Zoo doesn't typically use Mindcensor, Hatebears sometimes uses it but usually uses Leonin Arbiter with 6 or 7 dorks in hopes of pooping a Ghost Quarter on turn 2. Which is doom for most decks.
PS: You don't need infinite combos to win if you have consistently accessible hate cards that you can recur... and a source of damage.
Btw half of that 12-16 card thing is sideboard material. The good half: would prevent you from casting chord entirely: Hope/Thalia/Teeg
List seems very aggressive, which I like. My last lists have all been very grindy, which doesn't seem to do the trick anymore. Not sure about the lack of Spellskite and Restos, the single Witness and the Souls, but I'm intrigued. Gonna test this out for sure.
I get the 0 Kitchen Finks. It's a nice grindy tool but not great at finishing the game anymore. They are sweet for the lifegain as well, but between triple Rhino, double Brutality and Swagtusk I don't think this list needs more of that.
Im really liking this list. Attacks on many different angles and really reminds me of rhino pod before the ban. No combos just value. I would say in the finks slot is rallier which plays very nicely with evolution and voice. Im going o to try this list out on MTGO
Are the 6 mana dorks necessary in that build? I have a hard time justifying that many without card advantage sinks like Company. I guess Brutality exists to pitch dead ones.
Tested the list a bunch today. Made some changes after playing around with the original list for a while, but the aggressive approach is definately very refreshing. Had my head too far in the value grind plan lately... feels good to just bash peoples head's in with angels and cows
@Kamon.
I'd say so. We want to be able to slam a t2 3-drop, so having plenty of t1 accelerants is important. We also run a bunch of 4 and 5 drops which we want to cast early, as well as Township as mid/lategame mana sinks. The dorks also help with the occasional land screw.
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"I can call an army to my side in the blink of an eye. Best not blink."
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3-2 yesterday, lost to Mono White Soldiers (0-2, had some weird draws), then won against Esper Midrange (2-1), BG Eldrazi (2-0) and Grixis Control (2-0), and then 0-2'd against Tron. Deck performed pretty well after some initial weird hands, most MU's felt reasonably good, Tron was crap as usual, even with t2 fulmi+surgical
Regarding the changes from the regionals list - I don't think this deck needs or wants Lingering Souls for any reason other than to pitch them to Brutality for value. I've tested the Control and Infect MU's, where Souls is usually king, and they're both pretty good as it is. I prefer having Restoration Angel over the third Rhino for flexibility as well as an additional flying threat. 4 Birds over 4 Hierarchs for reasons of flying and producing BB reliably on turn 2 after boarding. Angelfeeder Combo because while we don't necessarily often use it, I really like having a way of going over the top quickly like that. Spike Feeder isn't amazing, no, but Archangel is still a very quick clock against any deck that can't immediately kill her. Spellskite in there because I don't like losing to... well, not having a Spellskite in the deck (looking at you, Bogles and Infect). Finally the 2 Chords to assemble Angelfeeder combo more easily and have instant-speed access to creatures. Probably gonna add the Stirring Wildwood back in next week for testing. Could help with the aggressive plan.
Elspeth from the board was a complete bomb. I did some testing with 3 of her in the main before this list showed up, and I liked her quite a bit during testing. She grinds and presents a reasonable clock that, due to flying, is often hard to stop. Turning our random hatebears and small value guys into 5-power attackers is nothing to scoff at. Only problem is that we can't tutor her out, so we'd need to run multiples of her, taking up a lot of slots... I'll test her more in the next week.
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The same list 5-0 a league recently. From playing the list last week I disagree with some of your points.
I think souls present a viable answer to current one for one strategies in modern. They allow us to go wide as well as present a quick clock by themselves. I certainly havent been sad to draw one of these cards and the interaction with collective brutality is gravy.
I agree with the resto for the third rhino. We have enough ETB that it really helps. Also allows us to do things at instant speed which i think is one of the deck's weakness.
The angelfeeder combo I belive isn't that necessary we are looking to close the game out or just looking to grind them to dust. Whilst the archangel is a good threat by itself I believe the spike feeder is such a dead card.
