The card Birthing Pod spawned several competitive decklists and won countless Modern Events from its inception in Modern to its banning in January 2015. Since then, Modern players have been searching for a deck that can fill the void. The first wave of successful decks included the Dragons of Tarkir card Collected Company. This card continues to show promise in Modern, but comes with a number of deckbuilding restrictions:
In order for Collected Company to hit your combo, you must run redundant combo pieces.
Costing 3 or less mana is a premium for your creatures now.
Noncreature spells are severely limited because of the high creature count required for consistent hits off of Collected Company.
These restrictions have led some enterprising players to look elsewhere. The printing of Evolutionary Leap in Magic Origins led to some speculation that the card could be very strong in Modern. It bears a striking resemblance to Birthing Pod in the activation cost and to Survival of the Fittest in its mana cost and the creature card going to your hand, but it provides a unique effect. When I first read the card, I thought it might have some application, but the condition seemed too steep. However, after testing it in my Collected Company deck, I realized the card actually has a lot of potential. My first list built around Evolutionary Leap was the following:
In testing, this deck showcased the power of Lingering Souls with Evolutionary Leap. I ran only 4 mana dorks because generally, Leaping into a Bird is undesirable, though it does not set you back very much. However, the lack of a combo meant some matchups were more difficult than necessary. The idea behind Wilt-Leaf Liege in this deck is as extra copies of Gavony Township, and the list allowed me to test several new ideas. Eventually, I decided to try a Birthing Pod-style approach. Here is the list that 4-0'd a Modern Daily on 8/11/2015:
This list is reminiscent of the Pod decks of yesteryear. In particular, the combo is present, but is not the main focus of the deck. Note that only three copies of Evolutionary Leap are present in the list, while Birthing Pod was always a four-of. Why? The reason is quite simple: Evolutionary Leap does nothing in multiples, while multiple copies of Birthing Pod work very well together.
Moving forward to 11/2015, the manabase was reworked in my test versions to account for the fact that a deck trying to produce WW, 1BB, and XGGG may be stretching itself quite thin, especially with the mana-intensive Evolutionary Leap engine. As a result, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Linvala, Keeper of Silence were omitted (though in the case of Linvala, you can still run her, as a 4-drop with WW is much easier to cast than a 2-drop with WW. I'd recommend replacing the Twilight Mire or Stomping Ground with another White source) and the card Crumble to Dust was printed, giving us a splashable way to simply win the Tron matchup that is also relevant in our other bad matchups (Scapeshift and Eldrazi).
Has years of practice and testing put into the decklists
This list is rather simplified, but it does help to illustrate some of the differences.
Combos and Interactions
This section is fairly simple, and serves to illustrate the combos and interactions present in the deck.
Infinite Life Combo Melira, Sylvok Outcast OR Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit plus Kitchen Finks plus a sacrifice outlet, of which Viscera Seer is the most commonly used. This combo is quite simple. If you sacrifice Kitchen Finks with Melira out, it returns to the battlefield with Persist, but can't get a -1/-1 counter. You gain 2 life, and scry (if using Viscera Seer). Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. If using Anafenza, you have to wait for the Bolster trigger to resolve, then choose to put the +1/+1 counter on the recently persisted Finks. Because of Rule 704.5r in State-Based Actions, these counters eliminate each other. (704.5r If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it)
Infinite Bolster Combo
If you have Anafenza and Melira on the battlefield, there are several ways to make your creatures arbitrarily large. The simplest is the three-card combo with Murderous Redcap and the above two creatures. Here's how it works: Murderous Redcap enters the battlefield, triggering itself and Anafenza. Place the Anafenza trigger on the stack first, and then the Redcap trigger on top of it, targeting itself. Redcap dies and persists. Again, put the bolster trigger on the stack first, then Redcap's trigger, targeting itself. You will end up with a stack full of Bolster triggers. Target something else (like your opponent) with the final Redcap trigger for two damage (or three, if you choose to switch the order of the final Bolster and Redcap trigger), then resolve the stack, distributing millions of Bolster triggers among your creatures. Attack for lethal with a creature that does not have summoning sickness.
Alternate Infinite Bolster Combo
This one is a four-card combo, but it is a good combo to have access to. With Kitchen Finks, Anafenza, Melira, and a sac outlet like Viscera Seer, you can sacrifice the Finks, let it Persist, leave the Bolster trigger on the stack, then sac Kitchen Finks again, and repeat until you have a large number of Bolster triggers on the stack, then let them all resolve.
Wall of Roots interactions
I will just put the two unintuitive Wall of Roots interactions here. You can have Wall pay twice toward a Chord of Calling by tapping it for Convoke and putting a -0/-1 counter on it for mana even if it only has one toughness. This works because state-based actions (which are what leads to a creature dying from having 0 toughness) are not checked during the casting of a spell or activation of an ability. Similarly, you can put the fifth -0/-1 counter on Wall of Roots and sacrifice it to Evolutionary Leap.
Evolutionary Leap interactions Evolutionary Leap works as a sac outlet in any of the above combos, but cannot go infinite because you will run out of green mana. However, with a Kitchen Finks and one of your two-drop legends, you can pay G to gain 2 life and put the top creature card from your library into your hand. You can also Evoke Shriekmaw and sacrifice it with the Evoke trigger on the stack.
The best mana creature since the beginning of Magic is the famous Birds of Paradise. Three to four copies are recommended, because having a mana dork in your starting hand enables you to start casting multiple spells per turn faster and allows you to cast your three- and four-drops a turn early.
Noble Hierarch
The two drawbacks of the Hierarch are that it does not fly and does not produce black mana. However, it makes up for these limitations with the Exalted ability, letting you go on the beatdown plan from turn one.
Viscera Seer
This is the go-to sacrifice outlet. It was the staple combo piece of past Melira Pod decks and is good in almost any situation where you have a developed board. An creature removed becomes a free scry, and it can dig for a specific card in a pinch. With the combo it lets you stack your deck to have a specific card on top in order to win on the next turn. With Evolutionary Leap in the deck, having a sacrifice outlet is not as necessary, but if you want to go infinite, here's how.
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
The 'New Melira' is almost a strict upgrade. Other than not randomly hosing Infect, she adds a ton of power to the board over the course of the game and helps open up a brand new combo with Murderous Redcap described above. The WW mana cost can be prohibitive, but with a correctly-built manabase, you should have no real issues casting her. Sometimes, this means you will fetch Godless Shrine on turn 1, which was more rare in the Birthing Pod days. Having a split of her and Melira is almost always correct to enable additional combos.
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
This card is pretty awesome. It's better on Magic Online than Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit because there are less triggers to take care of, but on paper she does an excellent job shutting down Inkmoth Nexus completely (if they activate the Nexus while Melira is out, it gains infect, but can't deal damage because you can't get poison counters and your creatures can't get -1/-1 counters). She's obviously excellent against the Infect deck, making their creatures lose the namesake ability and effectively doubling your life total. She is also much easier to cast than Anafenza.
Wall of Roots
Blocks for days, ramps, pays for GG with Chord. The wall has an additional use in this deck as it works well with Evolutionary Leap. I would not recommend running too many of these, as you're still an aggressive deck at heart.
Voice of Resurgence
This card is our go-to two-drop. It gets extra value with Evolutionary Leap by leaving behind a potentially huge Elemental. Don't leave home without at least two of these.
Scavenging Ooze
The Ooze is great in a lot of matchups and lets you get even more value out of dead creatures. It also randomly hoses some decks, and stops opposing Kitchen Finks combos. One in the maindeck has been tradition for a long time.
Spellskite is a great card in a ton of different situations. It stops Scapeshift (kinda), Burn, Bogles, and Infect to name some decks. It also protects the combo from any removal spells which is always helpful. Running more than one dilutes the beatdown plan, but the first copy shouldn't hurt.
Kitchen Finks
One of the core combo pieces of the deck. It provides great value by being able to block twice and give you multiple creatures with Evolutionary Leap. Run 2-4. Knowing when to remove the persist trigger can come in handy as well. This card is one of the reasons to consider Dromoka's Command.
Eternal Witness
Regrowth stapled onto a 2/1 body is fantastic. She's best friends with Liliana, Heretical Healer and makes up for the planeswalker's inability to get back legendary creatures. Run 2-3 copies in the main.
If Affinity and black decks take over Modern, I could see running a different kill creature, but having Evoke plays very well with Evolutionary Leap. We generally don't want to run Fiend Hunter because we aren't restricted by the CMC<4 of Collected Company.
Murderous Redcap
He is able to provide an infinite damage combo and an infinite +1/+1 counter combo. His ETB is quite useful for picking off unsuspecting creatures, and he chumpblocks like a pro thanks to persist. As a persist creature, he's obviously excellent with Evolutionary Leap.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Linvala is a valuable card in the deck for her ability to hose entire decks including but not limited to Elves, and Affinity as well as other problem cards like Scavenging Ooze. She is also resilient to almost everything but Path to Exile, Terminate, and Murderous Cut and provides a big flying body to further the decks plan B of beating down the opponent.
Reveillark
This evoke creature has been in and out of my 75. The main issue is that it's great against fair decks, and we generally crush fair decks, so I'm not sure Reveillark deserves a slot yet. However, the fact that it's a powerful creature can't be understated.
Siege Rhino
This rampaging beast was the scourge of Standard for a long time, and contributed to the banning of Birthing Pod. It's a four-drop with a powerful effect that can end games fairly quickly. As a value/combo deck, we want to run somewhere between 2 and 4 copies of the Rhino.
In addition to the aformentioned creatures, there are some other less common creatures that may see play from time to time.
Cartel Aristocrat
An option for a sac outlet in the 2 drop spot. She protects herself from removal during the combo and can punch through damage in stalemates by killing off your unneeded manadorks. The card is more of a personal choice if you choose to run it as the third sac outlet.
Spike Feeder
The other half of the Angelfeeder combo. It has provides a lot of utility on its own by gaining random life, resetting persist counters. It is not the ideal 3 drop to be running, but it threatens infinite life and can squeak its way out of strange situations.
Knight of the Reliquary
She is the third option for the beater spot. Competing with both Voice and Goyf is hard as Modern doesn't have a wide variety of lands to give her a great toolbox aspect. Searching up a Gavony Township or Vault of the Archangel is very useful and helps with her aspect of smashing face with a huge creature.
Anafenza, the Foremost
This older Anafenza provides a nice clock with above average stats and a cute ability that can sometimes reset a previousally hurt Kitchen Finks. Her second ability randomly hoses graveyard based decks and the mirror match which can make her a great versatile threat to smash down the enemy with. Don't worry about having both types of Anafenzas in play at the same time, as the legend rule only looks at the card names and not the flavour behind your time-distorting ways.
