I've been trying to piece together some kind of relevant R/W token deck. Purphoros, God of the Forge and a token producer spell death for the opponent even if they all get Drown in Sorrow'd the next turn. Purphoros is a really great way to make tokens matter in the face of sweepers and give what may be a simple 1/1 into guaranteed damage.
Consider Cone of Flame as a way to clear a path here. With all three targets, Thaumaturge makes it cost RR for six damage to three creatures. Even 1RR for two creatures and the opponent isn't horrible.
I've been following the list in Established pretty closely as well, and have all the cards that are surviving rotation at the ready. I do think that the spots we are losing (Ultimate Price/Putrefy, Abrupt Decay, Golgari Charm) can be filled with Sultai Charm and maybe a couple maindecked Drown in Sorrow. The charm will actually be easier to hit turn 3 a lot of the time than will Hero's Downfall, in my own experience. Drown in Sorrow conveniently poops on Morph 2/2s and is a frequent board-in vs. a wide variety of creature-based decks.
In longer games, a well-defended Jace, The Living Guildpact has helped me do a lot of good filtering, often pitching irrelevant lands to the bottom of the deck (usually if I keep a land on top, it's the Darksteel Citadel that Nissa's been waiting for). I often find myself wondering what to do with the growing pile of graveyard cards, and was actually thinking "Man, Delve would be sweet here" when I saw the spoiler shortly after. It's a good mechanic, and the best part about the mechanic is that it isn't really a build-around-me unless you want it to be. We'll be pitching fetches, losing counterspells and other instants and sorceries after casting them, and if they just print one nice bomby finisher with Delve, maybe a Tombstalker-esque Demon/Vamp with pro-red, pro-white, and flying or some other cute Sultai fixing, and I'll gladly finish the game with a couple copies in the deck. As it stands, the best creature available at rotation is Prognostic Sphinx, which is a little underwhelming.
Either way, I'm hopeful. We have some of the best walkers, a nice suite of removal even without Decay, and my favorite mechanic of the new ones.
So my LGS of choice did a Win-A-Box yesterday that wound up also being a GPT since the Judge was able to make it, and I placed 5th, as mentioned. I learned a few things, I suppose, and it was my first time playing DCI-sanctioned Standard in two years, fun stuff.
Round 1 vs BUG Control (Not Walker-centric): 1-0-1 Win
This was a list I somewhat knew ahead of time, as I met the guy I was playing against when I was scoping out the store for the first time. Nice guy, and an interesting deck. Not a huge fan of walkers, he only ran Kiora, and instead supplemented his control strategy with Sylvan Caryatid, Courser of Kruphix, Prophet of Kruphix, Prognostic Sphinx, a single Hornet Queen, and various removal and counters. I'm sure I'm missing something.
Anyway, Game 1 I went Caryatid > Turn 3 Kiora, got my ultimate off and while he did an admirable job holding out, my Kraken took the game.
Game 2 was more interesting. I'm pretty sure he boarded in as much in the way of counters as he could, and meanwhile I boarded in Ashiok, my Dispel, and maybe my Negates. Not remembering too well, to be frank. I did not open as strong, and ultimately drew the game out to time (though I think I would have had the win given time). I had Ashiok on board, and with it tore a lot of the meat from the top of his deck, but he landed a Hornet Queen pretty early on and I struggled to get through with much real damage. The flyers kept my Jace LGP and Ashiok from going too crazy, and both Nissa and Jace AoT hid at the bottom of the deck (AoT would have made the hornet tokens worthless for me). Anyway, we went to turns and I got the 1-0-1 win.
Round 2 vs Mono Black Aggro: 2-1 Win
This was a pretty interesting deck to see. Almost entirely rotating, which makes it fun. He ran a bunch of the little aggressive creatures from Theros, many of which have Bestow, and even Master of the Feast, which probably did more harm than good in the game it came into play.
Game 1 I lost in a matter of minutes, just had no good answers in hand and it was too late.
