Teeg is definitely a very powerful card, and I'll admit that there should be at least one copy in the board. It can probably get filed with the Ethersworn Canonist in a "mistakes made because I'm in a Chord/Company deck" frame of mind. He'll pretty safely take the spot of the second Rule of Law effect in my board moving forward.
As far as Archmage and Unified Will go, I think that having some number of counterspells is definitely worth it in the board. Like you said, it's extremely hard to cover as much ground as Unified Will and Negate can, so I personally think that they're somewhat of a necessary evil. Holding up 1U is awkward, but as somewhat of a consolation prize, the Unified Will matchups (other than burn) are often less about jamming Finks or Courser on 3 and more about comboing, so it's slightly more bearable.
Magus is definitely fine against tricolor midrange decks, sometimes it's just going to be a liability when drawn, but overall it's relatively low cost for the ability to have a blowout. Be aware of your opponents though, often having to respect a Moon effect is going to be nearly as strong as landing the Moon. Against Eldrazi Tron and Bant, I would 100% bring in every Blood Moon I had. Eldrazi Tron has the capability to go so far over the top of what we're doing with Planeswalkers, Smasher, and massive Ballista that we want both the dorks and Blood Moons to leverage any speed advantage we can get - even if Moon is far from a hard lock, buying a couple turns is immense. Bant Eldrazi has pretty much the greediest manabase that exists in Modern, and Blood Moon is absolutely backbreaking against them, as they're basically a 4 color non-red deck. Add in the fact that they play two basics and zero fetches to find them in the first couple turns, Moon is basically unbeatable - even if I wanted to board my dorks out (I don't in this matchup) I would still have Moon as an autowin. It's also worth noting that neither one of these decks have the critical mass of removal/discard/counters that make manadorks especially bad.
Also, two other notes on Blood Moon. First, I took a quick look at your sideboarding chart a few posts back, and it looks pretty good but I would note what you're taking out as that's just as important. Other than disagreeing with Moon against Shadow and Junk, the only other thing I'd say is that you should 100% bring in Blood Moon against Ad Nauseam. The deck only has two basics with zero fetches, and whenever I'm playing Ad Naus I find it harder to beat than Chalice, Eidolon, or Stony because it destroys my ability to cantrip for Echoing Truth or other answers. The other thing is that you might want to consider a different sideboard card for the Blood Moon spot. I think that Fulminator and Avalanche Riders are underwhelming, but Crumble to Dust is a very strong contender for the slot. Generally it's better against Gx Tron, comparable against Eldrazi Tron, and good against UWx where Moon isn't even worth bringing in. The tradeoff is that it's a bit worse against Valakut decks, and not generally worth boarding against Bant Eldrazi or Ad Nauseam. If your chart of decks in your metagame is accurate, then I would probably stick on Moon but it's worth considering for the future.
Also, I figure that I might as well share the (very slightly) changed list that I might play tomorrow if I decide audible off of Storm. Still thinking about Misty over the Horizon Canopy, and I'd have a Linvala on me to swap into the board over Keranos depending on which players I see showing up 5-10 minutes before the event starts, but overall I'm fairly confident in this list.
Thanks VenocStorm. I'm working on what I'm taking out for each of those matchups, I will update my chart when I'm done this week. And yes the list of decks in my meta is relatively accurate AFAIK. I will try to find room for at least one copy of Unified Will... trying to decide between shaving Stony Silence #2, Gaddock Teeg #2, Blood Moon #2, and Linvala.
A few comments on your updated list: pretty much every player here has settled on the full playset of Voices, trimming Wall if necessary. One my favorite plays is to tick Saheeli down to copy Voice, play Felidar to flicker Saheeli, then tick her down to copy Felidar. If your opponent tries to interact to stop the combo you get two free Elemental tokens which can help you to stall until you line up another combo attempt and sometimes even win the game themselves. The deck is also a little softer to Ux control than some other instant-speed Toolbox decks, so having the set of Voices is really helpful there as well. If you have a 4th copy available I'd really recommend it.
I think you can replace your Fire-Lit Thicket with your 10th fetch. If you're not trying to cast Kiki anymore the red filtering seems unnecessary, whereas the 10th fetch will help to turn on Rallier more reliably and generally improve your mana / mull consistency.
Might Sigarda be a more effective "Bx midrange can't beat this" card than Keranos with additional application to All is Dust and easier casting cost?
3/3 split vs. 4/2 on Voice/Wall is something that would be hard to nail down in testing, and I think that it's close enough that I'll follow the conventional wisdom and go with 4 Voice then.