Varolz, the Scar-Striped
A relatively poor sacrifice outlet as he costs 3 and does not necessarily provide value. With Liliana and Eternal Witness in the deck, you generally don't want to exile your dead creatures to his ability, and my list has 8 creatures with 0 power.
Mirror Entity
This seemingly harmless 1/1 packs quite the punch. If you can untap with it then it provides a nice mana-sink for when you have nothing better to do and it can often burst down the opponent in just one attack because you will probably have a few extra manadorks on the board. It also doubles as a sacrifice outlet with Anafenza. If both creatures have a +1/+1 counter on them then you can activate the ability for X=0 which will kill each of your creatures without a +1/+1 counter on them. The persister will then return to the battlefield and you can repeat the process.
Archangel of Thune
The angel of the Angelfeeder combo. She can take over games on her own and provides the deck with two different infinite combos. Just like Redcap, being over the coveted 3 cmc isn't that big of a deal as we are just as happy to Chord her out. It is recommended to only play the Angel with a couple of Wall of Roots in the deck since getting 5GGG mana can be quite hard most times.
Restoration Angel
Probably better than maxing out on Siege Rhino is playing this flashy 4-drop that can reset persist counters, save creatures from removal, and attack in the air.
The namesake of the deck and the reason for its existence. This Birthing Pod replacement has many advantages over Collected Company, namely that we don't have to run a million creatures that cost 3 or less and we are more resilient to removal than ever before because any creature that is about to die can be replaced for G. Try the card out for yourself. I was skeptical at first, but it continues to impress.
Chord of Calling
A great tutor for any creature in the deck. This card plays well with Lingering Souls and Voice of Resurgence tokens, and lets you find anything you might need in a situation. 3 is a good starting point, but the deck can function with anywhere from 0 to 4 copies.
Path to Exile
This card is not quite as useful as Abrupt Decay in general, but it answers bigger threats for less mana. I keep mine in the sideboard for now, but the metagame can be correct for maindeck Paths quite easily.
This card feels like cheating when played alongside Evolutionary Leap. It's also one of the main reasons not to play Collected Company. Effectively, this card doubles as a creature tutor when combined with the Leap because you'll find what you want fairly quickly. It also greatly improves your chances of winning game 1 against Affinity and some other decks. Run 3-4 in the 75.
Playing between 8-10 fetches is standard. Usually 4 Heath and 4 or a 3/1 split of Catacombs and Marsh Flats is fine.
Temple Garden
Godless Shrine
Overgrown Tomb
Play 2 shocks of the color you need most and one of each other. Usually 2 Temple, 2 Tomb and a Shrine. The deck doesn't have major life problems thanks to Kitchen Finks among other things, but you don't want to go too deep on shocking yourself if you can help it.
Razorverge Thicket
Fastlands are great on our life and are in the colors we need the most! 3 is a good number to have.
Gavony Township
Probably the second best card in the deck, and the entire plan B. Play 2 at the absolute minimum, but there is no harm in going up to 3. The colorless mana is hard on a tri colour deck but all of the dorks make up for it, and this makes up for running so many dorks. It's a win-win!
Dryad Arbor
This is a nice Chord target to have when you only have 3 mana available. It will ramp you, but it opens up room for blowouts if the opponent ever decides to bolt your land. You may even have opening hands where you have Dryad and a Township and can't cast anything turn 1. It is a powerful card but be wary you might suffer the consequences.
Plains
Swamp
Forest
Basics are always important because everyone hates Blood Moon and taking unnecessary damage. 2-3 Forest, 1 Plains, 1 Swamp is standard.
This Kithkin is easily Chorded into and is a wizard at stopping hard to beat cards like Anger of the Gods or Pyroclasm. Remember that she has protection from red, so it makes for a great blocker against Goblin Guide and friends in the Burn matchup. It can even be useful in stopping the win condition of Ad Nauseam; Lightning Storm. If you think that red decks will be packing board sweeping hate then this will be a great catch-all counter to it.
Kataki, War's Wage
Good against Affinity, but not as good as Stony Silence and only good in one matchup. We already beat Affinity. This card is a huge trap.
Stony Silence
It seems like this card would be obviously for the Affinity matchup, and it is, but this card is also excellent against Tron, and other random decks that use artifact mana like Eggs. I would not leave home without at least 2 copies in the sideboard.
He stops Cascade decks like Living End or Restore Balance. He shuts down storm decks and puts a damper on Affinity if he gets out early. Great card at stopping fringe strategies you weren't expecting.
Aven Mindcensor
Great card to stall the opponent and take some of the heat away from your more valuable targets. It really messes with the harder matchups we face like Bloom Titan and Gr Tron. It is also valuable in matchups that are color intensive such as Jund or Junk. With flash you can still have options off only three mana which can sometimes happen. It will surprise the opponent since they will be thinking you need 4 mana to play anything at instant speed. The flying body is always useful for getting in a couple points of extra damage.
Reclamation Sage
Another flexible option that loves to be Chorded for. This can snipe a target on pretty much any deck so it us very nice to have access to. Take note that it is a may ability, so if something happens before you resolve the trigger you aren't stuck destroying your own Spellskite.
Fulminator Mage
Hoses other tri colour decks like Junk or Jund. Slows down Scapeshift. Stops Tron. Puts a damper on Bloom Titan. Kills Affinity manlands. Good in general against a number of different decks as a lot rely on manlands and wonky manabases.
Orzhov Pontiff
He is great against token decks or Bogles. There is a neat trick to give the enemy creatures -2/-2 by either sacrificing him with the trigger on the stack and Haunting an opposing X/1 creature, or Haunting one of your own creatures and sacrificing it. Very reliable Chord target as he often can get a 2-for-1 or a 3-for-1.
Sin Collector
Duress on a stick. He acts as the fourth Thoughtseize from the sideboard for when you need all the target discard you can get. There is even a creepy FNM promo to instill fear in your opponents hearts. I currently like it enough to maindeck a copy to have some kind of hand interaction value.
Slaughter Pact
Was mainly used against decks like Twin so you can tap out and not immediately lose. It is nice as a way to spend mana aggressively and still have outs. Keep in mind that if the spell fizzles (ceases to have a valid target by the time it resolves) then you will not have to pay the upkeep cost.
Thoughtseize
The best targeted discard we have access to. It helps stay in the game against otherwise unanswerable threats and helps clear the way for the combo to not get removed. You want to use it for those hard to deal with cards like Blood Moon or Anger of the Gods. Note that we don't have to keep a high creature count after board like Collected Company decks! Every sideboard should have at least 3.
Jund
One of the matchups we like to face, Jund has a lot of one-for-one removal and only a few sources of real card advantage. Specifically, their threats in terms of card advantage are Dark Confidant and Liliana of the Veil. Kolaghan's Command can also be fairly effective. The biggest card we have to worry about in reality is Olivia Voldaren, which we can answer temporarily with Linvala, Keeper of Silence and permanently with cards like Path to Exile. It is often a one-of in their main deck and likely their only way to beat us realistically in game one.
Affinity
The fact that we run Lingering Souls in the main deck helps this matchup a lot compared to other Kitchen Finks combo decks. Affinity is light on removal, so combo is a good way to win game one. Spellskite is also excellent as it can redirect Arcbound Ravager modular triggers (though of course they can simply choose not to put the counters on Spellskite as it is a may ability), Galvanic Blast, and even Welding Jar as well as being a blocker for Etched Champion. Orzhov Pontiff is also very useful as it can wipe their board at instant speed. The -2/-2 trick is especially useful at killing Etched Champion.
In terms of sideboarding, we want Stony Silence and Abrupt Decay for sure. Removal helps against Affinity, but don't go overboard. Voice of Resurgence is at its worst in this matchup and I board out all copies. Generally speaking, the matchup is slightly favorable.
Burn
Since we have so much maindeck lifegain, we have natural game against Modern's premier red deck. The die roll is very important as you will very rarely lose games on the play.
Board options if Burn is giving you trouble include the excellent Auriok Champion, Dromoka's Command, and Burrenton Forge-tender. Be aware that Skullcrack can stop protection from red creatures from preventing damage (for example, if you are blocking a Goblin Guide with Kor Firewalker and they Skullcrack you, your Firewalker will die to combat damage). Overall, the matchup is die-roll dependent. It tends to be close to 50/50 if you lose the die roll and highly favorable if you win the die roll.
Merfolk
Merfolk is a very favorable matchup for the Collected Company version of Abzan. As we are less combo-focused, the matchup gets worse. It ranges from slightly favorable to slightly unfavorable, usually depending on how many Tidebinder Mages they run and how much removal they have.
Abzan
Abzan is at least as favorable as Jund in general, though they do typically run more copies of Abrupt Decay which can answer Evolutionary Leap. The matchup is very similar except they don't have Olivia Voldaren.
Infect
This matchup is pretty straightforward. Melira, Sylvok Outcast shuts down their deck (though they can still win with normal damage, she turns off Inkmoth Nexus from ever dealing any type of damage again while she's on the battlefield) and Spellskite is also excellent. Try to get one of these two cards down as quickly as possible. Removal is often best played on their end step or on your turn so they can't respond with a kicked Vines of Vastwood. Orzhov Pontiff is amazing, and Thoughtseize can help out of the board. I also like at least one copy of Fulminator Mage but that's personal preference.
Grixis Delver
The only way you lose this matchup is if they get an aggressive start and you have a very slow one, especially if you are missing land drops. I played against this deck three times in one PPTQ and several times online as well, and have only dropped one match due to missing my third land drop both games for several turns. It should be favorable, especially if we land Evolutionary Leap, which they have no answers to.
Abzan Company
This matchup is very interesting and skill-testing. Some of their draws can be difficult to beat, but in general, we are favored in the long game. Scavenging Ooze is very important.
Zoo
This matchup is somewhat favorable. Watch out for Ghor-Clan Rampager and Rancor. Lifegain is your best friend, and they do not handle Siege Rhino very well. Path to Exile is their most relevant removal.
Elves
This matchup is very interesting. I'm not sure who's favored at this point, but Orzhov Pontiff does a lot of work. They can't beat infinite life, but they are a faster deck in general. You want some form of interaction. Board in Path to Exile and any other sideboard removal you might have.
Griselbrand Combo
I haven't lost to this deck yet. It seems pretty inconsistent. I'm sure we can't do anything about their turn 2 kill, so bring in Thoughtseize and Path to Exile.
