It's an interesting thought. I think a big factor is where you're playing this and how well you are trying to do. A transformational sideboard is for a Top 8. A tuned sideboard is for 1st place. If this is to grind online, I think it's a fantastic idea. If you are wanting to take it to bigger tournaments like GP's, the "cat out of the bag" idea starts to apply. Even locally, people will think it's cool when they first see it but will immediately know what's going on after your first outing with it.
Personally, I am looking to play eternal formats online so I think this is worth looking into. My main concern is if this is fixing our bad matchups. Affinity is the boogie man for this deck right? Does affinity struggle against Twin decks?
I've played this deck a bit, and it ended with me wanting to play 3 or 4 Chalice of the Void in the MD... But I guess that depends on the meta. Not playing one drops actually isn't so bad. E.g., maybe I'm insane (nah, I just have a creature heavy meta) but try a couple Pyroclasms over your 4 lightning bolts.
Hi guys, new to the thread but I've been trying out a few builds of the deck. I was just wondering what we thought about a version of the deck using Master of the Feast? Could he make a black splash worth while?
Hi guys, new to the thread but I've been trying out a few builds of the deck. I was just wondering what we thought about a version of the deck using Master of the Feast? Could he make a black splash worth while?
Right up front I'd say 'no.' I do realize you're giving them another card per turn, and you're getting a 5/5 flyer out of the deal. But one of the things that's great about the 'force your opponent to draw a card,' end of this deck is that it's symmetrical. You are also drawing cards. You're denying them resources so that all the extra cards are useless and in the end turns into damage with Impact / Trap. The whole time you're letting them draw more and more cards, YOU are also drawing into more denial cards. By ONLY giving them cards, you're not gaining cards yourself.
But, yes, it seems like in theory it'd fit right in, but to pull it off with 1BB would be difficult. I mean, in theory it'd be fine, and if you can test it out and let us know if it DOES make the deck work much better, please let us know. I think it's a matter of color and lack of symmetry. If it was 2B, 1UB, or even UUB it'd be a definite look into. Same would go if he drew both players a card like a Howling Mine would.
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Please put the colors of your suggestion in mana symbols prior to your suggestion in color-wheel order. To do this, put any of W, U, B, R, G, and/or C, whatever is applicable, with the word 'mana' inside [square bracets] before and the word '/mana' inside [square bracets] after the mana.
after more consideration, Waste Not would actually hurt you some I think... they would drop lands and spells and you would have to draw more cards and get useless mana that you couldn't use... so you would be even closer to decking yourself...
Unless you ran Reliquary Tower that is. Think I might have to try that out then.
Has anyone recently been playing this deck? How is it matching up against U/R Delver and Jeskei Ascendency Combo? It seems like it would have a tough time in this new fast paced Meta.
If anyone is still active here, Fevered Visions and Thing In the Ice seem to have a place here.
Fevered visions being not only a better Howling Mine as we get the first draw and our opponents get theirs EOT, being unable to play it (unless it's an instant), but also being a wincon itself. That said, I think we can even stop relying on Ebony Owl Netsuke as this stuff is also an improvement on that (half the damage, but it triggers with 4 cards, not 7), that'll also give us some extra spots on our deck..
And Thing in the ice, well, it pretty much self-explanatory, earlier turns blocker, after a couple instants it transforms, wipes out the board and gives us a reason to have a runeflare trap or sth at hand.
I apparently came to this thread to see only your comment. Sad that the thread has died but I think FV and everyone playing AV will certainly change that
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Saffron Olive did an "instant dech tech" of an old version of this deck yesterday (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-owling-mine-modern) and thought I'd throw something "new" together. Don't have it all hashed out but figured it would make sense to post a skeleton of it. Fevered Visions and the unbanning of Ancestral Vision might make this a bit more feasible!
Something like this, and will clearly need testing/tweaking:
This is my initial build, needs testing/tweaking as well.
Probably going against the namesake of the deck, I've decided to cut all owls for more consistency on draw engines/bounce spells.
Jeskai build including silence, removal is currently on the pipeline, but I'm leaning towards this one first because of the blood moon sb.
AS for your build @herkamurjones, Kami of the crescent moon is really soft to removal, sadly it's the only draw engine we have at 2 CMC other than howling mine, but I'd still play Dictate of Kruphix over it as it's more resilient to removal and counterspells as it can be casted EOT. Tibalt, the fiend-blooded isn't bolt-proof, why not Jace Beleren instead?. Vendillion Clique seems to had bad sinergy with this kind of deck, since we want them to have as much cards as possible in hands.
I don't get the point of running Simian Spirit Guide, I mean, I know pulling off mana out of nowhere is cool, but not necessary at all.
