I think 3cmc spells are usually bad in tempo decks. This curve should really stick to 1 and 2 drops. If we add more 3 cmc it hurts the tempo and how this deck plays out. The 3 drops in the board are niche spells
In standard delver the only 3 drop I think was Geist, and that's for good reason haha
Has anyone considered Shuriken in the sideboard? Seems okay against Affinity and other creature decks. Might be good in a build with 3+ Mutavaults, but considering you are playing at least 6 Ninjas it might be something to consider.
Have you thought this through? If I have a Ninja out I can deal 2 damage a turn to 1 crature for the cost of 2 mana, unless we are talking Mutavault, then it's 4 mana. Of course, then I can't attack with the Ninja, which is what we generally want to do. It does nothing on it's own and nothing with any non-ninja creature (except getting our creature killed).
"Seems okay" against [insert aggro deck here] doesn't sound like you are convinced by it yourself. Shackles is just way better at everything than this card.
This.
People kept trying to add in "cute" cards because are either 1. 3cmc or 2. Work with ninja.
Why guys? We are making a solid deck, not a casual deck that has some cute combos in it. We aren't going to play cards that make us have a ninja or wizard or some BS like that. This isn't a theme deck, this is an actual tournament competitive deck.
Btw: I've gotten the core of the primer done. I'm working on side board and match ups. If anyone wants to pm me with their well tuned side decks I'll take a look.
Anyone know how the Infect matchup is? Several people play Infect in my meta, a few play Merfolk as well.
Ive played over 20 games with the deck thus far, ran into infect once. Worst case scenario we have a lot of creatures that could chump. But, we have 4 snap/snags and you can shoals their creatures. So not bad at all.
Post board you take out the bear (since all their pumps become removal) and remand is prty bad vs them. Add in the echoing truth, shackles, and cliques.
Your plan is to put 1/2 threats on the board and disrupt them from swinging as much as you can. (you don't have to "get them" with snag to "counter" pumps, just snagging at end of turn so you can use your mana next turn on putting more creatures/using ninja/visions/etc is worth it)
Ive played over 20 games with the deck thus far, ran into infect once. Worst case scenario we have a lot of creatures that could chump. But, we have 4 snap/snags and you can shoals their creatures. So not bad at all.
Post board you take out the bear (since all their pumps become removal) and remand is prty bad vs them. Add in the echoing truth, shackles, and cliques.
Your plan is to put 1/2 threats on the board and disrupt them from swinging as much as you can. (you don't have to "get them" with snag to "counter" pumps, just snagging at end of turn so you can use your mana next turn on putting more creatures/using ninja/visions/etc is worth it)
In my experience the Infect match comes down to having 2x answers for the creature in the same turn. The first one gets responded to by apostles blessing and the 2nd one should resolve.
Infect is not a prevalent deck where I reside but I must assume the plans mentioned above together with the fact that Shoal will almost always be able to hit their 1-drop creatures makes it not-so-bad. Inkmoth can probably be a real pain, though.
Just played a daily with this deck using the stock list. Went 3-1, report below.
Match 1 vs. Scapeshift with Prime Time
Game 1: Super close game, he ended up at 2 life but he was able to land a prime time and hit me for lethal with valakut triggers. This matchup seems to be played in a typical tempo fashion, early threats followed by counter back up.
Snag doesnt do much vs prime time and scape shift. Clique is good for obvious reasons since their deck relies on a couple of win cons to combo on. Wurmcoil was added since I needed a 4th card to put in and it seemed ok since it could stone wall primetime.
Game 2: I had a super quick start with 3 1 drops and had 2 remands to back it up, he was dead before he did anything.
Game 3: Was able to get another fairly quick start with a ninja that gave me enough cards to keep him from casting his titan in hand (remand x2, cryptic). He had boseju (uncounterable sorceries/instants) but never drew into a scapeshift.
(2-1)
Match 2 vs. Affinity
Game 1: He had a quick start but my double snag opener was able to slow him down a little. I was able to land a flipped delver and snap to whittle his life away. Got him down to 2 life before he sacced everything to an arcbound and made a 7/7 lifelinking vault skirge. Ripped a snag for the win.