Scapeshift
This matchup is actually very bad. A lot of lists maindeck Anger of the Gods and the deck is excellent at slowing you down. If you can combo, you probably have to go for it. Put pressure on them and bring in your Fulminator Mages and Thoughtseizes in exchange for your removal. Watch out for Inferno Titan out of the sideboard. Game 2 and 3 are favorable with the land destruction package. Crumble to Dust on a Steam Vents or Stomping Ground can make it difficult for them to win. If they Scapeshift and get Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and six Mountains attempting to hit you for 18 and you have or can grab a Fulminator Mage, you can destroy one of the nonbasic Mountains to reduce the amount of damage you take to 3 (the Mountain you destroy sees five other Mountains, but the rest only see four).
Eldrazi
This matchup is quite bad, especially if they're on the Processor versions with multiple copies of Relic of Progenitus. A big issue is that Oblivion Sower outmatches all of our threats. Try to kill them as quickly as possible. Postboard, it gets better with Fulminators and Crumbles.
Nice Primer! A few things stand out to me that I think are worth discussing about the deck:
1. As of right now the deck has no way of answering a resolved Tasigur/Gurmag/greater than cmc 3 and black creatures in the main-deck. Collected Company lists have been running 2 MD Path in addition to fiend hunter in order to rectify this. I understand that Leap plays better with Shriekmaw, but wouldn't this give us further incentive to be playing paths in the main-deck. While Leap offers a better value-engine in grixis matchups than company, I'm not sure it's correct to be playing with no ways to remove problematic creatures.
2. Why 3 birds of paradise and 3 Noble Hierarch? We usually see lists running 4 birds and 2-3 Hierarch. The colored mana requirements in this deck aren't that different from melira company (aside from an increase in demand for green mana which Wall of Roots is happy to provide) and playing liliana and shriekmaw means we have even more black mana requirements in the main-deck. I would like to hear your reasoning for cutting short on the mana. We have also seen, since the inclusion of liliana, marsh flats being played over the third razorverge thicket. While this is less common I believe mathematically it gives us more consistent access to black (and since it's a fetch the ability to play around blood moon more).
3. In the days of Pod we often only saw 1 eternal witness in the deck. With collected company she made a resurgence as hitting her off of collected company was very powerful. Seeing as how that is not an interaction with this variant should we be dropping her back to 1 to fill in more slots for MB cards? (EDIT: and in regards to recurring the legendary creatures this was a role that reveillark fulfilled)
4. Why are we running a third voice of resurgence in the sideboard? I feel that we could be running higher impact cards in this slot than voice as since it's a sb slot we can have it be a super high-impact card in specific matchups (i.e. Reveillark). Now bringing a third voice of resurgence into the main-deck certainly has merit but the deck looks tight on space.
1. We are super favored against every deck playing Gurmag Angler, and we can make Rhino bigger than Tasigur. These haven't been an issue.
2. The only double-black in the main is Liliana, and I added an Overgrown Tomb to mitigate (replacing Woodland Cemetery from older lists). This list is a bit on the aggressive side. Even in Abzan Collected Company I prefer 3 Hierarch. 4 Birds is a reasonable option.
3. 1 Witness is an option. With Leap not actually finding what you're looking for, having a second Witness has been nice. Another possibility is Entomber Exarch.
4. This was a suggestion to replace the Reveillark I had before from friends who were testing the deck and liked multiple Voices. I have never boarded it in and will play something else moving forward. The deck is tight on space as you say.
1. I figured this was the reason and making our creatures bigger is a good point. It's good to hear it hasn't been an issue though. Also having flying spirit tokens is relevant as well.
2. Redcap is also double black. Not to mention we are running more black cards MD than Company with 2 Rhinos, sin collector, Shriekmaw, and the flashback on the 3 souls.
3. How would Reveillark be over the second witness? Having the ability to reveillark loop with witness as well as recur liliana is just scary. It has benefits as well as drawbacks though.
Nice to see a thread for this stream of the deck now. I'll play around with it in my spare time and see how it works out. Maybe you're onto something and it's always great to see brews take off. There is also this existing thread too. I know it's not this, but it's the same cards.
I'm running a Reclamation Sage in the Voice slot for now. Reveillark is only good in matchups where we're already very favored, I suspect. Also no 5-drops means I can run 22 lands more comfortably.
Redcap is double black, but costing 4 instead of 3 is a big difference in terms of ease of casting. Rhino and Souls flashback require one black mana only. It's easy to have one black mana, harder to have two, but I think Lili is worth it.
Went 3-1 in the daily just now, beat Grixis Control round 1, Grixis Twin round 2, and Jund round 3 before losing to RG Scapeshift in round 4. I only lost because I didn't draw my third land in either game, would have been a big favorite to win if I ever saw that land.
Ive been trying very hard to find the best evolutionary leap deck as well, first off, love the list you put up today, its pretty close to what i came up with in abzan. I think the right move is cutting CoCo, the amount of times ive rolled the coco dice and fluffed feels bad. At least with leap youre leaping stuff thats usually dieing anyways and always hitting something.
@cbg ill dirrect this at you since youve started this primer, but are you set on abzan? In my brewing i found a fairly nice home for leap was Naya. There you get access to the "i win" combo of kiki and resto, both are good peices on their own. Resto resets persist and undying creatures so you dont lose as much value to leap. Kiki makes copies that die anyways (great leap targets). Being only 2 peices means its easier to find, half is instant speed, unlike melira pod where viscera and melira/anafenza are pretty undrwhelming so only get played as 1-2 ofs, resto can be played up to 4 and only help the deck. I find the biggest loss with naya is what else does red bring, theres bolt but not much else ive found. Nothing compared to what black offers, but theres no denying the combo of kiki resto is better than melira
I'm honestly shocked it took this long for this thread to pop up. The minute I saw Evolutionary Leap spoiled I thought to myself "Oh, a fixed Pod". I hated playing against Pod and I'm glad it got banned but I think this is a much more fair version of what Pod does and yet I still think its quite powerful.
Instead of running straight dorks you could add something like Viridian Emissary. Its power/toughness are fine for a 2cmc creature, it puts the land straight into play, its a great sac target for Evolutionary Leap. On the other hand I can that its a little slow because it comes down the same turn you would normally be playing Leap on. Then Turn 3, assuming you hit your land drop you can play and activate Leap, activate it saccing Emissary for a land that comes into play tapped....I realize its not great but it can/does actually ramp you by putting you at 5 lands on turn 4, again assuming you hit your land drop on turn 4. But its slightly more value than a mana dork if you leap into it and provides permanent/impact after you Leap out of it.
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I'm honestly shocked it took this long for this thread to pop up. The minute I saw Evolutionary Leap spoiled I thought to myself "Oh, a fixed Pod". I hated playing against Pod and I'm glad it got banned but I think this is a much more fair version of what Pod does and yet I still think its quite powerful.
Instead of running straight dorks you could add something like Viridian Emissary. Its power/toughness are fine for a 2cmc creature, it puts the land straight into play, its a great sac target for Evolutionary Leap. On the other hand I can that its a little slow because it comes down the same turn you would normally be playing Leap on. Then Turn 3, assuming you hit your land drop you can play and activate Leap, activate it saccing Emissary for a land that comes into play tapped....I realize its not great but it can/does actually ramp you by putting you at 5 lands on turn 4, again assuming you hit your land drop on turn 4. But its slightly more value than a mana dork if you leap into it and provides permanent/impact after you Leap out of it.
You have to remember that Leap is only a 3 of with no way to tutor it. So while it is strong when you get it and you want your deck to be synergistic with it, you don't want to be sacrificing too much raw utility/power from the creatures for that synergy as everything needs to be working well when you don't see a leap. Because of this I don't think Viridian Emissary is where you want to be.
With regards to this version - I agree that the black mana does seem a little tough, but also agree that single-black is easy enough.
The curve does appear high though. 3 souls, 2 rhino, 3 Chord, 3 Leap (although not high-curving, its not likely to be useful in the first 3 turns), Linvala, Shriekmaw (ish), Redcap. All quite a high curve. I know we have dorks, but is there enough of them.
Reveilark seems good in the Jund/Junk type match-ups, but it looks like you're winning them already. Is that the case?
When you look at the list and compare the cmc cost to a deck like Wilt-Leaf Liege you can see that our average cmc is well within an acceptable range, with the avg cmc of a stock liege deck being 2.43 while playing 6 dorks and with this deck having an avg cmc of 2.45 while playing 6 dorks and a wall of roots. However it is important to know that not hitting your fourth land drop hurts a good deal less in this deck than in either Abzan Company or in Liege Rhino imo as we are only playing 4 creatures with a cmc of 4 and having shriekmaw often being cast as a 2 mana removal spell or 3 mana removal spell draw a creature. From the games I played with Abzan Company whenever I had my sb leap I felt I was a huge favorite in these games. Main-decking leaps in this variant alongside other powerful cards in the matchup, and the small amount of testing I've done, lead me to believe that we are already winning these matchups.
@cbgirardo:
I was able to jam some games with the deck over the past few days and I've come to the same conclusion as you on Reveillark. I feel like I'd want it going to a local meta full of value decks, but in a blind meta it is most certainly correct to be playing something else in it's place (right now that's the second witness I think). In my games against Grixis the times where they landed an early threat I never really needed a removal spell as lingering souls tokens were able to chump all day and then leap in response to get more gas and if he would opt to attack me he would take a good amount of damage on the swingback. This would lead to board-states where they don't attack and Leap just powers through the deck putting us further and further ahead or lingering souls just fly over their creatures and chip away at their life-total. I think that abrupt decay is the superior option as you said due to it's versatility and it's un-counterability which helps a lot in the match-ups where we want some extra help.
In regards to the voice of resurgence in the sb I think that reclamation sage was a good replacement. Another thing to consider is a phyrexian Revoker in that slot as a chord-able scoop condition against Grishoalbrand decks. I'm sure there would be other relevant matchups for the card but Grishoalbrand is the one that comes to mind first.
I was very impressed while I was playing the deck and having a favorable matchup against Grixis Control is a very nice thing to have at the moment. Unfortunately I do not have the cards on MTGO, but I am only missing a few cheap cards on paper so I will definitely be putting the list together and giving it a go the next time I have a chance.
Hey guys, I was playing Abzan CoCo for awhile but did I would miss more often than I would like off of CoCo and I did not like the limitations of having to play 3 CMC creatures and not many spells. I played BW midrange pretty significantly before that and it seems crazy to be playing BW and not run lingering souls.
Anyway, I think this deck has a little bit of both those other decks and so I want to give it a go. In this list I prefer to go the angel/feeder combo because it does not require the graveyard, doesn't take up as many spots, and uses a more powerful individual piece in archangel of thune. Here is the list I have come up with, haven't gotten a chance to test it out yet but I have all the cards so will definitely be doing so in the near future.