As far as the lands, you're absolutely right that Thicket can become a different land without the need to cast Kiki. This also opens me up to shaving to one Stomping Ground, and not worrying so much about every one of my lands hitting Stomping Ground. Right now I think that they can get cut for some combination of Flooded Strand, Horizon Canopy, and Temple Garden. I'm leaning slightly to Strand/Canopy right now, but double Canopy might be excessive.
For Sigarda, she's definitely a very powerful card against BGx, but I'm less comfortable jamming her in a world with plenty of Supreme Verdict and Gurmag Angler. Keranos might not be the right answer, but I'd lean more towards Chameleon Colossus or Whipserwood Elemental than Sigarda right now, depending on if I wanted a Shadow/BGx or UWx/BGx focused card.
Right now I think I'm happy with Sun Titan. The utility of being a combo piece with double Saheeli and also a finisher on its own is great. Also, I think that having one very powerful six-drop to find off evolving Felidar is good. I will admit that part of this is (slightly) due to the fact that Sun Titan has been one of my favorite cards from back when I first started playing, and I love my Japanese prerelease copy. In a meta where I wanted to lower my curve, I would probably put a Huntmaster in this slot, though more realistically I'd play a different deck.
Personally I'm happy for Nathan's success and glad the deck's putting up results but I can't tell if his list is expertly crafted to his expected meta or just unfocused between the singleton Chord, 3x Oath / Felidar / Saheeli and the fairly GY-intensive top-end Of Lark and Titan. I'd be curious to read a write-up on his deckbuilding choices and matches.
Worship has come up here a few times and probably warrants further consideration.
just started playing this deck, I don't have a ton of experience with it yet but it seems like a really interesting concept.
I wanted to mention that a lot of the decks posted here have reclamation sage in the sideboard. Great card, and I understand it being the default, but isn't harmonic sliver a potentially better option? I have less than ten games on MODO but its already come up twice where saheeli copying harmonic sliver for a double naturalize has been game winning.
Not sure if the synergy with saheeli is worth the slightly more difficult casting cost and smaller stats, but I think its at least worth mentioning.
Harmonic Sliver is interesting. 1GW isn't really any harder for the deck than 2G -- we can usually cast either through Blood Moon and it makes no difference for Evolution -- and I rarely attack with Rec Sage to keep it around for flickering/copying anyways. I will try this substitution, thanks.
The other thing worth noting is that Harmonic Sliver's ability is not a "may" effect. I think it'd be pretty rare for this to backfire but worth mentioning.
It took me a minute to understand it, too: the copy of Harmonic Sliver has both its own ability and the ability given to it by the original Sliver, thus the double naturalize.
How is Chord good with Titan? I'm not sure I follow there.
Nathan's list is wild. I'll admit, I don't quite get how it hangs together other than really hoping to draw the right stuff in the right sequence. A number of the singletons (Cobra, Wall of Omens, Chord without Wall of Roots) are pretty weird. If it's working well for him, that's awesome, but I'm not getting it on first glance.
VenocStorm, you've articulated the Blood Moon scenarios quite well, thank you. I see people side it in against any tricolor deck they see, and it can be worse than time walking themselves.
After a bit of hiatus, I'm back to testing Saheeli for the RPTQ next month. I've recently fallen in love with Domri Rade, and how it interacts with Courser.
Lotus Cobra's best attribute was getting people with their shields down. They'd see a Cobra, and no other combo pieces, tap out, and die to a burst of mana and the wombo. I love the explosions, but I don't want to lean on my opponents sloppy play to steal wins as the competition gets stiffer. I've been liking the single Recruiter Rallier as it can occasionally enable a silly sequence, while contributing to a grindy game when needed. Domri Rade has been surprisingly strong. I tried it on a whim, and have been delighted by the action it generates. 22 creatures is right on the edge of acceptable for his plus, but quickly gets out of control when paired with Courser. Domri on turn 2 is one of the best things we can do against U/W/x. We're a legitimate threat to plus him right up to the ult, and turn the game into a nightmare for them. There's still a lot of room for tinkering with the sideboard, but I'm going to try out Keranos for grindy matchups.
Your points about Lotus Cobra are fair. For most metas I agree that it makes sense to trade them out for something more consistent, I'm just clinging on to them to keep up with the disproportionate amount of linear aggro decks in my local meta. But I'll try a 3rd Hierarch and Duskwatch Recruiter as well. I was also thinking about running 1x Spellskite over one of my Walls.
