buying one combat phase. Also, there are decks that use creatures to win without attacking. I guess in my mind, fog effects have bigger loop holes than hard removal spells.

I agree that Jace's Erasure is fairly slow but it functions as redundancy for Sphinx's Tutelage and comes in as a two drop to compliment Dictate of Kruphix.

I haven't had any games where I've come close to milling myself out. The Erasures and Tutelages break the symmetric "mill" of the Mines and I end most games with over 30 cards left in my deck. I don't think Elixir of Immortality is necessary here to off set this, though it is definitely a good card to keep in mind as I keep testing.

Fraying Sanity is definitely a solid card. For some reason I thought it triggered at the end of the enchanted player's turns, so I skipped over it because most of the milling my deck does happens on my turn (therefore a nombo). It could probably going in over the Erasures but then I think I may have too many 3-drops in the deck. I'll pick up some copies and give it a try. It should definitely be somewhere in the deck.

Celestial Colonnade is a bit weird for mill. I put it in because it is a UW dual and works well with Supreme Verdict. It gives the deck at least one "body" to utilize in an otherwise creatureless deck. For example, in the games I played, it helped slow down Mutavault beats when I couldn't deal with them otherwise. The deck doesn't have any real turn 1 plays and after hitting 4 lands, I'm not dying to have new mana sources every turn. So 2 ETB tapped lands isn't terribly strenuous on the deck. I don't think shoving more fetches in helps the deck directly, outside of marginal thinning, and having the manland ability has to be better than running stuff like Glacial Fortress/Temple of Enlightenment/Irrigated Farmland in its place.

Thank you for your suggestions! I'll see what I can do about implementing some changes and see how things look from there.

I ran the deck at a local tournament this Saturday. Went 1-3 with it but a lot of it was due to inexperience with the deck and suboptimal post-board plans since I was trying out stuff. Here's a link to my last round with the deck:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/214015694?t=03h50m41s

And the full 75 that I ran:



I played against 8 Rack (lost 0-2 to Mutavault beats), 8 Whack Goblins (lost 0-2 to not keeping removal), UW Control (won 2-1), and Grixis Control (lost 1-2 to not drawing Removal/misplays). The core of the deck was brutal when it was in play, which happened every game. I mainly lost to not having the right answers at the right time or just in general. Post-board felt rough because I didn't feel like I had relevant cards. I think having an extra Wrath of God effect or two would be good and I really want to put in 4 Leyline of Sanctity. Leyline would have been insane in several of my match ups. I'm not sure if Jace Beleren is necessary but he did soak up damage for a couple turns for me and that is what the deck wants. I'll keep him in for now, but it is definitely a flex spot. Cryptic Command was decent but it was never X+Draw for me. Which is good I assume, it was putting in a lot of work buying me turns. I had an incident where I couldn't cast Cryptic which could have cost me the game. So I think no more than 3 colorless sources should be in the deck.

I think for the next tournament, I'll be playing something like this*:



*full 75 subject to change without notice.

Potential cards:
Treasure Map
Nimble Obstructionist
Oona's Grace
Pulse of the Grid

So, let me preface this by saying I've mainly been playing commander these days. I've shoved Sphinx's Tutelage into a couple decks and it has become something my friends don't want me to play any more. So I figure I could build a deck around it in modern and subject other people to it. I came up with this list:



The white splash gives the deck some stronger removal options but I have a mono-blue variant as well. Which looks like this:



*Sideboards are a work in progress but I can throw my current card choices in if there is interest.*

The way the deck wins is through a two-pronged mill strategy. The Howling Mine affects force the opponent to take cards out of their library while your draws also pull cards out of their library through Sphinx's Tutelage and Jace's Erasure. It doesn't take long for these cards to get out of hand. A Toot with a Mine is eating 6 cards from their deck a turn without the additional trigger. So any additional cards make things significantly faster.

So once you get some mill stuff in play, you turn to control. It takes time for the deck to kill, so you are just buying turns until your opponent decks out. White is stronger when it comes to hard control and removing threats, but mono blue plays at instant speed more. I'm pretty sure Engulf the Shore is the only way to make it playable but as long as you're hitting land drops, you should be able to keep yourself from dying. Also, the added benefit of an easier manabase that comes with a mono-colored deck.

