Not so optimistic about the new cards, I mean there is a chance each one on your list will see some play but I think the only safe bets here are Alchemy and Snapcaster. I mean, this is an eternal format... Most sets don't really contribute more than a handful of staples.
Idk about Jund but when I was testing Doran about a month ago the major reason I gave up on the deck was its horrible Post matchup. It should be in a much better spot now that Cloudpost is not a factor.
What is Doran doing to improve the deck besides making Spellskite swing for 4?
For Doran alone you're stretching your manabase to a 4th color?
Seems to me that Spellskite's main purpose is to protect the combo and it doesn't need Doran to do that. The added ability of being able to hit for 4 when Doran's out seems like it's not enough reason to splash black and devote 2 deck slots to what is essentially a 5/5 for 3 mana. Remember you already have Goyf and KotR, you don't need to overload on fatties, your primary win con is still Conscription combo because it's the fastest.
If you really want to splash black discard might work better as it interacts with what your opponent is trying to do or how they try to answer your plan.
Some things in addition to what's already been said:
- it gets increasingly difficult to reliably hit each land drop as you go up the curve. So past 6 mana it's even harder for creatures to compete with Titans. So Myr Battlesphere, sees no play despite having similar immediate impact when it hits. Same with the big Praetors and stuff like Sphinx of Uthuun. The only decks that might play those are Pod because they can be cheated in quite often.
- add Emeria Angel to the shortlist of creatures that can compete with Titans for slots in a deck, if you play her properly you can always get some value off her, maybe repeatedly, and she flies and makes flying bodies.
I'll try to explain capitacom's line of thinking here:
When you design a Gifts toolbox deck (or any other sort of toolbox for that matter) it's important to edit yourself. Trim the fat, so to speak. It's tempting to pack a lot of 1-ofs that give you answers to more different decks and situations, but it's better to maindeck the ones that are most relevant, the most often. Leave the rest for SB or just cut them if the matchups for which they are used don't figure to be that important in your meta.
Modern is a format where control is still trying to find its foothold. There are so many decks that people will play, IMO it is a bad idea to try and maindeck something for everything. So limit your maindeck Gifts targets to the ones that you most often need. For example:
These are just rough suggestions. But the general idea is to tighten your package so that you don't draw too many random 1-ofs, and throw in stuff that is just more useful in general, for example Cliques.
Capitacom also recommended Loam because at the cost of just 1 slot it gives you a recursive landkill option with Ghost Quarter. It also gives you options for long game strength with Raven's Crime and Worm Harvest. Pretty good stuff, again a meta call. But I've been playing Gifts since the Kamigawa era and I really recommend you try editing down a bit.
We have to find a way to abuse Mirror-Mad Phantasm, right? Right? ...Yeah, the 5 cmc isn't helping much, even if it is a 5-power flier.
The French "Hachoir de boucher" looks like another boring Equipment and rather outclassed by Loxodon Warhammer.
My thoughts exactly. It would've been much easier to use if it were Clique costed, 1UU for 3/1 sure thanks. But if you can somehow cheat it in, "1U: Mill you deck" (maybe half of it on average, anyway) is begging to be abused.
I play tezz infect. I don't play it like control it's not the way to go with it. Play it more like an aggro list. Necropede will be your allstar in this deck. Dismember really shouldn't be much of a huge problem, usually they don't pack a playset of dismember in their boards. So some creatures biting the dust isn't all that bad.
@Dryan I highly disagree about tarpit. It's a second out and can help you in the long run. It's a plan b of sorts and can help deal with a pesky planeswalker *cough*gideon*cough*
UB Tezz is actually different enough from the 'traditional' UB Control model that it has been given its own forum. Since the OP has posted in this forum, I evaluated his idea in terms of what UB Control wants to do.
I never said Tar Pit wouldn't work. I said it doesn't work "nicely" with infect, it still has utility - mainly attacking PWs - but it is less useful when applying pressure on the opponent's life total simply because your infect creatures are attacking their poison total. That could give your opponent extra turns before you actually win. And even though UB Control is capable of controlling the board, we don't have anything like a hard lock or soft lock; it's still possible for them to topdeck a way back into the game given those extra turns. Sometimes it won't matter, sometimes it will. The way I see it there's no need to run the risk.