The SB could probably use some work but I think I have a good starting point. I took out the liliana from the main because it is the only double black card and is pretty slow. Considering we already have 3 evolutionary leap we can't really afford to have too many slow cards when playing against something like affinity. The list would probably be ok with only one spike feeder and one archangel but I just personally like at least 2 copies of each combo piece which is the main reason I am switching from the melira combo.
First of all thanks for the primer. Normally I'm more of a reader on MTGS than a contributor, but I'm very interested in the card Evolutionary Leap. So here are some of my thoughts:
Evolutionary Leap is fairly mana intensive, which means mana dorks would be nice, but they also reduce the average card quality you receive from your leaps. A other approach of getting to more mana would be taking a controlling route using discard and lots of removal in order to get to the late game (like traditional GBx decks do). Since we cannot leap into the discard spells they are much less of a troublesome/dead draw lategame.
Since we need to cast the creatures we receive from leap the cost/power ratio of each creature is very relevant. This means we want cheaper cards, even if they are of lower impact (e.g. goyf over siege rhino)
I'm currently not sure if it would be better to run the spike feeder/archangel of thune combo instead of melira/anafenza. Sure latter work great with kitchen finks, but that combination is really easy to break up, less powerful as single cards than feeder/archangel, require more deck-space and the infinite life combo requires 3 cards and infinite bolster even 4 cards whereas archangel/feeder is infinite life/power as a 2-card combo. Additionally archangel + kitchen finks gives us also free leaps like finks + anafenza/melira
Shriekmaw maindeck is very meta-dependant and currently probably too cute. It is very hard to chord for, and the evoke is sorcery speed which does not interact well with splinter twin.
On a smaller note: The landbase should really include at least one Twilight Mire to ease the casting of liliana and fulminator mages
I feel the need to point out that mana dorks are actually excellent with the Gavony Township side of things. Discard spells are definitely an idea, but I feel that their utility is at an all-time low right now. I want them against combo, but that's it.
Cost/power ratio is not as important as cost/value ratio. Being able to Chord for Rhino because of Lingering Souls is a real thing too. I've won a ton of games by putting my opponent to 3 and searching up a Rhino. Tarmogoyf is not as good value as Voice of Resurgence, for example.
Archangel/Spike Feeder combo requires a bad card and not running Melira hurts our Infect and Affinity matchups. The interaction between Anafenza/Melira, Finks, and Leap comes up more often than you might think, and I think it's the main reason to run this style of deck. Archangel is fine if you're on 23 lands.
Shriekmaw is good against everything except Affinity, Tron, and Grixis Control. We're beating Affinity and Grixis Control, and we're not beating Tron reliably anyway. I like having it and Shriekmaw is the cheapest to cast and Leap to kill something. Fiend Hunter is hard to cast and costs 4 to cast and leap. Twilight Mire and Woodland Cemetery serve much the same function, but I don't think we have room for another land that may enter tapped in the early game or a land that may not produce colored mana in a hand full of Gavonys. It's certainly a consideration moving forward.
Ive been trying very hard to find the best evolutionary leap deck as well, first off, love the list you put up today, its pretty close to what i came up with in abzan. I think the right move is cutting CoCo, the amount of times ive rolled the coco dice and fluffed feels bad. At least with leap youre leaping stuff thats usually dieing anyways and always hitting something.
@cbg ill dirrect this at you since youve started this primer, but are you set on abzan? In my brewing i found a fairly nice home for leap was Naya. There you get access to the "i win" combo of kiki and resto, both are good peices on their own. Resto resets persist and undying creatures so you dont lose as much value to leap. Kiki makes copies that die anyways (great leap targets). Being only 2 peices means its easier to find, half is instant speed, unlike melira pod where viscera and melira/anafenza are pretty undrwhelming so only get played as 1-2 ofs, resto can be played up to 4 and only help the deck. I find the biggest loss with naya is what else does red bring, theres bolt but not much else ive found. Nothing compared to what black offers, but theres no denying the combo of kiki resto is better than melira
Kiki-Leap is something Jeff Hoogland was trying out as recently as the last two days. Kiki/Resto is probably not a good combo in a metagame full of bolts and Kolaghan's Commands, but if that's what you like, go for it.
With regards to this version - I agree that the black mana does seem a little tough, but also agree that single-black is easy enough.
The curve does appear high though. 3 souls, 2 rhino, 3 Chord, 3 Leap (although not high-curving, its not likely to be useful in the first 3 turns), Linvala, Shriekmaw (ish), Redcap. All quite a high curve. I know we have dorks, but is there enough of them.
Reveilark seems good in the Jund/Junk type match-ups, but it looks like you're winning them already. Is that the case?
Souls is not high curve? Leap generally gains usefulness throughout the game, starting from turn 3. Abzan Collected Company typically runs 6 actual 4-drops (4 Company, 1 Linvala, 1 Redcap) on 22 lands, and we're running 4 with about the same number of mana dorks. I did lose my first match ever with this deck due to not hitting my 3rd land ever against Scapeshift, but I still almost took g1. He had to draw perfectly to survive. And yes, we are crushing Junk/Jund without Reveillark. Also, both of those decks run Scavenging Ooze.
I'm honestly shocked it took this long for this thread to pop up. The minute I saw Evolutionary Leap spoiled I thought to myself "Oh, a fixed Pod". I hated playing against Pod and I'm glad it got banned but I think this is a much more fair version of what Pod does and yet I still think its quite powerful.
Instead of running straight dorks you could add something like Viridian Emissary. Its power/toughness are fine for a 2cmc creature, it puts the land straight into play, its a great sac target for Evolutionary Leap. On the other hand I can that its a little slow because it comes down the same turn you would normally be playing Leap on. Then Turn 3, assuming you hit your land drop you can play and activate Leap, activate it saccing Emissary for a land that comes into play tapped....I realize its not great but it can/does actually ramp you by putting you at 5 lands on turn 4, again assuming you hit your land drop on turn 4. But its slightly more value than a mana dork if you leap into it and provides permanent/impact after you Leap out of it.
Viridian Emissary is only good with Leap. We don't want to run cards that are only good with Leap.
@cbgirardo:
I was able to jam some games with the deck over the past few days and I've come to the same conclusion as you on Reveillark. I feel like I'd want it going to a local meta full of value decks, but in a blind meta it is most certainly correct to be playing something else in it's place (right now that's the second witness I think). In my games against Grixis the times where they landed an early threat I never really needed a removal spell as lingering souls tokens were able to chump all day and then leap in response to get more gas and if he would opt to attack me he would take a good amount of damage on the swingback. This would lead to board-states where they don't attack and Leap just powers through the deck putting us further and further ahead or lingering souls just fly over their creatures and chip away at their life-total. I think that abrupt decay is the superior option as you said due to it's versatility and it's un-counterability which helps a lot in the match-ups where we want some extra help.
In regards to the voice of resurgence in the sb I think that reclamation sage was a good replacement. Another thing to consider is a phyrexian Revoker in that slot as a chord-able scoop condition against Grishoalbrand decks. I'm sure there would be other relevant matchups for the card but Grishoalbrand is the one that comes to mind first.
I was very impressed while I was playing the deck and having a favorable matchup against Grixis Control is a very nice thing to have at the moment. Unfortunately I do not have the cards on MTGO, but I am only missing a few cheap cards on paper so I will definitely be putting the list together and giving it a go the next time I have a chance.
Good to hear about your results. I'm actually testing Burrenton Forge-tender as Reclamation Sage does not do much in the current metagame. Grishoalbrand is like 1% of the meta so I'm not terribly interested in boarding against a deck that loses to itself a significant percentage of the time. I did play against it in one of my first Dailys with this deck and it was an easy 2-0. Revoker is an idea for sure, if we need a Pithing Needle effect.
Hey guys, I was playing Abzan CoCo for awhile but did I would miss more often than I would like off of CoCo and I did not like the limitations of having to play 3 CMC creatures and not many spells. I played BW midrange pretty significantly before that and it seems crazy to be playing BW and not run lingering souls.
Anyway, I think this deck has a little bit of both those other decks and so I want to give it a go. In this list I prefer to go the angel/feeder combo because it does not require the graveyard, doesn't take up as many spots, and uses a more powerful individual piece in archangel of thune. Here is the list I have come up with, haven't gotten a chance to test it out yet but I have all the cards so will definitely be doing so in the near future.
The SB could probably use some work but I think I have a good starting point. I took out the liliana from the main because it is the only double black card and is pretty slow. Considering we already have 3 evolutionary leap we can't really afford to have too many slow cards when playing against something like affinity. The list would probably be ok with only one spike feeder and one archangel but I just personally like at least 2 copies of each combo piece which is the main reason I am switching from the melira combo.
I don't like the Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder combo in this deck because it requires a five-drop and a bad card, but the Archangel herself isn't bad. Your manabase doesn't have enough green and white consistently from the looks of it, Marsh Flats is much worse than Verdant Catacombs in the archetype. Lili in the board makes sense, but I think she's a very strong card to have main. We're actually fine with slow cards against Affinity because Lingering Souls does a ton of work and so does Spellskite, blocking Etched Champion and preventing Arcbound Ravager's Modular ability. I think your list has too high of a curve to run 22 lands, I'd add a Gavony Township to mitigate.
Kiki-Leap is something Jeff Hoogland was trying out as recently as the last two days. Kiki/Resto is probably not a good combo in a metagame full of bolts and Kolaghan's Commands, but if that's what you like, go for it.
how is a 2 piece combo where only 1 piece dies to bolt worse than a 3 card combo where all 3 pieces die to bolt? Regardless, just suggesting other options that work well with leap. If you have any links to hooglands leap list id be interested. Im still a fan of the abzan colours too though.
Yeah saying that the melira combo is better than resto/kiki or angel feeder because of bolt seems a little ridiculous.
Melira combo is good in Abzan CoCo because most of the pieces are 3 or less mana, we don't have that restriction here. Also we don't really need viscera seer as a value card because outside the combo it serves much the same purpose as evolutionary leap just not as good. Also Anafenza, melira, and redcap aren't exactly all-stars of modern either.
Spike feeder is not a good card but it at least has some uses here. Most decks running bolts are trying to kill you with damage so you can sac the feeder in response to gain 4 life and they are down a kill spell. Spike feeder can also reset finks to get a lot of mileage out of leap.
Also spike feeder can be used to make our rhinos 5/6s which is pretty crucial in the current meta.
Taking up less slots, not being graveyard based, and allowing us to play a powerful card in archangel of thune are definitely enough reasons to consider the combo. Not to mention lili can actually reanimate both pieces of this combo.
I only have one verdant catacombs and i have a play set of marsh flats. I cannot justify the price of the catacombs considering no one plays blood moon here.
What are thoughts on Dromoka's Command? This card seems absolutely insane, since we have the non-creature space to run it. So many possible 2-for-1s, in addition to just having so much utility.