I'd like to get some feedback from others on this. I've stewed over it for a few days and done a lot of goldfishing and tested a bit against other players. It seems solid but I'm not sure how best to go about the control side of things. The deck plays a lot like a tap out control deck in the early stages, then transitions to draw-go control. So any advice from control players would be appreciated. Like, how strong do you think Cryptic Command is currently and would it be a good fit here?

Anyways, I enjoy the spice levels of the cards for the deck. Everything seems to have awesome synergy and I feel like it should work. It definitely needs some tuning but I think there is some promise here. Tell me what you think!

Hey guys, I got an itch to play some Goblin Grenades and I've been trying to sketch out a decklist that looks good to me. This is what I arrived on. I'd like to bounce it off of some others that have more experience with Goblins before I go forking over money for the cards. Constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!



I really wanted to run Goblin King with Blood Moon and a 1-of Koth of the Hammer over Aether Vial and Rabblemaster. I don't know if Blood Moon would be too much of a dead draw for game one though. So I opted for the more proactive line even though Vial can be its own dead draw. I was also thinking of putting in a few Dangerous Wager that was recommended a few pages ago. Mogg Fanatic or Denizen seem cutable to me, but I'm new to this and it seems like people like them.

I was kicking around this janky list as well that is way too inconsistent but would be a ton of fun to play with.

I played with Kiora, the Crashing Wave for awhile and while she was solid, the abilities never felt overwhelmingly strong. A free draw for a turn is the most relevant part and for that, you may as well run Jace Beleren. I would highly recommend trying out Nissa, Steward of Elements. She can be a 3-drop or more, +2 is huge for a 'walker, and Scrying 2 every turn smooths out your draws significantly. Also, randomly dropping creatures into play off her 0 is pretty sweet upside. What is the Narnam Renegadedoing for your deck? Is it just a early blocker?

I tend to sit on counter spells and play a longer game when I suspect graveyard hate is coming in against me. Relic of Progenitus can be played around pretty easily and they'll tend to pop it in response to a Loam, so baiting that is a solid line. Surgical Extraction is a bit rough if they hit Loam but playing a beat down game with every land you draw turning into 2 damage is still pretty good. Rest in Peace is a real hoser. Goyf just becomes chump material and then it becomes a game of drawing Bolts and lands. Raging Ravine is solid in this area. Boarding into Scavenging Ooze and Thrun, the Last Troll gets around smaller Goyfs and represent real threats individually.

I mentioned in my tourney report that I've been kicking around playing Young Pyromancer over Goyf. It isn't hurt by graveyard hate as much and seems stronger in the Death's Shadow match for making chump blockers. The only problem being that he's a bit easier to remove than Goyf. So he'd have to be played differently than you would with Goyf (not jamming him into play on turn 2 basically). Potentially, spells could be shoehorned in over creatures. I'd have to do some digging for that, but it is a possibility.

I have been kicking around the idea of running Curse of the Swine. Since it Exiles creatures straight up and derpy 2/2's are very easy for RUG Loam to deal with. Otherwise, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, or Beast Within are the best destroy effects we can play.

Hazoret's Undying Fury looked like it would be fun. With the number of 1-5cmc cards in the deck it should hit one or two and getting a couple Wheel effects off of one card with TLG out seemed good.

Yeah, my play group isn't super competitive either. We've been playing together for awhile and have a good idea of power level in decks that's fun for us. Basically I try to play with no tutors, no counter spells and just a handful of removal spells that require some hoops be jumped through in order to work. Which opens up space for cards that make interesting board states. Thus leading to the Group Hug stuff.

Like I said though, if you untap with TLG, you should be able to win or get close that turn. The haste on the Insect tokens being the major strength of the card. You can always just say something like "I'm not going to attack until I can kill everyone in a turn with my swarm," or whatever nonsense stipulation you want to have some fun with it. The long-short of it is, that if he sticks around long enough for you to draw cards, you're going to win very fast. But if your play group has more removal and counters, he may need more protecting. Which will probably push your games longer.

