I stick to my suggestion that Hollow One is not great here.
Like Izzetmage explained, after a Boardwipe or an initial attack this deck can come back.
Hole One's not. They are simply one more "All-in" strategy we had so many of in the past couple of years.
Honestly, the deck isn't any more all-in than the Burning-Tree/Superion Build. The difference is instead of playing a 2/2 and a very conditional 5/6 as a means of recurring Vengevine, the Hollow One list instead opts for extremely consistent 0 mana 4/4s. In both decks you're having to shoot a bunch of creatures out on key turns to recur Vengevine. If the Hollow One strategy is all-in, than so is the Burning-Tree/Superion build. In this situation you're looking at two different kinds of apples and declaring that one of them is a pear.
The huge difference is that @Izzetmage List rewards good plays, whereas slamming Goblin Guide into Cathartic Reunion ist just awkward - a one-trick pony. Either you got it or you don't.
You literally haven't played the deck. I can 100% tell from this post. Every single person I have talked to who has actually played the list has told me that while it does just look like a dumb aggro list, it is one of the most difficult aggressive decks that have ever played. You can't just blindly slam Guide and Turn 1 and Reunion Turn 2. You need to before every play assess what's in your hand and graveyard, what looting effects you have, how many creatures you have access to, etc. There is so many tight plays you need to make with this deck where not planning out turns 1, 2, and 3 properly could lose you the game. So please, explain to me how that isn't rewarding good plays. Also, if the deck was a one-trick pony than it would have the issue of not being able to win if it didn't get the Vengevine/Hollow One draw. Earlier this week I played some 1v1 Modern matches on MTGO. For 5 games in a row I didn't see a single Hollow One or Vengevine. I think in total I lost maybe 1 of those 5 games.
All the Aggro decks that survived (aka stayed Tier 1) had a plan B.
This deck has too. Hollow Vine not.
I'm sorry what? Reucrring Vengevine and beating face with them is Plan A. Playing a bunch of small aggressive creature like Swiftspear and Guide that can help close the game is plan B. Become Immense + Battle Rage to end the game instantly is Plan C.
Compare both sideboards (which are the epitome of switching gears):
We have great Midrange-Cards (Ooze, Finks), some sort of removal and a great lock piece Blood Moon.
The best thing about the Hollow One Vengevine list, is that it is so easy for your opponent to screw up their sideboard against you. DO they bring in Rest in Peace? Well then you can just focus on slamming early Hollow One and beating them with 4/4s and aggro creatures. Do they bring in sweepers to deal with your board? Well then you just go in on the Vengevine plan and recur angry cabbages to kill your opponents. As for lock pieces, the Hollow One list runs Blood Moon too, hell it's a free sideboard card since the deck is almost Mono-Red.
Hollow Vine is not intended to play the midrange game. Once the threats are gone, there plan is gone.
It's an aggro deck. If you build an aggro deck planning for the midgame, then you aren't building your deck correctly. By your argument, Affinity should be a shift deck because it doesn't plan for the midgame, with the entire deck instead focused on getting your opponent to 0 as quickly as possible. It's obvious you want to play a midrange strategy, well sorry, but this isn't midrange buddy.
They trade consistency for explosiveness.
It could be done, but the most interesting thing about this deck is, that is able to do a grind-game.
It rewards the right plays, format knowledge and good sideboarding.
Hollow Vine not. Just dump everything and hope for the best.
The sideboard is designed the same way.
How would this deck be able to play the mid-game?
It has just so many dead stuff, it couldn't be boarded out entirely.
The deck does not trade consistency for explosiveness, hell I would wager that the Hollow One list is more consistent than your Burning-Tree/Superion list. Hell I can prove it is.
No using hypergeometeric math (which for those unaware, is how you find statistics on how to, for example find your chances of drawing specific cards in a deck) right off the bat, because of the extra 4 cards, the Hollow One list is 10% more likely to actually have some form of card draw/filtering in their opening hand (80% VS 90%). Additionally the average CMC for the draw/filter in the BTE/Superion lists is 1.3 mana compared to the Hollow One list's 1 mana (for this number, what makes the difference is Street Wraith cycling for free). Finally, let's look at the average number of cards seen by each deck. For the BTE/Superion List, they average 2.6 cards per draw/filter effect VS the Hollow One's 1.75. This is the only instance where the BTE/Superion list comes out ahead, and it's specifically because Gather the Pack looks at 5 cards. But when you compare how often you are to see the cards, and how much they cost you, the Hollow One list is definitely ahead. Honestly, I would argue that your list is attempting to trade consistency for explosiveness, not mine.
If you want to do a grindy game, go play Abzan, or Jund, or UW Control. I don't want to play a deck that involves reanimating a 4/3 Hasty creature through playing more creatures, without my sole goal being to aggro my opponents to dust. I repeat what I said before, you seem to want to be playing a midrange deck, not an aggro deck. Your barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
Every deck in Modern rewards you for correct plays, format knowledge, and good sideboarding. Just saying.
If that is how you are playing the deck, then obviously I can udnerstand your disappointment with it. That's not how you play the Hollow One list. It isn't "lololol lets just dump my hand as fast as possible and win" brain-dead. Honestly the fact that you think it is, as I said before, proves you haven't taken a look at the list. Hell I doubt you have even watched anyone play the deck. It feels like you saw that someone did well with it at a big event and you just went, "Well it's a netdeck now, I must be against this for as many dumb reasons as I can come up with." And I am not saying that to try and attack you. I am saying that because your arguments literally don't hold any water what so ever.
Again, this deck doesn't need to play the mid-game. I can't remember where I heard it, but there is a quote that goes, "Those who plan to lose, have already lost." When you plan for your deck to be destroyed on every angle, and you warp your deck around that, you make it worse. Affinity can win through the mid-game not because they planned for it or built their deck around being able to do it, but because the raw power they through into their list makes it so that their opponent is always struggling to regain control. When you play aggro you have to keep hammering your opponent, and the best way to do that is to play aggressive creatures. I repeat what I said before, if you want to play Midrange, play another deck.
And I don't understand your last sentence. Are you saying that the Hollow One list has so many dead cards for games 2 & 3? Or are you saying the sideboard cards selected are dead and you wouldn't want to bring them in? Or something else entirely?
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My opinion atm is that neither list is objectively better or worse than the other.
Hollow One build is probably more consistent, but BTE list has potential T2 kills.