Remands are pretty useless and probing for life is bad, and I dont think we have time to use it to cycle and Im not sure if it really matters what they have in their hand since they are just going to vomit it onto the board.
Game 2: I was able to slow him down with a snag and a recall for 5-6 artifacts. I added some pressure to the board and started swinging. I then snap/recall'd and then snag'd his ornithoptor on his end step to kill his 2 glimmervoids. This made it tough for him to cast the wipflare he had in his hand. I was then able to cryptic his whipflare 2 turns later and bounce another blocker to swing for exactly lethal (I was down to 4 life).
(2-0)
Match 3 vs. Merfolk
Game 1: Oh god is this matchup a nightmare. He just had four 4/4 islandwalking merfolks + a mutavalut by like turn 5 with a turn 1 vial. I thought this matchup was unwinnable.
Bear is killed with snag and they clog up the ground quick. Remand isn't good vs vial since either I cant counter because they used vial or I counter and bounce to their hand and they just vial it in anyways. Was hoping to ride shackles hoping it would be enough, I didn't think it would be though.
Game 2: I had a crazy fast start of 2 flipped delvers and was trying to out tempo him but he had the perfect hand of turn 1 vial, 3 lords, mutavault, and spellpierce. I baited out the pierce and ended up with a perfect hand of 2x cryptic, shoals, snag. I ended up 2x cryptic to tap his guys (he had lethal on board, all islandwalk) and was able to shaols pitch snag to counter his snag on one my delvers when I had an exactly lethal attack.
Game 3: He ended up mulling down to 5 and I was able to hit him with ninja for 2 turns and then eventually was able to close out the game with a clique and 2 delvers (he got pretty close to catching back up).
So this matchup is nearly unwinnable, I think I played optimally every game vs his deck and I think he played well (although he might of made 1 mistake but I dont think that would of changed the outcome). Not sure how to beat a deck that has a million threats that have islandwalk, all huge bodies, and have the same bounce and cheaper countermagic without just running ridiculously good.
(2-1)
Match 4 vs. Kangaroo with Hive Mind
Game 1: He had a nut start with 3 amulets and killed me on turn 3 haha Couldn't do anything.
Game 2: Started off with a delver into a clique and was able to just tempo him out with remands and cryptics.
Game 3: He had an explosive start but was a close game. I was pretty much sure to win with a clique and two flipped delvers. I took his hive mind (he had 2 pacts, one of them being summoners pact with clique) and he ripped a pyroclasm off the top I think we are favored in this matchup, I had to play the clique since I didnt have any counters left and he was goign to win next turn so I think I played it fine.
(1-2)
So deck took me to a 3-1 finish and performed very well across the board, I felt favored in the two combo matchups, an underdog preboard to affinity but a slight favorite post board, and a huge dog to merfolk.
So, guys, I have the main meat of the primer finished. I have not added matchups as of yet, should I copy the original match up notes from woo? Or create our own?
I started writing some matchup analysis as well as boarding plan for Twoo's list against the decks to beat. Work and playtesting for GP Prague got in my way though, I'll try to get it finished before I leave to Prague and send it to you if you want. If it's useless you can just dump it and take the stuff from Twoo's article
Thanks. Just pm it to me.
I'm currently working on getting the rest of this deck I paper so I can test it in person, for some reason I find that probe is so much better when playing paper magic, any deck with counter spells really. There is so much about bluffing the spells that win you games that doesn't happen on mtgo. Just a few more shoals and small stuff to finish it.
Good luck. Even though I don't think this deck is as good as you all think, I hope I am proven wrong. It would be a great deck to have permanently in the format.
Good luck. Even though I don't think this deck is as good as you all think, I hope I am proven wrong. It would be a great deck to have permanently in the format.
This deck has solid matchups across the board. Quite a lot of losses can honestly be contributed to player error and not deck construction. Post board we are slightly favorable in every match except a small few. I'm not sure if this will be the breakout event of the deck, but it's coming soon. I think players need to really hone themselves and learn to play it, it seems many jump into a deck like this without any real knowledge of how to play tempo, I did it myself when I first jumped into legacy format 2 years ago with RUG delver.
