I'm playing with 21 lands (no utility ones), 7 dorks and 1 Impulse as 5° oath and for me, that's good. I'll be really scared of playing more lands or dorks without cards like CoCo or many Coursier/tracker, as said.
I'm into testing more dorks, but one of the big reasons we can get away with fewer accelerators is Oath of Nissa. It covers a lot of ground for us, and it's one of the benefits of our deck - we're able to mitigate dork flood a bit because we have access to a Ponder affect that both digs for mana sources, and color fixes. I also don't think Pod is a great comparison point, even though Evo feels similar. Pod decks could get away with running a bunch of dorks, because it would slowly turn every one of them into something more valuable. Drawing our mana dudes as the game goes on is pretty terrible for us.
The lists I've posted and done well with have all had 6 one mana dorks and 4 cobras with 22 lands. I find myself mulliganing much less than the builds I first started out testing, plus anytime you stick turn one dork into cobra turn two, you are doing many many unfair things which,if top 8 at GP Hartford was any indication, Modern decks should be doing. But you also can play this grindy value-based game which is really what I love about the deck so much.
@Siefer, while Oath is definitely an amazing tool I find that hands where your turn one play is oath and then turn 2 voice or anything that isnt lotus cobra is just too slow in a lot of cases. Not saying this as a knock against Oath, the card should be a 4-of in the deck for sure, I'm just saying that I'm not sure it can really be looked at in the same light as a turn one mana dork. Getting away with less accelerators is more a function of format speed and less a function of if our deck can play without one. It can. But the format is trending towards a start with no early accelerant not being good enough, so I think builds with around 10 total mana creatures seem more appropriate.
Hey guys, stuff has been nuts. I don't have any actual tournament reports, had a ton of stuff going on outside of magic that has me emotionally drained and not fully invested this week. However, my deck is broken and wins matches without me. lol. Here's the list I ran
Friday
Modern FNM, not a lot of people at a newer shop trying to build itself up. I don't remember specifics (I suck, sorry). I top 4ed a small event and used the credit towards a Plateau.
Saturday
Store 1 50 something people
Round 1
G1
I had a very distracting phone call right before the event started and my head was in the clouds. I sat down round 1 against the guy who won last month on burn. I lost the die roll, we both know what each other is one. Good player who knows the decks he brings. We both mulled to 6, I keep a good 6. His is the nuts of T1 Goblin Guide, T2 Searing Blaze your Bird, T3 Goblin Guide double bolt you. Super dead.
G2
I just straight punt this game. I took a weird line when I straight up could've done some rallier shenanigans and evoed into sigarda. Still kicking myself for it.
Round 2
I sit down across from the guy who lost in the finals last month. He has been grinding bloodbraid Jund since the unbanning and is an exceptional player. I take it to game 3 but he had some hot draws to get him there. This was my 1st match loss to Jund, and while I played poorly I do not believe I could have won this match because his draws were good enough it didn't matter. He also sided out his elf's, which no other jund player has done in my 12+ matches against it and after talking with him post board I absolutely believe is correct. I drop and my friend I went with convinces me to head to another tournament.
Store 2 Saturday 30 something people
Round 1 Bye
Super deflating when I am playing magic to distract myself. Bad beats.
Round 2 Paired against my friend I came with
G1
I go on full tilt, I flat out do not want to play anymore and seriously consider dropping and leaving. We shuffle up and both play a terrible game 1, he gets there (He is on a sweet Esper Gifts pile we have been working on).
G2
I calm down and come off tilt slightly. This is a good matchup for me, and I get him with combo before he gets me. I'm faster even through disruption and disrupting me means he isn't digging for his pieces
G3
So I naturally draw and resolve my planeswalker package of Nahiri and Tamiyo. He has thoptor sword active, I look down laugh, tell him I can tap his artifacts with Tamiyo and exile them with Nahiri. I then make the decision that I'm not in the right mindset to play good magic that day and I proceed to not do that and take weird lines, culminating to fetch shocking myself into lethal range a few turns later with an active Nahiri, Tamiyo, and Saheeli, + Sun Titan on board. We agree after there is no way I lose that game if its a serious match, and its the 1st time my walkers did big things post board. Not to be the last.
I resolve to give it my all after this to make my friend's breakers better and get him in the top 8.
Round 3
Junk
G1
He doesn't quite know what I'm doing, I beat him to death with a recurred voice and some of its tokens and ralliers.
G2
He taps out for seige rhino after keeping a hand full of disruption and no threats. He doesn't have a single non basic land and I have magus of the moon in hand. I draw cobra, play cobra, fetchland, magus go. He swings at me, i resolve tamiyo the next turn with an oath of nissa out and win the game a couple turns later stabilizing at 2 life against his lone rhino.
Round 4
Zoo
G1
So I really dont like the traditional 1 drop zoo matchup and think we it bad for the combo focused versions of Saheeli. Similar to delver, they play a T1 threat, hold up some interaction and kill us at their leisure. It's tough, especially G1. Unless you draw fast combo and they tap out. I win the die roll, he taps out his t2 and I combo off.
G2
So I played one drop zoo for years back when twin was legal. I have a bitter memory of having a bolt in hand, allowing a splinter twin to resolve and trying to bolt too late. Lesson learned. So I slow this game down by evoing into my finks. Resto was in my opener and I draw a 2nd evo, I'm not all in on the combo kill plan. I flash in resto to block, he drops me to 5, I untap and evo my persisted finks into kiki. He slams path at kiki. I get kinda sad, make a million angels in response. He as great dude and super cool about it, but I still felt dirty.
Round 5
Temur Value with Elf and Jace
My buddy has 1 loss and ID's into Top 8. Mission accomplished. So at this point I'm in 5th place in the standings and somehow I can ID into top 8. I hate ID's, but I also don't want to be that guy to tell someone no when the offer and then somebody gets knocked out. Luckily I didn't have to make any decisions because my opponent did the math and there is a way that he doesn't get in if we ID, so he wants to play. Fine by me.
G1
He plays a goyf and I recur the same voice of resurgence 3 times with some rallier action. He goes into game 2 having no idea how to board. This matchup is great for us because they love tapping out on T2 and T4.
G2
I keep a fragile hand relying on my saheeli sticking around, and he keeps double goyf clique. I die.