I agree with a lot of your points and disagree with a lot of your other points.
You forgot Commune with the Gods for the BTE card selection suite btw. Which is an especially nice pseudo tutor for grabbing important sideboard pieces. And sideboarding against the BTE list is hard too, because even if they resolve RiP, we always have multiple free creatures into Superion or Bushwhacker. You can play free Hollow ones through RiP, but you're still throwing away cards to exile which you can't always afford.
And we have a resilience to multiple kinds of grave hate. Surgical and scooze on Vine are good, but not back breaking because it leaves us cards for Mandrills. And Mandrills/Gather the Pack means they can't always leave things like Spellbomb/Relic up hoping to catch a Vine
I don't like the "Midrange" argument being made for BTE. I do like the fact that we aren't absolutely dead to the game going longer than a few turns, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's something we should strive for.
Also Gather the Pack can be a lifesaver when you're in topdeck mode, 2 for 1's are important.
My opinion atm is that neither list is objectively better or worse than the other.
Hollow One build is probably more consistent, but BTE list has potential T2 kills.
I agree with a lot of your points and disagree with a lot of your other points.
You forgot Commune with the Gods for the BTE card selection suite btw. Which is an especially nice pseudo tutor for grabbing important sideboard pieces. And sideboarding against the BTE list is hard too, because even if they resolve RiP, we always have multiple free creatures into Superion or Bushwhacker. You can play free Hollow ones through RiP, but you're still throwing away cards to exile which you can't always afford.
And we have a resilience to multiple kinds of grave hate. Surgical and scooze on Vine are good, but not back breaking because it leaves us cards for Mandrills. And Mandrills/Gather the Pack means they can't always leave things like Spellbomb/Relic up hoping to catch a Vine
I don't like the "Midrange" argument being made for BTE. I do like the fact that we aren't absolutely dead to the game going longer than a few turns, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's something we should strive for.
Also Gather the Pack can be a lifesaver when you're in topdeck mode, 2 for 1's are important.
The Hollow One build has potential for T2 kills as well (as well as Turn 2 concessions). Hell, earlier this week I played a game where Turn 1, I cycled a Street Wraith, and cast a Faithless Looting discarding 2 Vengevines, then cast 2 Hollow Ones to reanimate them and swing for 8 while having 16 damage on board. Obviously this is a 1 in a 100 draw, but it's still something the deck is capable of.
I intentionally left out Commune with the Gods because I think it is awful. An argument can be made for Gather the Pack (in fact you made it at the bottom of your post) since when you have Spell Mastery it can grab you 2 creatures. But Commune can only ever grab you one card, so compared to Cathartic Reunion, which draw you multiple cards, it seems like a horrendous card imho.
BTW, I wasn't arguing that the BTE list was midrange, rather the @Polymorph seems to think it is, and wants to be playing a midrange deck. And honestly, the Hollow One deck isn't dead for a game that goes longer than a few turns either. Vengevine decks has a natural resiliency to them since the crux of their strategy is on recurring an aggressive creature.
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I don't think you give Commune enough credit. It's obviously not the strongest card in the list, but it's not awful. It fills the yard for Mandrills or turning on Spell Mastery (and potentially binning Vines), it actually does something as a topdeck, digging deep and allowing us to kinda toolbox (grab that Cartouche of Zeal to push past that Goyf, Eldrazi, Tasigur, etc. grab Legion Loyalist to push past Souls/Destroy someone's board with first strike/trample. Grab Seal of Primordium or Recsage to blow up Bridge, Solemnity/Unlife, Ghostly Prison, etc. grab the singleton Seal of Fire I run to push through those last 2 points, or kill that annoying Mirran Crusader/Thalia Heretic Cathar)
And sideboarding against the BTE list is hard too, because even if they resolve RiP, we always have multiple free creatures into Superion or Bushwhacker. You can play free Hollow ones through RiP, but you're still throwing away cards to exile which you can't always afford.
And sideboarding against the BTE list is hard too, because even if they resolve RiP, we always have multiple free creatures into Superion or Bushwhacker. You can play free Hollow ones through RiP, but you're still throwing away cards to exile which you can't always afford.
Exactly this! We can without our graveyard.
So can the Hollow One list. You guys seem to think the Hollow One deck is DredgeVine or something that makes mad use of the graveyard. It doesn't. The deck runs Mandrills (which I've taken out now actually) and Become Immense as the only cards that use the graveyard that aren't Vengevine. This is why this line of thought confuses me. On this axis, what the Hollow One lists are trying to do, are literally the exact same thing your deck is trying to do.
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The link in my signature is to one of the Vengevine lists I have been testing out. For all information on that one, I have been discussing it with the folks over in the Dredgevine thread in the Developing Competitive forum. I urge everyone interested to check it out.
The list I am testing at the moment, and the reason why I've been posting in this thread is the following:
I am more than happy to let people brew and be happy. That's fine. And I'm not attacking people, well at least not trying to. If anything I am saying is coming off as attacking, sorry, that wasn't my intent.
I want to create a Vengevine deck that is competitive. Not FNM competitive, GP competitive. As such I am going to throw harsh criticisms at people's ideas for what to do with the deck. I will concede I have not played a lot of games with Myr Superion in the deck, hell maybe it was some bad draws I got that really soured me to the card. WHen school starts up again next week I will have more time on my hands so I will be doing a lot more MTGO testing. Also when I have time I will add the decklist I posted above to my signature, as well as a link to my YouTube channel where I am testing my Vengevine lists.
I like this list a lot. What do you think about something like Gnarlwood Dryad or the new one, Old-Growth Dryads instead of goblin guide or swiftspear? After playing this list a bit I feel like we need more threat density; we've got mandrills, hollow one, and vengevine and that's about it, the other guys are good 1 drops and all but they just don't pack enough punch if the 4/4s get dealt with.
I really want to find a place for 1 or 2 Greenbelt Rampager in the main, but I have no idea what to cut. BGx is at an all time low, and my LGS doesn't really have any Deaths Shadow players, but being able to recur Vines in topdeck mode still seems really good.
The Legion Loyalist seems like the most sensible slot for it, but I've found the evasion the little guy provides is too valuable.
Also trying to find some room for Heroic Intervention in the SB
How do you like running both 4x gather and 4x commune? It seems a bit slow to me.
My reasoning is that while these spells are great "set up" for the next turn, they don't do much the turn you play it...