I've been playing this deck since Travis Woo first wrote about it. It's super fun, but sometimes I think I'm not good enough to pilot it optimally!
Sometimes you get these insane draws where you're bouncing Snapcaster with a Ninja, and then replaying your Vapor Snag and you feel like you can do no wrong. It's really great.
Also, you get to play with 18 islands and really, what's better than that?
I've been playing this deck since Travis Woo first wrote about it. It's super fun, but sometimes I think I'm not good enough to pilot it optimally!
Sometimes you get these insane draws where you're bouncing Snapcaster with a Ninja, and then replaying your Vapor Snag and you feel like you can do no wrong. It's really great.
Also, you get to play with 18 islands and really, what's better than that?
While this is true, you can get great draws (ala LSV), but more often than not you can get the opposite too (well at least thats been my experience...also I've stuck with Shoal in hand with no 3drop to discard as my opponent drops something relevent-aka Lilly)....but as said it just 'might' be the indian and not the arrow...)
Good luck to those brave souls going to Prague:nod:
I've been playing this deck since Travis Woo first wrote about it. It's super fun, but sometimes I think I'm not good enough to pilot it optimally!
Sometimes you get these insane draws where you're bouncing Snapcaster with a Ninja, and then replaying your Vapor Snag and you feel like you can do no wrong. It's really great.
Also, you get to play with 18 islands and really, what's better than that?
I'm so bad with this deck. I built it and piloted it last night and didn't win a single game. But in every single game I can point to 1 or 2 mistakes that would've resulted in me winning the game.
This deck is REALLY hard, so I'm really excited for it.
Just woke up and hurrying to work, so haven't read the MU analysis yet either, but:
Nice primer so far, some things could be tweaked. Only thing I thought about instantly when I read it was Sleight of Hand vs Serum Visions being "taste", Sleight of Hand _do not manipulate the top of your deck in ANY way_, it's terrible with Delver compared to Visions.
I am just starting with modern and since I love blue I will either build NBD or U/R Delver depending on what I enjoy more (though NBD has the more attractive cards in it). I watched some of Woos videos and I kinda like the play style.
After seeing this in action I have a question and please don't kill me if it sounds stupid :D. Isn't it worth to play at least 1 playset of fetchlands so I can thin the deck a bit and increase my chances to hit with a delver seeing as there are only 24 spells? Or is the offset of paying 1 life and getting the land into your graveyard for a possible deathrite shaman on the other side of the table just too much advantage for your opponent?
One thing about modern is, that fetches are everywhere.
And that is why decks try to take advantage of that.
Hatebears hopes that you play them, RWU control quite often uses Shadow of Doubt at least in the sb, sometimes even maindeck (or at least they did a few months ago) and as you mentioned you really dont want to feed your opponents DRS.
So I would not advise you to play fetches in a monocolored deck just for thinning. I personally probably wouldn't even play them in a 2-color-build if I could get around it.
And last but not least they're damn expensive (that doesnt matter if you already have your playsets, though:D)
After further testing, this deck does seem really good but it feels like the U/R Delver deck that placed in the GP does almost the same thing but better. Bolt and Grim Lavamancer just seem more relevant than Disrupting Shoal.
However, I'm sad that I've come to this conclusion because now I need to buy fetches
After further testing, this deck does seem really good but it feels like the U/R Delver deck that placed in the GP does almost the same thing but better. Bolt and Grim Lavamancer just seem more relevant than Disrupting Shoal.
However, I'm sad that I've come to this conclusion because now I need to buy fetches
Twoo said that on his stream last night, and said that the pyro version just seemed better. He also will most likely not be playing it on the pro tour.
In standard delver the only 3 drop I think was Geist, and that's for good reason haha
UW
The CMC3-problem is, as mentioned by people before, hardly a problem.
This.
People kept trying to add in "cute" cards because are either 1. 3cmc or 2. Work with ninja.
Why guys? We are making a solid deck, not a casual deck that has some cute combos in it. We aren't going to play cards that make us have a ninja or wizard or some BS like that. This isn't a theme deck, this is an actual tournament competitive deck.
Btw: I've gotten the core of the primer done. I'm working on side board and match ups. If anyone wants to pm me with their well tuned side decks I'll take a look.
Ive played over 20 games with the deck thus far, ran into infect once. Worst case scenario we have a lot of creatures that could chump. But, we have 4 snap/snags and you can shoals their creatures. So not bad at all.
Post board you take out the bear (since all their pumps become removal) and remand is prty bad vs them. Add in the echoing truth, shackles, and cliques.
Your plan is to put 1/2 threats on the board and disrupt them from swinging as much as you can. (you don't have to "get them" with snag to "counter" pumps, just snagging at end of turn so you can use your mana next turn on putting more creatures/using ninja/visions/etc is worth it)
In my experience the Infect match comes down to having 2x answers for the creature in the same turn. The first one gets responded to by apostles blessing and the 2nd one should resolve.
Currently playing:
- URx Twin in Modern
#RIPTwinhttp://www.twitch.tv/trei_gamer
Match 1 vs. Scapeshift with Prime Time
Game 1: Super close game, he ended up at 2 life but he was able to land a prime time and hit me for lethal with valakut triggers. This matchup seems to be played in a typical tempo fashion, early threats followed by counter back up.
-4 Vapor Snag, +3 Vendilion Clique, +1 Wurmcoil Engine
Snag doesnt do much vs prime time and scape shift. Clique is good for obvious reasons since their deck relies on a couple of win cons to combo on. Wurmcoil was added since I needed a 4th card to put in and it seemed ok since it could stone wall primetime.
Game 2: I had a super quick start with 3 1 drops and had 2 remands to back it up, he was dead before he did anything.
Game 3: Was able to get another fairly quick start with a ninja that gave me enough cards to keep him from casting his titan in hand (remand x2, cryptic). He had boseju (uncounterable sorceries/instants) but never drew into a scapeshift.
(2-1)
Match 2 vs. Affinity
Game 1: He had a quick start but my double snag opener was able to slow him down a little. I was able to land a flipped delver and snap to whittle his life away. Got him down to 2 life before he sacced everything to an arcbound and made a 7/7 lifelinking vault skirge. Ripped a snag for the win.
-4 Remand, -4 Gitaxian Probe, +2 Hurkyl's Recall, +1 Echoing Truth, +4 Vedalken Shackles, +1 Vendilion Clique
Remands are pretty useless and probing for life is bad, and I dont think we have time to use it to cycle and Im not sure if it really matters what they have in their hand since they are just going to vomit it onto the board.
Game 2: I was able to slow him down with a snag and a recall for 5-6 artifacts. I added some pressure to the board and started swinging. I then snap/recall'd and then snag'd his ornithoptor on his end step to kill his 2 glimmervoids. This made it tough for him to cast the wipflare he had in his hand. I was then able to cryptic his whipflare 2 turns later and bounce another blocker to swing for exactly lethal (I was down to 4 life).
(2-0)
Match 3 vs. Merfolk
Game 1: Oh god is this matchup a nightmare. He just had four 4/4 islandwalking merfolks + a mutavalut by like turn 5 with a turn 1 vial. I thought this matchup was unwinnable.
-4 Phantasmal Bear, -4 Remand, +4 Vedalken Shackles, +3 Vendilion Clique, +1 Echoing Truth
Bear is killed with snag and they clog up the ground quick. Remand isn't good vs vial since either I cant counter because they used vial or I counter and bounce to their hand and they just vial it in anyways. Was hoping to ride shackles hoping it would be enough, I didn't think it would be though.
Game 2: I had a crazy fast start of 2 flipped delvers and was trying to out tempo him but he had the perfect hand of turn 1 vial, 3 lords, mutavault, and spellpierce. I baited out the pierce and ended up with a perfect hand of 2x cryptic, shoals, snag. I ended up 2x cryptic to tap his guys (he had lethal on board, all islandwalk) and was able to shaols pitch snag to counter his snag on one my delvers when I had an exactly lethal attack.
Game 3: He ended up mulling down to 5 and I was able to hit him with ninja for 2 turns and then eventually was able to close out the game with a clique and 2 delvers (he got pretty close to catching back up).
So this matchup is nearly unwinnable, I think I played optimally every game vs his deck and I think he played well (although he might of made 1 mistake but I dont think that would of changed the outcome). Not sure how to beat a deck that has a million threats that have islandwalk, all huge bodies, and have the same bounce and cheaper countermagic without just running ridiculously good.
(2-1)
Match 4 vs. Kangaroo with Hive Mind
Game 1: He had a nut start with 3 amulets and killed me on turn 3 haha Couldn't do anything.
-4 Vapor Snag, +1 Echoing Truth, +3 Vendilion Clique
Game 2: Started off with a delver into a clique and was able to just tempo him out with remands and cryptics.
Game 3: He had an explosive start but was a close game. I was pretty much sure to win with a clique and two flipped delvers. I took his hive mind (he had 2 pacts, one of them being summoners pact with clique) and he ripped a pyroclasm off the top I think we are favored in this matchup, I had to play the clique since I didnt have any counters left and he was goign to win next turn so I think I played it fine.
(1-2)
So deck took me to a 3-1 finish and performed very well across the board, I felt favored in the two combo matchups, an underdog preboard to affinity but a slight favorite post board, and a huge dog to merfolk.
Thanks. Just pm it to me.
I'm currently working on getting the rest of this deck I paper so I can test it in person, for some reason I find that probe is so much better when playing paper magic, any deck with counter spells really. There is so much about bluffing the spells that win you games that doesn't happen on mtgo. Just a few more shoals and small stuff to finish it.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Good luck. Even though I don't think this deck is as good as you all think, I hope I am proven wrong. It would be a great deck to have permanently in the format.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
This deck has solid matchups across the board. Quite a lot of losses can honestly be contributed to player error and not deck construction. Post board we are slightly favorable in every match except a small few. I'm not sure if this will be the breakout event of the deck, but it's coming soon. I think players need to really hone themselves and learn to play it, it seems many jump into a deck like this without any real knowledge of how to play tempo, I did it myself when I first jumped into legacy format 2 years ago with RUG delver.
Sometimes you get these insane draws where you're bouncing Snapcaster with a Ninja, and then replaying your Vapor Snag and you feel like you can do no wrong. It's really great.
Also, you get to play with 18 islands and really, what's better than that?
A comic about the world's most addictive game, Magic: The Gathering.
While this is true, you can get great draws (ala LSV), but more often than not you can get the opposite too (well at least thats been my experience...also I've stuck with Shoal in hand with no 3drop to discard as my opponent drops something relevent-aka Lilly)....but as said it just 'might' be the indian and not the arrow...)
Good luck to those brave souls going to Prague:nod:
I'm so bad with this deck. I built it and piloted it last night and didn't win a single game. But in every single game I can point to 1 or 2 mistakes that would've resulted in me winning the game.
This deck is REALLY hard, so I'm really excited for it.
Currently playing:
- URx Twin in Modern
#RIPTwinhttp://www.twitch.tv/trei_gamer
Nope. No one made Day 2.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Nice primer so far, some things could be tweaked. Only thing I thought about instantly when I read it was Sleight of Hand vs Serum Visions being "taste", Sleight of Hand _do not manipulate the top of your deck in ANY way_, it's terrible with Delver compared to Visions.
Good job, tho!
P.S. Sad to hear no good news from Prague.
One thing about modern is, that fetches are everywhere.
And that is why decks try to take advantage of that.
Hatebears hopes that you play them, RWU control quite often uses Shadow of Doubt at least in the sb, sometimes even maindeck (or at least they did a few months ago) and as you mentioned you really dont want to feed your opponents DRS.
So I would not advise you to play fetches in a monocolored deck just for thinning. I personally probably wouldn't even play them in a 2-color-build if I could get around it.
And last but not least they're damn expensive (that doesnt matter if you already have your playsets, though:D)
However, I'm sad that I've come to this conclusion because now I need to buy fetches
Currently playing:
- URx Twin in Modern
#RIPTwinhttp://www.twitch.tv/trei_gamer
Twoo said that on his stream last night, and said that the pyro version just seemed better. He also will most likely not be playing it on the pro tour.
Grand Arbiter
Omnath
Skittles