G3
He taps out and I evo into sun titan with a Saheeli in my GY and on board.
Top 8 3rd seed
American Control My buddy plays against burn and gets there
G1
Combo him after he mulls to 6 and uses his interaction on a voice. Play a saheeli while his shields are down and find a cat.
G2
Game goes super long and I die to a Colonnade. 2 turns before I died I played 2 saheeli's. He quellerd one and logic knotted the other. Draws swings and pass. I untap and slam titan. Trigger get saheeli, -2 target titan eat a path. So close.
G3
Natural Combo in my hand on the play. He plays serum vision T1 and T2 after saying his keep was sketch. Dies.
Semifinals my buddy plays against his only loss in swiss (ponza) and pulls off the upset
UG Merfolk
This matchup is a a lot tougher the mono blue merfolk in my experience as they are faster and can kill Saheeli through combat easier, forcing you to play her after cat and delaying you a whole turn. As well you cant afford to fetch islands so casting Saheeli can be a problem.
G1
She keep a good no vial hand and I muck up the ground with a voice. Rallier beings it back and I play defense. I draw resto and with an evo in hand and have to fade 1 draw step of not drawing kiki jiki to win. I do and angels go fishing.
G2
I made a brutal mistake here, I had a voice out with Saheeli against 2 Silvergill Adepts while my opponent is stuck off green. I have 2 cats in hand. I cast cat, she unified wills. I say trigger voice, put cat in the gy, + Saheeli, go. Judge gets called by onlookers, I controlled 2 creatures to her 2 creatures and unified will shouldn't have countered. Whoops. They resolve it by putting cat on the battlefield during her turn, which I thought was confusing. I was fine with my misplay and leaving it in the GY, Albeit I had a 2nd in hand. She dismembers my cat, I untap and cat again.
Finals
I just don't want to play anymore and give it to my friend. It was a cool tournament, I'm glad I went, but frankly I played terribly and the deck won on its own with its consistency. Tamiyo was insane, to the point I am going to be getting a 2nd and testing her MD.
Monday
3-0 split 4rth round
Round 1 RG Stompy
Its a cool brew with that 3 drop haste wither dude. Even double rancored him G2, but died to combo both games
Round 2
UR Lanternless Lantern
MD rec sage showed up G1, G2 my opponent misplayed, naming the wrong cmc with whir in response to nahiri and I won going to time.
Round 3
Abzan Coco
This matchup is super draw dependent, as neither deck interacts well. Because voice isnt great here there fair plan is a lot better then ours so I concentrate on being the combo deck. I combo him fast G1, G2 he mulls to 6 and keeps a hand with Phyrexian Revoker. Names saheeli. Thing is, My lotus cobra goes unmolested, and I untap and kill him with felidar kiki combo on T3.
Round 4
I'm already qualified for the store championship this year and play a guy who needs the 4-0 to try to qualify later this week. I split with him and give him the win. He was on esper shadow and I like the matchup, as it is slower then other shadow variants with no TBR I win button.
The lists I've posted and done well with have all had 6 one mana dorks and 4 cobras with 22 lands. I find myself mulliganing much less than the builds I first started out testing, plus anytime you stick turn one dork into cobra turn two, you are doing many many unfair things which,if top 8 at GP Hartford was any indication, Modern decks should be doing. But you also can play this grindy value-based game which is really what I love about the deck so much.
@Siefer, while Oath is definitely an amazing tool I find that hands where your turn one play is oath and then turn 2 voice or anything that isnt lotus cobra is just too slow in a lot of cases. Not saying this as a knock against Oath, the card should be a 4-of in the deck for sure, I'm just saying that I'm not sure it can really be looked at in the same light as a turn one mana dork. Getting away with less accelerators is more a function of format speed and less a function of if our deck can play without one. It can. But the format is trending towards a start with no early accelerant not being good enough, so I think builds with around 10 total mana creatures seem more appropriate.
I think you're making a good point here - the more unfair the format is, the more I want to jam the full 4 Cobras and lean into our explosive potential. As much as I loathe dork flood, that might be how we need to position right now.
So, my attempt with the 8th dork went very well. I played 3-1, with my only loss to Titanshift, a matchup that I knew was unfavorable. I literally had a dork every single game I played, which obviously is the natural consequence of changing a single card in my maindeck (just to make it clear, sarcasm at work). But honestly, that was exactly what I wanted: Always having the turn 1 dork, so I can maximize my potential to cast a 3-drop on turn 2.
Intriguing to try more dorks, to say the least. I agree that games with acceleration are the games we have easier time curving, so running more dorks indeed sounds appealing (I'm also currently on 7 1CMC Dorks).
Given that we run 22 lands only, I'd add the 23rd land before the 9th dork (maybe even before the 8th dork).
Some concerns (just to keep in mind while testing with more dorks):
- we don't entirely skip over the 2-drop slot (we must always run at least 5x 2-drops as Evo fodders) so running too many dorks is redundant. Essentially, we want to guarantee a turn 2 play and between 7 dorks + 4 Oaths + 5 2-drops we can get very good mana optimizations
- dork dilution is very real in hurting our lategame and they force us to play hard card advantage engines (namely Tracker - Courser feels very bad about topdecked dorks)
- we don't draw that many evolutions and we often want to evolution into powerful 4CMCs (I do occasionally evolve for KoTR/Courser/Tracker/Finks in my builds, whichever I'm running at the time and best serves as hate, but often this is more of a desperation move than an actual gameplan - it's not like we can guarantee two consecutive Evos to play pod-style)
That's all true and I'm aware of it, but my motivation was the following: With the extra dork, I want to make my starts better and I'm okay with giving up a little late game power for that. With my recent experiences and the Hartford top8 in mind, focusing on the early game seemed right to me. I've won many games after landing turn 2 Saheeli, Blade Splicer or Vengeful Rebel (or Evo for a sideboard card) and maybe even following that up with a 4-drop, and the only way to achieve that is with acceleration on turn 1 (Cobra and Oath are great, but they don't help me getting to to 3 mana on turn 2). With 7 dorks it didn't work as often as I wanted, so now (after Nassif's stream gave me the idea) I'm trying more than 7 and we'll see where that leads me.