Personally I'd cut the communes (worst of the two) for those rampagers.
I just won FNM with that list, I cut a land for 1 Rampager, changed the SB up too. TappedOut has been updated
Nah it's not too slow. Technically Rampager is slower because he costs GG to do nothing unless you have Vines to recur. I definitely wouldn't want more than 1. And I boarded him out in games I didn't expect to come down to topdecks (Like Burn and Knightfall)
4-0
2-1 against UB Mill
2-1 against Burn
2-0 against Knightfall
2-0 against U Tron
Honestly, the deck isn't any more all-in than the Burning-Tree/Superion Build. The difference is instead of playing a 2/2 and a very conditional 5/6 as a means of recurring Vengevine, the Hollow One list instead opts for extremely consistent 0 mana 4/4s. In both decks you're having to shoot a bunch of creatures out on key turns to recur Vengevine. If the Hollow One strategy is all-in, than so is the Burning-Tree/Superion build. In this situation you're looking at two different kinds of apples and declaring that one of them is a pear.
The real strenght in Hollow Vine is Hollow One and not so much recurring Vengevines. The plan is to abuse Discard and looting to get Hollow One on the board. This is totally fine but warps the deck this way, that these mechanics have to be abused. Instead Super Vengevine works totally fine w/o Vengevine. Get Hidden Herbalists and Superion on board, follow the next turn with Burning-Tree Emissary into Bushwhacker. The Boardpresence is great and that w/o even using a single card in the grave.
Hollow Vine doesn't have those lines. It's about getting Hollow One running. After that you can't prepare for another super-explosive comeback. Goblin Guide / Swiftspear are way less powerful here.
The huge difference is that @Izzetmage List rewards good plays, whereas slamming Goblin Guide into Cathartic Reunion ist just awkward - a one-trick pony. Either you got it or you don't.
You literally haven't played the deck. I can 100% tell from this post. Every single person I have talked to who has actually played the list has told me that while it does just look like a dumb aggro list, it is one of the most difficult aggressive decks that have ever played. You can't just blindly slam Guide and Turn 1 and Reunion Turn 2.
I'm totally fine with your statement, i wasn't intending to stamp this deck as a dumb-Aggro-thing. I was playing dumb and not-so-dumb Aggro decks before and both versions of this deck are not easy to pilot.
You need to before every play assess what's in your hand and graveyard, what looting effects you have, how many creatures you have access to, etc. There is so many tight plays you need to make with this deck where not planning out turns 1, 2, and 3 properly could lose you the game. So please, explain to me how that isn't rewarding good plays. Also, if the deck was a one-trick pony than it would have the issue of not being able to win if it didn't get the Vengevine/Hollow One draw. Earlier this week I played some 1v1 Modern matches on MTGO. For 5 games in a row I didn't see a single Hollow One or Vengevine. I think in total I lost maybe 1 of those 5 games.
This deck doesn't reward good plays simply because it has not to. You could walk that route, but why should someone? Once you cluttered the board (which is very likely) with a bunch of hard-hitters your opponent can't keep up with, what's the point of tight plays?
All the Aggro decks that survived (aka stayed Tier 1) had a plan B.
This deck has too. Hollow Vine not.
I'm sorry what? Reucrring Vengevine and beating face with them is Plan A. Playing a bunch of small aggressive creature like Swiftspear and Guide that can help close the game is plan B. Become Immense + Battle Rage to end the game instantly is Plan C.
Plan A is very much getting Hollow One on board for 1 or 0 Mana. If Vengevine is part of this - great. You'll do Guide + swiftspear getting back Vine - great. You'll do Temur Battle Rage onto Vengevine - great. But all of this is Plan A, not B. My question to you: How do you come back once you are on your backheels? Do you have a source of card advantage? Do you have a way to setup the next assault? Do you tutor important Cards?
Compare both sideboards (which are the epitome of switching gears):
We have great Midrange-Cards (Ooze, Finks), some sort of removal and a great lock piece Blood Moon.
The best thing about the Hollow One Vengevine list, is that it is so easy for your opponent to screw up their sideboard against you. DO they bring in Rest in Peace? Well then you can just focus on slamming early Hollow One and beating them with 4/4s and aggro creatures. Do they bring in sweepers to deal with your board? Well then you just go in on the Vengevine plan and recur angry cabbages to kill your opponents. As for lock pieces, the Hollow One list runs Blood Moon too, hell it's a free sideboard card since the deck is almost Mono-Red.
That's the argument that both of us disagree the most. After a sweeper your deck won't likely come back. How do you suppose to? You need a bunch of Cards to trigger Vengevine again. This intends that you setup / refill / shape your hand to get to this point. This is were Commune with the Gods and GAther the pack are the shiniest. They dig 5 Cards deep and pick 1 (or 2) Creatures, setting up the next assault.
Your best chance of doing so is looting - card disadvantage. Also both your looting spells dig 2 or 3 Cards deep - another disadvantage. My "Mill-Spells" even fuel my graveyard much more. Hooting Mandrills are alive now, whereas you need to at least cast 1 FAithless Looting, cycle Street Wraith and do some Fetch-things - pretty much effort for such an easy task.
Opponents that mess up there sideboard-plan are an advantage that both decks shares - the sideboard-hate is literally the same.
Hollow Vine is not intended to play the midrange game. Once the threats are gone, there plan is gone.
It's an aggro deck. If you build an aggro deck planning for the midgame, then you aren't building your deck correctly. By your argument, Affinity should be a shift deck because it doesn't plan for the midgame, with the entire deck instead focused on getting your opponent to 0 as quickly as possible. It's obvious you want to play a midrange strategy, well sorry, but this isn't midrange buddy.
The midrange-game is Plan B. I'm a heavy proposer of having a Midrange-Plan in this Format. Even other Aggro-Decks have Midange-Plans, so nothing to be worry about here. Even better i can take the control-role against certain decks after sideboarding, just because it's a good plan.
They trade consistency for explosiveness.
It could be done, but the most interesting thing about this deck is, that is able to do a grind-game.
It rewards the right plays, format knowledge and good sideboarding.
Hollow Vine not. Just dump everything and hope for the best.
The sideboard is designed the same way.
How would this deck be able to play the mid-game?
It has just so many dead stuff, it couldn't be boarded out entirely.
The deck does not trade consistency for explosiveness, hell I would wager that the Hollow One list is more consistent than your Burning-Tree/Superion list. Hell I can prove it is.
