In other news, I see that Dreamy is using Damping Matrix in the side. With CawBlade seeing play I'm thinking this isn't a bad idea. I just have no room in the side.
At worst it's a 3 mana burn spell, at best you discard it to looting and pay the madness cost, and it becomes RR, draw 2, discard 1, deal 3 damage to target creature or player.
Interesting. I'm worried about being stuck with one piece and not the other, but no harm in trying it out I suppose. Thanks for the suggestion.
Just 3-1´d on the premier event with R/b burn woth black for bump in the night and blightning main deck. The deck cost near 30 ticks +/- and seems viable on MTGO metagame.
Curiously, I've not tried Blightning. I've seen in suggested in this thread in the past, and I must admit I'm not sure it "fits" the deck. On the other hand, it seems to have done you well, so it can't be all bad right? I'll try it out and see what I think. Congrats on the finish, btw.
There really isn't a healthy thread here for the deck; either it's still underutilized, or people just don't want to talk about it in the open. Anyway, here is a sample list which has been successful online.
Angel's Grace isn't an auto-win; it's an out against a deck that Living End otherwise just isn't fast enough to kill and has no way of keeping Hive Mind from landing. You are correct, too; once Hive Mind is down, there's no stopping the kill. Split Second doesn't help. Beast Within and Krosan Grip do nothing. At least with the Angel's Grace trick, we have a chance to survive their attempt to kill us, and turn the tables back on them. As you can see, they run U/R, so things like Intervention Pact will be back breakers to them. They may be able to pay one blue or red pact, but not two, and their habit is usually to top everything off on us when "going off".
Yes. Swap out all the Living Ends and put in an Angel's Grace. If you have a Violent Outbust in hand when they go off, you play it on your upkeep and live. The idea is that you don't need the Living Ends; they go off, and you hit the Grace. Now they have to pay the price on their own pacts or lose. It's not a 100% steady answer at this point. I'm testing it out, and I'll let you know how it goes.
When I've played it, I see them using Intervention Pact, Pact of the Titan, and Pact of Negation. Yes, with a mana base using Orchards we can pay pretty much any one of these cards. The issue, however, is that the smarter Hive Mind player will leave you with two or more spells to pay for. They are also capable of going off in early turns before anyone would have the mana to pay for one, let alone two or three.
So, I think I'm going to go for a single Angel's Grace in the sideboard. It's not an auto-win against Hive Mind unless I can Violent Outburst at my upkeep, but it's a better chance than the deck has on it's own. I wish there were more Ricochet Trap effects for the mass of Control I'm seeing out there. My next MTGO PTQ run is on the 20th; I still feel pretty damn good about this deck and I still think it can go the distance. After some more testing this weekend, I'll post the list here for you all to pick at.
Here's a short PTQ tournament report I wrote for my local game shop's website, I ended up 7-1 in Swiss then lost in T8 to Hive Mind. That matchup is so difficult, luckily hardly anyone plays it...
_ShipItHolla took home the gold running Caw. The silver went to EdB piloting Affinity. Bronze was taken by osmanozguney with Tron. The first non-podium finish was sacakewalk with another Caw deck. Fifth through eighth went to, in order, Delver, Delver, Caw, and Fae.
This time there were only 14 different decks in the Top 32. What really amazed me about this PTQ is the large numbers of Caw & x/U/x Delver. I was also stunned by the "lack" of Jund, Pod, and Affinity. I really expected a few more of those.
I was one of the 2 Living Ends in Top 32; I finished 23rd and I believe the other was LuvLizLemon who finished above me. I too was wondering about the lack of Jund and Pod, though I did stomp out one Affinity deck round 2. Next one I'm planning on is the 20th.
1. Delver - the blue-heavy versions with more counterspells
2. Tron - Wraths, Remands, Condescends, etc etc
3. UW Cawblade - Cryptics and Remands main...
4. Burn - Goblin Guide into Bolts is often too fast and hard to interact with
5. MonoU Faeries - Spellstutter Sprite, Cryptic, and Remand main.
Throw Hive Mind up on that list too. Unless there's some super secret tech for it that I'm not aware of.
I just don't think it does anything other than be big. It can be countered rather easily, and it can be removed rather easily. I'd rather have the full yard out ready to swing than build up one to cast one lone dude with no evasion.
Just went 5-3 in a MTGO PTQ last Friday with Living End. My losses were to a U/W Control build, Hive Mind, and Tron. Hive Mind I knew I was going to struggle with, and with Tron I was just wishing I had more Fulminators. The loss to the U/W deck I don't feel too bad about as it came down to both of us being out of gas and one of us just getting there before the other. 23rd out of 155, I believe. Planning on doing another on the 20th.
so...during some Modern practice rounds on Magic Online, my Living End got Surgical Extracted. I cried.
I've had this happen post-sideboard in testing before. All is not lost. The deck does need Living End to "go off" the way it's designed to, but it can survive without it needing only a little bit of luck. With all that cycling, drawing cards is rather easy. If you find yourself out of Living Ends for one reason or another, go aggro. Hard cast those beaters, cycle away things like Architects of Will to find more beef. Having Baloths main helps here. Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread become combat tricks. It's not going to be easy, but, you know...NEVER SAY DIE!
I see this thread and, by default, this deck do not have a manabase that has been decided as optimal. I am curious to hear your thoughts as to why. Is it possibly because this deck has yet to hit an optimal list or is it possibly because the meta is so varied depending on where you go?
I started running this deck with a base of Scars block duals and Forbidden Orchards plus one lone Graven Cairns. Even though I've changed it up since then, I had no HUGE problems with this base. I switched into a mixture of 5 fetches, a single Stomping Ground, and a single Blood Crypt to make the opening turns more reliable, but it's not like it was unplayable without them. For most metas, there is a bonus to not relying on opening fetch-into-shock every game and I may yet switch back to a non-shock base.