Yesterday's tournament delivered exactly that: I won 2 games vs Amulet Titan because of my fast starts, once via damage, and once via combo. There is a very good chance I would have lost both games if I didn't have 3 mana on turn 2. And in my other matches it was similar: Getting on the board quickly mattered a lot, and even if 4 matches is no basis to draw any real conclusions yet, it just feels like the exact thing I want to be doing right now.
Also, I currently run 3 Horizon Canopy. I noticed myself sacrificing them quite early several times yesterday, which helped whenever I drew a lot of dorks + lands. This way I got both my explosive starts and could then cash in a mana source for a fresh card.
hey guys,
been following this thread for a while and love the deck. i've finally got round to building it in paper and want to online as well. i've just got a few questions regarding the deck and would love some help constructing.
- i'm unsure on how many dorks i want to be playing. a list from the most recent modern challenge played 4 bird/3 noble and shaved lotus cobra to two. the more dorks = fewer two drops?
- looking at the manabase it seems completely crazy to play magus of the moon/blood moon but so many lists are playing one or both now, can the deck operate smoothly through the moon effect?
- is 4 felidar guardian favoured over running a single one
Welcome plunkey! There are some very different approaches to the deck here, so I don't think there are any clear cut answers to your questions. Nevertheless, I'll give you some of my thoughts.
Most lists have a sum of 7-9 Birds + Hiearchs + Cobras. If you choose to play lots of turn 1 accelerators and no Cobras, you can get away with a list leaning more on 3-drops. However, 2-drops are excellent in the deck because they enable Evolution really well. Sacrificing 1-drops doesn't allow you to find Felidar Guardian, and waiting for a 3-drop to sacrifice can be a little slow occasionally. (For example, you can go turn 1 Bird, turn 2 Saheeli, turn 3 cast a 2-drop, copy Bird with Saheeli to get an extra mana, then sac the 2-drop to Evolution into Felidar for the combo win.) Cobra-heavy builds usually include lots of Renegade Ralliers and a higher number of 5-drop creatures (often 3-4).
Blood Moon might seem crazy in a 4-colored deck, but in practice most versions are actually mostly GW decks with ~8 mana creatures, ~5 basics and ~10 fetchlands to find basics. Casting Saheeli is often trivial thanks to Oath of Nissa, which makes it surprisingly easy to operate under Blood Moon. It can hurt us a little, but with something like 1 Forest and 1 Bird we should be fine most of the time, and it helps us in tough matchups like Titanshift.
On the topic of Felidar Guardian, there are three points to balance: Firstly, Felidar Guardian is a underpowered card by itself. Even with the whole deck built around it, it's often low impact for a 4-drop, and drawing multiples isn't great. If your opponent has a lot of interaction, you might have nothing relevant to flicker, and the 1/4 body is neither a good attacker nor does it stop Goyfs, Hollow Ones or Eldrazi. Secondly, you obviously want access to the combo, and some builds lean heavily on that aspect of the deck (for example by adding Kiki), so they need to maximize their chances to actually draw the combo pieces by playing a high number of them. And finally, if you run only 1-2 Felidar Guardians, Evolution gets worse since Feldiar can be stuck in your hand or get removed by Path to Exile, which takes away one of the most important tutor targets. There isn't a clear consensus here on the number of Felidars, though most lists run at least 2. All in all, it depends on the direction you want to take.
Hey dudes, went down to GP Sydney, 3-3-0 dropped the main event with UW control and had plenty of time to jam Saheeli in Side events, pulled a 3-0 in Big Prize Points Modern on Sunday! Was super stoked, mini tournament report below:
Round 1:
2-1, Played a friend of mine from Brisbane on Temur eternal command.
Game 1:
he spun his wheels pretty hard while I set up with finks/rhino/voice. He found a late vial and resolved a goyf but it wasn't enough to keep the team from hitting for lethal.
Game 2:
he told me afterwards he has half his bolts in the side, and I really felt the difference this game. Got bolted off dorks turn 1 and 2, then a chain of cryptic > vialed in snap > cryptic stranded me unable to resolve anything meaningful.
Game 3:
He hasn't actually seen the combo at this point, and thinks I'm on some kind of Abzan value list. I play the same as game 1, he doesn't hit a vial but hits his early goyfs and cryptics, I grind him out of answers before I unexpectedly combo him.
Round 2: Mardu pyromancer, 2-0
Game 1:
I resolve a siege rhino and evo for the other, copying 1 next turn with a topdecked saheeli for the concession.
Game 2:
I resolve a t2 pridemage into his t3 moon. The pridemage ended up dealing exactly 12 damage to him, as he fails to cast anything for 4 turns. he has access to BBR, I wonder what could possibly be in his hand, until I'm prompted to blow up the moon in response to a fatal push, I found out as he casts and flashbacks 3 souls over the course of the next 3 turns. he was at 5 at this point (3 from fetch shock, 12 from qasali), and things were looking grim for me, facing down 6 or so spirits, until he double fetched to 3 and let a siege rhino finish the game.
Round 3: Lantern, 2-0
Game 1:
he fails to find a bridge, or assemble a meaningful topdeck lock, and voice/unrevolted vengeful rebel beats seal game 1.
Game 2:
My opponent was running some spicy tech - he resolved a thopter foundry early on and was chumping my dudes until I evo'd for the rhino, trample was super relevant here.
My takeaway from the tournament, and the weekend, was that we can hide the combo fairly easily game 1, and it makes our opponents make drastically different sideboard choices, as both the lantern and Temur player didn't know about the combo until at least game 2.
Siege rhino was a total MVP, drew him heaps and he put in work.
I also played against a lot of bogles, and got taken to town by them, I could never really work myself into a position to drop Saheeli safely or blow them out with Cataclysmic Gearhulk.
I had some time to trawl through Hareruya's Saheeli lists, which usually yields some fairly spicy ideas, and it didn't disappoint. I found Hero of Bladehold in this list, has anyone tried her? I'm locating a copy to try and it seems super promising. turn 2 Saheeli into turn 3 hero results in a 3/4 blocker, 7 damage coming at the opponent and 2 1/1s hanging around next turn to smack for 9 damage on the following turn.
hey guys,
been following this thread for a while and love the deck. i've finally got round to building it in paper and want to online as well. i've just got a few questions regarding the deck and would love some help constructing.