I like running the first copy of Courser of Kruphix a lot but I wasn't totally happy with the second one when I was running it since they don't synergize with Saheeli/Felidar/Evo very well and its filtering ability doesn't stack in multiples. With this in mind I'm personally reluctant to further build off of Courser with Domri, although I do appreciate you bringing the spice. One suggestion might be to give Lark another shot with Domri since his -2 is another way to favorably kamikaze your Lark into something for value (I was thinking about doing the same with Dromoka's Command).
I agree with Maniospas that your number of good flicker targets seems to be dipping too low for my tastes, but you also have a lot of filtering so maybe you'll make up for the low number of targets by finding the good ones slightly more reliably... I don't know. Good luck! Eager to hear how more about how it handles.
I'm surprised that you guys raised concerns about the flicker targets given my original list wasn't any better on that front. Note, Rallier was often not a great flicker target. Getting another land is fine, but hardly excited after the initial burst window. That said, I hardly ever find myself wanting for good flicker targets, and often just blinking a Domri, or a land and playing something else is fine given what we want Guardian to do.
Lot of nice discussion going on, nice to see you back Seifer as well.
@Shelldell Spellskite for a long time was a usual MB 1 of for kiki, and its odd how card seems to have totally fallen out of favor everywhere. The good news is this deck can get more U mana consistently avoiding the life loss. Bad news is it is a card helped by running chord as its a solid 2CC to fetch in response to removal/pump. I'd say if you're at 3 walls then trying 1 out instead should be fine. I think it's fall out of favor also coincided with the fall of infect as that one one of the srongest cards against them. I also agree that 2nd courser can feel bad without something able to loot 2nd copy away. I like as a 1 of for now. Seems in seifer's list the purpose of 2nd is same as my nahiri list to try to get more value of the other planeswalker.
Seems lotus cobra is new card on the potential chopping block, which makes sense as it can be winmore and not a great value in of itself. A more consistent winning deck probably does drop them in the end, kind of like how the best death shadow in the end wasn't the uber speed temur battle rage build
@Siefer my initial reaction to domri was "Oh yeah, awesome!". Then thought about it and turned out more "ehhh...idk". I have flirted with using domri in EDH where I had more deathtouch creatures to take advantage of the -2. As I see it domri to get value needs to play as a sort of liliana of the veil. The +1 gettng you card advantage, and -2 being somewhat consistent creature removal. The +1 is good here potentially but the synergy with courser is with a card at same 3CC so you can't properly curve into it. Yes felidar can flicker it but if you don't know top card you could show a land and get nothing. Main issue is -2 seems unreliable. With eldrazi and death shadow popular we don't have the creatures to fight often. Its good for devoted druid combo sure, but feels like a lot of decks its going to set us back. I myself was pushing Nahiri, the Harbinger before and it seems similar to domri (more consistent) just was also at precious 4cc slot.
Sideboard is interesting, btw for the unified wills, merfolk started to use Disdainful Stroke if main intended target is valakut decks or tron as more consistent option, fyi. Also seems you're still going with forge tender, haven't been seeing in recent lists here.
I'm wondering if anyone has tested or discussed a build with the full 8 one-drop mana dorks? Many of the most successful creature decks in modern (elves, counters company, humans, knightfall) use this strategy.
I know we're not a company deck, but leading with a dork seems really powerful in a deck like ours, especially with a walker to drop on turn 2.
VenocStorm, you've articulated the Blood Moon scenarios quite well, thank you. I see people side it in against any tricolor deck they see, and it can be worse than time walking themselves.
As it seems that most agree with this, I'd like to dig a little into it so you can enlighten me if I'm wrong.
I haven't played with kiki-chord, but I'm a fan of the archetype and know the lists. They have a mess of a manabase playing hard to cast things in 4 colors. It would make sense that under Blood Moon they have to rely on dorks, not only for all the colors, but also having green creatures for the XGGG spell that they build around.
This would be true for the versions that we were experimenting with in the last few pages with heavier U or B splashes and whatnot, but the Blood Moon idea came in the "perfecting" version 1.0. We are just a GW deck splashing Saheeli with Oaths. That's the reason Moon didn't hurt us when opponents brought it in. It's not just dorks, we have 3 Forest, 2 Plains, 10-11 Fetches and spells to match.
Now that most people are going back to the GW core splashing Saheeli, it's back to WW being the craziest mana requirement we have. We can play most of the deck with a forest and a plains, we need 2nd G for 4-6 cards, 2nd W for 1 card and a U for Saheeli if no Oaths.