I have felt that chord as a 1 of could be very useful for this deck to have and could potentially give some instant speed interaction
The stirring wildwood has been a nice way to close out games but hasn't been amazing, it certainly is no raging ravine
Spellskite is more to protect a combo but if we don't have one then i would much rather run a more aggressive proactive creature.
In not saying this list is perfect and can't be tuned but the too finishes show the raw power is certainly there in this list
The list (this archetype in general, really) definately has a lot of power, yeah. Is there a way to see the matchups of the two guys going 5-0 so far? Would be interesting to see.
I agree that Souls is an amazing card and the synergy with Brutality and Voice is sweet. I also agree that it's good against relevant matchups. However I feel that we are already pretty good against attrition based decks, so I'm not completely sold on that we can't run something better than Souls in those slots.
I also agree on that not having any ways of instant-speed interaction is a weakness, as it makes us pretty predictable and combat a lot easier to figure out for our opponents. I'd prefer Chord as a 2-of, but I'll give the 1-of a try to see how it plays. (Gonna take forever tho, testing flexible 1-of's is horrible xD)
I disagree that Spellskite is there for combo protection. It usually plays out as either a hate-card against pump strategies, as a decent blocker, or as protection of value creatures or beaters against fair interactive decks. I get not wanting to run 0/4's in a deck we are aiming to make more proactive and aggressive, but I think Spellskite definately is worth the slot, and probably more so than the 2 Wall of Omens (although I'm not sure yet how good they really are in here).
Spike Feeder isn't great, no. He does work against Burn and aggressive strategies, but we'd never run him over Kitchen Finks without Archangel. Archangel is an amazing finisher and way to swing games back in our favor. Pumping our entire team also breaks board stalls pretty easily. It's not that I'm 100% sold the combo is necessary (probably also meta-dependant), but I think it's better than running 2 gennerically good cards that provide nothing new to the deck's arsenal. Archangel and Souls also synergize quite amazingly though... hm.
At the moment I'm trying out my list with 2 Wall of Omens instead of the Chords. So far they feel ok, haven't missed the Chords much either, but both cards are pretty MU-dependent, so judging is tricky.
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I can see your reasoning with chord and spellskite and they may be worth it instead of either wall of omens and lingering souls.
I played some games with the deck in a league this morning. One weakness i feel that this deck has is also having discard then either no pressure or a voice follow up. This is in comparison to discard followed by grim flayer or tarmo of Jund/Junk. Thus i can reveal a hand and strip a good card then we are applying a huge amount of pressure. Or alternatively we play a discard spell and see what will crush us then flood out or don't draw enough gas.
The games i played were against control and eldrazi tron. Two tough matchups but its better to test tough matchuyps than just the easy ones to spot where the deck struggles.
These issues above are a cause for concern going forward. My other deck (kiki chord) against the big mana matchups has access to magus or the combo to just win at instant speed on the spot. This solves one of the problems where we run out of gas because the combo just shuts out the game. Obviously it doesn't solve the first one which is why i keep switching between these two decks :)I still believe this deck has raw power and need to play it more but it might just be a great meta dependant deck
I definately know the feeling of interrupting the opponent early just to then topdeck 5 lands in a row and die to something ridiculous (like hardcast Planar Bridges :D). I think it's a problem for many midrange decks in general. Traditional BGx (Jund, Abzan) just deals with it differently than us. Their threats come down fast and hard, where ours take some time to build up a powerful board. However, I feel having early power plays like Rallier into a discarded Voice turn 3 (making 5 power) already helps with that. So does Elspeth from the sideboard. I don't think I'd like discard like Thoughtseize or Inquisition in the deck, but Brutality is pretty okay due to it's versatility. Also, together with the Sin Collector they give us just enough mainboard discard to have a shot against spell-based combo decks. Obviously it's neat against control as well.
I assume the Wall of Omens were in the list to adress that issue, but they don't really feel all that necessary. The deck can still draw an insane amount of air if the MU calls for specific things (drawing say Linvala or Lingering Souls after disrupting our Storm opponent isn't much difference to drawing lands), so I'm still not too hot for raw card draw, which is why I initially put the 2 Chords in there in addition to the Evos.