Game 2 I had boarded in my Drown in Sorrow and maybe another thing or two. Next time I'll take notes for boarding. I was able to land enough removal (and I think an early Caryatid, too) that it staved him off until I was able to land a good Drown in Sorrow. I then proceeded to ult Kiora and take the game.
Game 3 was the game where he had more answers, including a Devour Flesh on my poor 4/4 Darksteel Citadel. However, Nissa (and I think Kiora by the end) was able to put too much pressure on.
Overall, I don't think he was able to handle Nissa Elementals and Drown in Sorrow. Aetherspouts did some good work in there, too, at one point putting two Mutavaults and some critters back.
Round 3 vs Naya Zoo?: 1-2 Loss
This guy was running an interesting Naya list with Boros Reckoner, Experiment One, the green Bloodrush 3/2 guy, Boros Charm, some burn, Dryad Militant, etc. It was a pretty cool list, something much closer to what I would normally run.
Anyway, Game 1 I'm pretty sure was the game I won. Kiora ult, kept a clear board, etc. That might have been Game 2, in which case Game 1 was a game I got totally blown out.
Game 2 is the opposite of Game 1. One of the first two games, there just weren't enough answers.
Game 3 was a battle of attrition, with him just having enough answers to my own walkers for me to keep the board from being clear on my side. Ultimately, he got the win off of I think Double Bloodrush and Boros Charm for Double Strike. Some kind of blowout on an unblocked critter.
Round 4 vs Obzedat and Friends: 0-2 Loss
So this was my friend Dave's list. He went into the final round 2-0-1, I went in 2-1. We were in 3rd and 4th Place, and figured the winner would Top 4. However, I already knew about the struggle of playing against his deck. Basically, imagine MBD but without the Devotion concept and instead featuring a solid black deck with Pack Rat accentuated by Banishing Light; Obzedat, Ghost Council; Blood Baron of Vizkopa; and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This gives him a very serious edge over MBD and a pretty good game against me, since Pack Rat is hard for this deck to deal with if played early.
Games 1 and 2 were pretty similar. I removed some badguys, killed his Underworld Connections, probably dealt with a single Pack Rat, and then ultimately lost to just repeated bomb after bomb, including Elspeth. Both games I struggled to get land at the pace that 25 lands would make you assume. In Game 2 he landed a Blood Baron, and Kiora kept it locked out, but in doing so I was not able to stop him from using other creatures to stop me.
This matchup is winnable, but it often gets pretty drawn-out until I can see the right answer. In playtesting with him the nights prior, at one point he had something like 15 Pack Rats out to my 9 or so Krakens (and he knew I had spout in hand), but it wasn't until I drew Garruk and Aetherling that I got him to concede that one. Anyway, he got the win and the Top 4 wound up splitting the box.
All in all, there was no Rabble Red present. No U/W Control present. Pretty low turnout in general, maybe because it was a Tuesday. What I think I learned more than anything is that Ashiok is pretty fun in the board against decks with creatures that they'd rather not deal with themselves, Drown in Sorrow is 10x better than Hornet Nest, Thoughtseize is entirely underwhelming mainboard against all these aggressive decks, and Kiora is an all-star. Also of note is that most of the cards I felt could not be dealt with easily (Mutavault and Pack Rat are my two biggest culprits, Boros Charm is also tough) are rotating, and that I'm pretty sure our deck will be pretty well-positioned upon rotation. Most rotations bring about a slew of aggro decks (as they are the easiest to build shortly after a release) and I think that with some Drown in Sorrow mainboard we'll be in a great position to deal with it.
Also, I'm gonna miss the hell out of Golgari Charm. IT KILLS COURSER FOR TWO, tons of the X/1 creatures out there (and most tokens) for two, and I suppose in a game against U/W Control I would have boarded it in to handle Detention Sphere and Verdict/Cleansing.
I played at a pretty small local win-a-box and got 5th, but it's bedtime so I'll try and write up match reports tomorrow.
But I beat BUG Non-Walker control, beat Mono-Black Aggro, lost to Naya Aggro (I guess that's what I'd call it) and lost to whatever the W/B deck is called with Blood Baron, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Desecration Demon, and whatnot (basically MBD but without Gray Merchant and with better removal and an edge on MBD matchups).