I played tested a deck with The Locust God with some friends of mine (we did a God Battle with each of the new Gods) and I had a lot of fun with this guy. I wasn't prepared for how ridiculously strong the Locusts were going to be. You have a handful of cards that buff your guys but I think you'll find those to be unnecessary. I built my deck fairly different than yours by including a semi-TurboFog element minus the Fog. Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Dictate of Kruphix and Kami of the Crescent Moon help keep opponents on your side while keeping your hand full (good for Kefnet and the Whirlpool guys). I didn't play any removal or interaction outside of Wheel of Fortune/Windfall effects and I was winning games pretty consistently. If you untap with TLG, you basically win right there. Windfall two times with 15 cards in your hand and you're swinging for lethal on at least one person. Let alone if you have Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge out.

Some notable cards I was using that you don't have: Sphinx's Tutelage, Humble Defector, Jace's Archivist, Recurring Insight, Minds Aglow, Flux, and Visions of Beyond.

Actually, here's the list I played:


Any of the enchantments where I was paying mana while drawing a card were all pretty ineffective. You draw so many cards, you'd be wasting mana or only activating it a few times a turn. Open into Wonder was also fairly underwhelming. I'm planning on replacing those cards with Skullclamp and some mana rocks for a bit of ramp though I don't think the deck really needs it. I do want to fit Fateful Showdown and Incendiary Command into the deck as well.

I played in a 1k Modern event last Sunday and did alright. Placed 20 out of 56 with an overall score of 3-2-1. I was going to do a more detailed write up but this past week has been really busy. I played against UW Pillow Fort round 1 and drew, then had odd pairings for the rest of the tournament. I beat a Living End/Scapeshift combo deck, Elfball, and Esper Delver. I lost to Jeskai Control and Grixis Death's Shadow.

Here's the deck I played:


The main changes were trying out Curator of Mysteries over Keranos, God of Storms and finding room in the Board for Ghost Quarter, Dispel and Ceremonious Rejection. I was expecting more Tron to be in the event than there ended up being.

The main things I took away from the tournament were:
-Tarmogoyf is fairly awkward in the Death's Shadow match up. Delve tends to cut into his P/T and keeps him from effectively deterring attacks (his intended role in the deck). I've been kicking around ideas for replacements and I'm thinking Young Pyromancer would be decent. GrixisDS's creatures don't have evasion, so generating a bunch of chump blockers should be fairly effective. Having the reach with burn spells was really nice here. I had some awkward mid-late game draws (basically no dig and no Assaults) the match didn't feel that bad post-board but their top decks start to get better than ours as the game goes on but I don't think they can beat a resolved Assault. Dismember is solid removal here but getting it Stubborn Denial'd really sucks.

-Against Control, I used to try to bump up the control elements in my deck to stick an early threat and protect it for longer. I think that I'm going to try boarding in to more of an aggressive game plan for this match up in the future. Thrun does a lot of work in this match up but without some additional support, he can't win games by himself. Ghost Quarter is always a champ in this match up against Celestial Colonnades.

-Curator of Mysteries never came into play during the tournament. I cycled him against Control to protect a Loam, which was nice. I think I'm going to keep it in and see how it continues to play out. Having the versatility of being a 1 mana cycle or a 4-drop beater that gets benefits with Assault seems solid.

If you want to know more about a particular match, I can give you some general high and low points of each but I don't have a sharp memory of the event so I'll spare you the foggy details for now.


@Existenz: I like the synergy of Hollow One and Leave // Chance with the deck but without support, they don't do a whole lot. I'd like to hear how they work out for you. Chance caught my eye as a neat interaction with a grip of lands and Loam in the yard. Drawing 4-7 cards seems good and being able to cast it from the 'yard is a nice bonus. 4cmc is a little rough though and Leave seems too "all-in" for my tastes. Fiery Justice seems like sweet tech for the DS match up. Let me know how testing goes for you!