Um, no. The only reason I will accept this deck playing fatties with not much evasion is that I'm cheating them all into play at once for pennies. Obstinate Baloth is really the only exception I'll add to the deck only because it serves a purpose against a few different strategies and thus gives my sideboard more wiggle room. This is just a fat guy that isn't any good unless I've got a yard full of other dudes, and even when he drops he doesn't evade and doesn't bring anything else to the game. I'll give it that his one advantage is that he's out of range for removal like burn or Dismember, but he still eats Path to Exile like most everyone does.
I think we've already talked about Sulfur Elemental, and it's come down to "don't do it". Tokens more often than not don't start coming out until after one or two Glorious Anthem type effects are already in play; taking one off the toughness at that point isn't helping at all, especially at the price of adding one to power.
So this is the list I have ordered. And I was wondering Since you have to wait a full turn before you can swing couldn't the opponent just play a board sweeper and win?
I'm new to modern as someone who has only played standard. So I'm new to all of this.
Off of Demonic Dread, yes, they have the window to respond with a sweeper.
The ideal play though is to pop off with Violent Outburst at the end of their turn giving you a fresh, non-summon sick army to swing with on your turn.
In other news, I see that Dreamy is using Damping Matrix in the side. With CawBlade seeing play I'm thinking this isn't a bad idea. I just have no room in the side.
My sideboard right now:
2 Krosan Grip (1 main)
2 Obstinate Baloth (1 main
1 Shriekmaw (2 main)
1 Faerie Macabre (2 main)
2 Ingot Chewer (1 main)
2 Sudden Death
4 Ricochet Trap
1 Angel's Grace
If I have to start cutting things, I suppose it would be the Shriekmaw and the Macabre. Thoughts?
Interesting. I'm worried about being stuck with one piece and not the other, but no harm in trying it out I suppose. Thanks for the suggestion.
Curiously, I've not tried Blightning. I've seen in suggested in this thread in the past, and I must admit I'm not sure it "fits" the deck. On the other hand, it seems to have done you well, so it can't be all bad right? I'll try it out and see what I think. Congrats on the finish, btw.
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Ethereal Usher
4 Pact of Negation
4 Seething Song
4 Pact of the Titan
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Intervention Pact
4 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Hive Mind
4 Pentad Prism
3 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Shivan Reef
2 Tolaria West
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Torpor Orb
3 Magus of the Moon
2 Leyline of Singularity
2 Ignorant Bliss
2 Spell Snare
3 Pyroclasm
Angel's Grace isn't an auto-win; it's an out against a deck that Living End otherwise just isn't fast enough to kill and has no way of keeping Hive Mind from landing. You are correct, too; once Hive Mind is down, there's no stopping the kill. Split Second doesn't help. Beast Within and Krosan Grip do nothing. At least with the Angel's Grace trick, we have a chance to survive their attempt to kill us, and turn the tables back on them. As you can see, they run U/R, so things like Intervention Pact will be back breakers to them. They may be able to pay one blue or red pact, but not two, and their habit is usually to top everything off on us when "going off".
When I've played it, I see them using Intervention Pact, Pact of the Titan, and Pact of Negation. Yes, with a mana base using Orchards we can pay pretty much any one of these cards. The issue, however, is that the smarter Hive Mind player will leave you with two or more spells to pay for. They are also capable of going off in early turns before anyone would have the mana to pay for one, let alone two or three.
Funny how it's probably the same ONE guy on MTGO playing it. I know every time I see it it's the same dude (screen name escapes me at the moment).
Also, someone else showed me this report earlier today. Seems you game with old chums of mine.
I was one of the 2 Living Ends in Top 32; I finished 23rd and I believe the other was LuvLizLemon who finished above me. I too was wondering about the lack of Jund and Pod, though I did stomp out one Affinity deck round 2. Next one I'm planning on is the 20th.
Throw Hive Mind up on that list too. Unless there's some super secret tech for it that I'm not aware of.
I've had this happen post-sideboard in testing before. All is not lost. The deck does need Living End to "go off" the way it's designed to, but it can survive without it needing only a little bit of luck. With all that cycling, drawing cards is rather easy. If you find yourself out of Living Ends for one reason or another, go aggro. Hard cast those beaters, cycle away things like Architects of Will to find more beef. Having Baloths main helps here. Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread become combat tricks. It's not going to be easy, but, you know...NEVER SAY DIE!
I started running this deck with a base of Scars block duals and Forbidden Orchards plus one lone Graven Cairns. Even though I've changed it up since then, I had no HUGE problems with this base. I switched into a mixture of 5 fetches, a single Stomping Ground, and a single Blood Crypt to make the opening turns more reliable, but it's not like it was unplayable without them. For most metas, there is a bonus to not relying on opening fetch-into-shock every game and I may yet switch back to a non-shock base.
Um, no. The only reason I will accept this deck playing fatties with not much evasion is that I'm cheating them all into play at once for pennies. Obstinate Baloth is really the only exception I'll add to the deck only because it serves a purpose against a few different strategies and thus gives my sideboard more wiggle room. This is just a fat guy that isn't any good unless I've got a yard full of other dudes, and even when he drops he doesn't evade and doesn't bring anything else to the game. I'll give it that his one advantage is that he's out of range for removal like burn or Dismember, but he still eats Path to Exile like most everyone does.
Off of Demonic Dread, yes, they have the window to respond with a sweeper.
The ideal play though is to pop off with Violent Outburst at the end of their turn giving you a fresh, non-summon sick army to swing with on your turn.