Regarding the big mana decks... honestly, lately I feel more and more inclined to just ignore them. It's the one archetype we just fold to most of the time, and that is fine. We can't beat everything, otherwise we'd be a problem Having a "game over" button is a strong point for me to keep running the Angelfeeder combo, it's one of the few ways we can beat Valakut G1. Bit weaker vs Tron if they can wipe the board immediately, but it can work.
I've tested 2 Souls instead 2 Walls today. My matchup's were: UWR Nahiri (2-1), GW Emeria (2-0), Mono W Enchantments (2-0), Infect (2-0), Gifts Storm (1-1, opp dropped after losing g2), GW Tokens (1-2), RG Tron (1-2) and Naya Burn (1-2).
Souls was alright most of the times, but often replaceable and boarded out against a fair amount of my opponents. In the grindy MU's I'd much rather have an Elspeth, against Combo/Ramp I find them too slow, and against burn-heavy decks I find them awkward to cast. That being said I punted and miscounted my opponents mana G1 against Tron, where I could've used Souls together with Township to deal a huge amount of damage early. Not sure if it would've won the game, but definately could've. Also potentially lost a game testing with a friend (Bant Eldrazi) by not flashbacking Souls to survive a topdeck'd Reality Smasher.
Noteworthy - I didn't cast a single Lingering Souls against Infect, the MU where I'd like to see them the most, and it still felt pretty favourable.
Also noteworthy - Burn (and super aggressive stuff like Bushwacker Zoo) is a really tough matchup now, as we can't find Brutality if we need to. Playing with the idea of replacing 1 Souls with a singleton Kitchen Finks. Kinda wanna test a mainboard Eidolon of Rhetoric (or Kambal) to have a G1 out vs Storm/AdNaus, etc. Might not be worth it. Finks puts decent pressure on the board, Eidolon/Kambal may be too tricky though.
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Are you talking about Elspeth Suns Champion? that is a grwat card but i much prefer things like thragtusk or sigarda. They come down earlier and present a real clock as well. I feel with souls we already have the go wide down pat. The minus ability is very useful for hitting some eldrazi but that also hits out rhinos and fatties. I see suns champion as one of the haymakers of grindy matchups but i feel like this deck does that fine already.
Wall of omens isn't just for card advantage by itself but also allows for evolution to not be a 2 for but a 2 for 2. It also is a good barrier against aggressive decks. Is usually take them out against decks that dont care about it. Affinity, Control
I think that avoiding those big mana decks entirely isnt the way to go. I think we can use slots in the SB for it. Having an lifegain combo is alright but it doesnt end the game against tron decks. I think having discard and pressure are the best way to go. Lines like voice into rallier bring back voice allow for that which is good. Depending on the version go wide can work as well. I dont think its worth the 4 fulminator plan though. Thrun could be an option against control and some tron lists. i think our best plan is discard backed with fulminators.
Mainboard eidolon always feels super awkward. Love it in the side though. Aginast burn i can see you points with collective brutality. Having the rhino helps though. Kambal seems like a winmore card. If it is heavy in your meta could try finks though in the slot of anafenza. The smoother mana should help prevent taking too much damage though.
Played two more games last night against affinity and eldrazi tron again (flavour of the month). Changed the sideboarding approach against eldrazi tron and crushed him .Affinity was good thanks to souls then postboard it was
super easy with the amount of hate. I swapped out the extra souls and the lost legacy for Engineered explosives. Just love that card in modern as a catchall answer.
I was talking about Elspeth, Knight-Errant Usually presents a 4-turn clock (max), builds up a board if necessary, and is decently hard to kill. I like her more and more lately.
The 2-for-2 with Evolution is nice, but not enough reason to run a card for me. It blocks Wild Nacatl and Goblin Guide like a boss, yes, but it only chumps Eldrazi, Goyfs, delirious Flayers, etc. so the blocking doesn't impress me anymore. It's great for grinding card advantage with Resto and the likes, but we already crush midrange pretty hard.
I was more getting at not trying to fix the big mana MU's with loads of SB cards that are only there for these matchups (like running full playsets of Fulminator Mages). 1 Fulmi is generally great in this deck, Lost Legacy, Surgical Extraction, Pithing Needle, Runed Halo are super versatile, etc. I'm all for running cards like that, as they can be useful in other matchups as well. All things considered, we have to get lucky to some degree to beat these MU's most of the time, so I think running only a small amount of hate against them and focusing more on crushing other MU's post-board is not the worst strategy we could take.