Yeah, having the mana to cast Crusher isn't the problem. It's just that 3cmc vs 2cmc is pretty big. Like, being able to Loam and cast Goyf on turn 4. But also, 1G is less restrictive in terms of available usable lands. So if I need to use 1RR that may eat up some of my available blue sources or may require me to use my one R/G land in play. Something along those lines tends to come up between turns 3-5. But you're correct, double Red isn't a problem for the deck.

If you think double Bolt is a better meta call, sounds good to me. I'm still adjusting to the meta since I've just recently been getting back into Magic. The all or nothing philosophy was just my old deck building mentality. I'm open to changing that though. With Shadow decks running around and having to deal with large guys, I can get behind wanting to 1-for-1 with a Shadow. Once creatures start getting beyond x/4's, it is difficult to stabilize the board with Assault. Though, having burn to point at the Shadow player's face sounds good to me as well.

I agree Faithless Looting isn't the best draw spell ever but I've never really had an issue casting it turn 1. You see 2 more cards and get to sculpt the best 6 from the 8 cards you have during resolution. It's not the same as being left with 7 but it's pretty solid. Especially when you can benefit from those cards in the yard. Also, if you were playing Goyf, it's great for setting up a fat one on turn 2.

I haven't played with Crusher in a long time, but I can give him a shot over Goyf next time I play. Goyf is just a fairly big guy for an easy to use casting cost. While Goyf can get big, you don't usually need more than a 4/5 to represent a big threat and 4 card types is pretty common. The finding late game gas with Crusher is solid and outside of not having the space for him, I don't remember what I had against the card years ago.

I'm glad the 3 color list worked for you. It looks more streamlined and sounds like it worked well for you. Faithless Looting has been on of the biggest beneficial cards for Jund Loam lists. The early game filtering is important for digging for Assaults and stacking your graveyard. It is no Ponder but without access to Blue, it's about as good as it gets. It is a pretty miserable top deck but as long as Loam is online and you have lands in hand, it basically reads "Draw two cards."

2 Lightning Bolts seems really odd to me. I've always been of the opinion that you either want 4 of them or it isn't something your deck needs. It's the most efficient damage-to-mana ratio burn spell. Thoughtseize could get moved to the 'board to get the other 2 Bolts in the main. Other than that minor gripe, I really like your list.

@Mazereon - If you really want to play a graveyard based deck with Knight of the Reliquary, there was an old Junk deck that ran Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. The intent being to self-mill and cast Knights from the graveyard. It had the spicy tech of Nameless Inversion as repreatable removal with Haakon in play. You may want to check that out. Here's the link to the old thread for you: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/543312-junk-haakon-loam

So, I played a 5 round tournament last night with the list below. It's almost card for card Mazereon's list. I swapped the Canyon Slough for a Sejiri Steppe because I've been very underwhelmed by the cycling lands. I also swapped 2 Grafdigger's Cage in the side for 2 Rakdos Charm because I couldn't find Cages and Charm seemed like an interesting card to try out.



Round 1: vs. Merfolk 1-2 Loss
Game 1: Won the roll. I had to Inquisition on turn 2 because I had Raging Ravine and Graven Cairns in my opener. He played Vial on his turn 1 then revealed another Vial, a Lord(that I took), Master of Waves, Curse Catcher and Silvergill Adept. I proceeded to have mana troubles after he Spreading Seas'd my Ravine and I was stuck with 2 Assaults in hand and a Worm Harvest for 0 because I had seen no fetch lands.
Game 2: I stuck an Assault on turn 3 when he tapped out for a Lord on his turn 2. I proceeded to grind him out with Loam. Eventually winning by showing him 6 mana in play and a hand of 3 Loams and an Urborg for a cool 20 damage.
Game 3: I kept a hand with Anger of the Gods and wanted to bait him into over committing to the board. He had a Curse Catcher on turn 1 followed by a Lord, then another Lord. I was going to Terminate his second Lord EoT if he played a third and then Anger the following turn to stabilize at 3. Instead of a third Lord, he played two more Curse Catchers and prevented me from killing his board the following turn.
Record: 0-1