Mostly runeflare trap is better than sudden impact, requiring you 2 mana engines for its alternate mana cost. Against control for instance, is kinda hard to save 4 mana, but paying only R to deal 7/8 to their face out of nowhere is kinda cool.
Where's your bounce stuff by the way? You can make them draw a lot of cards, but then you have no way to defend yourself other than critters and remand.
I definitely think this deck has some potential now that Fevered Visions is a thing. I have no idea why Saffron Olive didn't even mention it during the deck tech. I think it is the obvious new core of the deck. I hope to assemble and test this bad boy when I get the chance. Probably going to be playing Thing in the Ice.
I use FV in a Legacy Prison deck. I have beaten a lot of top tier decks with it, the card is stupidly powerful in the right shell even in a format as nuts as Legacy (it is a Stasis/Geddon type shell).
I have a pile of cards sat on the side of my room from the last time I got the Owling deck going, where it (a) won imperiously or (b) lost hopelessly, in both cases the deck played itself some matches.
This seems to be a perpetual issue with fringe critterless prison element decks. My pile has 4 TITI too, it seems obvious but I have had zero time to put something together. I am hoping one will pop up on TCG or whatever and act as a starting point for everyone. Developing a deck from scratch takes months, and is rarely worth the effort- I continually work on a rotating basis of 3/4 Legacy decks and 1-3 Modern decks that I pay attention too developing over a few months or longer in the case of Legacy, and often loan out so that other people can do testing online in the short queues or in paper events where they can report back and work to improve them- if they win a lot then the demand to borrow them is often there anyway. I would love to add Owling to the pile, but I can't ever see them improving bounce (beyond flexible cards like Unsubstantiate) or Mana denial, whilst the number of t2/3 decks in the format is huge.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I'm glad a few of you got interested again in this deck. I stopped playing it a while ago, but it has never truly left for me. The past year I have debated on getting the cards again and playing w the deck, but every time I do I keep going back to the current meta and seeing Infect, Affinity, Zoo and Suicide Zoo, Merfolk, and other fast aggro strategies in the top two tiers. That's where this deck has always had trouble...
Against combo and control, this deck can dominate, but against aggro and other decks that really utilize 1cc cards, this deck can falter.
Some ideas I had since I last posted here:
Fevered Visions seems to be an auto include. I personally would run Them over the Temple Bells and run a full 4.
Titi is okay, but we're not that fast to remove all counters quickly... It DOES dodge Lightning Bolts however...
Chalice of the Void I think is a x4 in the SB. With Simian spirit Giude in the MD, you can drop it turn 1, which helps against mana dorks and other 1 drops like Death's Shadow / Goblin Guide.
Engulf the shore seems like another big card for the deck. We were debating different 4cc sweepers like Ætherize out of the board, but each had their problems. Engulf seems to eliminate all those pitfalls.
I'm gonna try and pick up where we left off and get a deck list made as a starting point. Until then, welcome back
-Yawg
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From void evolved Phyrexia. Great Yawgmoth, Father of Machines, saw its perfection. Thus The Grand Evolution began. — Phyrexian Scriptures
Hey Yawg! I haven't actually played this deck yet but come from the likes of Taking Turns so understand where this deck is trying to aim. What I'm having a hard time with is how important the "tempo" cards like boomerang or vapor snag are? If we just keep loading up their hands and Cryptic lock them, isn't that going to get them dead pretty quickly? I also understand that TitI is really good at bouncing their creatures back and filling up their hand, but seems really slow.
@sicsempertyrannis - Clique seems alright because it is card selection and replaces what you make them bury. Yes, it doesn't put additional cards in their hand, but you do get to pluck a "threat" and replace it to maintain the cards in hand. It was only a 1-of for this reason.
It's nice that we are getting the off-color fast lands finally! This deck will certainly want to use a few Spirebluff Canal.
Yeah I wasn't a fan of his sideboard plan and his land count seemed ridiculously low (he mulliganed SO many times in these games), but man do those games when you get to boomerang them out of the game look sweet.
This really feels like the mono-U Taking Turns deck in a way (well it uses a lot of the same cards lol). Exhaustion is bonkers!
How do we make this better though? Maybe -1 Twincast, -1 Bell, -1 Eye, +3 Island? Is that enough though? Should Howling Mine just be Dictate of Kruphix or is having eight 3cmc enchantments too much of a liability? Landing Mine on turn 1 with SSG was really solid, especially with Boomerang backup.
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Personally, I am looking to play eternal formats online so I think this is worth looking into. My main concern is if this is fixing our bad matchups. Affinity is the boogie man for this deck right? Does affinity struggle against Twin decks?
Also, unless your playing Snapcaster Mage or Jace, which both seem mediocre, Runeflare Trap is almost strictly better than Sudden Impact or anything of the sort.