Regarding single-card discard and ramp decks... it's tricky. If we have the cold nuts for draws, yes, it works. But I've discarded too many Ugins and Primeval Titans and then had my army of small creatures (which still covers most of our deck) eliminted by Oblivion Stones or Anger of the Gods to think it's good anymore. I prefer Lost Legacy, as it deals with a certain threat entirely, but it still doesn't fix our "not killing fast enough" problem. Thrun sometimes work if we ramp it out, as can Sigarda (or an early Siege Rhino), but usually all of that just get's Ugin'd or O-Stone'd. Voice->Rallier takes time to be set up, but it definately helps a lot, I agree.
Regarding our combo, as I'm not quite following you there. There are 3 situations where Angelfeeder doesn't kill Tron in the same turn we assemble it: 1) we have ONLY Angel + Feeder out and Angel has summoning sickness. 2) Angel is sick and they have blockers for every other creature we have. 3) they have O-Stone out and can blow it up. The problem is rarely finishing them, the problem is more often that the combo isn't very quickly assembled.
I've tested against Burn recently, and the Rhinos are usually not enough, even if we get both out. There's a lot of variance in the MU tho, so it's hard to judge it yet, gotta get more testing in. Kambal is probably not needed JUST for burn, but he's not only there for Burn, but also for storm-based strategies. Personally had some sweet games with Eidolon MB in the past as well, but I definately understand how it would feel weird sometimes, epecially since we want to be more aggressive. Haven't tested either yet.
Played 6 or so games against Affinity today with 2 Chords over the Souls. The MU has become a slight bit worse from when I last tested it (Lili main, etc), but is still pretty doable. Souls probably make it really easy.
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"I can call an army to my side in the blink of an eye. Best not blink."
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What matchups do you bring elspeth in for? I love the card but only seen it in zoo lists. Making a siege rhino fly is pretty funny.
I think the key thing with wall of omens though is to replace walls with a creature so you can still evo to 4 quickly
I agree for tron and valukut it is usuless to hedge too much. We defs agree there. I have always liked two fulminators. The stony silences in the board help a little as well. I think discard also help there as well. We can see if we need to blow up a certain land or we can get in for two damage with the mage before blowing a land up. Those little details all add up.
I think i was misunderstanding the huge damage part of the combo. I was more thinking just infite life. Noting that karn can reset the game.
That is a bit worrying with the burn MU. I will report back when i have time to test against it. Affinity should be fairly straightforward post SB. We have so much natural defence and there is so much hate in the side for it.
I bring Elspeth in against pretty much everything at the moment to see how much I can push her. She's great against midrange and control and so far has been pretty nice to have against stuff like Ad Nauseam, as she turns everything into a clock. Maybe not necessary tho, more testing will show how good she actually is there. I played her main as well for a while, definately helps with finishing.
Agree on replacing the Walls with creatures would be swell, not sure what though...
I'll try the 2 Fulmis next time I'll find a Tron player to test with Stony can be great, yeah. Discard can definately help, I just don't like cards that might not do what I want them to do even if I find and resolve them early.
Yeah, Angelfeeder finishes pretty fast Karn is one of the reasons why the combo isn't necessarily game over. Ulamogs mill is another out for them. Valakut however can't beat the combo once assembled as far as I'm aware.
List has changed, so MU's change. Having 50/50 pre-board against Affinity (if not still slightly favored) is still pretty good. The Burn MU is a bit more serious. Our last list crushed Burn (2-3 Finks, Thragtusk), with this one we'll have to be more aware of it. Brutality can be great, but we have to have it early - and have something to follow it up.
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4-0 (Xmage) today with 2 Chord and 1 Lone Missionary as 61st card. Felt pretty good so far, and the BS we can pull with Missionary+Rallier should help a LOT against Burn and the likes.
Matchups were Eldrazi Taxes (2-0, pretty easy MU), 8Rack (2-1, a lot closer than before), Eldrazi Tron (2-0, had very mediocre hands but the opp misplayed badly g1 and got screwed g2, MU feels doable but probably pretty tricky from what I've seen) and Mono R Kuldotha (1-0, opp conceded after a pretty close g1). Missionary felt really good in these MU's, gotta test him more over the weekend.