- i'm unsure on how many dorks i want to be playing. a list from the most recent modern challenge played 4 bird/3 noble and shaved lotus cobra to two. the more dorks = fewer two drops?
- looking at the manabase it seems completely crazy to play magus of the moon/blood moon but so many lists are playing one or both now, can the deck operate smoothly through the moon effect?
- is 4 felidar guardian favoured over running a single one
I have been playing 6 dork/2 cobra and have been liking it, but there has been discussion about the full 8 dorks to improve opening hands, which sounds like a good direction to be going.
With the amount of dorks we play moon is quite manageable - especially if we are dropping it on our own turns. the lists have 6-10 nonland sources of mana, can run anywhere from 3-5 basics, and with the help of oath of nissa we can cast saheeli for RRR. Certainly a potent sideboard card that doesn't hurt the deck much.
1 Felidar leaves you way too susceptible to a single path to exile ruining your chances of combo, most people are running 2-3, with some lists running the full 4.
Personally, I'm running 2 Felidar Guardians at the moment to strike a balance between having the combo pieces and diluting my deck with ansub-par creature. My reasoning is that I want to have a back-up in case my opponent has a removal spell for the first, but not the second.
With the format leaning toward linear decks, people are cutting their removal spells in favor of speed and more narrow disruption. The card quality tension with Felidar Guardian is certainly real, but I think now is the time to be running 3 or 4, and leaning into the combo. One of our big advantages is how explosive we can be while still having lines to disrupt linear decks. We're significantly more explosive than Kiki-Chord and only slightly worse at grinding, for example.
Wow, 7-0 is impressive, and with Qasali Ambusher in the side again. Looking over the list, the plan vs Bogles apparently is to either race or Moon lock them, since there are no Disenchant effects in the 75. Do you guys think that's good enough?
...I'm really missing something about Ambusher, beside of the things said in the last page
As it has been explained to me, it occasionally eats Goblin Guides, Phoenixes, and the odd human. The real key, though, is it unlocks big Evolution plays against aggressive decks. Ambushing a Goblin Guide, then slamming a Thragtusk is a backbreaking sequence against Burn.
@Emzed, I'm still not sold on Fiery Justice over Engineered Explosive. Fiery Justice has a higher floor in situations where you're squeezed for mana, but EE has a significantly higher ceiling.
Given two SB slots for non-creature sweepers I think the correct answer might be 1 Justice + 1 Explosives to make it harder for Humans to tie you up with Meddling Mage.
Qasali Ambusher is still intriguing. I think I'd like Ambusher more in aggro matchups if I could Evo it into a timely Gearhulk, which Gobern's list is missing... but maybe just having free Evo fodder for Felidar / Kiki is enough. Hard to say.
@Emzed: I would feel naked without some kind of disenchant effect in the 75.
Cheers for all the great feedback and discussion. I'll hopefully have a deck together for next weeks lgs and post a brief report, look forward to talking about this spicy deck
Took a lot of inspiration from Gobern's list from the Modern challenge.
I'd love some feedback on the list, mainly the sideboard. I put it together with my lgs meta in mind (lots of tron but a decent spread of meta decks including valakut, jeskai/ur control, bogles, infect, and hollow one). I'm not loving avalanche riders but wanted a card to hit tron/valakut that wasn't blood moon.
My experience so far with the all-in lists is that it's important to just embrace the explosive boom-bust nature of the build as there are a lot of interwoven synergies that don't get to shine when you cut down on the dorks and the top end. 4x Lotus Cobra + 3x Rallier + 4x Evo make casting an early Kiki a realistic plan. 4x Felidar Guardian + 4x Evo makes evolving into Sun Titan more feasible. Rallier + Kiki + Sun Titan make for some nutty turns that are at least as strong as the infinite combo in that they often effectively win the game that turn but don't leave you as blown out if something gets removed.
I'm a little torn on Magus of the Moon in the side vs main. It's probably the most broadly effective as a T2 "gotcha" game 1. But outside of those moments Magus doesn't seem that well positioned right now... It's a little squishy vs Jund and very ineffective vs Mardu, the two dominant tri-color midrange decks. It doesn't do much to Hollow One and Humans can sometimes ignore it with a Vial and/or Hierarch (although this is much less likely game 1). It doesn't do very much vs Burn and Storm. The only matchups where I really want Magus are Tron, Scapeshift, and maybe Bogles.
If I can get my copy of Shalai in on time I'll take this list on Friday:
@Shelldell, I think you're on the money about embracing the all-in builds. I'd add, I think it's also very reasonable to embrace the midrange builds fully as well. The place where I've been most unhappy is the middle ground, where I'm trying to be a little bit of everything. The deck mulligans very well, is resilient to disruption, and can win from horrible positions due to only needing 2 cards to end any game.
I think Magus of the Moon is a good meta call right now. It just steals game 1 against Humans and Tron, which are 2 of the 3 best decks in the format.
Right, I agree that shaving some dorks, Kiki, 2-3x Felidars, Sun Titan, and going for a more consistent grindy midrange plan is definitely a good way to go in the right meta, and that trying to walk the middle line waters down both strategies too much.
Returning to Magus of the Moon, let's theorycraft a bit.
On the surface, a T2 Magus of the Moon during G1 vs Tron or Humans seems like a lockout, and I think this is more likely to be true if we play T2 Magus out of hand and get to keep our dork.
But we have 4x copies of Evo and one Magus, so the more likely line is T1 fetch for Forest + Bird -> T2 Evolve Bird into Magus. Best case we get to fetch for Plains T2, but having two fetches or a fetch + Plains is less likely.
In this scenario we've lost out accelerant and we're back to GR (maybe GW) mana and a 2/2 Magus. We can't cast Saheeli until we play another Dork or Oath. If we were relying on that Evo to grab Felidar Guardian it's gone now. We've slowed the opponent down several turns but we may also need to spend several turns getting our combo back on track.
Our fastest routes to victory after a T2 Evo'd Magus:
COMBO
T3 (2nd) Bird, T4 Saheeli, T5 Felidar
T3 Oath, T4 Saheeli, T5 Felidar
T3 ???, T4 Felidar Guardian, T5 Kiki or (2nd) Evo Magus into Kiki
T3 Cobra, T4 Saheeli copy Cobra, play 4th land, (2nd) Evo Cobra copy into Felidar Most of these lines rely on hitting our 4th (or even 5th) land drop on time and/or drawing second copies of Birds and/or Evo, so I expect these to be a few turns slower in practice.