Acts as removal (fighting)
Enchantment removal for Twin, Bogles, and annoying sideboard cards
Excellent against Burn, able to block out one of their burn spells
Able to stop blowouts like Anger of the Gods and Pyroclasm (Plus it can save creatures from Bolt, Electrolyze, and more)
Able to reset a Kitchen Finks by placing a +1/+1 counter on it
Able to simply pump up a guy with a +1/+1 counter if needed
Wow, a lot of activity in here. I've been studying for my medical school exams, so haven't had much time to respond.
I believe my last post clarified that Burrenton Forge-tender is my current sideboard choice in the old Voice/Reclamation Sage spot. My one game loss from the last Daily where I had more than two lands came because he had Anger of the Gods and I couldn't Chord for an answer.
Five-drops are fine when you can Pod a Rhino into an Archangel, and less good when you have to cast them in a mana-hungry deck. Spike Feeder is much worse than Kitchen Finks in pretty much all situations. Kiki-Jiki costs five and dies to everything, Melira costs 2 and can be Chorded for easily. I don't think the Bolt argument is ridiculous. People already use Kolaghan's Command as an excuse to never play Batterskull despite the fact that Kolaghan's Command is a 1-3 of in Grixis and Jund and absent from the rest of the metagame.
Twilight Mire is probably okay, I was just expressing my concern with another 'colorless' land when I've already cut a Gavony Township for that reason. It's definitely worth testing.
Dromoka's Command has been okay in testing. I'm not sure it's maindeckable yet.
Bad matchups: RG Tron and probably Scapeshift. I haven't found any others yet. Best matchups: Grixis Control, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Affinity. Twin has been a good matchup in testing but I do want to test it more (it's also the matchup I've tested the most).
Kiki-Leap is something Jeff Hoogland was trying out as recently as the last two days. Kiki/Resto is probably not a good combo in a metagame full of bolts and Kolaghan's Commands, but if that's what you like, go for it.
how is a 2 piece combo where only 1 piece dies to bolt worse than a 3 card combo where all 3 pieces die to bolt? Regardless, just suggesting other options that work well with leap. If you have any links to hooglands leap list id be interested. Im still a fan of the abzan colours too though.
By no means am I saying the way I am building this deck is correct. Cutting Melira happens in a lot of matchups, but I do like having access to her and never cut her from Pod. Anafenza is good with a lot of cards in this deck, but struggles from being more difficult to cast. What I am saying is that these were not random choices, but the result of at least some thought process. Giving my reasons for running and not running certain cards is not resistance to constructive criticism, but sharing of ideas. I've already gotten several ideas from reading through the comments in this thread.
Discard is not good against Jund. They're generally topdecking after a few turns, so drawing a Thoughtseize is a sure way to have a dead card. Liliana, Heretical Healer is a good exception to this. I only really bring in Thoughtseize against combo decks. It's playable against Grixis Control if you can find the slots, but I don't think it's as good as more Sin Collectors in that matchup. Twin and Tron are good matchups for Thoughtseize.
Edited for some data: Yesterday I went 4-0 in a local modern event beating Living End, Grixis Twin, RG Tron and jund. Today I went 4-1 beating Grixis Twin, Goblins, Bogles, and Amulet and losing to RG Tron. Bringing the deck to a PPTQ tomorrow most likely.
Looking forward to the updates! Id still suggest resto angel even outside naya, plays well with lots of stuff in this deck, reseting finks, protecting combo peices you dont want to leap, flickering rhinos and sin collectors, theres probably room here for at least one. And shes just a strong flying beater.
I'd love to stream more. Lately I've been doing Google Hangouts with friends during dailies, but I'll try to stream when I can.
I played really badly today to screw myself out of top8 at the PPTQ. In what is likely the worst punt of my Magic career in a competitive REL event, I cast Thoughtseize and took Snapcaster Mage over Olivia Voldaren because I for some reason forgot Olivia is black, and planned on using Shriekmaw to kill her. Lo and behold, she is in fact black, so I ended up killing my own Scavenging Ooze instead. I lost a game I would have certainly won to lose my first match to Twin with this deck.
Out of six rounds, I played against Twin four times (2 grixis and 2 UR), Infect, and Abzan Liege. Round 1 I crushed Grixis Twin 2-0, round 2 I lost to Grixis Twin because of the above punt, round 3 I beat UR Twin 2-0, round 4 I lost to UR Twin because a)he's really good and b)I mulliganed into mediocre hands both games. Game 1 I had no answer to the combo (despite running many answers in the main, >15 answers in the 75) and game 2 I did not have the mana to cast my answers to the combo. I probably played pretty badly overall game 2 where I should have used Dromoka's Command to trade my Burrenton Forge-tender for his Pestermite. His hand of 3 Twin creatures, 2 Twins and 2 Bolts was better than my hand of awkward mana, Chord without GGG, Dromoka's Command and Abrupt Decay.
At 3-2, I was paired up against a 10-pointer on table 6 in the final round. We got deckchecked, and the top 4 tables drew (putting 8 players at 13 points and killing my chances for top8) so I screwed a guy out of top8 by conceding to my opponent despite a very high likelihood of winning the match. (Table 5 was another 10-9 match, but the 9-pointer won, putting himself in 10th place)
Changes I'm considering after more testing: Shriekmaw is not the answer we want or need. Orzhov Pontiff is good in a lot of matchups and helps us kill with Lingering Souls, so I'm strongly considering him for the open slot.
Played the deck at a tiny locals to give it a whirl. 2-1 vs Merfolk, 2-0 vs burn, 2-1 vs eggs, drew into top and then split. I never casted a leap today despite seeing it in hand because it wasn't the correct play. To be fair all the matchups were not where leap shines. Still the deck got me there and I'm interested in seeing how it does in a bigger event.
Round 1: 2-0 vs UW Delver
This matchup was fairly straightforward. I just cast guys, cast Leap, and won.
Round 2: 2-1 vs Elves
This match was a lot of fun. He had a fantastic hand g1 and was able to kill me, but I would have won if I drew a Chord or Pontiff all game. Game 2 he attacked for lethal forcing me to block, so I did some math and figured out that he was dead on the crackback after I played a creature to trigger bolster. I blocked with a single Lingering Souls token, played my dude, and killed him. Game 3 I blew him out with Pontiff when he kept a one-land hand with three mana dorks.
Round 3: 2-0 vs Jund
Game 1 he was dying, but failed to pay a Pact and lost faster than he had to. Game 2 was an interesting affair as he killed my Leap and was clocking me with a Tarmogoyf. I used Lingering Souls to buy some time, used Fulminator Mage to deny his second green source and second red source (for Anger of the Gods, which he had already cast one of, and the Treetop Village on the table. It seemed better than denying his second black). Eventually I drew a Path and ate his Tarmogoyf and killed him the turn he cast Olivia Voldaren.
Round 4: ID vs UR Twin (my friend, who was borrowing my deck and made it to the finals. We played to 1-1 and went to get food)
Round 5: 2-0 vs Bogles
This match was weird. I had a Qasali for early interaction, while he had a Kor Spiritdancer that was clocking me. I kept him off of lifelink, eventually Chording for Orzhov Pontiff to wipe his blockers and killed him on the swing back. Game 2 I gained infinite life quite early.
Round 6: 2-0 vs Grixis Delver
My opponent refused to draw into top 4, which is weird because he knew what I was playing and the matchup is awful for him. I won two long games quite easily.
After the Swiss, I was in 2nd place in standings, while my friend who borrowed my UR Twin deck was in 1st. We both had 16 match points.
Quarterfinals: 2-0 vs Grixis Delver (same opponent from Round 6) Evolutionary Leap made an appearance in Game 1 and drew me every creature in my deck, so I won very easily. Game 2 was not much better as I killed him quickly with my value.
Semifinals: 0-2 vs Grixis Delver (eventual winner). Missed my 3rd land drop and lost two non-games.
Thoughts: As long as you don't play against Tron, you should feel comfortable against any opponent from what I have seen so far. I played against Delver decks 4 times in this tournament, though 2 were against the same opponent. The matchup is very good, but you do have to draw lands. Orzhov Pontiff was fantastic all day and I did not miss Shriekmaw at all. Worship is an option for the sideboard against red decks that can't easily deal with Burrenton Forge-Tender and Siege Rhino.
Thanks, daviusminimus. I like both Chord and Leap. Leap is not weak in slower games, it's unbeatable in slower games!
I like Abrupt Decay in the main because it answers problematic permanents that aren't creatures and does not gift our opponent a land. Path in the board makes more sense to me.
A maindeck Fulminator does not help the Tron matchup significantly, but it's good in many matchups, and excellent with Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, so it's worth considering. Room is the main issue.
I ran 3 Stony Silence in a similar list. Kataki does not win against Affinity on her own anymore because the artifact lands are banned (except Darksteel Citadel) and our Affinity matchup is quite good. If you play against a lot of Tron, Stony Silence helps a bit, but it's not extremely backbreaking.
The card Birthing Pod spawned several competitive decklists and won countless Modern Events from its inception in Modern to its banning in January 2015. Since then, Modern players have been searching for a deck that can fill the void. The first wave of successful decks included the Dragons of Tarkir card Collected Company. This card continues to show promise in Modern, but comes with a number of deckbuilding restrictions:
These restrictions have led some enterprising players to look elsewhere. The printing of Evolutionary Leap in Magic Origins led to some speculation that the card could be very strong in Modern. It bears a striking resemblance to Birthing Pod in the activation cost and to Survival of the Fittest in its mana cost and the creature card going to your hand, but it provides a unique effect. When I first read the card, I thought it might have some application, but the condition seemed too steep. However, after testing it in my Collected Company deck, I realized the card actually has a lot of potential. My first list built around Evolutionary Leap was the following:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gavony Township
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
Creatures: 25
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Voice of Resurgence
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
2 Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 Siege Rhino
2 Wilt-leaf Liege
1 Restoration Angel
1 Reveillark
4 Lingering Souls
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Evolutionary Leap
2 Path to Exile
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Choke
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Stony Silence
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Thragtusk
In testing, this deck showcased the power of Lingering Souls with Evolutionary Leap. I ran only 4 mana dorks because generally, Leaping into a Bird is undesirable, though it does not set you back very much. However, the lack of a combo meant some matchups were more difficult than necessary. The idea behind Wilt-Leaf Liege in this deck is as extra copies of Gavony Township, and the list allowed me to test several new ideas. Eventually, I decided to try a Birthing Pod-style approach. Here is the list that 4-0'd a Modern Daily on 8/11/2015:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
Creatures: 27
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Viscera Seer
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
1 Wall of Roots
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Sin Collector
2 Siege Rhino
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Shriekmaw
3 Chord of Calling
3 Evolutionary Leap
3 Lingering Souls
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Path to Exile
2 Stony Silence
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Lingering Souls
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Voice of Resurgence
This list is reminiscent of the Pod decks of yesteryear. In particular, the combo is present, but is not the main focus of the deck. Note that only three copies of Evolutionary Leap are present in the list, while Birthing Pod was always a four-of. Why? The reason is quite simple: Evolutionary Leap does nothing in multiples, while multiple copies of Birthing Pod work very well together.