All in all I really like the Rallier approach. Gonna change the primer soon as well to reflect the current developments. Would love to hear more people's opinions about the list too if you guys out there are testing as well
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(More updates to give a better idea of my testing MUs and such)
8-2 (Xmage) today with the same list. Matchups were Jund (1-0, opp dropped after g1), Kuldotha Brain (2-0), Mardu Tokens (2-0), Esper Torpor Orb Control (2-0), 4C Humans (2-0, pretty hard actually, opp had like 6 power turn 2 on the play vs my Bird xD), Abzan Midrange (2-1, weird mulls on both sides), Eldrazi Tron (2-1), Elves (2-0), Titanshift (1-2), UW Hatebears (1-2). Deck obviously the cold nuts, sleeper Tier 0, etc. Missionary is really good in here, does a lot of work even without Rallier. Chord also plays really nicely. Anafenza feels kinda so-so in non-graveyard based MU's. Sin Collector is pretty amazing, useful in most MU's so far.
Weekly tournament tomorrow, let's see how this runs against all Control all day
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3-2 in the tournament today. Matchups were Affinity (0-2, kinda *****ty draws, pretty frustrating), UWR Tempo (0-2, evo and land flood), Affinity again (2-1), Esper Control (2-1) and RW Land Destruction (2-1). 0-2 starts always feel like crap, messed up in the last matches, losing me a game vs Control and one vs LD, could've easily been 2-0 both matches. Saltyness about flood and such aside tho, the deck also had some pretty amazing draws, played pretty consistent, and I felt at least somewhat favored in the Affinity and Control MU.
Anafenza was irrelevant most games, same for Angelfeeder (Archangel itself was good, Feeder was so-so as usual), double Fulmi in the board was pretty neat, same for the two Choke.
Didn't play this list at GP Brisbane cos i wasn't familiar with it. Played a super modern day 2 event. Went 4-1. Beat eldrazi tron, 8 rack, uwr nahiri, burn and lost to burn at the end. We actually ID'd so just played it out for fun. Deck is sweet. Will work on it going forward. Ill paste my list tomorrow. Was enough for a box of aether revolt and half a box of kaladesh. I would say the deck rewards tight lines of play and it can generate tons of value. I think the deck rewards being aggressive as well.
I did not change the deck too much. I love EE too much in modern to not include it in my sideboard. Too beat 8-rack. I managed to get value with rallier. to get voices back and they eventually beat him to death. game 2 board in thoughtseize and then attack with souls under the bridge to get him to three then after that i was just waiting for evoltuion or siege rhino to drain him
Agreed, EE is definately a good choice for the board in almost any deck at this point. Your 8Rack match sounds as expected. I feel if we get to do our thing for one or two turns the MU is pretty doable, only problem is to get there sometimes.
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Also no Kitchen Finks which I find very surprising.
PS: You don't need infinite combos to win if you have consistently accessible hate cards that you can recur... and a source of damage.
Btw half of that 12-16 card thing is sideboard material. The good half: would prevent you from casting chord entirely: Hope/Thalia/Teeg
I get the 0 Kitchen Finks. It's a nice grindy tool but not great at finishing the game anymore. They are sweet for the lifegain as well, but between triple Rhino, double Brutality and Swagtusk I don't think this list needs more of that.
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K.Finks is also great for Eldritch Evolution.
I have also wanted to ask about the new cards: Vengeful Rebel and Treasure Keeper, can they be good enough for this deck ?
Rebel could be decent with Chord as a combat trick if we can enable Revolt consinstantly, Treasure Keeper seems somewhat expensive, but interesting.
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@Kamon.
I'd say so. We want to be able to slam a t2 3-drop, so having plenty of t1 accelerants is important. We also run a bunch of 4 and 5 drops which we want to cast early, as well as Township as mid/lategame mana sinks. The dorks also help with the occasional land screw.