I was brewing some kind of R/W control styled deck with a buddy of mine the other day and then it turned out that this thread exists. My theory was to turn the list into one with zero activated abilities (I could make an exception for late-game finishers) and run Suppression Field and Blood Moon maindeck. Suppression Field, like Damping Matrix, hates on many strategies in Modern, and there are mono-white enchantment decks that use it decently well. The board then runs Torpor Orb and Rest in Peace as more hate on current top decks, notably Pod/Twin with the Orb and Snapcaster Mage and Tarmogoyf with RIP. I was recently messing around with a R/W Burn package to accompany the hate cards, using Chandra's Phoenix (as the one phoenix with a triggered return rather than activated) as the primary wincon aside from burn, but I know that it doesn't do well with Rest in Peace after G1 against some decks, so I'm looking for ideas. I knew about Bridge but I hadn't thought about it in this concept.
I wish I wasn't about to go to work or I'd type up the list I was messing with.
I've been playing Tron up until now, and I can definitely say that Suppression Field would be pretty devastating (maybe not as much as Chalice for 1, though) without drawing into natural tron asap.
Edit!:
Back from work, I'll post the list I've been messing with (haven't really gotten to practice anything with physical cards, buying for Modern has taken a backseat to Standard at present)...
As mentioned, I know RIP conflicts with the Phoenix, but I think in order to actively hate as many top decks as possible there has to be punishment on activated abilities as a whole, so I've set a pretty strict limit on my list. I'm not averse to going the lockdown route with maindeck Leyline, Bridge, and Prison, but I wanted to see what could be done with a package that eschews activated abilities in order to run what I think might be the most oppressive enchantment in the format.
Jund has been my only truly dreaded matchup as of late, as well. However, I too think that the answer lies in Bant.
Bant can have the following in it's 75:
Rhox War Monk - This card is amazing in general, but in particular it's amazing in that the only creature in Jund big enough to deal with it is Broodmate Dragon.
Celestial Purge - This hits Thrinax, Bloodbraid, and Broodmate. In particular, it's the best answer you can muster for Sprouting Thrinax, giving them neither a land nor three 1/1s.
Flashfreeze - Unless their list is running Duress or Sign in Blood, this card is better than Counterspell against Jund due to a less restrictive mana cost. The only other card it can't deal with is the obvious Great Sable Stag.
My answer to Jund, which I'll have more or less together once I finish up my playset of Misty Rainforest, is going to be Bant. One more thing of note is that you can run the Cascade mechanic. Captured Sunlight and Enlisted Wurm aren't my favorite spells with the ability tacked onto them, but free spells are hard to argue with and I'll definitely test them.
As explained in the paragraph, I hated topdecking it when I had it maindeck and then preferred either Mind Sludge or repeatable discard out of the board, leaving it a card in my 75 that I wasn't using. If control becomes more popular around here, I'll probably throw it back in.
One thing I'll note is that I run 4x Doom Blade, 3x Disfigure, 4x Gatekeeper, and 4x Tendrils in my MBC, and have Infest in the board. Another thing of note is that I'll be taking Infest out of my sideboard to make room for what I consider to be more powerful cards. All of my spot removal, combined with Gatekeeper and the deathtouchy goodness on my Nighthawks, has made it so that I don't even board Infest in despite having it in the board against decks like Soldiers and Boros. Since I run 4 Black Knight maindeck and 3 Bloodwitch maindeck, my white matchup is almost like a bye for me. Against Boros, I board in my 4 Vampire Hexmage, since the Bushwhacker deck only does a power boost, and I was able to stall out the game (meaning I win) in game 2 between first strikers and Tendrils. Infest is too slow for Boros, and kills a decent amount of my own guys. Infest is too slow for Soldiers, who run 11 toughness boosters (3 Ajani, 4 Honor of the Pure, 4 Armorsmith). And lastly, Infest is too slow for Jund. Bloodbraid has haste, Stag, Broodmate, and Thrinax live through it, and Leech has the pump. Not to mention, keeping my First Strikers alive to block+Disfigure and/or swing when the enemy field is clear is a plus for me.