Moving forward to 11/2015, the manabase was reworked in my test versions to account for the fact that a deck trying to produce WW, 1BB, and XGGG may be stretching itself quite thin, especially with the mana-intensive Evolutionary Leap engine. As a result, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Linvala, Keeper of Silence were omitted (though in the case of Linvala, you can still run her, as a 4-drop with WW is much easier to cast than a 2-drop with WW. I'd recommend replacing the Twilight Mire or Stomping Ground with another White source) and the card Crumble to Dust was printed, giving us a splashable way to simply win the Tron matchup that is also relevant in our other bad matchups (Scapeshift and Eldrazi).
Here is the list I ran to a top 4 finish at SCG Kansas City's 5K Modern Premier IQ (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=95321):
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Gavony Township
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
Creatures: 26
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Viscera Seer
2 Dark Confidant
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
1 Wall of Roots
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Siege Rhino
1 Murderous Redcap
3 Chord of Calling
3 Evolutionary Leap
3 Lingering Souls
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Path to Exile
2 Stony Silence
1 Burrenton Forge-tender
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
Important new cards:
Eidolon of Rhetoric has been overperforming for me. I brought it in against Grixis decks, Storm, Living End, and Burn to great effect.
The fourth Fulminator Mage was actually a card availability issue - I lent out some Crumble to Dust and did not find more before the event. I'm not sure which is better, though I did beat Tron twice in the event without ever drawing a Crumble to Dust.
Slaughter Pact is good with Dark Confidant and lets us tap out against Twin. Overall, it was quite good. Match report can be found on page 4: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/624202-melira-leap-pod-style?comment=83. As of the banning of Splinter Twin, this card is likely no longer necessary.
Of course, Evolutionary Leap is not Birthing Pod. Here are some advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages of Evolutionary Leap:
Advantages of Birthing Pod:
- Puts the creature directly into play
- Does not strictly require green mana
- Has years of practice and testing put into the decklists
This list is rather simplified, but it does help to illustrate some of the differences.Combos and Interactions
This section is fairly simple, and serves to illustrate the combos and interactions present in the deck.
Infinite Life Combo
Melira, Sylvok Outcast OR Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit plus Kitchen Finks plus a sacrifice outlet, of which Viscera Seer is the most commonly used. This combo is quite simple. If you sacrifice Kitchen Finks with Melira out, it returns to the battlefield with Persist, but can't get a -1/-1 counter. You gain 2 life, and scry (if using Viscera Seer). Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. If using Anafenza, you have to wait for the Bolster trigger to resolve, then choose to put the +1/+1 counter on the recently persisted Finks. Because of Rule 704.5r in State-Based Actions, these counters eliminate each other. (704.5r If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it)
Infinite Damage Combo
This combo works as above, but replacing Kitchen Finks with Murderous Redcap.
Infinite Bolster Combo
If you have Anafenza and Melira on the battlefield, there are several ways to make your creatures arbitrarily large. The simplest is the three-card combo with Murderous Redcap and the above two creatures. Here's how it works: Murderous Redcap enters the battlefield, triggering itself and Anafenza. Place the Anafenza trigger on the stack first, and then the Redcap trigger on top of it, targeting itself. Redcap dies and persists. Again, put the bolster trigger on the stack first, then Redcap's trigger, targeting itself. You will end up with a stack full of Bolster triggers. Target something else (like your opponent) with the final Redcap trigger for two damage (or three, if you choose to switch the order of the final Bolster and Redcap trigger), then resolve the stack, distributing millions of Bolster triggers among your creatures. Attack for lethal with a creature that does not have summoning sickness.
Alternate Infinite Bolster Combo
This one is a four-card combo, but it is a good combo to have access to. With Kitchen Finks, Anafenza, Melira, and a sac outlet like Viscera Seer, you can sacrifice the Finks, let it Persist, leave the Bolster trigger on the stack, then sac Kitchen Finks again, and repeat until you have a large number of Bolster triggers on the stack, then let them all resolve.
Wall of Roots interactions
I will just put the two unintuitive Wall of Roots interactions here. You can have Wall pay twice toward a Chord of Calling by tapping it for Convoke and putting a -0/-1 counter on it for mana even if it only has one toughness. This works because state-based actions (which are what leads to a creature dying from having 0 toughness) are not checked during the casting of a spell or activation of an ability. Similarly, you can put the fifth -0/-1 counter on Wall of Roots and sacrifice it to Evolutionary Leap.
Evolutionary Leap interactions
Evolutionary Leap works as a sac outlet in any of the above combos, but cannot go infinite because you will run out of green mana. However, with a Kitchen Finks and one of your two-drop legends, you can pay G to gain 2 life and put the top creature card from your library into your hand. You can also Evoke Shriekmaw and sacrifice it with the Evoke trigger on the stack.
Card Choices
I have borrowed heavily from the wonderful Abzan Company primer written by Torpf which can be found here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/605889-abzan-company
Matchups and Sideboarding
Jund
One of the matchups we like to face, Jund has a lot of one-for-one removal and only a few sources of real card advantage. Specifically, their threats in terms of card advantage are Dark Confidant and Liliana of the Veil. Kolaghan's Command can also be fairly effective. The biggest card we have to worry about in reality is Olivia Voldaren, which we can answer temporarily with Linvala, Keeper of Silence and permanently with cards like Path to Exile. It is often a one-of in their main deck and likely their only way to beat us realistically in game one.
In terms of sideboarding, there are many ways to approach the matchup. Our best cards against them are Evolutionary Leap and Lingering Souls. For sure, we want 4 Lingering Souls postboard. High-impact or high-value cards are excellent against Jund. These include options like Sigarda, Host of Herons and Thragtusk, as well as Siege Rhino, Reveillark (as long as we are careful about Scavenging Ooze!) and many others. As our deck is by its very nature a very value-oriented deck, I would not recommend sideboarding too heavily. I like at least 1 Fulminator Mage, boarding up to 4 Lingering Souls, and as many Path to Exile and Abrupt Decay as are available. Burrenton Forge-tender is also good if you think they may bring in Anger of the Gods. Overall, the matchup is very favorable.
Affinity
The fact that we run Lingering Souls in the main deck helps this matchup a lot compared to other Kitchen Finks combo decks. Affinity is light on removal, so combo is a good way to win game one. Spellskite is also excellent as it can redirect Arcbound Ravager modular triggers (though of course they can simply choose not to put the counters on Spellskite as it is a may ability), Galvanic Blast, and even Welding Jar as well as being a blocker for Etched Champion. Orzhov Pontiff is also very useful as it can wipe their board at instant speed. The -2/-2 trick is especially useful at killing Etched Champion.
In terms of sideboarding, we want Stony Silence and Abrupt Decay for sure. Removal helps against Affinity, but don't go overboard. Voice of Resurgence is at its worst in this matchup and I board out all copies. Generally speaking, the matchup is slightly favorable.
Burn
Since we have so much maindeck lifegain, we have natural game against Modern's premier red deck. The die roll is very important as you will very rarely lose games on the play.
Board options if Burn is giving you trouble include the excellent Auriok Champion, Dromoka's Command, and Burrenton Forge-tender. Be aware that Skullcrack can stop protection from red creatures from preventing damage (for example, if you are blocking a Goblin Guide with Kor Firewalker and they Skullcrack you, your Firewalker will die to combat damage). Overall, the matchup is die-roll dependent. It tends to be close to 50/50 if you lose the die roll and highly favorable if you win the die roll.
Grixis Control
This is the matchup you want to face every round. It's very difficult to drop a game against Grixis Control, especially if you can resolve a Evolutionary Leap. Bring in Path to Exile from the sideboard in exchange for the maindeck Abrupt Decay]s and ways to answer Anger of the Gods.
Merfolk
Merfolk is a very favorable matchup for the Collected Company version of Abzan. As we are less combo-focused, the matchup gets worse. It ranges from slightly favorable to slightly unfavorable, usually depending on how many Tidebinder Mages they run and how much removal they have.
RG Tron
This is our worst tier 1 matchup. With the new sideboard plan involving Crumble to Dust, Stony Silence and Fulminator Mage, we are favored post-board.
Abzan
Abzan is at least as favorable as Jund in general, though they do typically run more copies of Abrupt Decay which can answer Evolutionary Leap. The matchup is very similar except they don't have Olivia Voldaren.
Infect
This matchup is pretty straightforward. Melira, Sylvok Outcast shuts down their deck (though they can still win with normal damage, she turns off Inkmoth Nexus from ever dealing any type of damage again while she's on the battlefield) and Spellskite is also excellent. Try to get one of these two cards down as quickly as possible. Removal is often best played on their end step or on your turn so they can't respond with a kicked Vines of Vastwood. Orzhov Pontiff is amazing, and Thoughtseize can help out of the board. I also like at least one copy of Fulminator Mage but that's personal preference.
Grixis Delver
The only way you lose this matchup is if they get an aggressive start and you have a very slow one, especially if you are missing land drops. I played against this deck three times in one PPTQ and several times online as well, and have only dropped one match due to missing my third land drop both games for several turns. It should be favorable, especially if we land Evolutionary Leap, which they have no answers to.
Abzan Company
This matchup is very interesting and skill-testing. Some of their draws can be difficult to beat, but in general, we are favored in the long game. Scavenging Ooze is very important.
Zoo
This matchup is somewhat favorable. Watch out for Ghor-Clan Rampager and Rancor. Lifegain is your best friend, and they do not handle Siege Rhino very well. Path to Exile is their most relevant removal.
Elves
This matchup is very interesting. I'm not sure who's favored at this point, but Orzhov Pontiff does a lot of work. They can't beat infinite life, but they are a faster deck in general. You want some form of interaction. Board in Path to Exile and any other sideboard removal you might have.
Griselbrand Combo
I haven't lost to this deck yet. It seems pretty inconsistent. I'm sure we can't do anything about their turn 2 kill, so bring in Thoughtseize and Path to Exile.