No using hypergeometeric math (which for those unaware, is how you find statistics on how to, for example find your chances of drawing specific cards in a deck) right off the bat, because of the extra 4 cards, the Hollow One list is 10% more likely to actually have some form of card draw/filtering in their opening hand (80% VS 90%). Additionally the average CMC for the draw/filter in the BTE/Superion lists is 1.3 mana compared to the Hollow One list's 1 mana (for this number, what makes the difference is Street Wraith cycling for free). Finally, let's look at the average number of cards seen by each deck. For the BTE/Superion List, they average 2.6 cards per draw/filter effect VS the Hollow One's 1.75. This is the only instance where the BTE/Superion list comes out ahead, and it's specifically because Gather the Pack looks at 5 cards. But when you compare how often you are to see the cards, and how much they cost you, the Hollow One list is definitely ahead. Honestly, I would argue that your list is attempting to trade consistency for explosiveness, not mine.
You missed the fact that Cathartic Reunion is a pretty dead topdeck. You too dismissed tha fact that your cards doesn't dig as deep as mine (5 Cards at best) vs (3 Cards at best). 16 vs 16 cards are as equal as it gets - nothing to worry about, not even statistics.
If you want to do a grindy game, go play Abzan, or Jund, or UW Control. I don't want to play a deck that involves reanimating a 4/3 Hasty creature through playing more creatures, without my sole goal being to aggro my opponents to dust. I repeat what I said before, you seem to want to be playing a midrange deck, not an aggro deck. Your barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
No, i don't. Pretty sure about it, believe me.
Every deck in Modern rewards you for correct plays, format knowledge, and good sideboarding. Just saying.
No, many just win randomly off the top of there deck, therefore good knowledge and rewards are not correlating.
If that is how you are playing the deck, then obviously I can udnerstand your disappointment with it. That's not how you play the Hollow One list. It isn't "lololol lets just dump my hand as fast as possible and win" brain-dead. Honestly the fact that you think it is, as I said before, proves you haven't taken a look at the list. Hell I doubt you have even watched anyone play the deck. It feels like you saw that someone did well with it at a big event and you just went, "Well it's a netdeck now, I must be against this for as many dumb reasons as I can come up with." And I am not saying that to try and attack you. I am saying that because your arguments literally don't hold any water what so ever.
Time will tell this one, because if your argument is right we'll see a whole bunch of wins throughout the next couple tournaments (just talking about proofs once more).
Again, this deck doesn't need to play the mid-game. I can't remember where I heard it, but there is a quote that goes, "Those who plan to lose, have already lost." When you plan for your deck to be destroyed on every angle, and you warp your deck around that, you make it worse. Affinity can win through the mid-game not because they planned for it or built their deck around being able to do it, but because the raw power they through into their list makes it so that their opponent is always struggling to regain control. When you play aggro you have to keep hammering your opponent, and the best way to do that is to play aggressive creatures. I repeat what I said before, if you want to play Midrange, play another deck.
You got your (very special idea) about a good magic deck and i have too. There has been good Aggro Decks that were able to do the Midrange-Game (do i sound repetitive?) e.g. Zoo, Dredge, Affinity, Grixis Delver, Merfolk. As you can see Aggro and Midrange doesn't exclude each other.
And I don't understand your last sentence. Are you saying that the Hollow One list has so many dead cards for games 2 & 3? Or are you saying the sideboard cards selected are dead and you wouldn't want to bring them in? Or something else entirely?
The last sentence meant that HollowOne has a lot of crucial parts (Cathartic Reunion comes to mind for enabling Hollow One), which makes it difficult to board - either you board out good cards and left with a deck that barely works because it can't get the engine running (this is were Super Vengevine excels - it can play the control game), or you just barely board to speed up the deck e.g. don't really try to prepare for the upcoming 2nd game.
I think what it really boils down to is that the BTE build has more staying power.
We have a lot more tools in topdeck mode. I don't think "why are you getting to topdeck mode without killing them?" is a valid argument.
You can't T2/3 kill BGx through targeted discard, goyfs and Lili every time.
Gather and Commune are amazing here, because we dig deep, and we can grab really impactful cards all while possibly milling Vines. I'm repeating myself here, but topdeck Commune to grab a Cartouche of Zeal to swing past a Goyf or grabbing Legion Loyalists to swing through Souls has saved my ass so many times. Just last night I cast Commune off the top against UB Mill, grabbing Loyalist and milling Ancient Grudge to blow up Ensnaring Bridge and trample over his 0/2 blockers for lethal (he had me dead next turn otherwise)
They also let us do things like T3 2drop into Gather/Commune to find and play Mandrills, possibly milking/recurring some Vines in the process
Gather and Commune >>>> Looting and Reunion after turn 2. Also they let us be a little less picky with our mulligans, because we can always just wait until T3 to go off, and use T2 to find the piece we're missing
That said, Hollow One is so much better than Myr Superion. They're both about as easy to cast, except you can hardcast Hollow One without support if you have the mana, whereas we need a BTE. Or you can cycle him if you really just need a bolt or Guide. Hollow One is smaller, but doesn't die to Push (important)
Commune and Gather the pack can set up t3 kill so easy. They let you find the "combo piece" you dont have ye so nicely...
T1: Looting, drop a vengevine, get some nice stuff
T2: Gather the pack (maybe even with spellmastery), get another vengevine into the grave, grap some nice creature
T3: BTE, Hooting Mandril (for 1 green), get Vengevines back, Bushwacker with surge, swing for 20...
Exactly. and I found in my playtesting today that it really helps with our weakness to Targeted discard. When they turn 1 inquisition, they have to take the Looting (on the play) or BTE/Bushwhacker (on the draw). Gather/Commune then dig for the next piece and bin Vines in the process.
Another nice thing about the BGx MU these days is that they're on a 3/3 split for inquisition/thoughtseize because of all the big mana running around. So they have to choose between letting us keep our hands intact or lowering their life total into dangerous territory post board
Kinda feels like two different decks to be honest. I like and support both.
Basically the biggest difference is Super Wine looks for a more combo oriented play to close the game or gain ground. Bte into commune into hooting or whacker to bring back vines.
Hallow vine wants to assert itself early with neonate, CA, hallow, hopefully getting a vine, for a board presence. Hard to say which is better, but I'm trying to say.... Is It's like 2 different decks that share a very similar core card base.
