Hey all, just been accumulating Modern Masters through drafts and GP Vegas and having fun with it and ultimately decided that with all these cards I would build a cube since I have little use for most of it aside. Through these events and pack purchases I've ended up with way more than anticipated. My original plan was to just sleeve 24 packs I got and run with it but now with way more cards and seeing some just being quite useless I am interested in seeing where people have ended up with with their respective Modern Masters cube cultivating. Any updates on your progress?
Why is Verdict better than Tribute? It's not the BB mana cost thast I'm worried about. It's that the one point of life loss doesn't generally matter, since this deck either wins with poison, or with huge damage swings in one turn. I mostly preferred it because of the lifegain, giving you more time to stall/survive until you can drop fatties.
I cut the daybreak for the 4th primeval, as that suggestion was pretty common among feedback I received. I went down to 2 Green Zenith and up to 2 Huntmaster, since he does a lot of different things for the deck. However, I'm considering cutting him back down to 1, and putting another acidic slime.
I was just thinking about Tribute to Hunger earlier given the difficulties I had tonight against the new Esper Delver deck but I realized that it requires you target a creature. So if you want to sweep those spirits or Drogskol Captain you're SoL if they have the pair set up (and they typically should). Tribute can be good against some decks but I think Geth's verdict is still correct, I may be shifting it to the sideboard though in favour of a Tragic Slip and a Go for the Throat and then siding as appropriate.
Inkmoth is too important to not include in these events. It won 2 rounds for me tonight that combo alone. You'd be better off finding room for Huntmaster of the Fells in the deck, you get some extra life a couple bodies and if it flips , additional value. It's excellent against delver and control as it forces them to do something about it which can help give you time to ramp or work on another combo.
I find hitting enough mana for Gavony is pretty hit or miss but realy the crux of it is to be there for the long game. I like the extra mana in there, I think it has made a big improvement to the consistency over the 19 from the Channel Fireball list at worlds.
I was very surprised when I saw the sideboard and there being no flashfreeze or the like. I was tearing apart my expensive delver for this decidely budget one while watching the semi's and added Flashfreeze into the sideboard. In addition two swords and a Phyrexian Metamorph. I quite like the toolbox approach of the deck and how it played out. I think Finkel could have got there, Kibler certainly had to top deck like a champ. Not to say he didn't earn his PT victory but just saying there were not a lot of outs in either of those two games..
This card is a house in limited, I can definitely see having 2 in the side at least. I only run 3 Geist of Saint Traft so maybe even a 1/1 or 1/2 split.
I ran a delver deck a couple weeks back and one of the regulars ran a W/R Tempered Steel and he said it was primarily to run Whipflare and he had been pretty pleased with it overall. I think he ran 2-3 Galvanic Blast but otherwise it was just for that. Looked OK but I'm not sure I'd want to run it.
During one of the DKA preview shows he did with TSG and PV this past week.
I will definitely have to change the build to have land destruction in the side, likely Ghost Quarter x 2. It's why I'd like to build into the Vault shell as you said the card is a beating and lingering souls is super effective.
I doubt I'll see more than one or two of them at this Friday's event but I could be surprised. To be fair I can't imagine a lot of decks that will work well against B/W aggro until we bring mr. Ratchet Bomb out of the side.
If it wasn't Tempered Steel I would otherwise run a W/u Humans build, the deck got some good support in this set.
I'm kinda new here, so I don't know if this is the right place. I apologize in advance.
But since this is the budget thread, about how much would a Tempered Steel Deck run? I'm conflicted whether I should play White Humans, RDW, or Tempered Steel.
It's generally not too bad. If you decide to go W/u to take advantage of Moorland Haunt then the dual lands can add to the cost. Otherwise I think it's actually a pretty reasonable price. I am not sure if you have priced it yet but some of the larger sites that sell cards let you put in a card list and generate a cost. Off the top of my head the more expensive cards in a mono white build are Tempered Steel, $8 each and Etched Champion, $5 each. You really would want Inkmoth Nexus but if you are super tight on cash they are a no go at $12-14 each. Everything else can be had pretty reasonably. Even buying full price I bet you could do a mono white deck for about $100 at full retail, better deals can be had if you look.
I run this budget list online and it works pretty well, priced out at SCG it's $115.
I think that there is more play skill required than "durrr turn it sideways" when it comes to aggro decks. There can be complex interactions and this deck in particular runs incredibly light removal so it has to be used judiciously.