Round 2: vs. Grixis Shadow 0-2 Loss
Game 1: We bot did a solid job of killing ourselves to play our spells. I had a large Knight hit play to hold off a 5/5 Death's Shadow. He resolved a Tasigur and a second Shadow. I Pushed a Shadow and ate Tasigur on an attack but he drew a Fatal Push for the following turn, killed my Knight and then me.
Game 2: He had a pretty nutty opener of 2 Street Wraith, Germaug, Tasigur, Shadow, Serum Visions and Polluted Delta. I took Visions and put up a decent defense with some spot removal and another Knight. We got to me at 4 life and him at 6. I had drawn Assault but couldn't get the three red together to cast it and finish him off with direct damage. He Kolaghan's Commanded to return a Shadow and make me discard and I wanted to tutor Bojuka Bog in response but it was unfortunately already in my Graveyard from an earlier Dredge with Loam looking for red mana. Eventually, he drew removal and finished me off.
Record: 0-2

Round 3: bye
Record: 1-2

Round 4: vs. Bant Spirits 1-2 Loss
Game 1: I Inquisition to see 2 Engineered Explosives, Collected Company, Phantasmal Image, Mausoleum Wanderer, and 2 land. I took Wanderer then we proceeded to do nothing until turn 4 when I played Huntmaster. He CoCo'd in response and dropped in Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit. Looking at a hand with a Fatal Push. I was rather unhappy about it. I planned to wait until I hit another spot removal card to kill both but he dropped Image copying the Selfless Spirit. I drew Abrupt Decay but I was getting beat for 4 a turn with no way to get my spell back. He Quelled a Faithless Looting flashback and proceeded to beat me to death.
Game 2: I had a double Inquisition opener I took a Rest in Peace from him. He tapped out on turn 4 and I jammed an Assault into play. I got Loam rolling and there was nothing he could really do about it.
Game 3: I had spot removal for most of his early plays. He cast CoCo and dropped in two Drogskol Captains on turn 4, to which I responded with Anger of the Gods for quite a blow out. Eventually I ran out of spot removal and couldn't find an Assault. Lost to an army of fliers on turns.
Record: 1-3

Round 5: vs. UR Storm 2-1 Win
Game 1: I Inquisition'd him and pulled a Ritual from his hand. He did some digging and played a Baral as I dropped in an Assault and kept him off of creatures then resolved a large KotR. The turn before he went off I was able to do 16 damage to him but he was at 17.
Game 2: I got him with an Inquisition into Collective Brutality hand to make him discard and kill a Goblin Electromancer. I stuck an Assault and Loam'd him out before he got a hand back together.
Game 3: I mulled to 6 and kept a hand with Assault+Loam, Lands and a Leyline. He Wear//Tear'd my Assault but couldn't find an answer to Leyline (which ended up being a mistake on his part because he forgot Gifts Ungiven targets an opponent). I didn't have much action but he had no clock, so I ended up beating him to death with a Raging Ravine.
Overall Record: 2-3

Thoughts on the Deck:
-Collective Brutality was consistently awesome. Outside of whiffing against Death's Shadow once, it was typically effectively disruptive to a total blowout.
-Shadow of the Grave was a dead card 95% of the time and the one time it would have been live, I didn't have the mana to cast it. After a couple games, I was boarding it out in almost every match up. I don't think the deck really needs it to be competitive.
-The mana base was the largest source of trouble for me. Either I was doing 8-10 damage to myself every game, failing to hit 3 red on turn 3 because I had too many basics/utility lands, or milled out lands I needed to fetch for to hit correct colors. The mana costs on all the different cards made plays without taking a ton of damage almost impossible. Without aggressive mulling or godly luck, I don't know how I was supposed to avoid the problems I was having.
-Knight of the Reliquary was decent but mainly just a big body to throw in front of dudes. I think it only connected in one game. There was a turn against UR Storm where I was waiting for him to Empty the Warrens and I could give Ravine Prot Red with Steppe but my opponent just conceded the game. It always felt fairly underwhelming in play and drawing him never really felt like an out for any game I was in.
-Not having 4 Assault felt very bad. I only saw Vortex in one game but I only had one or two Red mana available in a turn and just never got to kill anything relevant. Except for being 1 point short vs UR Storm, if I resolved Assault and it didn't immediately die, I won the game. It's our best card and I don't like playing less than 4 of it.
-The removal suite felt awkward. I kept wanting to see Lightning Bolt. Push and Terminate are fine but with Death's Shadow decks running around, having some extra reach would be nice. Having a few more board wipes would be nice too. Trading 1-for-1 is ok for awhile but eventually you want to get some card advantage over your opponent.
-Leyline of Sanctity was awesome in the match up where it mattered and I never needed Timely Reinforcements. These are definitely solid sideboard cards and can be game winning spells.