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This was the exact list:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
1 Sin Collector
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Restoration Angel
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Siege Rhino
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Eldritch Evolution
2 Chord of Calling
4 Path to Exile
2 Collective Brutality
Lands (23)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Gavony Township
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Lost Legacy
2 Stony Silence
2 Choke
1 Runed Halo
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Regarding the changes from the regionals list - I don't think this deck needs or wants Lingering Souls for any reason other than to pitch them to Brutality for value. I've tested the Control and Infect MU's, where Souls is usually king, and they're both pretty good as it is. I prefer having Restoration Angel over the third Rhino for flexibility as well as an additional flying threat. 4 Birds over 4 Hierarchs for reasons of flying and producing BB reliably on turn 2 after boarding. Angelfeeder Combo because while we don't necessarily often use it, I really like having a way of going over the top quickly like that. Spike Feeder isn't amazing, no, but Archangel is still a very quick clock against any deck that can't immediately kill her. Spellskite in there because I don't like losing to... well, not having a Spellskite in the deck (looking at you, Bogles and Infect). Finally the 2 Chords to assemble Angelfeeder combo more easily and have instant-speed access to creatures. Probably gonna add the Stirring Wildwood back in next week for testing. Could help with the aggressive plan.
Elspeth from the board was a complete bomb. I did some testing with 3 of her in the main before this list showed up, and I liked her quite a bit during testing. She grinds and presents a reasonable clock that, due to flying, is often hard to stop. Turning our random hatebears and small value guys into 5-power attackers is nothing to scoff at. Only problem is that we can't tutor her out, so we'd need to run multiples of her, taking up a lot of slots... I'll test her more in the next week.
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The same list 5-0 a league recently. From playing the list last week I disagree with some of your points.
In not saying this list is perfect and can't be tuned but the too finishes show the raw power is certainly there in this list
At the moment I'm trying out my list with 2 Wall of Omens instead of the Chords. So far they feel ok, haven't missed the Chords much either, but both cards are pretty MU-dependent, so judging is tricky.
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I played some games with the deck in a league this morning. One weakness i feel that this deck has is also having discard then either no pressure or a voice follow up. This is in comparison to discard followed by grim flayer or tarmo of Jund/Junk. Thus i can reveal a hand and strip a good card then we are applying a huge amount of pressure. Or alternatively we play a discard spell and see what will crush us then flood out or don't draw enough gas.
The games i played were against control and eldrazi tron. Two tough matchups but its better to test tough matchuyps than just the easy ones to spot where the deck struggles.
These issues above are a cause for concern going forward. My other deck (kiki chord) against the big mana matchups has access to magus or the combo to just win at instant speed on the spot. This solves one of the problems where we run out of gas because the combo just shuts out the game. Obviously it doesn't solve the first one which is why i keep switching between these two decks :)I still believe this deck has raw power and need to play it more but it might just be a great meta dependant deck
I assume the Wall of Omens were in the list to adress that issue, but they don't really feel all that necessary. The deck can still draw an insane amount of air if the MU calls for specific things (drawing say Linvala or Lingering Souls after disrupting our Storm opponent isn't much difference to drawing lands), so I'm still not too hot for raw card draw, which is why I initially put the 2 Chords in there in addition to the Evos.
Regarding the big mana decks... honestly, lately I feel more and more inclined to just ignore them. It's the one archetype we just fold to most of the time, and that is fine. We can't beat everything, otherwise we'd be a problem Having a "game over" button is a strong point for me to keep running the Angelfeeder combo, it's one of the few ways we can beat Valakut G1. Bit weaker vs Tron if they can wipe the board immediately, but it can work.
I've tested 2 Souls instead 2 Walls today. My matchup's were: UWR Nahiri (2-1), GW Emeria (2-0), Mono W Enchantments (2-0), Infect (2-0), Gifts Storm (1-1, opp dropped after losing g2), GW Tokens (1-2), RG Tron (1-2) and Naya Burn (1-2).
Souls was alright most of the times, but often replaceable and boarded out against a fair amount of my opponents. In the grindy MU's I'd much rather have an Elspeth, against Combo/Ramp I find them too slow, and against burn-heavy decks I find them awkward to cast. That being said I punted and miscounted my opponents mana G1 against Tron, where I could've used Souls together with Township to deal a huge amount of damage early. Not sure if it would've won the game, but definately could've. Also potentially lost a game testing with a friend (Bant Eldrazi) by not flashbacking Souls to survive a topdeck'd Reality Smasher.
Noteworthy - I didn't cast a single Lingering Souls against Infect, the MU where I'd like to see them the most, and it still felt pretty favourable.