I've learned that if 2 similar decks exist, but say 12 or so of the cards are different it's worth nothing that 20% of the deck is different. That's enough to constitute a different strategy altogether.
Kinda feels like two different decks to be honest. I like and support both.
Basically the biggest difference is Super Wine looks for a more combo oriented play to close the game or gain ground. Bte into commune into hooting or whacker to bring back vines.
Hallow vine wants to assert itself early with neonate, CA, hallow, hopefully getting a vine, for a board presence. Hard to say which is better, but I'm trying to say.... Is It's like 2 different decks that share a very similar core card base.
I've learned that if 2 similar decks exist, but say 12 or so of the cards are different it's worth nothing that 20% of the deck is different. That's enough to constitute a different strategy altogether.
I will say the biggest advantage hollow has is that it can be cycled or even cast when you need to. The counterpart is superion. He's clunky and often a dead card since you have such limited ability to actually cast it. Yes you can use commune and such to find it, but then you are using a lot of resources to do so.
What I would like to see is a crazy list with coco in the super vine list.... Super CoCoVine?
Looks crazy good. Basically use turn 1 and 2 to set up and if you can keep a Noble turn 3 you can just go off. CoCo into priest and HH to make 5 then use 2 for commune to find something else. Maybe a Bushwhacker and cast neonate and whacker the team for mad beats. Numbers are off but you get the idea.
CoCo is a pretty big Nonbo with Vine and bushwhacker and messes with our curve in a bad way
Plus we would play Birds or an elf over Noble any day.
I think we're about as optimal as we're gonna get
Yeah I realize all that. Was just thinking it could be used as a ritual/tutor of sorts. You have a pretty good chance to hit a BTE or HH with it. That let's you cast your Superions that were stuck in your hand. Idea with them wasn't so much to trigger vines or whacker.
Right but Gather and Commune do that too. Sure they dig one less card, but they put things in the grave instead of the bottom if the library (important) and put them in your hand so you can cast them for Vengevine/Surge. At 4 mana Gather/Commune grabbing BTE can also cast your Superion in hand like CoCo, and trigger Vines in the process.
Yeah Cartouche has been great out of the board but Commune also grabs Blood Moon, Seal of Primordium, Seal of Fire (has been surprisingly relevant) etc. can get an Ancient Grudge/Gnaw to the Bone in the grave to flashback. lets us kinda toolbox. And like I said earlier, it really helps our consistency against discard decks
Yeah I think if I was gonna go Jund, I'd go back to the traditional Dredgevine with Gravecrawler and Lotleth Troll. I don't really think Death's Shadow has a place with us, but I can definitely see the value of Claim // Fame in the Hollow One build. I'm really not sure Delirium is a good idea. We're already toeing the line of being really weak to grave hate, building around Delirium would push us over the edge. What cards in particular are you thinking?
I don't think this deck wants Chart a Course. Ideally your 2 mana spells should be castable off BTE or Herbalists, and Chart a Course is castable off neither.
Yeh, I'm just not seeing it. In this deck, discarding is a feature, not a bug. Going to a splash color to sometimes not have to do the thing you usually want to do anyway ... isn't worth the cost in consistency.
So I have a "tournament" report from FNM tonight. Before I go on though, let me clear up two things:
1) This is FNM, not something like a GP. So obviously the play level is a bit lower. However....
2) The people who play at this store for FNM at PPTQ and GP grinders, so it makes the play environment somewhere between your average FNM and average GP
With that said, what was the list I played tonight?
That's right, I didn't lose a single game. Yes, I am proud of myself. This is the first time I played this deck off of Magic Online, so getting this good of a performance out of it makes me ecstatic. Anyway, let's go over what I played against tonight:
Round 1 - VS Burn
Round 2 - VS Eldrazi Tron
Round 3 - VS RG Tron
Round 4 - VS Bant Spirits
Top 4 - VS Eldrazi Tron
Top 2 - Prize Split
So you'll notice that I beat 3 Tron decks. Honestly, I feel unless you draw incredibly horribly, Tron is an extremely favorable match up for this deck, especially the Eldrazi variants. The list is fast enough where unless they get their amazing draws going double Temple into TKS on turn 2. On average we are fast enough to put their life total low enough, fast enough, that we should be able to just snatch games out of nowhere.
A notable game for me was my Game 1 VS Bant Spirits, which literally lasted maybe a minute. I was on the draw and had the following sequence happen:
It's really nice to hear you're doing well with the deck Skitzafreak. I'm kinda curious regarding some of your card choices, as a tried to make a similar version to yours, which is the Hollow One version with the added consistency of cards like Gather the Pack. So here are my questions:
-How did you feel about the lack of Cathartic Reunion? In the stuck RG HollowVine list it is often necessary to cast hollow ones consistently, but it often feels like the worst card in the deck. And obviously an horrendous topdeck.
-How did Gather the Pack work for you. Even though it sometimes misses, I've really liked it, always setting you up for an explosive turn 3. Also it doesn't feel that bad to cast Faithless Looting w/o Vengevines to dump if you discard any intant or sorcery knowing that you will have spell mastery for your t2 Gather the Pack.
-How often did the engine of your deck didn't work and you felt like you were playing a suboptimal-card-disasdavtage-generating aggro deck? Because some hands are just awful. You try to find some action by drowning yourself deeper and deeper into the card disadvantage created by Neonate and Looting, and you find yourself with irrelevant cards in hand and no action in board whatsoever, other than a lone Guide or Neonate. Feels bad.
Anyways, congrats for the result. Cheers!
Despite me being a staunch defender of Cathartic Reunion (just look at the last few pages of this thread :P) when playing with the deck Gather the Pack actually gave me better results than Reunion did. This may be a result of small sample sizes at the moment, but Gather seems to be performing better.
With concerns to the deck's "engine", I feel that points to one of the difficult parts of piloting this list. You need to know when you can afford to maybe wait a turn to reanimate Vengevines, or when you just need to slam your foot on the aggro pedal. In my second game against Bant Spirits, I had a great hand to be able to recur some Vengevines, with a Faithless Looting, 2 Street Wraiths, and 2 Hollow Ones. However after cycling my Wraiths into a 3rd Wraith and a Reckless Bushwhacker, I figured my best bet for winning the game was to on turn 3, slam down my 2 free Hollow ones, while Surging out Bushwhacker to punch my opponent for 12. Sometimes waiting to have the cool Vengevine play is the incorrect line to take with the deck.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Went 5:2 with my deck last weekend (german modern nationals) The deck felt pretty good (luckily didn't face Ad nauseum :D)
I won against Jund, Eldrazitron (easy), UR Delver, WR Prison and UB Faeris, I lost against Bant Humans/Knightfall (he had awesome hands) and BUG Death Shadow (played badly, matchup is definitely winnable).