I thought this is why we are a very good moon deck. With dorks we can just play a normal game, without, we slow down to 1 spell a turn but majority of our cards are live, while the same is very likely not true for the opponent.
Board is mainly GW, too. We can have a bit more U after boarding which the players acknowledged, so it's a question of figuring out what you board alongside Moon and have a plan for that.
Are you going to 0 dorks vs Jund/Abzan and control? I cut Hierarchs when I want "every card to do something", but I considered birds somewhat a must for the T3 combo potential and just getting ahead. 0 dorks seems crazy to me, you are just slowing down to control's speed. I'd go down a felidar or two before cutting first bird. Am I doing it wrong?
Against almost every single deck with Push/Path/Thoughtseize/Terminate/Decay/Cryptic/etc, the first cards I'm cutting from my deck are Birds and Hierarch, because I want every card to actually do something.
If going 0 dorks is correct I would like someone to name matchups, because a lot was thrown in there that can't be true.
Worst thing for dorks is Verdict that isn't even there. Still not sure I would sacrifice the speed vs Control, curious what you all do.
Push/Sieze/Terminate is Death's Shadow where you probably don't side out dorks?
With the classic midrange decks I could see it, but our value is stretching them pretty well and getting the mana adv. isn't worthless as they always trade up in mana.
@Shelldell Spellskite for a long time was a usual MB 1 of for kiki, and its odd how card seems to have totally fallen out of favor everywhere. The good news is this deck can get more U mana consistently avoiding the life loss. Bad news is it is a card helped by running chord as its a solid 2CC to fetch in response to removal/pump. I'd say if you're at 3 walls then trying 1 out instead should be fine. I think it's fall out of favor also coincided with the fall of infect as that one one of the srongest cards against them.
Right now I'm trying to decide on a MB utility 2-drop between Spellskite, Selfless Spirit, Duskwatch Recruiter, and Scavenging Ooze.
Spellskite +Can shave damage off Burn spells & Valakut triggers
+Shuts down Modular schemes, steals Plating, blocks Etched Champion vs Affinity
+Can take a bullet to insulate combo against any type of spot removal vs Midrange & Control
+Works well with Rallier
-Applies zero pressure
Selfless Spirit +Aggressive, evasive damage promotes beatdown plan B, especially with 3rd Hierarch
+Can answer all wraths except All is Dust
+Can protect the combo against non-exiling removal
+Works well with Rallier
+Best copy target of the utility 2-drops?
Duskwatch Recruiter +Mana sink
+Dig for combo pieces / beaters as needed
+Provides non-GY-dependent card advantage
+Transform can be useful to cast curve toppers when mana constrained..
-Transform can be inconvenient when you want to keep using its draw ability
Scavenging Ooze +Mana sink
+gives the deck some much-welcomed GY hate
+Life gain & growing body is useful in almost all moderately-paced fair matches
-Weak to bounce effects
-Without extra mana & GY targets available can be a 2/2 bear
I think you might need to rethink duskwatch recruiter. I've played with a lot of different devoted druid lists and I can tell you it's more of a necessary evil than something you want to be actively playing.
Three Mana is insanely expensive - even in decks with way more Mana creatures and all-creature combos it's a grizzly bear 75% of the time.
I think if you're looking for a fragile high reward 2/2 I would go with fauna shaman. Card is just as good in board stalls and doesn't require the same mana investment
Going for maximum value as Plan A with 9 (!) flicker effects and 17 ETB targets not including Saheeli and then making the combo more of an incidental Plan B? Probably good against slower fair decks, looks like it needs a lot of hate to shore up the unfair matchups.
Coiling Oracle probably isn't doing much ramp with 18 lands (30% ramp rate) and I'm unsure of Vial in this list.
If anyone watches the videos before I can get to it I'd be curious to read a summary of the matches.
@Shelldell, I just finished LSV's video, and I think you're analysis is on target. It looks like this list is trading speed, combo consistency, and the Evo toolbox for a bunch of midrange value/blink shenanigans. He looked like he had no chance against Storm (possibly the #1 deck right now). Also, consider how many more outs (4-6) our lists have to the board position LSV found himself in game 2 against EldraziTron. It's a super sweet list, but I'm not sure it's where we want to be right now.
Hey thanks for posting my list @e032. It was a great tournament; I was lucky enough to dodge storm until top8. To the best of my recollection, my matches were as follows:
I will begin talking about my list, my card selections, and why I made them. But first, I just want to give a little back story. Feel free to skip down if you're only interested in the decklist discussion.