COMBAT
T3 Cobra, T4 Rallier -> -> -> Lethal T6
T3 Rallier, T4 Shalai -> -> -> Lethal T6
Against Humans a start with either T1 Vial or T1 Hierarch (~70% of opening hands) is going to stumble a bit, but I'm not sure that we've slowed them down significantly more than we've slowed ourselves down. With that said in the ~30% of games where they start without Vial or Hierarch an Evo'd Magus might provide a "free" win.
Against Tron a T2 Magus puts them off of Tron, obviously. If we can find the extra combo pieces and hit our land drops we might combo out T4-T6, or beat them down T6-T7. This puts them within reach of O-stone, and possibly Wurmcoil / Karn.
How do those lines look? Are they reliable, fast, and effective enough against what the opposing decks are doing to the point that it validates Magus in the MB? Or am I thinking about Magus incorrectly in this build -- perhaps he's less of a T2 Evo target and more of something you just try to mull into, or an opportunistic mid game Evo target?
I think we’ve seen enough evidence to know that Magus can steal random games and there’s definitely value to that, I’m just trying to mentally balance that against all the other games where we draw him and he either does nothing to the opponent while also failing to synergize with our core (in a build with 4x Felidars and Kiki we want as much ETB synergy as possible) or -- worse -- even makes our deck more awkward by turning off Fetches to hurt Cobra, Rallier, and generally make it harder to power out our top end.
@Shelldell, I think you're somewhat miss-evaluating how Magus plays in a deck like ours. You're forgetting that we only Evo for Magus in the scenario where it's backbreaking for our opponent, or our situation is problematic enough to warrant spinning the variance wheel (a shaky mulligan to 6, for example). We're only pressing the Magus button in scenarios where it gives us an advantage, not just anytime we can. Turn 2 against Humans and they led with a Champion? The game is close to over if you have any amount of action. Otherwise, there might be something better to do with that Evo. Remember, against Tron we can often wait until just before they assemble tron. If they're not representing turn 3 tron, you can usually afford to wait. We're going to draw it when we don't want it a small percentage of game ones, but the same is true for a handful of our singletons.
Does anyone have any results with Shalai from this weekend? My schedule hasn't allowed me to play since my last post but I have been very excited about Shalai in this shell. Also does everyone seem to be on Kiki-Jiki and a more red oriented build now? How has this been working for folks? In my previous testing I personally found Kiki-Jiki to be too taxing on the mana base to be worth the times where you could evo into it and win when no other card would have gotten the job done. I do like the fact that it lets evolution win by itself without needing to draw Saheeli though. Also I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like our Humans matchup is not the greatest..they can pressure a saheeli very well so you are forced to try and combo in the same turn you play saheeli, which can get saheeli hit by meddling mage, taxed by thalia, etc. Any ways that anyone has been able to get some percentage points on the humans matchup in the mainboard? I actually think Shalai could be very strong vs humans, stopping freebooter, reflector mage (on anything except shalai) and blocking an unpumped Mantis Rider well. Not sure if this adds enough percentage points to make me feel comfortable vs the deck game one though.
I think if you have a high enough count of Voices, Ralliers, Blade Splicers and/or Kitchen Finks, stabilizing on the ground vs Humans is doable. If they go first and have a good start it might be tough, but most of the time it should work. The next problem is their flying attackers. Despite Shalai outsizing Mantis Rider at first glance, the combination of Noble Hierarch, Thalias Lieutenant and Reflector Mage (plus Phantasmal Image for extra copies) makes blocking it profitably a difficult task. Kitesail Freeboter, while smaller, can also be annoying when it gets pumped up. Draws with 2+ Mantis Riders (again, Phantasmal Image is a factor here) are very problematic, and there aren't many ways to defend against that. Humans is weak to a high density of spot removal (which we can't realistically bring out of the sideboard, ~6 is probably the ceiling) and to Worship. Once that hits the board, they are usually locked out, but of course Freeboter, Thalia and Reflector Mage can complicate resolving it. Some lists also have access to Reclamation Sage out of the sideboard. Still, I think Worship is the best tool we have available to beat Humans.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
@Siefer, while Oath is definitely an amazing tool I find that hands where your turn one play is oath and then turn 2 voice or anything that isnt lotus cobra is just too slow in a lot of cases. Not saying this as a knock against Oath, the card should be a 4-of in the deck for sure, I'm just saying that I'm not sure it can really be looked at in the same light as a turn one mana dork. Getting away with less accelerators is more a function of format speed and less a function of if our deck can play without one. It can. But the format is trending towards a start with no early accelerant not being good enough, so I think builds with around 10 total mana creatures seem more appropriate.
1 Plains
2 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Wooded Foothill
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Renegade Rallier
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Restoration Angel
1 Sigarda, Heron's Grace
1 Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sun Titan
4 Oath of Nissa
Planeswalker
4 Saheeli Rai
Sorcery
4 Eldritch Evolution
2 Fiery Justice
1 Spellskite
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Nahiri, the Harbringer
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Friday
Modern FNM, not a lot of people at a newer shop trying to build itself up. I don't remember specifics (I suck, sorry). I top 4ed a small event and used the credit towards a Plateau.
Saturday
Store 1 50 something people
Round 1
G1
I had a very distracting phone call right before the event started and my head was in the clouds. I sat down round 1 against the guy who won last month on burn. I lost the die roll, we both know what each other is one. Good player who knows the decks he brings. We both mulled to 6, I keep a good 6. His is the nuts of T1 Goblin Guide, T2 Searing Blaze your Bird, T3 Goblin Guide double bolt you. Super dead.
G2
I just straight punt this game. I took a weird line when I straight up could've done some rallier shenanigans and evoed into sigarda. Still kicking myself for it.
Round 2
I sit down across from the guy who lost in the finals last month. He has been grinding bloodbraid Jund since the unbanning and is an exceptional player. I take it to game 3 but he had some hot draws to get him there. This was my 1st match loss to Jund, and while I played poorly I do not believe I could have won this match because his draws were good enough it didn't matter. He also sided out his elf's, which no other jund player has done in my 12+ matches against it and after talking with him post board I absolutely believe is correct. I drop and my friend I went with convinces me to head to another tournament.