Hollow Ones and Streetwraith gave some dream T1 plays (Looting, Discard Vengevine, cycle wraith, drop 2 Hollow Ones and get Vengevine Back). BTE + Bushwhacker are Main wincon every game and 4 Gather the Pack gave so much value in Topdeck Mode
I Played 4 Looting, 3 Reunion, 4 Gather the Pack and 2 Commune with the Gods for draw/discard. This split felt very good.
but it often feels like the worst card in the deck. And obviously an horrendous topdeck.
When playing with reunion you have to learn to keep some stuff in hand. Don't play every land you draw. Reunion often feels bad, I agree, but it also won me games were I collected 2 lands over time, played the reunion and got very good action.
I just love Gather the Pack. You get spellmastery so easily But I will cut my Commune with the Gods for Grapple in the future I guess. Grapple can also help to get something out the GY if the opponent has a Cage on the field and you cant get your gy stuff on the field. TBH the card looks amazing!
I haven't tried atarka's command but I guess it would not fit that good in my deck... I better have another bushwacker there...
Honestly, the deck isn't any more all-in than the Burning-Tree/Superion Build. The difference is instead of playing a 2/2 and a very conditional 5/6 as a means of recurring Vengevine, the Hollow One list instead opts for extremely consistent 0 mana 4/4s. In both decks you're having to shoot a bunch of creatures out on key turns to recur Vengevine. If the Hollow One strategy is all-in, than so is the Burning-Tree/Superion build. In this situation you're looking at two different kinds of apples and declaring that one of them is a pear.
You literally haven't played the deck. I can 100% tell from this post. Every single person I have talked to who has actually played the list has told me that while it does just look like a dumb aggro list, it is one of the most difficult aggressive decks that have ever played. You can't just blindly slam Guide and Turn 1 and Reunion Turn 2. You need to before every play assess what's in your hand and graveyard, what looting effects you have, how many creatures you have access to, etc. There is so many tight plays you need to make with this deck where not planning out turns 1, 2, and 3 properly could lose you the game. So please, explain to me how that isn't rewarding good plays. Also, if the deck was a one-trick pony than it would have the issue of not being able to win if it didn't get the Vengevine/Hollow One draw. Earlier this week I played some 1v1 Modern matches on MTGO. For 5 games in a row I didn't see a single Hollow One or Vengevine. I think in total I lost maybe 1 of those 5 games.
I'm sorry what? Reucrring Vengevine and beating face with them is Plan A. Playing a bunch of small aggressive creature like Swiftspear and Guide that can help close the game is plan B. Become Immense + Battle Rage to end the game instantly is Plan C.
The best thing about the Hollow One Vengevine list, is that it is so easy for your opponent to screw up their sideboard against you. DO they bring in Rest in Peace? Well then you can just focus on slamming early Hollow One and beating them with 4/4s and aggro creatures. Do they bring in sweepers to deal with your board? Well then you just go in on the Vengevine plan and recur angry cabbages to kill your opponents. As for lock pieces, the Hollow One list runs Blood Moon too, hell it's a free sideboard card since the deck is almost Mono-Red.
It's an aggro deck. If you build an aggro deck planning for the midgame, then you aren't building your deck correctly. By your argument, Affinity should be a shift deck because it doesn't plan for the midgame, with the entire deck instead focused on getting your opponent to 0 as quickly as possible. It's obvious you want to play a midrange strategy, well sorry, but this isn't midrange buddy.
The deck does not trade consistency for explosiveness, hell I would wager that the Hollow One list is more consistent than your Burning-Tree/Superion list. Hell I can prove it is.
From most of the lists I have seen in this thread, at most, the card selection incorporated by the BTE/Superion lists are:
4x Faithless Looting
4x Gather the Pack
4x Insolent Neonate
Compare this with the Hollow One list which has:
4x Faithless Looting
4x Street Wraith
4x Cathartic Reunion
4x Insolent Neonate
No using hypergeometeric math (which for those unaware, is how you find statistics on how to, for example find your chances of drawing specific cards in a deck) right off the bat, because of the extra 4 cards, the Hollow One list is 10% more likely to actually have some form of card draw/filtering in their opening hand (80% VS 90%). Additionally the average CMC for the draw/filter in the BTE/Superion lists is 1.3 mana compared to the Hollow One list's 1 mana (for this number, what makes the difference is Street Wraith cycling for free). Finally, let's look at the average number of cards seen by each deck. For the BTE/Superion List, they average 2.6 cards per draw/filter effect VS the Hollow One's 1.75. This is the only instance where the BTE/Superion list comes out ahead, and it's specifically because Gather the Pack looks at 5 cards. But when you compare how often you are to see the cards, and how much they cost you, the Hollow One list is definitely ahead. Honestly, I would argue that your list is attempting to trade consistency for explosiveness, not mine.
If you want to do a grindy game, go play Abzan, or Jund, or UW Control. I don't want to play a deck that involves reanimating a 4/3 Hasty creature through playing more creatures, without my sole goal being to aggro my opponents to dust. I repeat what I said before, you seem to want to be playing a midrange deck, not an aggro deck. Your barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
Every deck in Modern rewards you for correct plays, format knowledge, and good sideboarding. Just saying.
If that is how you are playing the deck, then obviously I can udnerstand your disappointment with it. That's not how you play the Hollow One list. It isn't "lololol lets just dump my hand as fast as possible and win" brain-dead. Honestly the fact that you think it is, as I said before, proves you haven't taken a look at the list. Hell I doubt you have even watched anyone play the deck. It feels like you saw that someone did well with it at a big event and you just went, "Well it's a netdeck now, I must be against this for as many dumb reasons as I can come up with." And I am not saying that to try and attack you. I am saying that because your arguments literally don't hold any water what so ever.
Again, this deck doesn't need to play the mid-game. I can't remember where I heard it, but there is a quote that goes, "Those who plan to lose, have already lost." When you plan for your deck to be destroyed on every angle, and you warp your deck around that, you make it worse. Affinity can win through the mid-game not because they planned for it or built their deck around being able to do it, but because the raw power they through into their list makes it so that their opponent is always struggling to regain control. When you play aggro you have to keep hammering your opponent, and the best way to do that is to play aggressive creatures. I repeat what I said before, if you want to play Midrange, play another deck.