Right up front I'd say 'no.' I do realize you're giving them another card per turn, and you're getting a 5/5 flyer out of the deal. But one of the things that's great about the 'force your opponent to draw a card,' end of this deck is that it's symmetrical. You are also drawing cards. You're denying them resources so that all the extra cards are useless and in the end turns into damage with Impact / Trap. The whole time you're letting them draw more and more cards, YOU are also drawing into more denial cards. By ONLY giving them cards, you're not gaining cards yourself.
But, yes, it seems like in theory it'd fit right in, but to pull it off with 1BB would be difficult. I mean, in theory it'd be fine, and if you can test it out and let us know if it DOES make the deck work much better, please let us know. I think it's a matter of color and lack of symmetry. If it was 2B, 1UB, or even UUB it'd be a definite look into. Same would go if he drew both players a card like a Howling Mine would.
-Yawg
4 Kami of the Crescent Moon
Spells [40]
4 Boomerang
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Ebony Owl Netsuke
4 Exhaustion
4 Eye of Nowhere
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Howling Mine
4 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Temple Bell
16 Island
4 Autochthon Wurm
4 Gigadrowse
3 Hibernation
4 Nourishing Shoal
Please put the colors of your suggestion in mana symbols prior to your suggestion in color-wheel order. To do this, put any of W, U, B, R, G, and/or C, whatever is applicable, with the word 'mana' inside [square bracets] before and the word '/mana' inside [square bracets] after the mana.
Freezing Point EDH series #1 (click through the other articles too!)
Why Dictate of Kruphix over Temple Bell?
Please put the colors of your suggestion in mana symbols prior to your suggestion in color-wheel order. To do this, put any of W, U, B, R, G, and/or C, whatever is applicable, with the word 'mana' inside [square bracets] before and the word '/mana' inside [square bracets] after the mana.
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Also I think I would rather run Dictate of Kruphix over Kami of the Crescent Moon. That way you don't mind using sweepers like Slagstorm and Anger of the Gods to clear away aggro.
after more consideration, Waste Not would actually hurt you some I think... they would drop lands and spells and you would have to draw more cards and get useless mana that you couldn't use... so you would be even closer to decking yourself...
Unless you ran Reliquary Tower that is. Think I might have to try that out then.
also any thoughts on running something like Psychosis Crawler or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind?
BMono Black DevotionB
WUBRGFog MazeWUBRG
UMono Blue DevotionU
Modern:
WBGMelira PodWBG
0Affinity0
WSoul SistersW
BRGLiving EndBRG
URU/R DelverUR
My Haves/Wants Thread
Fevered visions being not only a better Howling Mine as we get the first draw and our opponents get theirs EOT, being unable to play it (unless it's an instant), but also being a wincon itself. That said, I think we can even stop relying on Ebony Owl Netsuke as this stuff is also an improvement on that (half the damage, but it triggers with 4 cards, not 7), that'll also give us some extra spots on our deck..
And Thing in the ice, well, it pretty much self-explanatory, earlier turns blocker, after a couple instants it transforms, wipes out the board and gives us a reason to have a runeflare trap or sth at hand.
What'cha think?
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
Something like this, and will clearly need testing/tweaking:
4x Kami of the Crescent Moon
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Vendilion Clique
Spells
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Ebony Owl Netsuke
4x Howling Mine
4x Remand
1x Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
4x Fevered Visions
2x Temple Bell
3x Sudden Impact
8x Island
5x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Steam Vents
2x Sulfur Falls
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Thinking a 1-of (or more) Sword of War and Peace for the sideboard, among other cards (Master the Way or Molten Psyche?)
EDIT: Stormbreath Dragon seems like an obvious inclusion somewhere as well!
This is my initial build, needs testing/tweaking as well.
Probably going against the namesake of the deck, I've decided to cut all owls for more consistency on draw engines/bounce spells.
Jeskai build including silence, removal is currently on the pipeline, but I'm leaning towards this one first because of the blood moon sb.
3x Cryptic Command
2x Cyclonic Rift
2x Dictate of Kruphix
2x Exhaustion
4x Fevered Visions
4x Howling Mine
8x Island
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Remand
4x Runeflare Trap
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Steam Vents
1x Sulfur Falls
2x Temple Bell
2x Unsubstantiate
2x Vapor Snag
1x Wandering Fumarole
2x Anger of the Gods
3x Blood Moon
3x Dispel
2x Hurkyl's Recall
3x Negate
2x Spellskite
AS for your build @herkamurjones, Kami of the crescent moon is really soft to removal, sadly it's the only draw engine we have at 2 CMC other than howling mine, but I'd still play Dictate of Kruphix over it as it's more resilient to removal and counterspells as it can be casted EOT. Tibalt, the fiend-blooded isn't bolt-proof, why not Jace Beleren instead?.