Store 2 Saturday 30 something people
Round 1 Bye
Super deflating when I am playing magic to distract myself. Bad beats.
Round 2 Paired against my friend I came with
G1
I go on full tilt, I flat out do not want to play anymore and seriously consider dropping and leaving. We shuffle up and both play a terrible game 1, he gets there (He is on a sweet Esper Gifts pile we have been working on).
G2
I calm down and come off tilt slightly. This is a good matchup for me, and I get him with combo before he gets me. I'm faster even through disruption and disrupting me means he isn't digging for his pieces
G3
So I naturally draw and resolve my planeswalker package of Nahiri and Tamiyo. He has thoptor sword active, I look down laugh, tell him I can tap his artifacts with Tamiyo and exile them with Nahiri. I then make the decision that I'm not in the right mindset to play good magic that day and I proceed to not do that and take weird lines, culminating to fetch shocking myself into lethal range a few turns later with an active Nahiri, Tamiyo, and Saheeli, + Sun Titan on board. We agree after there is no way I lose that game if its a serious match, and its the 1st time my walkers did big things post board. Not to be the last.
I resolve to give it my all after this to make my friend's breakers better and get him in the top 8.
Round 3
Junk
G1
He doesn't quite know what I'm doing, I beat him to death with a recurred voice and some of its tokens and ralliers.
G2
He taps out for seige rhino after keeping a hand full of disruption and no threats. He doesn't have a single non basic land and I have magus of the moon in hand. I draw cobra, play cobra, fetchland, magus go. He swings at me, i resolve tamiyo the next turn with an oath of nissa out and win the game a couple turns later stabilizing at 2 life against his lone rhino.
Round 4
Zoo
G1
So I really dont like the traditional 1 drop zoo matchup and think we it bad for the combo focused versions of Saheeli. Similar to delver, they play a T1 threat, hold up some interaction and kill us at their leisure. It's tough, especially G1. Unless you draw fast combo and they tap out. I win the die roll, he taps out his t2 and I combo off.
G2
So I played one drop zoo for years back when twin was legal. I have a bitter memory of having a bolt in hand, allowing a splinter twin to resolve and trying to bolt too late. Lesson learned. So I slow this game down by evoing into my finks. Resto was in my opener and I draw a 2nd evo, I'm not all in on the combo kill plan. I flash in resto to block, he drops me to 5, I untap and evo my persisted finks into kiki. He slams path at kiki. I get kinda sad, make a million angels in response. He as great dude and super cool about it, but I still felt dirty.
Round 5
Temur Value with Elf and Jace
My buddy has 1 loss and ID's into Top 8. Mission accomplished. So at this point I'm in 5th place in the standings and somehow I can ID into top 8. I hate ID's, but I also don't want to be that guy to tell someone no when the offer and then somebody gets knocked out. Luckily I didn't have to make any decisions because my opponent did the math and there is a way that he doesn't get in if we ID, so he wants to play. Fine by me.
G1
He plays a goyf and I recur the same voice of resurgence 3 times with some rallier action. He goes into game 2 having no idea how to board. This matchup is great for us because they love tapping out on T2 and T4.
G2
I keep a fragile hand relying on my saheeli sticking around, and he keeps double goyf clique. I die.
G3
He taps out and I evo into sun titan with a Saheeli in my GY and on board.
Top 8 3rd seed
American Control My buddy plays against burn and gets there
G1
Combo him after he mulls to 6 and uses his interaction on a voice. Play a saheeli while his shields are down and find a cat.
G2
Game goes super long and I die to a Colonnade. 2 turns before I died I played 2 saheeli's. He quellerd one and logic knotted the other. Draws swings and pass. I untap and slam titan. Trigger get saheeli, -2 target titan eat a path. So close.
G3
Natural Combo in my hand on the play. He plays serum vision T1 and T2 after saying his keep was sketch. Dies.
Semifinals my buddy plays against his only loss in swiss (ponza) and pulls off the upset
UG Merfolk
This matchup is a a lot tougher the mono blue merfolk in my experience as they are faster and can kill Saheeli through combat easier, forcing you to play her after cat and delaying you a whole turn. As well you cant afford to fetch islands so casting Saheeli can be a problem.
G1
She keep a good no vial hand and I muck up the ground with a voice. Rallier beings it back and I play defense. I draw resto and with an evo in hand and have to fade 1 draw step of not drawing kiki jiki to win. I do and angels go fishing.
G2
I made a brutal mistake here, I had a voice out with Saheeli against 2 Silvergill Adepts while my opponent is stuck off green. I have 2 cats in hand. I cast cat, she unified wills. I say trigger voice, put cat in the gy, + Saheeli, go. Judge gets called by onlookers, I controlled 2 creatures to her 2 creatures and unified will shouldn't have countered. Whoops. They resolve it by putting cat on the battlefield during her turn, which I thought was confusing. I was fine with my misplay and leaving it in the GY, Albeit I had a 2nd in hand. She dismembers my cat, I untap and cat again.
Finals
I just don't want to play anymore and give it to my friend. It was a cool tournament, I'm glad I went, but frankly I played terribly and the deck won on its own with its consistency. Tamiyo was insane, to the point I am going to be getting a 2nd and testing her MD.
Monday
3-0 split 4rth round
Round 1 RG Stompy
Its a cool brew with that 3 drop haste wither dude. Even double rancored him G2, but died to combo both games
Round 2
UR Lanternless Lantern
MD rec sage showed up G1, G2 my opponent misplayed, naming the wrong cmc with whir in response to nahiri and I won going to time.
Round 3
Abzan Coco
This matchup is super draw dependent, as neither deck interacts well. Because voice isnt great here there fair plan is a lot better then ours so I concentrate on being the combo deck. I combo him fast G1, G2 he mulls to 6 and keeps a hand with Phyrexian Revoker. Names saheeli. Thing is, My lotus cobra goes unmolested, and I untap and kill him with felidar kiki combo on T3.
Round 4
I'm already qualified for the store championship this year and play a guy who needs the 4-0 to try to qualify later this week. I split with him and give him the win. He was on esper shadow and I like the matchup, as it is slower then other shadow variants with no TBR I win button.