And I don't understand your last sentence. Are you saying that the Hollow One list has so many dead cards for games 2 & 3? Or are you saying the sideboard cards selected are dead and you wouldn't want to bring them in? Or something else entirely?
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Hollow One build is probably more consistent, but BTE list has potential T2 kills.
I agree with a lot of your points and disagree with a lot of your other points.
You forgot Commune with the Gods for the BTE card selection suite btw. Which is an especially nice pseudo tutor for grabbing important sideboard pieces. And sideboarding against the BTE list is hard too, because even if they resolve RiP, we always have multiple free creatures into Superion or Bushwhacker. You can play free Hollow ones through RiP, but you're still throwing away cards to exile which you can't always afford.
And we have a resilience to multiple kinds of grave hate. Surgical and scooze on Vine are good, but not back breaking because it leaves us cards for Mandrills. And Mandrills/Gather the Pack means they can't always leave things like Spellbomb/Relic up hoping to catch a Vine
I don't like the "Midrange" argument being made for BTE. I do like the fact that we aren't absolutely dead to the game going longer than a few turns, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's something we should strive for.
Also Gather the Pack can be a lifesaver when you're in topdeck mode, 2 for 1's are important.
The Hollow One build has potential for T2 kills as well (as well as Turn 2 concessions). Hell, earlier this week I played a game where Turn 1, I cycled a Street Wraith, and cast a Faithless Looting discarding 2 Vengevines, then cast 2 Hollow Ones to reanimate them and swing for 8 while having 16 damage on board. Obviously this is a 1 in a 100 draw, but it's still something the deck is capable of.
I intentionally left out Commune with the Gods because I think it is awful. An argument can be made for Gather the Pack (in fact you made it at the bottom of your post) since when you have Spell Mastery it can grab you 2 creatures. But Commune can only ever grab you one card, so compared to Cathartic Reunion, which draw you multiple cards, it seems like a horrendous card imho.
BTW, I wasn't arguing that the BTE list was midrange, rather the @Polymorph seems to think it is, and wants to be playing a midrange deck. And honestly, the Hollow One deck isn't dead for a game that goes longer than a few turns either. Vengevine decks has a natural resiliency to them since the crux of their strategy is on recurring an aggressive creature.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Exactly this! We can without our graveyard.
So can the Hollow One list. You guys seem to think the Hollow One deck is DredgeVine or something that makes mad use of the graveyard. It doesn't. The deck runs Mandrills (which I've taken out now actually) and Become Immense as the only cards that use the graveyard that aren't Vengevine. This is why this line of thought confuses me. On this axis, what the Hollow One lists are trying to do, are literally the exact same thing your deck is trying to do.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I like this list a lot. What do you think about something like Gnarlwood Dryad or the new one, Old-Growth Dryads instead of goblin guide or swiftspear? After playing this list a bit I feel like we need more threat density; we've got mandrills, hollow one, and vengevine and that's about it, the other guys are good 1 drops and all but they just don't pack enough punch if the 4/4s get dealt with.
Also, this is the exact same list that was played in a recent SCG tournament, before it was ever posted here. Here's an article on channel fireball about the deck: https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/modern-monday-hollow-vine/
How do you like running both 4x gather and 4x commune? It seems a bit slow to me.
My reasoning is that while these spells are great "set up" for the next turn, they don't do much the turn you play it...
Personally I'd cut the communes (worst of the two) for those rampagers.
Nah it's not too slow. Technically Rampager is slower because he costs GG to do nothing unless you have Vines to recur. I definitely wouldn't want more than 1. And I boarded him out in games I didn't expect to come down to topdecks (Like Burn and Knightfall)
4-0
2-1 against UB Mill
2-1 against Burn
2-0 against Knightfall
2-0 against U Tron
Green @ it's best
We have a lot more tools in topdeck mode. I don't think "why are you getting to topdeck mode without killing them?" is a valid argument.
You can't T2/3 kill BGx through targeted discard, goyfs and Lili every time.
Gather and Commune are amazing here, because we dig deep, and we can grab really impactful cards all while possibly milling Vines. I'm repeating myself here, but topdeck Commune to grab a Cartouche of Zeal to swing past a Goyf or grabbing Legion Loyalists to swing through Souls has saved my ass so many times. Just last night I cast Commune off the top against UB Mill, grabbing Loyalist and milling Ancient Grudge to blow up Ensnaring Bridge and trample over his 0/2 blockers for lethal (he had me dead next turn otherwise)
They also let us do things like T3 2drop into Gather/Commune to find and play Mandrills, possibly milking/recurring some Vines in the process
Gather and Commune >>>> Looting and Reunion after turn 2. Also they let us be a little less picky with our mulligans, because we can always just wait until T3 to go off, and use T2 to find the piece we're missing
That said, Hollow One is so much better than Myr Superion. They're both about as easy to cast, except you can hardcast Hollow One without support if you have the mana, whereas we need a BTE. Or you can cycle him if you really just need a bolt or Guide. Hollow One is smaller, but doesn't die to Push (important)
T1: Looting, drop a vengevine, get some nice stuff
T2: Gather the pack (maybe even with spellmastery), get another vengevine into the grave, grap some nice creature
T3: BTE, Hooting Mandril (for 1 green), get Vengevines back, Bushwacker with surge, swing for 20...
Another nice thing about the BGx MU these days is that they're on a 3/3 split for inquisition/thoughtseize because of all the big mana running around. So they have to choose between letting us keep our hands intact or lowering their life total into dangerous territory post board
Basically the biggest difference is Super Wine looks for a more combo oriented play to close the game or gain ground. Bte into commune into hooting or whacker to bring back vines.
Hallow vine wants to assert itself early with neonate, CA, hallow, hopefully getting a vine, for a board presence. Hard to say which is better, but I'm trying to say.... Is It's like 2 different decks that share a very similar core card base.
I've learned that if 2 similar decks exist, but say 12 or so of the cards are different it's worth nothing that 20% of the deck is different. That's enough to constitute a different strategy altogether.
Basically the biggest difference is Super Wine looks for a more combo oriented play to close the game or gain ground. Bte into commune into hooting or whacker to bring back vines.