What my deck does not have right now is Sign in Blood, as I'm having a hard time figuring out what to take out for it. I imagine that the best course of action for me would be to side out some of my spot removal, since Sign would let me draw into it. If I decide to play the MBC on Sunday again, I'll do that.
Anyway, I guess I'll post a list of what I plan on bringing come Sunday if I decide to run this again:
This was basically me making room for some of the cards I wanted to test. The reason the Sideboard is so cluttered is because I'd like to do Sign in Blood this time around, which will of course move some removal to the board. On top of that, I'd like to take Infest out of the board and test out both Haunting Echoes and Scepter of Fugue. I also took Duress out of my sideboard, because it's been a really unimpressive topdeck in the maindeck, and when I moved it to the board, I wound up not wanting it as much as other stuff, since late game that one card might not do much, whereas a resolved Scepter of Fugue will eventually have someone playing everything they have on their own turn. The other card that really disgusted me after testing was Consume Spirit. Maybe I was just spoiled by Corrupt, and I know it can finish a game for me, but I hated drawing into it early game and wound up wishing for board presence late game anyway.
At this point, the only card I could see being an absolutely horrible topdeck late late game is probably Quest for the Gravelord, which at times pisses me off. It's my favorite play turn one, since I kill so much stuff I usually get a 5/5 pretty easily, but it's also the card I hate to see the most in the late game.
By the way, my meta consists of:
Sphinx/Grixis Control
White Weenie/Midrange
Naya Zoo
Jund
Boros Bushwhacker
Warp World
R/B Aggro
Spanish Inquisition
The decks that Top 4/8 most consistently are the White decks, my MBC deck, Spanish Inquisition, Naya Zoo, and Jund. Two Jund players split the top last weekend, while I made the biggest play mistake of my life in the Top 8 (I don't even want to share it, let's just say reading cards is tech), but placed 1st the weekend prior.
I've seen a lot of lists that don't feature Deathmark in the Sideboard, when I feel like the card is one Jund deck away from maindeckable (this is an exaggeration, but I do board it in a lot). It's not going to stop a Thrinax from making tokens or a Bloodbraid Elf from swinging in the turn it hits, but it blows up nearly every creature in their list (I guess it doesn't hit Stag if they run it and it doesn't hit the Broodmate token), and it's a low-mana solution to any creature in a white deck aside from White Knight or Devout Lightcaster. I've never been unhappy to see it in the matchups where I board it in.
Edit: Also, I'm all about trying out 2x Haunting Echoes. There are so many games where I feel like that card would break the game in half, and it hasn't been in my 75 (I had Sacrament boarded).
Sorin has been great for me. He requires a ton of attention to remove aside from Vampire Hexmage, and you can honestly just use his +2 every turn and not even bother with his other two abilities. Typically, though, I will use his Mindslaver once I'm up to 10+ loyalty and have some form of board presence, as tapping them out or making them waste removal on their own creatures helps to make sure that the turn after I can seal the win.
I figured the Top 8 would have some Jund, but dag.
Funnily enough I've been testing out Sligh lists all week and was going to try R/W but I don't have the proper fetches for it. Now I know it's worth my time, and I'm glad that someone did well with Skyfisher. As much as Skyfisher and Lynx were silly in Limited I figured there'd be a deck to give the two a Constructed pairing.
But that's 16 cards all in all. Against a creatureless deck, that's a lot of wasted space. It feels necessary to deal with threats though.
The Disfigures are proving to be pretty clutch against aggro, but it seems like you need some way to for-sure kill Baneslayers (Doomblade). Or can we rely on the Tendrils for that?
I run 4 Gatekeeper, 4 Tendrils, 4 Doom Blade, and 3 Disfigure/Hideous End (depending on what I think I'll see). It may seem like a lot, and it is, but against black decks you only have to board out one removal spell (Doom Blade) and against creatureless decks I frequently leave Tendrils in. And of course, boarding out 7 removal spells gives me ample space to board in anti-control cards, but the Tendrils typically stay because something like a Valakut control can target your Nighthawk or something with burn, and then you Tendrils in response, allowing you to essentially run lifegain against these decks at the expense of killing your already dead creatures. It's similar to Path to Exiling your own critter in response to it being targeted with burn/removal.