Edit: Inability to words
I think you're making a good point here - the more unfair the format is, the more I want to jam the full 4 Cobras and lean into our explosive potential. As much as I loathe dork flood, that might be how we need to position right now.
That's all true and I'm aware of it, but my motivation was the following: With the extra dork, I want to make my starts better and I'm okay with giving up a little late game power for that. With my recent experiences and the Hartford top8 in mind, focusing on the early game seemed right to me. I've won many games after landing turn 2 Saheeli, Blade Splicer or Vengeful Rebel (or Evo for a sideboard card) and maybe even following that up with a 4-drop, and the only way to achieve that is with acceleration on turn 1 (Cobra and Oath are great, but they don't help me getting to to 3 mana on turn 2). With 7 dorks it didn't work as often as I wanted, so now (after Nassif's stream gave me the idea) I'm trying more than 7 and we'll see where that leads me.
Yesterday's tournament delivered exactly that: I won 2 games vs Amulet Titan because of my fast starts, once via damage, and once via combo. There is a very good chance I would have lost both games if I didn't have 3 mana on turn 2. And in my other matches it was similar: Getting on the board quickly mattered a lot, and even if 4 matches is no basis to draw any real conclusions yet, it just feels like the exact thing I want to be doing right now.
Also, I currently run 3 Horizon Canopy. I noticed myself sacrificing them quite early several times yesterday, which helped whenever I drew a lot of dorks + lands. This way I got both my explosive starts and could then cash in a mana source for a fresh card.
been following this thread for a while and love the deck. i've finally got round to building it in paper and want to online as well. i've just got a few questions regarding the deck and would love some help constructing.
- i'm unsure on how many dorks i want to be playing. a list from the most recent modern challenge played 4 bird/3 noble and shaved lotus cobra to two. the more dorks = fewer two drops?
- looking at the manabase it seems completely crazy to play magus of the moon/blood moon but so many lists are playing one or both now, can the deck operate smoothly through the moon effect?
- is 4 felidar guardian favoured over running a single one
Most lists have a sum of 7-9 Birds + Hiearchs + Cobras. If you choose to play lots of turn 1 accelerators and no Cobras, you can get away with a list leaning more on 3-drops. However, 2-drops are excellent in the deck because they enable Evolution really well. Sacrificing 1-drops doesn't allow you to find Felidar Guardian, and waiting for a 3-drop to sacrifice can be a little slow occasionally. (For example, you can go turn 1 Bird, turn 2 Saheeli, turn 3 cast a 2-drop, copy Bird with Saheeli to get an extra mana, then sac the 2-drop to Evolution into Felidar for the combo win.) Cobra-heavy builds usually include lots of Renegade Ralliers and a higher number of 5-drop creatures (often 3-4).
Blood Moon might seem crazy in a 4-colored deck, but in practice most versions are actually mostly GW decks with ~8 mana creatures, ~5 basics and ~10 fetchlands to find basics. Casting Saheeli is often trivial thanks to Oath of Nissa, which makes it surprisingly easy to operate under Blood Moon. It can hurt us a little, but with something like 1 Forest and 1 Bird we should be fine most of the time, and it helps us in tough matchups like Titanshift.
On the topic of Felidar Guardian, there are three points to balance: Firstly, Felidar Guardian is a underpowered card by itself. Even with the whole deck built around it, it's often low impact for a 4-drop, and drawing multiples isn't great. If your opponent has a lot of interaction, you might have nothing relevant to flicker, and the 1/4 body is neither a good attacker nor does it stop Goyfs, Hollow Ones or Eldrazi. Secondly, you obviously want access to the combo, and some builds lean heavily on that aspect of the deck (for example by adding Kiki), so they need to maximize their chances to actually draw the combo pieces by playing a high number of them. And finally, if you run only 1-2 Felidar Guardians, Evolution gets worse since Feldiar can be stuck in your hand or get removed by Path to Exile, which takes away one of the most important tutor targets. There isn't a clear consensus here on the number of Felidars, though most lists run at least 2. All in all, it depends on the direction you want to take.
My List
Round 1:
2-1, Played a friend of mine from Brisbane on Temur eternal command.
Game 1:
he spun his wheels pretty hard while I set up with finks/rhino/voice. He found a late vial and resolved a goyf but it wasn't enough to keep the team from hitting for lethal.
Game 2:
he told me afterwards he has half his bolts in the side, and I really felt the difference this game. Got bolted off dorks turn 1 and 2, then a chain of cryptic > vialed in snap > cryptic stranded me unable to resolve anything meaningful.
Game 3:
He hasn't actually seen the combo at this point, and thinks I'm on some kind of Abzan value list. I play the same as game 1, he doesn't hit a vial but hits his early goyfs and cryptics, I grind him out of answers before I unexpectedly combo him.
Round 2: Mardu pyromancer, 2-0
Game 1:
I resolve a siege rhino and evo for the other, copying 1 next turn with a topdecked saheeli for the concession.
Game 2:
I resolve a t2 pridemage into his t3 moon. The pridemage ended up dealing exactly 12 damage to him, as he fails to cast anything for 4 turns. he has access to BBR, I wonder what could possibly be in his hand, until I'm prompted to blow up the moon in response to a fatal push, I found out as he casts and flashbacks 3 souls over the course of the next 3 turns. he was at 5 at this point (3 from fetch shock, 12 from qasali), and things were looking grim for me, facing down 6 or so spirits, until he double fetched to 3 and let a siege rhino finish the game.
Round 3: Lantern, 2-0
Game 1:
he fails to find a bridge, or assemble a meaningful topdeck lock, and voice/unrevolted vengeful rebel beats seal game 1.
Game 2:
My opponent was running some spicy tech - he resolved a thopter foundry early on and was chumping my dudes until I evo'd for the rhino, trample was super relevant here.
My takeaway from the tournament, and the weekend, was that we can hide the combo fairly easily game 1, and it makes our opponents make drastically different sideboard choices, as both the lantern and Temur player didn't know about the combo until at least game 2.
Siege rhino was a total MVP, drew him heaps and he put in work.
I also played against a lot of bogles, and got taken to town by them, I could never really work myself into a position to drop Saheeli safely or blow them out with Cataclysmic Gearhulk.