Your finisher in UB control (besides being an over the top threat in itself) should be hard to kill. Not necessarily unkillable, or else we'd all be playing Sphinx of Jwar Isle, but not a card that can be 1-for-1'ed by common removal. That's why we most often see Titans and Consecrated Sphinx, because there are very few efficient ways to deal with them once they hit the board. Your opponent will often need to trade 2 or more cards to deal with those creatures.
Running infect creatures increases the number of possible answers to your top end, and turns your opponent's cheap removal live again. That's just not optimal. You don't even need to go into thinking that "we have counterspells" to see that. Why expose yourself to more vulnerabilities when you could go with 6-toughness creatures that are just as good if not better when it comes to ending games? Does infect provide such a massive advantage to offset this drawback? Not really, and please note that Tar Pit doesn't work nicely with infect, nor can you pack too many Tec Edges and Inkmoth together as noted by the other poster above.
Ruinator seems like the only one that could see Modern play. Dredge is still bleeding from the banning of Dread Return, well here's a possible replacement.
- mana efficient answers
- draw
- over-the-top finishers
You got it right with black spot removal (Doom Blade) and Leak. But all those unsummons are not real answers. They don't permanently deal with threats. Where is Inquisition of Kozilek? Aether Adept is questionable at best but if you replaced those Unsummons with IoK it could at least turn into pseudo-removal and tempo.
Azure Mage is a poor draw engine. You need four mana before you draw your first card with it and the total investment needed to draw two cards off it is 7UUU. By comparison Divination is looking pretty good at 2U for two cards and doesn't die to removal. I don't even recommend Divination either for draw. Most people run Jace's Ingenuity or Beleren or some combination of those two. No, Looter and Archivist are not in the same class when it comes to draw. Looter never nets you any cards and Archivist rarely does so (most matchups the UB player is the one with the most cards in hand).
You are running 4 Grave Titans and they are good but not always the best finisher in a given matchup. I don't know what your meta is like but you might want to diversify. With the proper mix of draw and filter (Ponder/Preordain) a UB player has good chances of seeing the right finisher for a given matchup even if you run 1-2 copies.
(Eventually, non-Green Gifts decks will be able to use Tiago-Noxious Revival-2 cards to get any two cards they want, but I digress...)
I'm really looking forward to that.
Unfortunately that package still takes 2 turns to kill, and is exposed to disruption in so many ways... Maybe if you had Lotus Bloom ready? Could be Wargate'd in the previous turn.
I used to play this in RUG (no Pod) sometime after the bans. That style of deck could take advantage of the speed because of the ramp. Pod decks do not have that much ramp, and should probably be seeking more value out of their chains. If you don't consistently have the speed you can ill afford the 4 life MSD costs you (remember you do sometimes want to pay life to Pod as well) - and it is quite fragile for a 6 drop. Not quite the value you are looking for.
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For Doran alone you're stretching your manabase to a 4th color?
Seems to me that Spellskite's main purpose is to protect the combo and it doesn't need Doran to do that. The added ability of being able to hit for 4 when Doran's out seems like it's not enough reason to splash black and devote 2 deck slots to what is essentially a 5/5 for 3 mana. Remember you already have Goyf and KotR, you don't need to overload on fatties, your primary win con is still Conscription combo because it's the fastest.
If you really want to splash black discard might work better as it interacts with what your opponent is trying to do or how they try to answer your plan.
- it gets increasingly difficult to reliably hit each land drop as you go up the curve. So past 6 mana it's even harder for creatures to compete with Titans. So Myr Battlesphere, sees no play despite having similar immediate impact when it hits. Same with the big Praetors and stuff like Sphinx of Uthuun. The only decks that might play those are Pod because they can be cheated in quite often.
- add Emeria Angel to the shortlist of creatures that can compete with Titans for slots in a deck, if you play her properly you can always get some value off her, maybe repeatedly, and she flies and makes flying bodies.
Please clarify if you want to discuss the best combos in Modern, or if this is just anything goes, good or bad?