And yes, Tendrils can take care of Baneslayer. If you see a Baneslayer prior to you having 5 Swamps and a Tendrils, that's why you run the other removal. There is a such thing as too much removal in some matchups, but after Game 1 you can adjust to what you need.
@ powurz i think black knight is a bad call for MBC. i would rather be signing in blood or holding removal up on turn two, and it's a bad top deck which is very relevant because we do like the late game with this deck.
Honestly, Black Knight and Gatekeeper are my MVPs of the deck. I would replace Nighthawk with Sign in Blood before Black Knight. My local metagame is still full of white decks or decks that feature white removal, and there has been nothing as effective as Black Knight and Malakir Bloodwitch around here. As far as a topdeck, he's not optimal but I'm not going to run my deck full of high-curve spells. He's hard to kill without burn, and he survives in combat against a ton of relevant creatures. Not to mention he gives Luminarch Ascension decks fits. Maybe it's just a meta call for me, but until I see the decline of white in decks (which is hard for me to see anytime soon since WOTC keeps making good white cards), I'll be sticking with Black Knight.
Edit: Besides, on turn two Black Knight is as good as removal. With no more Ram-Gangs swinging in on turn 3, I can attest that Black Knight has stopped nearly every early attack I'd normally expect.
I run four Black Knight maindeck and four Vampire Hexmage in the board. This allows for my maindeck card to dodge most removal and survive in combat against many decks, as well as swing uninterrupted to hit the controller of a Luminarch Ascension. Then, out of the board, I can further disrupt weenie strategies by playing another 4 First Strikers. This is also, of course, good against decks featuring planeswalkers and quest enchantments, as well as lowering the curve of the deck.
And I can't imagine running 22 lands. I run 25, and while I get flooded on occasion, I can still miss land drops in the first five turns every other game or so.
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In longer games, a well-defended Jace, The Living Guildpact has helped me do a lot of good filtering, often pitching irrelevant lands to the bottom of the deck (usually if I keep a land on top, it's the Darksteel Citadel that Nissa's been waiting for). I often find myself wondering what to do with the growing pile of graveyard cards, and was actually thinking "Man, Delve would be sweet here" when I saw the spoiler shortly after. It's a good mechanic, and the best part about the mechanic is that it isn't really a build-around-me unless you want it to be. We'll be pitching fetches, losing counterspells and other instants and sorceries after casting them, and if they just print one nice bomby finisher with Delve, maybe a Tombstalker-esque Demon/Vamp with pro-red, pro-white, and flying or some other cute Sultai fixing, and I'll gladly finish the game with a couple copies in the deck. As it stands, the best creature available at rotation is Prognostic Sphinx, which is a little underwhelming.
Either way, I'm hopeful. We have some of the best walkers, a nice suite of removal even without Decay, and my favorite mechanic of the new ones.
So my LGS of choice did a Win-A-Box yesterday that wound up also being a GPT since the Judge was able to make it, and I placed 5th, as mentioned. I learned a few things, I suppose, and it was my first time playing DCI-sanctioned Standard in two years, fun stuff.
Round 1 vs BUG Control (Not Walker-centric): 1-0-1 Win
This was a list I somewhat knew ahead of time, as I met the guy I was playing against when I was scoping out the store for the first time. Nice guy, and an interesting deck. Not a huge fan of walkers, he only ran Kiora, and instead supplemented his control strategy with Sylvan Caryatid, Courser of Kruphix, Prophet of Kruphix, Prognostic Sphinx, a single Hornet Queen, and various removal and counters. I'm sure I'm missing something.
Anyway, Game 1 I went Caryatid > Turn 3 Kiora, got my ultimate off and while he did an admirable job holding out, my Kraken took the game.