Hallow vine wants to assert itself early with neonate, CA, hallow, hopefully getting a vine, for a board presence. Hard to say which is better, but I'm trying to say.... Is It's like 2 different decks that share a very similar core card base.
I've learned that if 2 similar decks exist, but say 12 or so of the cards are different it's worth nothing that 20% of the deck is different. That's enough to constitute a different strategy altogether.
I will say the biggest advantage hollow has is that it can be cycled or even cast when you need to. The counterpart is superion. He's clunky and often a dead card since you have such limited ability to actually cast it. Yes you can use commune and such to find it, but then you are using a lot of resources to do so.
What I would like to see is a crazy list with coco in the super vine list.... Super CoCoVine?
4 Insolate Neonate
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 BTE
2 HH
3 My Superion
1 Priest of Uberask
4 Vengevine
4 Coco
2 Commune
4 Gather the Pack
4 Faithless Looting
Looks crazy good. Basically use turn 1 and 2 to set up and if you can keep a Noble turn 3 you can just go off. CoCo into priest and HH to make 5 then use 2 for commune to find something else. Maybe a Bushwhacker and cast neonate and whacker the team for mad beats. Numbers are off but you get the idea.
Plus we would play Birds or an elf over Noble any day.
I think we're about as optimal as we're gonna get
Yeah I realize all that. Was just thinking it could be used as a ritual/tutor of sorts. You have a pretty good chance to hit a BTE or HH with it. That let's you cast your Superions that were stuck in your hand. Idea with them wasn't so much to trigger vines or whacker.
Yeah Cartouche has been great out of the board but Commune also grabs Blood Moon, Seal of Primordium, Seal of Fire (has been surprisingly relevant) etc. can get an Ancient Grudge/Gnaw to the Bone in the grave to flashback. lets us kinda toolbox. And like I said earlier, it really helps our consistency against discard decks
Yeah I think if I was gonna go Jund, I'd go back to the traditional Dredgevine with Gravecrawler and Lotleth Troll. I don't really think Death's Shadow has a place with us, but I can definitely see the value of Claim // Fame in the Hollow One build. I'm really not sure Delirium is a good idea. We're already toeing the line of being really weak to grave hate, building around Delirium would push us over the edge. What cards in particular are you thinking?
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
1) This is FNM, not something like a GP. So obviously the play level is a bit lower. However....
2) The people who play at this store for FNM at PPTQ and GP grinders, so it makes the play environment somewhere between your average FNM and average GP
With that said, what was the list I played tonight?
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
2x Copperline Gorge
5x Mountain
Creatures - 27
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Goblin Guide
4x Hollow One
4x Insolent Neonate
4x Street Wraith
4x Vengevine
3x Reckless Bushwhacker
4x Faithless Looting
3x Become Immense
3x Gather the Pack
3x Lightning Bolt
2x Temur Battle Rage
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Blood Moon
2x Destructive Revelry
2x Grim Lavamancer
2x Life Goes On
2x Lightning Axe
3x Leyline of the Void
Now then, how did I do? Well....
NOT ONLY DID I GO 5-0, I WENT 10-0!!
That's right, I didn't lose a single game. Yes, I am proud of myself. This is the first time I played this deck off of Magic Online, so getting this good of a performance out of it makes me ecstatic. Anyway, let's go over what I played against tonight:
Round 1 - VS Burn
Round 2 - VS Eldrazi Tron
Round 3 - VS RG Tron
Round 4 - VS Bant Spirits
Top 4 - VS Eldrazi Tron
Top 2 - Prize Split
So you'll notice that I beat 3 Tron decks. Honestly, I feel unless you draw incredibly horribly, Tron is an extremely favorable match up for this deck, especially the Eldrazi variants. The list is fast enough where unless they get their amazing draws going double Temple into TKS on turn 2. On average we are fast enough to put their life total low enough, fast enough, that we should be able to just snatch games out of nowhere.
A notable game for me was my Game 1 VS Bant Spirits, which literally lasted maybe a minute. I was on the draw and had the following sequence happen:
Hand: Vengevine, Bloodstained Mire, Goblin Guide, Street Wraith, Hollow One, Faithless Looting, Mountain
Draw: 2nd Hollow One
Play Bloodstained Mire, fetch a Mountain
Cycle Street Wraith, draw a Mountain
Cast Looting, drawing a 2nd Vengevine, and a Temur Battle Rage. Discard 2 Vengevines.
Cast 2 Hollow Ones, reanimating both Vengevines.
Attack for 8.
Opponent concedes.
I am so happy I was able to do that in paper
Feel free to ask me any questions
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Despite me being a staunch defender of Cathartic Reunion (just look at the last few pages of this thread :P) when playing with the deck Gather the Pack actually gave me better results than Reunion did. This may be a result of small sample sizes at the moment, but Gather seems to be performing better.
With concerns to the deck's "engine", I feel that points to one of the difficult parts of piloting this list. You need to know when you can afford to maybe wait a turn to reanimate Vengevines, or when you just need to slam your foot on the aggro pedal. In my second game against Bant Spirits, I had a great hand to be able to recur some Vengevines, with a Faithless Looting, 2 Street Wraiths, and 2 Hollow Ones. However after cycling my Wraiths into a 3rd Wraith and a Reckless Bushwhacker, I figured my best bet for winning the game was to on turn 3, slam down my 2 free Hollow ones, while Surging out Bushwhacker to punch my opponent for 12. Sometimes waiting to have the cool Vengevine play is the incorrect line to take with the deck.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I won against Jund, Eldrazitron (easy), UR Delver, WR Prison and UB Faeris, I lost against Bant Humans/Knightfall (he had awesome hands) and BUG Death Shadow (played badly, matchup is definitely winnable).
Hollow Ones and Streetwraith gave some dream T1 plays (Looting, Discard Vengevine, cycle wraith, drop 2 Hollow Ones and get Vengevine Back). BTE + Bushwhacker are Main wincon every game and 4 Gather the Pack gave so much value in Topdeck Mode
I Played 4 Looting, 3 Reunion, 4 Gather the Pack and 2 Commune with the Gods for draw/discard. This split felt very good.
When playing with reunion you have to learn to keep some stuff in hand. Don't play every land you draw. Reunion often feels bad, I agree, but it also won me games were I collected 2 lands over time, played the reunion and got very good action.
I haven't tried atarka's command but I guess it would not fit that good in my deck... I better have another bushwacker there...