Scapeshift
This matchup is actually very bad. A lot of lists maindeck Anger of the Gods and the deck is excellent at slowing you down. If you can combo, you probably have to go for it. Put pressure on them and bring in your Fulminator Mages and Thoughtseizes in exchange for your removal. Watch out for Inferno Titan out of the sideboard. Game 2 and 3 are favorable with the land destruction package. Crumble to Dust on a Steam Vents or Stomping Ground can make it difficult for them to win. If they Scapeshift and get Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and six Mountains attempting to hit you for 18 and you have or can grab a Fulminator Mage, you can destroy one of the nonbasic Mountains to reduce the amount of damage you take to 3 (the Mountain you destroy sees five other Mountains, but the rest only see four).
Eldrazi
This matchup is quite bad, especially if they're on the Processor versions with multiple copies of Relic of Progenitus. A big issue is that Oblivion Sower outmatches all of our threats. Try to kill them as quickly as possible. Postboard, it gets better with Fulminators and Crumbles.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
1. As of right now the deck has no way of answering a resolved Tasigur/Gurmag/greater than cmc 3 and black creatures in the main-deck. Collected Company lists have been running 2 MD Path in addition to fiend hunter in order to rectify this. I understand that Leap plays better with Shriekmaw, but wouldn't this give us further incentive to be playing paths in the main-deck. While Leap offers a better value-engine in grixis matchups than company, I'm not sure it's correct to be playing with no ways to remove problematic creatures.
2. Why 3 birds of paradise and 3 Noble Hierarch? We usually see lists running 4 birds and 2-3 Hierarch. The colored mana requirements in this deck aren't that different from melira company (aside from an increase in demand for green mana which Wall of Roots is happy to provide) and playing liliana and shriekmaw means we have even more black mana requirements in the main-deck. I would like to hear your reasoning for cutting short on the mana. We have also seen, since the inclusion of liliana, marsh flats being played over the third razorverge thicket. While this is less common I believe mathematically it gives us more consistent access to black (and since it's a fetch the ability to play around blood moon more).
3. In the days of Pod we often only saw 1 eternal witness in the deck. With collected company she made a resurgence as hitting her off of collected company was very powerful. Seeing as how that is not an interaction with this variant should we be dropping her back to 1 to fill in more slots for MB cards? (EDIT: and in regards to recurring the legendary creatures this was a role that reveillark fulfilled)
4. Why are we running a third voice of resurgence in the sideboard? I feel that we could be running higher impact cards in this slot than voice as since it's a sb slot we can have it be a super high-impact card in specific matchups (i.e. Reveillark). Now bringing a third voice of resurgence into the main-deck certainly has merit but the deck looks tight on space.
1. We are super favored against every deck playing Gurmag Angler, and we can make Rhino bigger than Tasigur. These haven't been an issue.
2. The only double-black in the main is Liliana, and I added an Overgrown Tomb to mitigate (replacing Woodland Cemetery from older lists). This list is a bit on the aggressive side. Even in Abzan Collected Company I prefer 3 Hierarch. 4 Birds is a reasonable option.
3. 1 Witness is an option. With Leap not actually finding what you're looking for, having a second Witness has been nice. Another possibility is Entomber Exarch.
4. This was a suggestion to replace the Reveillark I had before from friends who were testing the deck and liked multiple Voices. I have never boarded it in and will play something else moving forward. The deck is tight on space as you say.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
2. Redcap is also double black. Not to mention we are running more black cards MD than Company with 2 Rhinos, sin collector, Shriekmaw, and the flashback on the 3 souls.
3. How would Reveillark be over the second witness? Having the ability to reveillark loop with witness as well as recur liliana is just scary. It has benefits as well as drawbacks though.
4. Any ideas for what to put in its place?
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StaffMTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Redcap is double black, but costing 4 instead of 3 is a big difference in terms of ease of casting. Rhino and Souls flashback require one black mana only. It's easy to have one black mana, harder to have two, but I think Lili is worth it.
Went 3-1 in the daily just now, beat Grixis Control round 1, Grixis Twin round 2, and Jund round 3 before losing to RG Scapeshift in round 4. I only lost because I didn't draw my third land in either game, would have been a big favorite to win if I ever saw that land.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
UBR
Twin/Control/DelverLegacy (Soon):
WUBRG Dredge
@cbg ill dirrect this at you since youve started this primer, but are you set on abzan? In my brewing i found a fairly nice home for leap was Naya. There you get access to the "i win" combo of kiki and resto, both are good peices on their own. Resto resets persist and undying creatures so you dont lose as much value to leap. Kiki makes copies that die anyways (great leap targets). Being only 2 peices means its easier to find, half is instant speed, unlike melira pod where viscera and melira/anafenza are pretty undrwhelming so only get played as 1-2 ofs, resto can be played up to 4 and only help the deck. I find the biggest loss with naya is what else does red bring, theres bolt but not much else ive found. Nothing compared to what black offers, but theres no denying the combo of kiki resto is better than melira
Instead of running straight dorks you could add something like Viridian Emissary. Its power/toughness are fine for a 2cmc creature, it puts the land straight into play, its a great sac target for Evolutionary Leap. On the other hand I can that its a little slow because it comes down the same turn you would normally be playing Leap on. Then Turn 3, assuming you hit your land drop you can play and activate Leap, activate it saccing Emissary for a land that comes into play tapped....I realize its not great but it can/does actually ramp you by putting you at 5 lands on turn 4, again assuming you hit your land drop on turn 4. But its slightly more value than a mana dork if you leap into it and provides permanent/impact after you Leap out of it.
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/86097
You have to remember that Leap is only a 3 of with no way to tutor it. So while it is strong when you get it and you want your deck to be synergistic with it, you don't want to be sacrificing too much raw utility/power from the creatures for that synergy as everything needs to be working well when you don't see a leap. Because of this I don't think Viridian Emissary is where you want to be.
When you look at the list and compare the cmc cost to a deck like Wilt-Leaf Liege you can see that our average cmc is well within an acceptable range, with the avg cmc of a stock liege deck being 2.43 while playing 6 dorks and with this deck having an avg cmc of 2.45 while playing 6 dorks and a wall of roots. However it is important to know that not hitting your fourth land drop hurts a good deal less in this deck than in either Abzan Company or in Liege Rhino imo as we are only playing 4 creatures with a cmc of 4 and having shriekmaw often being cast as a 2 mana removal spell or 3 mana removal spell draw a creature. From the games I played with Abzan Company whenever I had my sb leap I felt I was a huge favorite in these games. Main-decking leaps in this variant alongside other powerful cards in the matchup, and the small amount of testing I've done, lead me to believe that we are already winning these matchups.
@cbgirardo:
I was able to jam some games with the deck over the past few days and I've come to the same conclusion as you on Reveillark. I feel like I'd want it going to a local meta full of value decks, but in a blind meta it is most certainly correct to be playing something else in it's place (right now that's the second witness I think). In my games against Grixis the times where they landed an early threat I never really needed a removal spell as lingering souls tokens were able to chump all day and then leap in response to get more gas and if he would opt to attack me he would take a good amount of damage on the swingback. This would lead to board-states where they don't attack and Leap just powers through the deck putting us further and further ahead or lingering souls just fly over their creatures and chip away at their life-total. I think that abrupt decay is the superior option as you said due to it's versatility and it's un-counterability which helps a lot in the match-ups where we want some extra help.
In regards to the voice of resurgence in the sb I think that reclamation sage was a good replacement. Another thing to consider is a phyrexian Revoker in that slot as a chord-able scoop condition against Grishoalbrand decks. I'm sure there would be other relevant matchups for the card but Grishoalbrand is the one that comes to mind first.
I was very impressed while I was playing the deck and having a favorable matchup against Grixis Control is a very nice thing to have at the moment. Unfortunately I do not have the cards on MTGO, but I am only missing a few cheap cards on paper so I will definitely be putting the list together and giving it a go the next time I have a chance.
Anyway, I think this deck has a little bit of both those other decks and so I want to give it a go. In this list I prefer to go the angel/feeder combo because it does not require the graveyard, doesn't take up as many spots, and uses a more powerful individual piece in archangel of thune. Here is the list I have come up with, haven't gotten a chance to test it out yet but I have all the cards so will definitely be doing so in the near future.
4 birds of paradise
3 noble hierarch
2 voice of resurgence
1 scavenging ooze
1 qasali pridemage
1 spellskite
4 kitchen finks
1 eternal witness
2 spike feeder
1 linvala, keeper of silence
3 siege rhino
2 archangel of thune
Spells 13
2 path to exile
2 abrupt decay
3 evolutionary leap
4 lingering souls
2 chord of calling
4 windswept heath
1 verdant catacombs
3 marsh flats
2 gavony township
1 godless shrine
2 temple garden
2 overgrown tomb
2 razorverge thicket
1 woodland cemetery
2 forest
1 plains
1 swamp
3 thoughtseize
1 path to exile
2 burrenton forge-tender
1 abrupt decay
2 stony silence
1 orzhov pontiff
4 fulminator mage
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
The SB could probably use some work but I think I have a good starting point. I took out the liliana from the main because it is the only double black card and is pretty slow. Considering we already have 3 evolutionary leap we can't really afford to have too many slow cards when playing against something like affinity. The list would probably be ok with only one spike feeder and one archangel but I just personally like at least 2 copies of each combo piece which is the main reason I am switching from the melira combo.
I feel the need to point out that mana dorks are actually excellent with the Gavony Township side of things. Discard spells are definitely an idea, but I feel that their utility is at an all-time low right now. I want them against combo, but that's it.
Cost/power ratio is not as important as cost/value ratio. Being able to Chord for Rhino because of Lingering Souls is a real thing too. I've won a ton of games by putting my opponent to 3 and searching up a Rhino. Tarmogoyf is not as good value as Voice of Resurgence, for example.
Archangel/Spike Feeder combo requires a bad card and not running Melira hurts our Infect and Affinity matchups. The interaction between Anafenza/Melira, Finks, and Leap comes up more often than you might think, and I think it's the main reason to run this style of deck. Archangel is fine if you're on 23 lands.
Shriekmaw is good against everything except Affinity, Tron, and Grixis Control. We're beating Affinity and Grixis Control, and we're not beating Tron reliably anyway. I like having it and Shriekmaw is the cheapest to cast and Leap to kill something. Fiend Hunter is hard to cast and costs 4 to cast and leap.
Twilight Mire and Woodland Cemetery serve much the same function, but I don't think we have room for another land that may enter tapped in the early game or a land that may not produce colored mana in a hand full of Gavonys. It's certainly a consideration moving forward.
Kiki-Leap is something Jeff Hoogland was trying out as recently as the last two days. Kiki/Resto is probably not a good combo in a metagame full of bolts and Kolaghan's Commands, but if that's what you like, go for it.