Game 2 was more interesting. I'm pretty sure he boarded in as much in the way of counters as he could, and meanwhile I boarded in Ashiok, my Dispel, and maybe my Negates. Not remembering too well, to be frank. I did not open as strong, and ultimately drew the game out to time (though I think I would have had the win given time). I had Ashiok on board, and with it tore a lot of the meat from the top of his deck, but he landed a Hornet Queen pretty early on and I struggled to get through with much real damage. The flyers kept my Jace LGP and Ashiok from going too crazy, and both Nissa and Jace AoT hid at the bottom of the deck (AoT would have made the hornet tokens worthless for me). Anyway, we went to turns and I got the 1-0-1 win.
Round 2 vs Mono Black Aggro: 2-1 Win
This was a pretty interesting deck to see. Almost entirely rotating, which makes it fun. He ran a bunch of the little aggressive creatures from Theros, many of which have Bestow, and even Master of the Feast, which probably did more harm than good in the game it came into play.
Game 1 I lost in a matter of minutes, just had no good answers in hand and it was too late.
Game 2 I had boarded in my Drown in Sorrow and maybe another thing or two. Next time I'll take notes for boarding. I was able to land enough removal (and I think an early Caryatid, too) that it staved him off until I was able to land a good Drown in Sorrow. I then proceeded to ult Kiora and take the game.
Game 3 was the game where he had more answers, including a Devour Flesh on my poor 4/4 Darksteel Citadel. However, Nissa (and I think Kiora by the end) was able to put too much pressure on.
Overall, I don't think he was able to handle Nissa Elementals and Drown in Sorrow. Aetherspouts did some good work in there, too, at one point putting two Mutavaults and some critters back.
Round 3 vs Naya Zoo?: 1-2 Loss
This guy was running an interesting Naya list with Boros Reckoner, Experiment One, the green Bloodrush 3/2 guy, Boros Charm, some burn, Dryad Militant, etc. It was a pretty cool list, something much closer to what I would normally run.
Anyway, Game 1 I'm pretty sure was the game I won. Kiora ult, kept a clear board, etc. That might have been Game 2, in which case Game 1 was a game I got totally blown out.
Game 2 is the opposite of Game 1. One of the first two games, there just weren't enough answers.
Game 3 was a battle of attrition, with him just having enough answers to my own walkers for me to keep the board from being clear on my side. Ultimately, he got the win off of I think Double Bloodrush and Boros Charm for Double Strike. Some kind of blowout on an unblocked critter.
Round 4 vs Obzedat and Friends: 0-2 Loss
So this was my friend Dave's list. He went into the final round 2-0-1, I went in 2-1. We were in 3rd and 4th Place, and figured the winner would Top 4. However, I already knew about the struggle of playing against his deck. Basically, imagine MBD but without the Devotion concept and instead featuring a solid black deck with Pack Rat accentuated by Banishing Light; Obzedat, Ghost Council; Blood Baron of Vizkopa; and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This gives him a very serious edge over MBD and a pretty good game against me, since Pack Rat is hard for this deck to deal with if played early.
Games 1 and 2 were pretty similar. I removed some badguys, killed his Underworld Connections, probably dealt with a single Pack Rat, and then ultimately lost to just repeated bomb after bomb, including Elspeth. Both games I struggled to get land at the pace that 25 lands would make you assume. In Game 2 he landed a Blood Baron, and Kiora kept it locked out, but in doing so I was not able to stop him from using other creatures to stop me.
This matchup is winnable, but it often gets pretty drawn-out until I can see the right answer. In playtesting with him the nights prior, at one point he had something like 15 Pack Rats out to my 9 or so Krakens (and he knew I had spout in hand), but it wasn't until I drew Garruk and Aetherling that I got him to concede that one. Anyway, he got the win and the Top 4 wound up splitting the box.