Anyways, what I'm building towards is that the white splash felt completely unnecessary and underwhelming. The games where I could disrupt the opponent, then resolve Assault on time and follow it up with Loam and value spells all went exceptionally well. Knight wasn't bad but it didn't really do anything that Tarmogoyf couldn't have done but at a much higher cost. Without giving the deck more of a reason to run white (for example, Lightning Helix, Path to Exile, Unburial Rites, any of the hatebears) I can't see the justification for the splash. It felt like the deck was working against itself the whole time. I had a hand with Urborg, a forest and a filter with Assault, Looting, Push and Inquisition. So I kept it because it does things but it was just awkward and forced me to play turn 2 by wasting a mana and then be incapable of casting Assault on turn 3. I could have potentially draw out of it but the hands where I had Jund shocks and fetches felt so much more fluid and effective. I could actually play around my opponent when the colors worked.

I know you said you can't afford Goyfs but I think Countryside Crusher would be functional enough in place of Knight and make the mana work much better for you. Again, I don't want to sound like I'm ragging on your deck or your playstyle. I just had such a difficult time making the deck do what it was trying to do. I think if you gave a straight Jund Loam list a try you'd find it to work more effective than the list you're currently running. Having a stronger focus on the core power houses of the deck supported by a mild disruption and removal suite with a consistent mana base would be a better launching point than trying to make a 4 color splash list work. The mana requirements are already extremely intensive for a 3 color deck.

So going forward, I'd either recommend cutting the white splash and trying to make a 3 color list work or really dial in what your cards require of your mana base and giving that an extreme overhaul. You'd need to up the number of fetches to at least 10, drop a handful of the utility lands for more duals, pick 2 of the most important basics to keep in the deck and ditch the rest, probably get another filter in there, and make sure that there are multiple ways that you can cast a variety of opening hands. Think about the order you are most likely going to cast your cards, how those plays lead in to your future potential plays and how you can consistently make your best options available to you when you need them. I don't think this is impossible to do but I do think it is an extremely difficult task to take on and that you can solve a lot of these problems by modifying your card choices and streamlining the deck more.

Assault Loam is a flexible deck and is capable of doing a wide variety of things but it can't do everything.

Welcome to the thread Existenz. I tend to have pretty good success with my RUG build, I've gone 3-1 at every modern tournament I've played with it in since picking magic back up.

I tried Izzet Charm a long time ago and always found it to be underwhelming. I liked having the option of instant speed Faithless Looting and all the modes are solid. I just found deciding when to pull the trigger on a mode to be too open ended. So I was wasting turns doing nothing or Looting EoT and getting punished for it later on because I didn't have a counter or burn. I found having the individual cards made lines of play easier to decide on and generally more cost effective on any given turn.

I haven't played with Tireless Tracker but he seems solid with fetch lands and sitting on some Clues doesn't sound bad. I don't what he would slot in over but it's probably worth testing out.

Flame Jab is a solid card and works as a decent filler until you can get an Assault in play. It ends up being just on the verge of played in the deck for most people. There are a few too many good cards that can work in the deck and decent filler ends up getting cut. If you are playing a Young Pyromancer style build, the Retrace cards become very good. Generating a 1/1 and pinging something for 1 for R is not bad.

Kefnet the Mindful seems overcosted and underwhelming. I don't normally have a full grip until I'm already in a winning position. So he's basically an enchantment with a mediocre 4 mana ability. There are better cards to be running in the deck than this.