Vendillion Clique seems to had bad sinergy with this kind of deck, since we want them to have as much cards as possible in hands.
I don't get the point of running Simian Spirit Guide, I mean, I know pulling off mana out of nowhere is cool, but not necessary at all.
Mostly runeflare trap is better than sudden impact, requiring you 2 mana engines for its alternate mana cost. Against control for instance, is kinda hard to save 4 mana, but paying only R to deal 7/8 to their face out of nowhere is kinda cool.
Where's your bounce stuff by the way? You can make them draw a lot of cards, but then you have no way to defend yourself other than critters and remand.
Cerebral vortex is another option following the line of tibalt, master the way and molten psyche.
Thing in the Ice still might worth a try here as well.
Oh, and I still can't decide which board sweeper to pack. AETherize, Evacuation, Cyclonic Rift, Whelming wave, engulf the shore, crush of tentacles. Which one (or two) would you pick and why?
Cheers.
SST.
I have a pile of cards sat on the side of my room from the last time I got the Owling deck going, where it (a) won imperiously or (b) lost hopelessly, in both cases the deck played itself some matches.
This seems to be a perpetual issue with fringe critterless prison element decks. My pile has 4 TITI too, it seems obvious but I have had zero time to put something together. I am hoping one will pop up on TCG or whatever and act as a starting point for everyone. Developing a deck from scratch takes months, and is rarely worth the effort- I continually work on a rotating basis of 3/4 Legacy decks and 1-3 Modern decks that I pay attention too developing over a few months or longer in the case of Legacy, and often loan out so that other people can do testing online in the short queues or in paper events where they can report back and work to improve them- if they win a lot then the demand to borrow them is often there anyway. I would love to add Owling to the pile, but I can't ever see them improving bounce (beyond flexible cards like Unsubstantiate) or Mana denial, whilst the number of t2/3 decks in the format is huge.
I'm glad a few of you got interested again in this deck. I stopped playing it a while ago, but it has never truly left for me. The past year I have debated on getting the cards again and playing w the deck, but every time I do I keep going back to the current meta and seeing Infect, Affinity, Zoo and Suicide Zoo, Merfolk, and other fast aggro strategies in the top two tiers. That's where this deck has always had trouble...
Against combo and control, this deck can dominate, but against aggro and other decks that really utilize 1cc cards, this deck can falter.
Some ideas I had since I last posted here:
Fevered Visions seems to be an auto include. I personally would run Them over the Temple Bells and run a full 4.
Titi is okay, but we're not that fast to remove all counters quickly... It DOES dodge Lightning Bolts however...
Chalice of the Void I think is a x4 in the SB. With Simian spirit Giude in the MD, you can drop it turn 1, which helps against mana dorks and other 1 drops like Death's Shadow / Goblin Guide.
Engulf the shore seems like another big card for the deck. We were debating different 4cc sweepers like Ætherize out of the board, but each had their problems. Engulf seems to eliminate all those pitfalls.
I'm gonna try and pick up where we left off and get a deck list made as a starting point. Until then, welcome back
-Yawg
@sicsempertyrannis - Clique seems alright because it is card selection and replaces what you make them bury. Yes, it doesn't put additional cards in their hand, but you do get to pluck a "threat" and replace it to maintain the cards in hand. It was only a 1-of for this reason.
It's nice that we are getting the off-color fast lands finally! This deck will certainly want to use a few Spirebluff Canal.
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Spells
4 Boomerang
4 Ebony Owl Netsuke
4 Exhaustion
4 Eye of Nowhere
4 Howling Mine
4 Temple Bell
2 Time Warp
1 Twincast
4 Remand
3 Runeflare Trap
4 Fevered Visions
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
4 Steam Vents
4 Autochthon Wurm
3 Blood Moon
4 Nourishing Shoal
2 Spellskite
2 Sudden Shock
Wondering if Cryptic needs to be in here in some amount?
I really like the Sudden Shock in the board but the Wurm/Shoal combo is too "cute." Maybe Ghirapur Aether Grid could work with Howling Mine if we can fit a few other "utility" artifacts in the list?
Yeah I wasn't a fan of his sideboard plan and his land count seemed ridiculously low (he mulliganed SO many times in these games), but man do those games when you get to boomerang them out of the game look sweet.
How do we make this better though? Maybe -1 Twincast, -1 Bell, -1 Eye, +3 Island? Is that enough though? Should Howling Mine just be Dictate of Kruphix or is having eight 3cmc enchantments too much of a liability? Landing Mine on turn 1 with SSG was really solid, especially with Boomerang backup.