All in all, there was no Rabble Red present. No U/W Control present. Pretty low turnout in general, maybe because it was a Tuesday. What I think I learned more than anything is that Ashiok is pretty fun in the board against decks with creatures that they'd rather not deal with themselves, Drown in Sorrow is 10x better than Hornet Nest, Thoughtseize is entirely underwhelming mainboard against all these aggressive decks, and Kiora is an all-star. Also of note is that most of the cards I felt could not be dealt with easily (Mutavault and Pack Rat are my two biggest culprits, Boros Charm is also tough) are rotating, and that I'm pretty sure our deck will be pretty well-positioned upon rotation. Most rotations bring about a slew of aggro decks (as they are the easiest to build shortly after a release) and I think that with some Drown in Sorrow mainboard we'll be in a great position to deal with it.
Also, I'm gonna miss the hell out of Golgari Charm. IT KILLS COURSER FOR TWO, tons of the X/1 creatures out there (and most tokens) for two, and I suppose in a game against U/W Control I would have boarded it in to handle Detention Sphere and Verdict/Cleansing.
But I beat BUG Non-Walker control, beat Mono-Black Aggro, lost to Naya Aggro (I guess that's what I'd call it) and lost to whatever the W/B deck is called with Blood Baron, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Desecration Demon, and whatnot (basically MBD but without Gray Merchant and with better removal and an edge on MBD matchups).
I wish I wasn't about to go to work or I'd type up the list I was messing with.
I've been playing Tron up until now, and I can definitely say that Suppression Field would be pretty devastating (maybe not as much as Chalice for 1, though) without drawing into natural tron asap.
Edit!:
Back from work, I'll post the list I've been messing with (haven't really gotten to practice anything with physical cards, buying for Modern has taken a backseat to Standard at present)...
6 Mountain
10 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
Burn Package
3 Rift Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Lava Spike
3 Sudden Shock
3 Magma Jet
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Wrath of God
The Hate
4 Suppression Field
4 Blood Moon
The Beatstick
3 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Defense Grid
3 Torpor Orb
1 Wrath of God
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Rest in Peace
As mentioned, I know RIP conflicts with the Phoenix, but I think in order to actively hate as many top decks as possible there has to be punishment on activated abilities as a whole, so I've set a pretty strict limit on my list. I'm not averse to going the lockdown route with maindeck Leyline, Bridge, and Prison, but I wanted to see what could be done with a package that eschews activated abilities in order to run what I think might be the most oppressive enchantment in the format.
Bant can have the following in it's 75:
Rhox War Monk - This card is amazing in general, but in particular it's amazing in that the only creature in Jund big enough to deal with it is Broodmate Dragon.
Celestial Purge - This hits Thrinax, Bloodbraid, and Broodmate. In particular, it's the best answer you can muster for Sprouting Thrinax, giving them neither a land nor three 1/1s.
Flashfreeze - Unless their list is running Duress or Sign in Blood, this card is better than Counterspell against Jund due to a less restrictive mana cost. The only other card it can't deal with is the obvious Great Sable Stag.
Deft Duelist / Wall of Denial - Shroud and First Strike or Shroud and a huge butt.
My answer to Jund, which I'll have more or less together once I finish up my playset of Misty Rainforest, is going to be Bant. One more thing of note is that you can run the Cascade mechanic. Captured Sunlight and Enlisted Wurm aren't my favorite spells with the ability tacked onto them, but free spells are hard to argue with and I'll definitely test them.
As explained in the paragraph, I hated topdecking it when I had it maindeck and then preferred either Mind Sludge or repeatable discard out of the board, leaving it a card in my 75 that I wasn't using. If control becomes more popular around here, I'll probably throw it back in.
What my deck does not have right now is Sign in Blood, as I'm having a hard time figuring out what to take out for it. I imagine that the best course of action for me would be to side out some of my spot removal, since Sign would let me draw into it. If I decide to play the MBC on Sunday again, I'll do that.