Look at the date this thread was made
06-04-2011, 02:31 AM
Please use the report button rather than backseat Mod. t_c
When you design a Gifts toolbox deck (or any other sort of toolbox for that matter) it's important to edit yourself. Trim the fat, so to speak. It's tempting to pack a lot of 1-ofs that give you answers to more different decks and situations, but it's better to maindeck the ones that are most relevant, the most often. Leave the rest for SB or just cut them if the matchups for which they are used don't figure to be that important in your meta.
Modern is a format where control is still trying to find its foothold. There are so many decks that people will play, IMO it is a bad idea to try and maindeck something for everything. So limit your maindeck Gifts targets to the ones that you most often need. For example:
- sweeper: Damnation + Engineered Explosives (or Crime/Punishment) + Witness/Revival
- combo disrupt: Mindbreak Trap + Memoricide + Witness/Revival
These are just rough suggestions. But the general idea is to tighten your package so that you don't draw too many random 1-ofs, and throw in stuff that is just more useful in general, for example Cliques.
Capitacom also recommended Loam because at the cost of just 1 slot it gives you a recursive landkill option with Ghost Quarter. It also gives you options for long game strength with Raven's Crime and Worm Harvest. Pretty good stuff, again a meta call. But I've been playing Gifts since the Kamigawa era and I really recommend you try editing down a bit.
My thoughts exactly. It would've been much easier to use if it were Clique costed, 1UU for 3/1 sure thanks. But if you can somehow cheat it in, "1U: Mill you deck" (maybe half of it on average, anyway) is begging to be abused.
UB Tezz is actually different enough from the 'traditional' UB Control model that it has been given its own forum. Since the OP has posted in this forum, I evaluated his idea in terms of what UB Control wants to do.
I never said Tar Pit wouldn't work. I said it doesn't work "nicely" with infect, it still has utility - mainly attacking PWs - but it is less useful when applying pressure on the opponent's life total simply because your infect creatures are attacking their poison total. That could give your opponent extra turns before you actually win. And even though UB Control is capable of controlling the board, we don't have anything like a hard lock or soft lock; it's still possible for them to topdeck a way back into the game given those extra turns. Sometimes it won't matter, sometimes it will. The way I see it there's no need to run the risk.
Running infect creatures increases the number of possible answers to your top end, and turns your opponent's cheap removal live again. That's just not optimal. You don't even need to go into thinking that "we have counterspells" to see that. Why expose yourself to more vulnerabilities when you could go with 6-toughness creatures that are just as good if not better when it comes to ending games? Does infect provide such a massive advantage to offset this drawback? Not really, and please note that Tar Pit doesn't work nicely with infect, nor can you pack too many Tec Edges and Inkmoth together as noted by the other poster above.
- mana efficient answers
- draw
- over-the-top finishers
You got it right with black spot removal (Doom Blade) and Leak. But all those unsummons are not real answers. They don't permanently deal with threats. Where is Inquisition of Kozilek? Aether Adept is questionable at best but if you replaced those Unsummons with IoK it could at least turn into pseudo-removal and tempo.
Azure Mage is a poor draw engine. You need four mana before you draw your first card with it and the total investment needed to draw two cards off it is 7UUU. By comparison Divination is looking pretty good at 2U for two cards and doesn't die to removal. I don't even recommend Divination either for draw. Most people run Jace's Ingenuity or Beleren or some combination of those two. No, Looter and Archivist are not in the same class when it comes to draw. Looter never nets you any cards and Archivist rarely does so (most matchups the UB player is the one with the most cards in hand).
You are running 4 Grave Titans and they are good but not always the best finisher in a given matchup. I don't know what your meta is like but you might want to diversify. With the proper mix of draw and filter (Ponder/Preordain) a UB player has good chances of seeing the right finisher for a given matchup even if you run 1-2 copies.
I'm really looking forward to that.
Unfortunately that package still takes 2 turns to kill, and is exposed to disruption in so many ways... Maybe if you had Lotus Bloom ready? Could be Wargate'd in the previous turn.
TFK, Gifts, and Compulsive Research seem to be the best options sadly.