Also noteworthy - Burn (and super aggressive stuff like Bushwacker Zoo) is a really tough matchup now, as we can't find Brutality if we need to. Playing with the idea of replacing 1 Souls with a singleton Kitchen Finks. Kinda wanna test a mainboard Eidolon of Rhetoric (or Kambal) to have a G1 out vs Storm/AdNaus, etc. Might not be worth it. Finks puts decent pressure on the board, Eidolon/Kambal may be too tricky though.
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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Wall of omens isn't just for card advantage by itself but also allows for evolution to not be a 2 for but a 2 for 2. It also is a good barrier against aggressive decks. Is usually take them out against decks that dont care about it. Affinity, Control
I think that avoiding those big mana decks entirely isnt the way to go. I think we can use slots in the SB for it. Having an lifegain combo is alright but it doesnt end the game against tron decks. I think having discard and pressure are the best way to go. Lines like voice into rallier bring back voice allow for that which is good. Depending on the version go wide can work as well. I dont think its worth the 4 fulminator plan though. Thrun could be an option against control and some tron lists. i think our best plan is discard backed with fulminators.
Mainboard eidolon always feels super awkward. Love it in the side though. Aginast burn i can see you points with collective brutality. Having the rhino helps though. Kambal seems like a winmore card. If it is heavy in your meta could try finks though in the slot of anafenza. The smoother mana should help prevent taking too much damage though.
Played two more games last night against affinity and eldrazi tron again (flavour of the month). Changed the sideboarding approach against eldrazi tron and crushed him .Affinity was good thanks to souls then postboard it was
super easy with the amount of hate. I swapped out the extra souls and the lost legacy for Engineered explosives. Just love that card in modern as a catchall answer.
The 2-for-2 with Evolution is nice, but not enough reason to run a card for me. It blocks Wild Nacatl and Goblin Guide like a boss, yes, but it only chumps Eldrazi, Goyfs, delirious Flayers, etc. so the blocking doesn't impress me anymore. It's great for grinding card advantage with Resto and the likes, but we already crush midrange pretty hard.
I was more getting at not trying to fix the big mana MU's with loads of SB cards that are only there for these matchups (like running full playsets of Fulminator Mages). 1 Fulmi is generally great in this deck, Lost Legacy, Surgical Extraction, Pithing Needle, Runed Halo are super versatile, etc. I'm all for running cards like that, as they can be useful in other matchups as well. All things considered, we have to get lucky to some degree to beat these MU's most of the time, so I think running only a small amount of hate against them and focusing more on crushing other MU's post-board is not the worst strategy we could take.
Regarding single-card discard and ramp decks... it's tricky. If we have the cold nuts for draws, yes, it works. But I've discarded too many Ugins and Primeval Titans and then had my army of small creatures (which still covers most of our deck) eliminted by Oblivion Stones or Anger of the Gods to think it's good anymore. I prefer Lost Legacy, as it deals with a certain threat entirely, but it still doesn't fix our "not killing fast enough" problem. Thrun sometimes work if we ramp it out, as can Sigarda (or an early Siege Rhino), but usually all of that just get's Ugin'd or O-Stone'd. Voice->Rallier takes time to be set up, but it definately helps a lot, I agree.
Regarding our combo, as I'm not quite following you there. There are 3 situations where Angelfeeder doesn't kill Tron in the same turn we assemble it: 1) we have ONLY Angel + Feeder out and Angel has summoning sickness. 2) Angel is sick and they have blockers for every other creature we have. 3) they have O-Stone out and can blow it up. The problem is rarely finishing them, the problem is more often that the combo isn't very quickly assembled.
I've tested against Burn recently, and the Rhinos are usually not enough, even if we get both out. There's a lot of variance in the MU tho, so it's hard to judge it yet, gotta get more testing in. Kambal is probably not needed JUST for burn, but he's not only there for Burn, but also for storm-based strategies. Personally had some sweet games with Eidolon MB in the past as well, but I definately understand how it would feel weird sometimes, epecially since we want to be more aggressive. Haven't tested either yet.
Played 6 or so games against Affinity today with 2 Chords over the Souls. The MU has become a slight bit worse from when I last tested it (Lili main, etc), but is still pretty doable. Souls probably make it really easy.