Anyway, I guess I'll post a list of what I plan on bringing come Sunday if I decide to run this again:
23 Swamp
2 Gargoyle Castle
Creatures - 15
4 Black Knight
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Quest for the Gravelord
Planeswalkers - 2
2 Sorin Markov
Sorceries - 6
2 Mind Sludge
4 Sign in Blood
Instants - 9
2 Doom Blade
3 Disfigure
4 Tendrils of Corruption
3 Vampire Hexmage
2 Scepter of Fugue
1 Mind Sludge
1 Disfigure
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Doom Blade
2 Haunting Echoes
3 Deathmark
This was basically me making room for some of the cards I wanted to test. The reason the Sideboard is so cluttered is because I'd like to do Sign in Blood this time around, which will of course move some removal to the board. On top of that, I'd like to take Infest out of the board and test out both Haunting Echoes and Scepter of Fugue. I also took Duress out of my sideboard, because it's been a really unimpressive topdeck in the maindeck, and when I moved it to the board, I wound up not wanting it as much as other stuff, since late game that one card might not do much, whereas a resolved Scepter of Fugue will eventually have someone playing everything they have on their own turn. The other card that really disgusted me after testing was Consume Spirit. Maybe I was just spoiled by Corrupt, and I know it can finish a game for me, but I hated drawing into it early game and wound up wishing for board presence late game anyway.
At this point, the only card I could see being an absolutely horrible topdeck late late game is probably Quest for the Gravelord, which at times pisses me off. It's my favorite play turn one, since I kill so much stuff I usually get a 5/5 pretty easily, but it's also the card I hate to see the most in the late game.
By the way, my meta consists of:
Sphinx/Grixis Control
White Weenie/Midrange
Naya Zoo
Jund
Boros Bushwhacker
Warp World
R/B Aggro
Spanish Inquisition
The decks that Top 4/8 most consistently are the White decks, my MBC deck, Spanish Inquisition, Naya Zoo, and Jund. Two Jund players split the top last weekend, while I made the biggest play mistake of my life in the Top 8 (I don't even want to share it, let's just say reading cards is tech), but placed 1st the weekend prior.
Edit: Also, I'm all about trying out 2x Haunting Echoes. There are so many games where I feel like that card would break the game in half, and it hasn't been in my 75 (I had Sacrament boarded).
Funnily enough I've been testing out Sligh lists all week and was going to try R/W but I don't have the proper fetches for it. Now I know it's worth my time, and I'm glad that someone did well with Skyfisher. As much as Skyfisher and Lynx were silly in Limited I figured there'd be a deck to give the two a Constructed pairing.
I run 4 Gatekeeper, 4 Tendrils, 4 Doom Blade, and 3 Disfigure/Hideous End (depending on what I think I'll see). It may seem like a lot, and it is, but against black decks you only have to board out one removal spell (Doom Blade) and against creatureless decks I frequently leave Tendrils in. And of course, boarding out 7 removal spells gives me ample space to board in anti-control cards, but the Tendrils typically stay because something like a Valakut control can target your Nighthawk or something with burn, and then you Tendrils in response, allowing you to essentially run lifegain against these decks at the expense of killing your already dead creatures. It's similar to Path to Exiling your own critter in response to it being targeted with burn/removal.
And yes, Tendrils can take care of Baneslayer. If you see a Baneslayer prior to you having 5 Swamps and a Tendrils, that's why you run the other removal. There is a such thing as too much removal in some matchups, but after Game 1 you can adjust to what you need.
Honestly, Black Knight and Gatekeeper are my MVPs of the deck. I would replace Nighthawk with Sign in Blood before Black Knight. My local metagame is still full of white decks or decks that feature white removal, and there has been nothing as effective as Black Knight and Malakir Bloodwitch around here. As far as a topdeck, he's not optimal but I'm not going to run my deck full of high-curve spells. He's hard to kill without burn, and he survives in combat against a ton of relevant creatures. Not to mention he gives Luminarch Ascension decks fits. Maybe it's just a meta call for me, but until I see the decline of white in decks (which is hard for me to see anytime soon since WOTC keeps making good white cards), I'll be sticking with Black Knight.
Edit: Besides, on turn two Black Knight is as good as removal. With no more Ram-Gangs swinging in on turn 3, I can attest that Black Knight has stopped nearly every early attack I'd normally expect.
And I can't imagine running 22 lands. I run 25, and while I get flooded on occasion, I can still miss land drops in the first five turns every other game or so.