I had some time to trawl through Hareruya's Saheeli lists, which usually yields some fairly spicy ideas, and it didn't disappoint. I found Hero of Bladehold in this list, has anyone tried her? I'm locating a copy to try and it seems super promising. turn 2 Saheeli into turn 3 hero results in a 3/4 blocker, 7 damage coming at the opponent and 2 1/1s hanging around next turn to smack for 9 damage on the following turn.
EDIT: Formatting, clarity
I have been playing 6 dork/2 cobra and have been liking it, but there has been discussion about the full 8 dorks to improve opening hands, which sounds like a good direction to be going.
With the amount of dorks we play moon is quite manageable - especially if we are dropping it on our own turns. the lists have 6-10 nonland sources of mana, can run anywhere from 3-5 basics, and with the help of oath of nissa we can cast saheeli for RRR. Certainly a potent sideboard card that doesn't hurt the deck much.
1 Felidar leaves you way too susceptible to a single path to exile ruining your chances of combo, most people are running 2-3, with some lists running the full 4.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Gobern's 7-0 list from the most recent Modern Challenge: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1046784#paper
As it has been explained to me, it occasionally eats Goblin Guides, Phoenixes, and the odd human. The real key, though, is it unlocks big Evolution plays against aggressive decks. Ambushing a Goblin Guide, then slamming a Thragtusk is a backbreaking sequence against Burn.
@Emzed, I'm still not sold on Fiery Justice over Engineered Explosive. Fiery Justice has a higher floor in situations where you're squeezed for mana, but EE has a significantly higher ceiling.
Qasali Ambusher is still intriguing. I think I'd like Ambusher more in aggro matchups if I could Evo it into a timely Gearhulk, which Gobern's list is missing... but maybe just having free Evo fodder for Felidar / Kiki is enough. Hard to say.
@Emzed: I would feel naked without some kind of disenchant effect in the 75.
First build of the deck
Took a lot of inspiration from Gobern's list from the Modern challenge.
I'd love some feedback on the list, mainly the sideboard. I put it together with my lgs meta in mind (lots of tron but a decent spread of meta decks including valakut, jeskai/ur control, bogles, infect, and hollow one). I'm not loving avalanche riders but wanted a card to hit tron/valakut that wasn't blood moon.
I'm a little torn on Magus of the Moon in the side vs main. It's probably the most broadly effective as a T2 "gotcha" game 1. But outside of those moments Magus doesn't seem that well positioned right now... It's a little squishy vs Jund and very ineffective vs Mardu, the two dominant tri-color midrange decks. It doesn't do much to Hollow One and Humans can sometimes ignore it with a Vial and/or Hierarch (although this is much less likely game 1). It doesn't do very much vs Burn and Storm. The only matchups where I really want Magus are Tron, Scapeshift, and maybe Bogles.
If I can get my copy of Shalai in on time I'll take this list on Friday:
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Noble Hierarch
4x Lotus Cobra
4x Voice of Resurgence
3x Renegade Rallier
2x Reflector Mage
4x Felidar Guardian
1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1x Sun Titan
Spells (12)
4x Oath of Nissa
4x Eldritch Evolution
4x Saheeli Rai
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Flooded Strand
2x Stomping Ground
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Breeding Pool
1x Temple Garden
2x Horizon Canopy
2x Forest
2x Plains
2x Stony Silence
2x Fiery Justice
1x Worship
2x Gaddock Teeg
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Acidic Slime
1x Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1x Thragtusk
I think Magus of the Moon is a good meta call right now. It just steals game 1 against Humans and Tron, which are 2 of the 3 best decks in the format.
Returning to Magus of the Moon, let's theorycraft a bit.
On the surface, a T2 Magus of the Moon during G1 vs Tron or Humans seems like a lockout, and I think this is more likely to be true if we play T2 Magus out of hand and get to keep our dork.
But we have 4x copies of Evo and one Magus, so the more likely line is T1 fetch for Forest + Bird -> T2 Evolve Bird into Magus. Best case we get to fetch for Plains T2, but having two fetches or a fetch + Plains is less likely.
In this scenario we've lost out accelerant and we're back to GR (maybe GW) mana and a 2/2 Magus. We can't cast Saheeli until we play another Dork or Oath. If we were relying on that Evo to grab Felidar Guardian it's gone now. We've slowed the opponent down several turns but we may also need to spend several turns getting our combo back on track.
Our fastest routes to victory after a T2 Evo'd Magus:
COMBO
T3 (2nd) Bird, T4 Saheeli, T5 Felidar
T3 Oath, T4 Saheeli, T5 Felidar
T3 ???, T4 Felidar Guardian, T5 Kiki or (2nd) Evo Magus into Kiki
T3 Cobra, T4 Saheeli copy Cobra, play 4th land, (2nd) Evo Cobra copy into Felidar
Most of these lines rely on hitting our 4th (or even 5th) land drop on time and/or drawing second copies of Birds and/or Evo, so I expect these to be a few turns slower in practice.
COMBAT
T3 Cobra, T4 Rallier -> -> -> Lethal T6
T3 Rallier, T4 Shalai -> -> -> Lethal T6
Against Humans a start with either T1 Vial or T1 Hierarch (~70% of opening hands) is going to stumble a bit, but I'm not sure that we've slowed them down significantly more than we've slowed ourselves down. With that said in the ~30% of games where they start without Vial or Hierarch an Evo'd Magus might provide a "free" win.
Against Tron a T2 Magus puts them off of Tron, obviously. If we can find the extra combo pieces and hit our land drops we might combo out T4-T6, or beat them down T6-T7. This puts them within reach of O-stone, and possibly Wurmcoil / Karn.
How do those lines look? Are they reliable, fast, and effective enough against what the opposing decks are doing to the point that it validates Magus in the MB? Or am I thinking about Magus incorrectly in this build -- perhaps he's less of a T2 Evo target and more of something you just try to mull into, or an opportunistic mid game Evo target?
I think we’ve seen enough evidence to know that Magus can steal random games and there’s definitely value to that, I’m just trying to mentally balance that against all the other games where we draw him and he either does nothing to the opponent while also failing to synergize with our core (in a build with 4x Felidars and Kiki we want as much ETB synergy as possible) or -- worse -- even makes our deck more awkward by turning off Fetches to hurt Cobra, Rallier, and generally make it harder to power out our top end.
Thoughts?