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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I think the key thing with wall of omens though is to replace walls with a creature so you can still evo to 4 quickly
I agree for tron and valukut it is usuless to hedge too much. We defs agree there. I have always liked two fulminators. The stony silences in the board help a little as well. I think discard also help there as well. We can see if we need to blow up a certain land or we can get in for two damage with the mage before blowing a land up. Those little details all add up.
I think i was misunderstanding the huge damage part of the combo. I was more thinking just infite life. Noting that karn can reset the game.
That is a bit worrying with the burn MU. I will report back when i have time to test against it. Affinity should be fairly straightforward post SB. We have so much natural defence and there is so much hate in the side for it.
Agree on replacing the Walls with creatures would be swell, not sure what though...
I'll try the 2 Fulmis next time I'll find a Tron player to test with Stony can be great, yeah. Discard can definately help, I just don't like cards that might not do what I want them to do even if I find and resolve them early.
Yeah, Angelfeeder finishes pretty fast Karn is one of the reasons why the combo isn't necessarily game over. Ulamogs mill is another out for them. Valakut however can't beat the combo once assembled as far as I'm aware.
List has changed, so MU's change. Having 50/50 pre-board against Affinity (if not still slightly favored) is still pretty good. The Burn MU is a bit more serious. Our last list crushed Burn (2-3 Finks, Thragtusk), with this one we'll have to be more aware of it. Brutality can be great, but we have to have it early - and have something to follow it up.
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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Matchups were Eldrazi Taxes (2-0, pretty easy MU), 8Rack (2-1, a lot closer than before), Eldrazi Tron (2-0, had very mediocre hands but the opp misplayed badly g1 and got screwed g2, MU feels doable but probably pretty tricky from what I've seen) and Mono R Kuldotha (1-0, opp conceded after a pretty close g1). Missionary felt really good in these MU's, gotta test him more over the weekend.
All in all I really like the Rallier approach. Gonna change the primer soon as well to reflect the current developments. Would love to hear more people's opinions about the list too if you guys out there are testing as well
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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8-2 (Xmage) today with the same list. Matchups were Jund (1-0, opp dropped after g1), Kuldotha Brain (2-0), Mardu Tokens (2-0), Esper Torpor Orb Control (2-0), 4C Humans (2-0, pretty hard actually, opp had like 6 power turn 2 on the play vs my Bird xD), Abzan Midrange (2-1, weird mulls on both sides), Eldrazi Tron (2-1), Elves (2-0), Titanshift (1-2), UW Hatebears (1-2). Deck obviously the cold nuts, sleeper Tier 0, etc. Missionary is really good in here, does a lot of work even without Rallier. Chord also plays really nicely. Anafenza feels kinda so-so in non-graveyard based MU's. Sin Collector is pretty amazing, useful in most MU's so far.
Weekly tournament tomorrow, let's see how this runs against all Control all day
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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Anafenza was irrelevant most games, same for Angelfeeder (Archangel itself was good, Feeder was so-so as usual), double Fulmi in the board was pretty neat, same for the two Choke.
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Lone Missionary
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sin Collector
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
2 Siege Rhino
1 Restoration Angel
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Eldritch Evolution
2 Chord of Calling
4 Path to Exile
2 Collective Brutality
Lands (23)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Gavony Township
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Stirring Wildwood
3 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Stony Silence
2 Choke
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Sleep now, primer updates the coming days.
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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- Yeva, Nature's Herald
Abzan Toolbox Primer
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2 Birds of Paradise
1 Blooming Marsh
2 Collective Brutality
3 Eldritch Evolution
1 Eternal Witness
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Lingering Souls
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Marsh Flats
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Path to Exile
1 Plains
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Razorverge Thicket
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Restoration Angel
2 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sin Collector
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
1 Thragtusk
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wall of Omens
4 Windswept Heath
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
4 Thoughtseize
I did not change the deck too much. I love EE too much in modern to not include it in my sideboard. Too beat 8-rack. I managed to get value with rallier. to get voices back and they eventually beat him to death. game 2 board in thoughtseize and then attack with souls under the bridge to get him to three then after that i was just waiting for evoltuion or siege rhino to drain him
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
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