Souls is not high curve? Leap generally gains usefulness throughout the game, starting from turn 3. Abzan Collected Company typically runs 6 actual 4-drops (4 Company, 1 Linvala, 1 Redcap) on 22 lands, and we're running 4 with about the same number of mana dorks. I did lose my first match ever with this deck due to not hitting my 3rd land ever against Scapeshift, but I still almost took g1. He had to draw perfectly to survive. And yes, we are crushing Junk/Jund without Reveillark. Also, both of those decks run Scavenging Ooze.
Viridian Emissary is only good with Leap. We don't want to run cards that are only good with Leap.
Good to hear about your results. I'm actually testing Burrenton Forge-tender as Reclamation Sage does not do much in the current metagame. Grishoalbrand is like 1% of the meta so I'm not terribly interested in boarding against a deck that loses to itself a significant percentage of the time. I did play against it in one of my first Dailys with this deck and it was an easy 2-0. Revoker is an idea for sure, if we need a Pithing Needle effect.
I don't like the Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder combo in this deck because it requires a five-drop and a bad card, but the Archangel herself isn't bad. Your manabase doesn't have enough green and white consistently from the looks of it, Marsh Flats is much worse than Verdant Catacombs in the archetype. Lili in the board makes sense, but I think she's a very strong card to have main. We're actually fine with slow cards against Affinity because Lingering Souls does a ton of work and so does Spellskite, blocking Etched Champion and preventing Arcbound Ravager's Modular ability. I think your list has too high of a curve to run 22 lands, I'd add a Gavony Township to mitigate.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
how is a 2 piece combo where only 1 piece dies to bolt worse than a 3 card combo where all 3 pieces die to bolt? Regardless, just suggesting other options that work well with leap. If you have any links to hooglands leap list id be interested. Im still a fan of the abzan colours too though.
Melira combo is good in Abzan CoCo because most of the pieces are 3 or less mana, we don't have that restriction here. Also we don't really need viscera seer as a value card because outside the combo it serves much the same purpose as evolutionary leap just not as good. Also Anafenza, melira, and redcap aren't exactly all-stars of modern either.
Spike feeder is not a good card but it at least has some uses here. Most decks running bolts are trying to kill you with damage so you can sac the feeder in response to gain 4 life and they are down a kill spell. Spike feeder can also reset finks to get a lot of mileage out of leap.
Also spike feeder can be used to make our rhinos 5/6s which is pretty crucial in the current meta.
Taking up less slots, not being graveyard based, and allowing us to play a powerful card in archangel of thune are definitely enough reasons to consider the combo. Not to mention lili can actually reanimate both pieces of this combo.
I only have one verdant catacombs and i have a play set of marsh flats. I cannot justify the price of the catacombs considering no one plays blood moon here.
I believe my last post clarified that Burrenton Forge-tender is my current sideboard choice in the old Voice/Reclamation Sage spot. My one game loss from the last Daily where I had more than two lands came because he had Anger of the Gods and I couldn't Chord for an answer.
Five-drops are fine when you can Pod a Rhino into an Archangel, and less good when you have to cast them in a mana-hungry deck. Spike Feeder is much worse than Kitchen Finks in pretty much all situations. Kiki-Jiki costs five and dies to everything, Melira costs 2 and can be Chorded for easily. I don't think the Bolt argument is ridiculous. People already use Kolaghan's Command as an excuse to never play Batterskull despite the fact that Kolaghan's Command is a 1-3 of in Grixis and Jund and absent from the rest of the metagame.
Twilight Mire is probably okay, I was just expressing my concern with another 'colorless' land when I've already cut a Gavony Township for that reason. It's definitely worth testing.
Dromoka's Command has been okay in testing. I'm not sure it's maindeckable yet.
Bad matchups: RG Tron and probably Scapeshift. I haven't found any others yet. Best matchups: Grixis Control, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Affinity. Twin has been a good matchup in testing but I do want to test it more (it's also the matchup I've tested the most).
The mana costs matter a lot in this deck for Chord of Calling, Evolutionary Leap, and the 22-land manabase. Here's the Hoogland list: http://themeadery.org/articles/video-crash-test-starring-jeff-hoogland-episode-20/.
By no means am I saying the way I am building this deck is correct. Cutting Melira happens in a lot of matchups, but I do like having access to her and never cut her from Pod. Anafenza is good with a lot of cards in this deck, but struggles from being more difficult to cast. What I am saying is that these were not random choices, but the result of at least some thought process. Giving my reasons for running and not running certain cards is not resistance to constructive criticism, but sharing of ideas. I've already gotten several ideas from reading through the comments in this thread.
Discard is not good against Jund. They're generally topdecking after a few turns, so drawing a Thoughtseize is a sure way to have a dead card. Liliana, Heretical Healer is a good exception to this. I only really bring in Thoughtseize against combo decks. It's playable against Grixis Control if you can find the slots, but I don't think it's as good as more Sin Collectors in that matchup. Twin and Tron are good matchups for Thoughtseize.
Edited for some data: Yesterday I went 4-0 in a local modern event beating Living End, Grixis Twin, RG Tron and jund. Today I went 4-1 beating Grixis Twin, Goblins, Bogles, and Amulet and losing to RG Tron. Bringing the deck to a PPTQ tomorrow most likely.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
I played really badly today to screw myself out of top8 at the PPTQ. In what is likely the worst punt of my Magic career in a competitive REL event, I cast Thoughtseize and took Snapcaster Mage over Olivia Voldaren because I for some reason forgot Olivia is black, and planned on using Shriekmaw to kill her. Lo and behold, she is in fact black, so I ended up killing my own Scavenging Ooze instead. I lost a game I would have certainly won to lose my first match to Twin with this deck.
Out of six rounds, I played against Twin four times (2 grixis and 2 UR), Infect, and Abzan Liege. Round 1 I crushed Grixis Twin 2-0, round 2 I lost to Grixis Twin because of the above punt, round 3 I beat UR Twin 2-0, round 4 I lost to UR Twin because a)he's really good and b)I mulliganed into mediocre hands both games. Game 1 I had no answer to the combo (despite running many answers in the main, >15 answers in the 75) and game 2 I did not have the mana to cast my answers to the combo. I probably played pretty badly overall game 2 where I should have used Dromoka's Command to trade my Burrenton Forge-tender for his Pestermite. His hand of 3 Twin creatures, 2 Twins and 2 Bolts was better than my hand of awkward mana, Chord without GGG, Dromoka's Command and Abrupt Decay.
At 3-2, I was paired up against a 10-pointer on table 6 in the final round. We got deckchecked, and the top 4 tables drew (putting 8 players at 13 points and killing my chances for top8) so I screwed a guy out of top8 by conceding to my opponent despite a very high likelihood of winning the match. (Table 5 was another 10-9 match, but the 9-pointer won, putting himself in 10th place)
Changes I'm considering after more testing: Shriekmaw is not the answer we want or need. Orzhov Pontiff is good in a lot of matchups and helps us kill with Lingering Souls, so I'm strongly considering him for the open slot.
Liliana, Heretical Healer overperformed. Evolutionary Leap overperformed despite not being at its best against Twin g1.
Dromoka's Command has been doing fairly well as a sideboard one-of. Burrenton Forge-tender was fantastic all day.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
3rd in a 50+-player PPTQ today.
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
Creatures: 27
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Viscera Seer
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
1 Wall of Roots
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sin Collector
2 Siege Rhino
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Murderous Redcap
3 Chord of Calling
3 Evolutionary Leap
3 Lingering Souls
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Path to Exile
3 Thoughtseize
2 Stony Silence
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Lingering Souls
Round 1: 2-0 vs UW Delver
This matchup was fairly straightforward. I just cast guys, cast Leap, and won.
Round 2: 2-1 vs Elves
This match was a lot of fun. He had a fantastic hand g1 and was able to kill me, but I would have won if I drew a Chord or Pontiff all game. Game 2 he attacked for lethal forcing me to block, so I did some math and figured out that he was dead on the crackback after I played a creature to trigger bolster. I blocked with a single Lingering Souls token, played my dude, and killed him. Game 3 I blew him out with Pontiff when he kept a one-land hand with three mana dorks.
Round 3: 2-0 vs Jund
Game 1 he was dying, but failed to pay a Pact and lost faster than he had to. Game 2 was an interesting affair as he killed my Leap and was clocking me with a Tarmogoyf. I used Lingering Souls to buy some time, used Fulminator Mage to deny his second green source and second red source (for Anger of the Gods, which he had already cast one of, and the Treetop Village on the table. It seemed better than denying his second black). Eventually I drew a Path and ate his Tarmogoyf and killed him the turn he cast Olivia Voldaren.
Round 4: ID vs UR Twin (my friend, who was borrowing my deck and made it to the finals. We played to 1-1 and went to get food)
Round 5: 2-0 vs Bogles
This match was weird. I had a Qasali for early interaction, while he had a Kor Spiritdancer that was clocking me. I kept him off of lifelink, eventually Chording for Orzhov Pontiff to wipe his blockers and killed him on the swing back. Game 2 I gained infinite life quite early.
Round 6: 2-0 vs Grixis Delver
My opponent refused to draw into top 4, which is weird because he knew what I was playing and the matchup is awful for him. I won two long games quite easily.
After the Swiss, I was in 2nd place in standings, while my friend who borrowed my UR Twin deck was in 1st. We both had 16 match points.
Quarterfinals: 2-0 vs Grixis Delver (same opponent from Round 6)
Evolutionary Leap made an appearance in Game 1 and drew me every creature in my deck, so I won very easily. Game 2 was not much better as I killed him quickly with my value.
Semifinals: 0-2 vs Grixis Delver (eventual winner). Missed my 3rd land drop and lost two non-games.
Thoughts: As long as you don't play against Tron, you should feel comfortable against any opponent from what I have seen so far. I played against Delver decks 4 times in this tournament, though 2 were against the same opponent. The matchup is very good, but you do have to draw lands. Orzhov Pontiff was fantastic all day and I did not miss Shriekmaw at all. Worship is an option for the sideboard against red decks that can't easily deal with Burrenton Forge-Tender and Siege Rhino.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
I like Abrupt Decay in the main because it answers problematic permanents that aren't creatures and does not gift our opponent a land. Path in the board makes more sense to me.
A maindeck Fulminator does not help the Tron matchup significantly, but it's good in many matchups, and excellent with Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, so it's worth considering. Room is the main issue.
I ran 3 Stony Silence in a similar list. Kataki does not win against Affinity on her own anymore because the artifact lands are banned (except Darksteel Citadel) and our Affinity matchup is quite good. If you play against a lot of Tron, Stony Silence helps a bit, but it's not extremely backbreaking.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
Im gonna ask those annoying budget questions now so please forgive me.
Does this need heirarch? Can I run another roots and a bird instead?
I have both Bloodstained Mire and Wooded foothills. Which one is a better replacement for Verdant?
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru