Ad Nauseum
They'll just kill Gideon with Lightning Storm in addition to killing you.
doesn't work.
Doh, that's right. Was thinking of grapeshot mechanics for some reason. So actually might be somewhat good here, but then they might be able to lab maniac + lightning storm the Gideon. Maybe makes it a bit rougher of a win for them.
Burn
3 mana to counter a bolt or fog a creature or two seems pretty awful.
If you +1 he cannot die to bolt
So it counters 2 bolts and/or another creature attack. I think Kitchen Finks does more, tbh, especially since it adds devotion.
Affinity
This is probably where it's strongest, except for maybe Craterless Elves. But it's still likely only a turn it buys you.
actually it would be the worst here, i don't know why you think differently.
Affinity can easily spread their damage between us and gideon and every creature has evasion.
I mean I'm assuming that you're still playing some creatures here which can block a bit if you need them to. Most of their heavy lifting is on Cranial Plating, which means that Gideon is fogging one attack of it, basically. Somewhat useful. Could buy you the turn to get to Creeping Corrosion if we're talking game 2. It's definitely still weak but I think it has some play here. And not many of their creatures have evasion. Maybe half, not all.
Idk, i think the gideon doesn't fit in devotion anyways, but overall the card is way overhyped, even for standard.
It's not as good as people think at all.
As a core concept I agree here, that's what I was trying to say. Might be good in a monowhite devotion since they generally play very prison-like and can protect him. But then he's kind of do nothing there anyways.
is Gideon of the Trials a good sideboard card for us against certain decks. We have a lot of creatures to block for it...With Oath of Nissa we can dig for it.
I'm thinking about decks like:
Ad Nauseum
Maybe Burn (although they have ways to deal with it...but they do have to deal with it).
Infect
Affinity (many times they have one big attacker and again have to deal with him first).
Elves
I know not all are the top tier (and he may not be the best answer against each individually); but these decks are some of the tougher match ups we have...and it's nice to have once card that can be an "answer" or at minimum slow way down all of them.
I haven't tested it or thought about it a ton...but I'd love to hear discussion about it.
Ad Nauseum
They'll just kill Gideon with Lightning Storm in addition to killing you.
Burn
3 mana to counter a bolt or fog a creature or two seems pretty awful.
Infect
Probably buys a turn. Melira buys more than that.
Affinity
This is probably where it's strongest, except for maybe Craterless Elves. But it's still likely only a turn it buys you.
Elves
Against Craterhoof this is probably a mulligan, but vs elves without it might buy a turn or two if they don't have Ezuri.
I'm not big on the card, especially with double white cost. I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs incurred on the mana base, and it adds 0 devotion.
I don't mean to be negative especially with my previous criticism of the artifact card (certainly an option if artifacts become real problematic, but probably still too slow vs Nature's Claim) but those are just my thoughts on the cards
Is this good enough for us (especially Bellower decks) to use?
What does this do for us that Reclamation Sage doesn't already do while also providing an option to get rid of enchantments? And Reclamation Sage doesn't see much play either.
Yea it prevents a Wurmcoil from coming down and blocking, which is somewhat relevant, but is that situational ability better than the flexibility of removing an enchantment?
So I've been browsing this thread for the last week or so watching your discussion and while at first I was kinda uninterested since I'm coming back to the Tooth and Nail deck, which is what I played a few years ago before branching out into UW Control, then KikiChord and then Esper Control (and then I traded in most of my modern cards because I was mostly playing legacy, and then I stopped playing the game for a while - but now I'm coming back into it). However I have to say this discussion is really intriguing to me and it may push me towards picking up some of the more midrangey devotion cards and giving one of those builds a spin.
I do think the changes you've suggested to the SCG24 list are good.
1) Oath of Nissa probably feels better at 3 to me without having played it at all. The fact that additional copies can still gain the card is nice, but the fact that it doesn't stay around for the devotion count is kind of meh. Generally speaking 3 is for a card you definitely want to see a copy of, maybe a 2nd one. 4 is for a card you always want to see multiple copies of. I don't know that we always want to see multiple copies of Oath, but we might be ok with seeing 2 from time to time. I'm not sure if this means to start at 3 and see if you feel like you want the extra, or to start at 4 to confirm that you're seeing it too often. Just some thoughts.
2) I think Thrun as a singleton is good to get around any control or midrange that might have removal. Especially in my meta I know there's a guy playing Esper Control and there's potentially others playing control, so if I were to swap I'd keep Thrun at least in the sideboard but probably the mainboard. He's no slouch.
3) I agree completely with Gruul's analysis on Swagtusk vs Obstinate Baloth. The mana cost should be mostly inconsequential, so it's +1 life and a body if he gets removed vs being able to discard him to synchronous discard effects or maybe getting lucky against a targeted discard without another valid target. Honestly the number of times I've had Baloth in hand and unable to do anything with him because the opponent Thoughtseized or Inquistioned and saw him (thus not using Liliana but leaving her as a problem for the -2 on the board) just makes me wish I could cast Thragtusk instead which gives sacrifice protection. That and Fatal Push make Baloth quite a bit weaker. The gotcha moments are fun, but playing Swagtusk in general is just more fun on average.
4) Sudden Shock has play against Affinity, Infect and Ad Nauseum (if they go for the Lab Maniac kill). It also will just deal with smaller creatures. I have to imagine this slot is meta dependent and you'll include it (or bolts instead, or something else instead) based on what you're expecting to face.
5) Chameleon Colossus seems like a house vs Death's Shadow and other BGx decks. He might be less good against Junk since they'll likely still have Paths, but against Jund most of their removal is blank against him. Again probably meta dependent and I think his inclusion was primarily in response to the rise of Death's Shadow, where it's probably a trump card.
6) I'm maindecking blood moons in the Tooth and Nail List (I'm basically just starting with Uegjo's latest list until I get a feel for the changes I want to make) and I know I will enjoy them because there's typically a fairly significant Tron/Eldrazi presence in my meta. I do think they lack synergy in the devotion deck with the extra copies of Nykthos, but you're definitely going to want access to them out of the sideboard just to give you enough time to go over Tron's head in particular. If it's control decks you're concerned with, Choke might be a better option, but it doesn't do much versus the Jund and Junks and Death Shadow's, where Blood Moon can definitely put them in a corner. I'd probably keep the count at 2 in the sideboard for the Devotion deck.
6a) Crumble to Dust vs Blood Moon. Vs Manlands Crumble is probably better. It gets them completely out of the deck and you don't have to worry about them finding a way to get rid of Blood Moon and enable the lands to then do stuff. But vs Tron, I'm not sure. You can cast both before their turn 3 on the play probably very consistently since you just naturally have Blood Moon with 3 lands, and only require 1 accelerant to hit Crumble on that same turn. But on the draw, you need the Sprawl + Arbor Elf play to drop crumble on turn 2 before they can get something out with Tron on their turn 3, vs Blood Moon only requiring a turn 1 accelerant. Crumble definitely permanently cripples them, where an OStone can eventually get them out of a Blood Moon lock (or a Nature's Claim if they hit green mana - which probably isn't too unlikely). That's a tough one.
7) I don't think I like Tireless Tracker all that much myself. Just seems like so many things you could be doing that are better.
Went 0-2 drop last night, losing to white hatebears and then RB vampires :/
Basically in both games aether vial was a big problem. Vampires had turn 1 cavern of souls as well in both losses. Are these two cards as difficult to handle as they seem? In both matches all of my counterspells pretty much turned dead leaving me stuck trying to draw supreme verdict or lose the game - and even verdict wasn't mind blowing since they could still just vial in a new threat afterwards thus forcing me to also have a path to exile.
Basically if you take the counterspells away from this deck its quite terrible and that's effectively what a turn one cavern and vial will do? With merfolk you can still maybe spell snare or remand a spreading seas but otherwise yeah
Against a deck like Vampires or Merfolk you should be pretty heavily favoured. Sure, they can make your countermagic bad or useless, but Cryptic still taps the team, and ultimately you just blow up the board.
Hatebears can be a bit more difficult because they have Thalia which can really muck up your day, but their creature quality isn't that good, aside from the taxing effects.
These matchups revolve around board sweepers, not counterspells.
For those of you wondering about sword, I tried MANY versions of the combo in various control shells and it was terrible in each of them. The best sword deck I came up with was BUG which was your typical goyf bob deck with blue for muddle and the combo. It's not something you can just cram into a deck and have it be good because having 8 cards that do nothing at all on their own is a terrible idea. As for AV it's what plain UW needed all along to be on the same level as esper, and now it is. This is going to be an exciting week!
I agree. I think the sword combo goes in a Tezzeret deck of some sort.
I dunno what to do with myself now. Especially since I don't even own visions. Hoping EMA/Conspiracy2 brings them. I did just grab Swords and a few extra Foundry though. The other pieces for a Tezz deck are already stupid expensive (Opal, Bridge, Tezz himself)
I think we change gears...possibly drop black? Visions + Thopter Combo is ~12 slots or more...do we want to just be a Tezzeret deck? I honestly think it's a whole other deck. We may want visions, which might move us to UW Draw Go, dropping Esper Charm? I dunno if we can jam ThopterSword and still be the same deck though.
Perhaps the answer is that neither should be run, since they both do nothing a portion of the time. Maybe I just cut those 2 slots for +1 Condemn, +1x Vendilion Clique/Leyline/something.
I was only running a 1 of remand before, and when I picked it up again recently I made changes for Eldrazi meta and cut the Remand for the Condemn in the main. Also cut a mainboard negate for an extra Verdict. Haven't played much with it so I'm not sure how much I'm missing remand or not though.
i am still not 100% sold on remand at the moment, but i am going to still run it for a while.
but Runed Halo seems legit, i mean its a complete blow out vs some decks like boggles i need to test it out
do you still have to discard if you name Liliana of the veil (im pretty sure you do but making sure)
Yes, lili does not target so her discard will hit you. But on the upside you're immune to her ultimate!
You're also immune to her -2...so your Snapcasters and Cat Tokens are safe
anguished unmaking has a gameday promo that I intend to acquire two of. Probably this means I'll have to get my hands dirty with standard cards. Ugh. There's a shop 20 minutes from me that has maybe a dozen players with any regularity and the competitive level is such that I can generally take a draft deck and jam a few extra lands and spells in and 3-1, so if I actually bother to sleeve up a real deck making top 8 should be a cakewalk.
I intend to get 2 as well, but given the cost of making a standard deck it's probably just cheaper to buy the 2 promos...especially since GP Toronto is that weekend and I'll probably be playing modern or legacy side events there instead. On the other hand, being a standard GP..will make game days easier to win I guess, although most stores are running it on Sunday, which should work well enough.
1. I use my life total as a resource. I will hold off on wrathing the board, even at 3 for 1 levels, just to buy myself more draw steps--Many players think of this as a "greedy noob control player" move, but the reality is that IF (and ONLY IF) you can take the next hit safely, holding off on the wrath is almost always correct because it delays their ability to re-assert pressure on the board by a turn; if they overextend, you win, if they hold back, you win on tempo. Note that deciding WHEN it is safe to do this is a major skill--it's not just "am I dead", but rather "am I dead if I go down this much based on the cards he has/could be representing/could draw?"
I like to think of myself as a very competent pilot of this deck, and part of that will be always learning new things. I use my life total as a resource absolutely, but I don't think I've looked at it in quite this way. I'm fairly certain I'm hit the wrath on 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 without thinking about the next wrath (if I don't have it in hand) and didn't even think about the exchange in this way. Now I definitely will, thank you for this nugget. This will definitely improve my play.
I was thinking the same thing. Seems like it could be pretty strong.