That being said it can be a swing deck, if built properly (see Channel Fireball's list) and it can work very well. All land mulligans are part of the game. I have made multiple cracks at Wolf Run and for whatever reason it never plays out as smoothly as I'd like.
That being said the couple FNM I have ran TS at I was in the top, the deck can get it done.
I have been considering after seeing them perform in the prerelease going white/black and dropping the haunt. If I can get enough of them by next Friday I have been considering adding...
And 2-4 more of something, haven't laid it all out yet but I really would love to see a shell that could support the Vault, it is an incredibly powerful land.
We'll see, as cited the deck as it is is very good and is well set. The only thing I am remotely concerned over is there being a little more sideboard hate initially as people over react to the Grafdigger's Cage. Pod will pop up with Undying being a really legit mechanic, I think we very well may need a cage or 2 in the side.
Modified or not, I will be running Tempered Steel at the release FNM this next Friday, even LSV said it would be a very good choice.
I tried the gavony list last night on MTGO and I just found it terribly clunky. I'm going back to the Moorland Haunt version, with both dual lands in there it just seems a more consistent situation.
I bought some but I can't bring myself to run Creeping Corrosion in any of my decks. I ended up running Tempered Steel for the first time at FNM after testing on MTGO for weeks and went 4-1 with it. I only lost to a W/g Humans list that sideboarded of all cards..... Stony Silence. That shut off 2/3rds of my deck in game 2. After a tough game 1 loss I didn't see anything to worry about much but I brought in an Oblivion Ring but never saw it. I was baffled as to why this kid had that card in the side because Tempered Steel has never been popular at my store, ever. I only recall seeing it once from May till now. Found out why a little later, one of his friends he plays with over the kitchen table has a janky TS list so there you go. As it was I was just unlucky he only had one in the side and had it in his opening hand.
At any rate that card scares me more than Creeping Corrosion. The nice thing about TS is that with Moorland Haunt (and you should be running this) the deck becomes much more resilient to things like that. I have since changed my sideboard to include a couple Revoke Existence to back up the O-Ring. If I run into Stony Silence again it'll help having more options and in addition it'll be a more mana efficient way to handle Honor of the Pure or Curse of Death's Hold, both cards that can be problematic for TS as well.
To those running him a few questions;
1.) How frequent do he flipped? On the same turn he comes down?
2.) Is he good against RDW/WRR/Solar Flare 2.0/GW Township?
1 - I think I flipped him every game I had him and only once had to kill a pilgrim of my own to do so. Guy was surprised, I was like whatevs, deathtouch wolf! ;-) More often than not I flipped same turn, one game I generated 3 green wolf tokens and with a flipped Mayor in play that was enough to control the board.
2 - RDW - Excellent in this match-up, won one of the games in a tight 3 game match-up yesterday due to Garruk which is why I want to bump to 2. He had an Ashmouth hound up which would just insta kill both my guys if I attacked. He had a fresh Koth and a Chandra at 2. I dropped Garruk. Safely killed the Ashmouth. Flipped and then killed Koth with one dude and Chandra with the other.
WRR - Didn't play against this yet but the notes above apply. The death-touch and ability to take the birds out is exceptional. Combine the death-touch wolves with mortarpod as I mentioned in my post yesterday and it's quickly "titan who?"
Solar Flare - This deck in my local meta has thankfully not shown up for the last bit and I'm thankful. It's a trashy deck that's just no fun to play against. Just sit there and watch people gold fish their deck, fun.
Township - Can be a tough match-up. They can very quickly outpace us so you have to be very careful what you keep in your opening hand against them. I also run 3 o-ring, 2 naturalize main-deck which helps in this match-up but it can go either way. Since their creatures are often small to start, or at least one of them is you can typically get Garruk to flip pretty easily. That being said if they're running a flyer heavy deck he's not likely to live that long.
I was just thinking about Tribute to Hunger earlier given the difficulties I had tonight against the new Esper Delver deck but I realized that it requires you target a creature. So if you want to sweep those spirits or Drogskol Captain you're SoL if they have the pair set up (and they typically should). Tribute can be good against some decks but I think Geth's verdict is still correct, I may be shifting it to the sideboard though in favour of a Tragic Slip and a Go for the Throat and then siding as appropriate.
I will definitely have to change the build to have land destruction in the side, likely Ghost Quarter x 2. It's why I'd like to build into the Vault shell as you said the card is a beating and lingering souls is super effective.
I doubt I'll see more than one or two of them at this Friday's event but I could be surprised. To be fair I can't imagine a lot of decks that will work well against B/W aggro until we bring mr. Ratchet Bomb out of the side.
If it wasn't Tempered Steel I would otherwise run a W/u Humans build, the deck got some good support in this set.
It's generally not too bad. If you decide to go W/u to take advantage of Moorland Haunt then the dual lands can add to the cost. Otherwise I think it's actually a pretty reasonable price. I am not sure if you have priced it yet but some of the larger sites that sell cards let you put in a card list and generate a cost. Off the top of my head the more expensive cards in a mono white build are Tempered Steel, $8 each and Etched Champion, $5 each. You really would want Inkmoth Nexus but if you are super tight on cash they are a no go at $12-14 each. Everything else can be had pretty reasonably. Even buying full price I bet you could do a mono white deck for about $100 at full retail, better deals can be had if you look.
I run this budget list online and it works pretty well, priced out at SCG it's $115.
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
4 Vault Skirge
4 Etched Champion
4 Memnite
4 Chimeric Mass
4 Signal Pest
4 Glint Hawk
3 Origin Spellbomb
4 Dispatch
4 Tempered Steel
1 Revoke Existence
3 Shrine of Loyal Legions
2 Mortarpod
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Dispense Justice
2 Feeling of Dread
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Revoke Existence
That being said it can be a swing deck, if built properly (see Channel Fireball's list) and it can work very well. All land mulligans are part of the game. I have made multiple cracks at Wolf Run and for whatever reason it never plays out as smoothly as I'd like.
That being said the couple FNM I have ran TS at I was in the top, the deck can get it done.
3 Vault of the Archangel
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Swamp
4 Isolated Chapel
2 Plains
3-4 Tragic Slip
2-3 Lingering Souls
I'd drop
4 Moorland Haunt
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Midnight Haunting
And 2-4 more of something, haven't laid it all out yet but I really would love to see a shell that could support the Vault, it is an incredibly powerful land.
We'll see, as cited the deck as it is is very good and is well set. The only thing I am remotely concerned over is there being a little more sideboard hate initially as people over react to the Grafdigger's Cage. Pod will pop up with Undying being a really legit mechanic, I think we very well may need a cage or 2 in the side.
Modified or not, I will be running Tempered Steel at the release FNM this next Friday, even LSV said it would be a very good choice.
At any rate that card scares me more than Creeping Corrosion. The nice thing about TS is that with Moorland Haunt (and you should be running this) the deck becomes much more resilient to things like that. I have since changed my sideboard to include a couple Revoke Existence to back up the O-Ring. If I run into Stony Silence again it'll help having more options and in addition it'll be a more mana efficient way to handle Honor of the Pure or Curse of Death's Hold, both cards that can be problematic for TS as well.
1 - I think I flipped him every game I had him and only once had to kill a pilgrim of my own to do so. Guy was surprised, I was like whatevs, deathtouch wolf! ;-) More often than not I flipped same turn, one game I generated 3 green wolf tokens and with a flipped Mayor in play that was enough to control the board.
2 - RDW - Excellent in this match-up, won one of the games in a tight 3 game match-up yesterday due to Garruk which is why I want to bump to 2. He had an Ashmouth hound up which would just insta kill both my guys if I attacked. He had a fresh Koth and a Chandra at 2. I dropped Garruk. Safely killed the Ashmouth. Flipped and then killed Koth with one dude and Chandra with the other.
WRR - Didn't play against this yet but the notes above apply. The death-touch and ability to take the birds out is exceptional. Combine the death-touch wolves with mortarpod as I mentioned in my post yesterday and it's quickly "titan who?"
Solar Flare - This deck in my local meta has thankfully not shown up for the last bit and I'm thankful. It's a trashy deck that's just no fun to play against. Just sit there and watch people gold fish their deck, fun.
Township - Can be a tough match-up. They can very quickly outpace us so you have to be very careful what you keep in your opening hand against them. I also run 3 o-ring, 2 naturalize main-deck which helps in this match-up but it can go either way. Since their creatures are often small to start, or at least one of them is you can typically get Garruk to flip pretty easily. That being said if they're running a flyer heavy deck he's not likely to live that long.