Doh, that's right. Was thinking of grapeshot mechanics for some reason. So actually might be somewhat good here, but then they might be able to lab maniac + lightning storm the Gideon. Maybe makes it a bit rougher of a win for them.
So it counters 2 bolts and/or another creature attack. I think Kitchen Finks does more, tbh, especially since it adds devotion.
I mean I'm assuming that you're still playing some creatures here which can block a bit if you need them to. Most of their heavy lifting is on Cranial Plating, which means that Gideon is fogging one attack of it, basically. Somewhat useful. Could buy you the turn to get to Creeping Corrosion if we're talking game 2. It's definitely still weak but I think it has some play here. And not many of their creatures have evasion. Maybe half, not all.
As a core concept I agree here, that's what I was trying to say. Might be good in a monowhite devotion since they generally play very prison-like and can protect him. But then he's kind of do nothing there anyways.
Ad Nauseum
They'll just kill Gideon with Lightning Storm in addition to killing you.
Burn
3 mana to counter a bolt or fog a creature or two seems pretty awful.
Infect
Probably buys a turn. Melira buys more than that.
Affinity
This is probably where it's strongest, except for maybe Craterless Elves. But it's still likely only a turn it buys you.
Elves
Against Craterhoof this is probably a mulligan, but vs elves without it might buy a turn or two if they don't have Ezuri.
I'm not big on the card, especially with double white cost. I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs incurred on the mana base, and it adds 0 devotion.
I don't mean to be negative especially with my previous criticism of the artifact card (certainly an option if artifacts become real problematic, but probably still too slow vs Nature's Claim) but those are just my thoughts on the cards
What does this do for us that Reclamation Sage doesn't already do while also providing an option to get rid of enchantments? And Reclamation Sage doesn't see much play either.
Yea it prevents a Wurmcoil from coming down and blocking, which is somewhat relevant, but is that situational ability better than the flexibility of removing an enchantment?
I do think the changes you've suggested to the SCG24 list are good.
1) Oath of Nissa probably feels better at 3 to me without having played it at all. The fact that additional copies can still gain the card is nice, but the fact that it doesn't stay around for the devotion count is kind of meh. Generally speaking 3 is for a card you definitely want to see a copy of, maybe a 2nd one. 4 is for a card you always want to see multiple copies of. I don't know that we always want to see multiple copies of Oath, but we might be ok with seeing 2 from time to time. I'm not sure if this means to start at 3 and see if you feel like you want the extra, or to start at 4 to confirm that you're seeing it too often. Just some thoughts.
2) I think Thrun as a singleton is good to get around any control or midrange that might have removal. Especially in my meta I know there's a guy playing Esper Control and there's potentially others playing control, so if I were to swap I'd keep Thrun at least in the sideboard but probably the mainboard. He's no slouch.
3) I agree completely with Gruul's analysis on Swagtusk vs Obstinate Baloth. The mana cost should be mostly inconsequential, so it's +1 life and a body if he gets removed vs being able to discard him to synchronous discard effects or maybe getting lucky against a targeted discard without another valid target. Honestly the number of times I've had Baloth in hand and unable to do anything with him because the opponent Thoughtseized or Inquistioned and saw him (thus not using Liliana but leaving her as a problem for the -2 on the board) just makes me wish I could cast Thragtusk instead which gives sacrifice protection. That and Fatal Push make Baloth quite a bit weaker. The gotcha moments are fun, but playing Swagtusk in general is just more fun on average.
4) Sudden Shock has play against Affinity, Infect and Ad Nauseum (if they go for the Lab Maniac kill). It also will just deal with smaller creatures. I have to imagine this slot is meta dependent and you'll include it (or bolts instead, or something else instead) based on what you're expecting to face.
5) Chameleon Colossus seems like a house vs Death's Shadow and other BGx decks. He might be less good against Junk since they'll likely still have Paths, but against Jund most of their removal is blank against him. Again probably meta dependent and I think his inclusion was primarily in response to the rise of Death's Shadow, where it's probably a trump card.
6) I'm maindecking blood moons in the Tooth and Nail List (I'm basically just starting with Uegjo's latest list until I get a feel for the changes I want to make) and I know I will enjoy them because there's typically a fairly significant Tron/Eldrazi presence in my meta. I do think they lack synergy in the devotion deck with the extra copies of Nykthos, but you're definitely going to want access to them out of the sideboard just to give you enough time to go over Tron's head in particular. If it's control decks you're concerned with, Choke might be a better option, but it doesn't do much versus the Jund and Junks and Death Shadow's, where Blood Moon can definitely put them in a corner. I'd probably keep the count at 2 in the sideboard for the Devotion deck.
6a) Crumble to Dust vs Blood Moon. Vs Manlands Crumble is probably better. It gets them completely out of the deck and you don't have to worry about them finding a way to get rid of Blood Moon and enable the lands to then do stuff. But vs Tron, I'm not sure. You can cast both before their turn 3 on the play probably very consistently since you just naturally have Blood Moon with 3 lands, and only require 1 accelerant to hit Crumble on that same turn. But on the draw, you need the Sprawl + Arbor Elf play to drop crumble on turn 2 before they can get something out with Tron on their turn 3, vs Blood Moon only requiring a turn 1 accelerant. Crumble definitely permanently cripples them, where an OStone can eventually get them out of a Blood Moon lock (or a Nature's Claim if they hit green mana - which probably isn't too unlikely). That's a tough one.
7) I don't think I like Tireless Tracker all that much myself. Just seems like so many things you could be doing that are better.
Against a deck like Vampires or Merfolk you should be pretty heavily favoured. Sure, they can make your countermagic bad or useless, but Cryptic still taps the team, and ultimately you just blow up the board.
Hatebears can be a bit more difficult because they have Thalia which can really muck up your day, but their creature quality isn't that good, aside from the taxing effects.
These matchups revolve around board sweepers, not counterspells.
http://manadeprived.com/modern-sunday-showdown-top-8-lists-2/
Thopter Gifts
lands (24)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Darksteel Citidel
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
3 Marsh Flats
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Celestial Colonade
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Sheild of Emeria
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
3 Talisman of Progress
1 Unburial Rites
4 Gifts ungiven
4 Thirst of Knowledge
2 Trinket Mage
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Path to Exile
2 Spell Snare
1 Cryptic Command
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Life from the Loam
2 Dispel
2 Lingering Souls
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sunlance
1 Disenchant
1 Detention Sphere
1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion
1 Ghost Quarter
On a scale of 1 to Jace, The Mind Sculptor, how good does remanding an AV feel?
I agree. I think the sword combo goes in a Tezzeret deck of some sort.
I dunno what to do with myself now. Especially since I don't even own visions. Hoping EMA/Conspiracy2 brings them. I did just grab Swords and a few extra Foundry though. The other pieces for a Tezz deck are already stupid expensive (Opal, Bridge, Tezz himself)
I was only running a 1 of remand before, and when I picked it up again recently I made changes for Eldrazi meta and cut the Remand for the Condemn in the main. Also cut a mainboard negate for an extra Verdict. Haven't played much with it so I'm not sure how much I'm missing remand or not though.
You're also immune to her -2...so your Snapcasters and Cat Tokens are safe
I intend to get 2 as well, but given the cost of making a standard deck it's probably just cheaper to buy the 2 promos...especially since GP Toronto is that weekend and I'll probably be playing modern or legacy side events there instead. On the other hand, being a standard GP..will make game days easier to win I guess, although most stores are running it on Sunday, which should work well enough.
I like to think of myself as a very competent pilot of this deck, and part of that will be always learning new things. I use my life total as a resource absolutely, but I don't think I've looked at it in quite this way. I'm fairly certain I'm hit the wrath on 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 without thinking about the next wrath (if I don't have it in hand) and didn't even think about the exchange in this way. Now I definitely will, thank you for this nugget. This will definitely improve my play.