Back Story:
When I first got into modern I actually played Mono Black devotion with Geralf's Messenger, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Grey Merchant, among others. The linchpin of the deck was being able to play a turn 2 Geralf's Messenger or Liliana of the Veil with the help of Deathrite Shaman. Then, right before GP Richmond, DRS got banned. At this point I had already invested so much of my time, energy, and money, that I didn't have an option to change decks. I swapped DRS with more removal and played at GP Richmond anyways. Believe it or not, the deck sucked. I scrubbed out after 4 or 5 rounds and signed up for the "Modern Redemption" event. It was basically a losers bracket, not unlike the Modern Classic this past weekend. In this redemption tournament, I played against an Abzan Birthing Pod deck, and got absolutely crushed. But after that match, I knew exactly what deck I wanted to play moving forward. Before leaving the GP, I dumped half of my Black Devotion list to vendors to pick up some of the staples of the Pod List and had the deck built by the start of the summer. The deck was insane, as I'm sure most of you remember. I played it at just about every modern event I could participate in.
Then the following January, I was devastated to find out about the Birthing Pod banning. After Pod was banned, I floated from deck to deck for months until finally settling on Infect. While playing infect nearly full time, I picked up a unique deck that was getting some buzz. The deck was Kiki-Chord and with the publicity of it being championed by modern all-star Jeff Hoogland, the deck really grew in popularity. It really appealed to me because of all the different choices you could make throughout the game, getting to play some long-time favorite cards of mine, and being able to really out-value and out-grind your opponents into submission. I played this and infect for a while, until the Gitaxian Probe banning. Luckily by this time, I had built up my collection to the point where I was able to port the "dead" modern infect list into legacy infect. That left me still playing Kiki-Chord throughout "Eldrazi Winter". I felt that Kiki-Chord had a fairly good matchup against the eldrazi menace, and at the time the oppressiveness of the deck was keeping some of Kiki-Chord's bad matchups out of the meta. When Eye of Ugin got the ban hammer those fast, linear combo decks started to come out of the woodwork, and Kiki-Chord started to fall out of favor. About a month later I competed in SCG Open Baltimore, which did not end up going well. However, I did end up gaining some insight on my deck. After losing to one of my opponents, he complimented my deck and said that he used to play something similar. He mentioned that he had recently changed the list to accommodate Saheeli Rai and Felidar Guardian as a different way to win, and he said the change was working really well for him. After that match I immediately picked up what I needed to try the new list, and the rest is history.
Decklist Discussion:
I have been playing a version of this list for about 5 months now. During which time, I have made some changes to fit my play-style as well as to adapt to the meta for each event. One of my friends played a similar list in the main event on Saturday. He played a list with 3x Renegade Rallier and 2x Lotus Cobra. Up until this point, I wasn't playing a single copy of either in my 75. However, based on some of the explosive plays my friend had boasted to me about, I wanted to try them out, as well as a ghost quarter to go along with the Ralliers.
Creatures
I was running 3x Voice and 2x Wall of Omens, but with the rise of UWx control decks, I decided to go 4-1 respectively. Haven't been too impressed with Wall of Omens. I have played a variety of utility three drops throughout my time playing the deck. Without black in the deck, the deck needed a Shriekmaw/FlametongueKavu sort of effect to combat decks like Eldrazi, Shadow, as well as midrange strategies. I felt like Relfector mage perfectly fit this role, and I have been thrilled with it since it's inclusion. Eternal Witness is just an absolute auto-include in my opinion. Some matches you get back a threat, some times she lets you Path another creature. Overall it's just incredible. Kitchen finks is a nod to the burn/aggro decks I expect to see at larger tournaments. Its also good against Jund and Shadow as they generally have to use two removal spells. I had Magus and Rec Sage in the maindeck for a while, but I decided to leave these "silver-bullet" type cards in the sideboard for the larger event. Even when I was playing the Kiki-Chord version, I was playing 4-5 four drops, so I knew the manabase could handle it. I never felt like I needed a full playset of Restoration Angels in the previous build, so I decided to only run 3x Felidar Guardian. I wanted to be able to get some more utility out of my four drops. I think Pia & Kiran Nalaar is outstanding in a lot of matchups, primarily Affinity. Huntmaster is great against the midrange decks, the other creature-combo decks, as well as against burn. Overall, I like Reveillark quite a bit, but in this current list, you could make an argument for cutting it, considering the number of 3-power creatures we're running. Kiki-Jiki is a big part of the combo, but it's also a huge value engine. He can be difficult to cast sometimes, but unless you're moving away from the combo entirely, I would never cut Kiki-Jiki. Sun Titan has actually been amazing. You can routinely get to 6 mana on turn 4 or 5, sometimes earlier with the help of Lotus Cobra or Saheeli Rai. Every time he hit's the table, he is just heart attack good. He always shifts the entire momentum and pace of the game in your favor. He really shines in the Eldrazi, Jund/Midrange, and Control Matchups. He works incredibly well with Saheeli as she can copy him to get two return triggers in a single turn; and then you have the Sun Titan combo when you have two Saheeli's. Despite his high mana cost, I've been extremely impressed with Sun Titan.
Spells and Mana
I tried out playing 4x Eldritch Evolution for a brief period, and it was great against the midrange decks with a lot of removal, but the card is abysmal against control decks for the most part. Remand and other counter-magic can really be backbreaking. Chord of calling can be played at the end of a control players turn to try to free up a big play on your own turn. Being able to cast chord at instant speed and sometimes by using little to no mana really adds a lot of surprise factor. The other benefit to having the Chord as well as the Eterntal Witness is that it gives you the ability to make the classic Kiki-Chord chain: Chord for E-Wit to get back Chord, Chord for Felidar to flicker E-Wit to get back Chord, then Chord for Kiki for the win. It takes 3 turns to do it, but it can all be done off of one Chord of Calling. For all of these reasons, I believe 1x Chord of Calling is a great addition to the deck. Generally speaking, the deck doesn't care too much about large creatures. You have the ability to go bigger with Voice of Resurgence tokens or go wide with Pia & Kiran or Huntmaster. My other friend playing the deck doesn't like Path at all because it's a 2-for-1. However, I think it's a catch-all and a necessary evil to be able to handle any threat, small or big; from Vizier of Remedies to Wurmcoil Engine. With E-Wit in the deck and the argument I made about large creatures we can justify cutting a copy of Path.
From my experience playing the deck, Saheeli Rai is by far the worst card in the 75. There are scenarios where she's great and she's making a copy of your Reflector mage and tempo-ing out your opponent. But most of the time, you plus her once and she dies to a flyer or a tarmogoyf. Against aggro and combo decks, she just feels so clunky. You're playing her on turn 2/3 and just dying the next turn before you can untap and try to combo or build value. For these reasons, I decided to shave a Saheeli so I wouldn't have as many dead draws. The last non-creatures are the Oath of Nissa's. I don't have a good reason not to be playing 4x Oaths. The card is great; it gives you an early play if you don't have a dork, and it finds both halves of your combos. And with only playing 3x Saheeli, I should be playing more ways to find her. I regret not playing all 4; that will definitely change moving forward. As far as mana goes, I think I am playing the correct amount of mana sources (27). However, I could consider cutting a land to add a 6th mana dork. I'd have to do some testing to see if this change is worth it. I was very happy with my Ghost Quarter addition for this event. Without the Magus in the main, the ghost quarter gives the deck some maindeck help against big mana decks, which this type of deck generally struggles against. It also works really well in conjunction with Renegade Rallier.
Sideboard
Before I address the sideboard in detail, I just want to clarify a mistake that SCG made when posting my list online. My sideboard contains 2x Lightning Helix, NOT 2x Lightning Bolt.
I think sideboards in general are supposed to be very adaptable. You want to be able to change them to reflect the current meta, whether that's your store meta for FNM or the overall meta for a large tournament. You also want cards that have overlapping uses and aren't just designed to be brought it for one particular match-up. For example, you might bring in Thragtusk against aggro decks like Burn and Affinity to combat life loss. But you might also want to bring it in against Jund, Eldrazi, and Control decks because its such as resilient threat. There are exceptions to this rule however. Storm is a terrible match-up for the deck, so you pretty much have to play a dedicated hate card like Eidolon of Rhetoric in the sideboard. The same thing goes with Stony Silence against affinity. However, Stony Silence is still a decent sideboard card against Tron and Eldrazi, not to mention Lantern and KCI Combo. Reclamation sage falls under this umbrella as well. Selfless Spirit is for decks with board wipes obviously. But its also good at pressuring planeswalkers or protecting Saheeli against decks that have a lot of flyers, like UW Spirits or UB Faeries. Worship is for the match-ups where your opponent is ignoring your creatures and going straight to your face. Eldrazi and Burn are good examples of this. Worhip has been hit or miss for me. I've had opponents scoop on the spot to a resolved Workship. But sometimes you just die before you can even cast it; not sold on it quite yet. Glen Elendra Archmage has been phenomenal; you can see the eye-roll from my opponent every time I play her. Unified Will has been very hit-or-miss. Sometimes its backbreaking for your opponent. And sometimes they can just kill one of you guys in response to nullify the spell entirely. Lightning Helix is great against burn and other creature combo decks like Abzan CoCo, Elves, and decks like ours. Phyrexian Revoker is very good against Planeswalkers, which this deck really struggles against. It is also boarded in against the Tron variants that run Oblivion Stone. Magus of the Moon is for the big mana decks like Scapeshift, Tron, Eldrazi, as well as for the 3-color control decks.
Wrap Up
I would love to hear more feedback about the deck, as well as any suggestions you guys have for changes or additions to the list. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience with the deck! And tell me your stories playing 4-color Saheeli!
Funny extra story about the Modern Classic in Charlotte:
The event started at 9am. I was planning on doing legacy at 10am, but I decided at 8:47am to audible and jam modern. Because the deck is a pile of 1-of's, I actually gave my decklist to the judges a couple minutes after they collected. The judge then sat down next to me and told me that I would receive a game loss in round 1 because of my "late decklist submission rules infraction". I figured it would be a slap on the wrists, but to my surprise, this rule is taken very seriously. I decided to appeal the judge call to the Head Judge of the event. Luckily she was merciful and waived the game loss penalty. I then rushed to my the pairings board and made it to my seat for round 1.
Personally I'm happy for Nathan's success and glad the deck's putting up results but I can't tell if his list is expertly crafted to his expected meta or just unfocused between the singleton Chord, 3x Oath / Felidar / Saheeli and the fairly GY-intensive top-end Of Lark and Titan. I'd be curious to read a write-up on his deckbuilding choices and matches.
Worship has come up here a few times and probably warrants further consideration.
Well, an SCG Classic is a pretty large event, so it's tuned to the meta at large rather than the 30-40 person LGS metas that I'd normally consider tuning to. Overall I really like the look of it, with Huntmaster and only 3x Oath. Bolt is pretty interesting from the board, especially considering there's no Staticaster.
Congrats to Nathan for the top8!
It's a bit too heavy on lategame threats for my liking, but maybe that was what the metagame was calling for. Actually, Pia & Kiran is a really good call against Affinity, which has become a thing again, but I keep all my doubts concerning double red.
Agreed that 2RR is tricky, but if you look at his manabase, it makes a lot of sense, he's pretty heavy toward red with Fire-Lit, Grove, Raging Ravine, and Steam Vents.
How is Chord good with Titan? I'm not sure I follow there.
I think what he's saying is that even with one Felidar Guardian gone, you still have 4 creatures that will combo with Saheeli, so there's still enough of them that control can't kill every one, compared to chewing through 3 Felidars wouldn't be too tough. I don't think it's really that relevant, but I don't inherently disagree with Chord over 4th Guardian.
With regards to Harmonic Sliver, the card is definitely sweet, and it gives more incentive to play with Phantasmal Image (especially sweet with a Chord in the deck) so that's something I welcome.
EDIT:
Well, somehow I missed that there was another page, and only replied to page 17 stuff. I'll just edit in here rather than make another post.
As far as dorks, I think that they're definitely cuts against control. Sure, they can help with speed to get things underneath Cryptic/Snap-Leak/etc, but realistically we aren't set up to win that quickly against control decks anyway so the dorks are just air. Against midrange boarding out dorks follows the same logic as why Jund or Abzan will usually side out their targeted discard in mirrors - the games come down to the top of the deck, and you can't afford to have dead draws. Even against Shadow, we aren't a deck that they're looking to get quick kills on or Battle Rage out of the game - we can force them to go long. Comparing the likelyhood of comboing early against the Thoughtseize/Push/Terminate deck, going long sounds like a way better plan to me, so no dorks.
For Blood Moon, I still believe that this isn't a Blood Moon deck because we aren't built to take advantage of it in the same way that Skred, Ponza, or even Blue Moon are. It's fine as an "I win" against the right decks, but things like tricolor midrange or Shadow (which is really just tricolor midrange...) are concerned, Moon is just "ok" against those decks, so I think that it should stay in the board. I also think that having to play 3 Forest 2 Plains is more of a concession to the fact that you have Blood Moon in your deck rather than something that enables Moon. Also, it's somewhat self-defeating that Blood Moon or Magus is a known quantity from the board out of the GWRx creature toolbox decks,so opponents can very easily fetch around it to minimal downside. Especially because there are no land destruction effects (Ghost Quarter doesn't really count in this context) in the 75, Blood Moon can very easily do nothing against a lot of decks.
Duskwatch Recruiter is awkward because I think that he's being underrated, while also not at his best in this deck. For Abzan Company, I often think he's the best creature in the deck alongside Eternal Witness, and singlehandedly lets you stay in games that you'd otherwise have no business winning. Especially against Control or Midrange without an immediate clock on board, activating Recruiter is the best thing you can do short of hitting Witness off Company. However, in this deck, the lack of Company's cmc restriction means that it's very often going to be harder to activate him while playing another creature to the board if necessary. However, the flip side is better here, which wile not as big a deal is worth considering. Overall I'm not sure if he's good enough, but almost certainly he's better than Fauna Shaman.
Lastly, congrats on the top8, Nate. Glad to see you showing up in this thread.
As I see it, we can do this two ways. We can ask questions about the differences between what this thread arrived at and what you play, or if you are willing, you could sleeve up the core we like and just tell us
The curve: Are you happy running the 8 4+ drops? I didn't like it in testing, prefer to keep it closer to 6 otherwise I noticed some hand-clumping. On top of that you play less ramp, generally we use 6 1cmc dorks, 0-2 cobra and 1-3 rallier. Again, when I played the deck with just 6 dorks it was slower than I'd like.
The 1ofs: How do the 1ofs perform for you in an Evolution deck? Seems like most of us came to 4c Saheeli from Chord, but it doesn't take long to realize Evo is not Chord. I was happier switching from the "toolbox" approach to having more universal 1ofs on top of the curve. From that point of view the 1of Reflector Mage, Cobra, P&K, Wall seem a little unfocused. How do you draw Reflector mage in Eldrazi and Pia and Kiran in Affinity?
I didn't mind Reflector Mage when I tried it but it's not an effect I'd Evo for, even blink with Guardian isn't that exciting when we're backing up the tempo with 2/3 and 1/4 on the ground. I chose to focus on furthering our plan instead of trying to hit these favorable 1ofs in the exact matchup.
Pia and Kiran is fine, I don't play it mostly because of the RR cost, but it is a little narrower than some other options. At least it's worth Evoing into in the right matchup.
IMO you can play 2 Resto Angel in Chord because of the Chord. It plays the silver bullet, stall-out game much better. Saheeli wants to combo asap, we can't hang out in a game that long. That's why the 4 Saheeli 4 Felidar is preffered. How much do you T3 combo? Isn't it worth it to maximalize that?
What does Saheeli Evo in this config. give you over Kiki Chord? If you prefer that playstyle aren't you playing worse combo cards? The advantage of Saheeli Guardian is the mana cost - it's faster and easier on the manabase.
For Blood Moon, I still believe that this isn't a Blood Moon deck because we aren't built to take advantage of it in the same way that Skred, Ponza, or even Blue Moon are.
I agree that we don't take advantage of Blood Moon quite as well as the decks you listed, but I don't have a better plan against Titanshift / Eldrazi / Tron. Running Magus of the Moon and 1+ copy of Blood Moon in the side seems like a necessary evil against these decks, no?
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@e302: I agree with most of your post with a few minor exceptions:
I would argue that the 2x Lotus Cobras, 2nd Rallier, 4th Path, Thragtusk, and Sun Titan can all be really excellent somewhere in the 75 but their inclusion
in the MB is still somewhat of a meta call as we've seen successful lists without each of them. I would personally lump them into the flex slots.
I didn't mind Reflector Mage when I tried it but it's not an effect I'd Evo for, even blink with Guardian isn't that exciting when we're backing up the tempo with 2/3 and 1/4 on the ground.
When I was running Reflector Mage I didn't usually Evo for it. The exceptions were (1) when they had a creature such as Thalia, Heretic Cathar that prevented me from comboing and I had the combo ready to go, (2) when I knew or had reason to suspect that they had another copy of the reflected card in hand that would also get caught by the casting block, and (3) against Delve and other threats that I knew they wouldn't be able to recast easily. While I agree that our board pressure isn't always strong, I think the fact that we can suddenly combo out means that our overall Tempo (both real and "virtual") is perhaps better than you give it credit for. Furthermore, Saheeli alternating between cloning Reflector Mage and Scrying has bought me several turns against aggro before, enough to close out some close games.
I do agree that the major draws to building around Saheeli are the potential to build a consistent, lower-pain manabase and the ability to more reliably threaten the opponent with an early combo or proactive value-beats. It's hard for me to say how much you gain vs lose when you start splashing in Kiki-Chord pieces and their requisite manabase... to what extent does it make the plan more resilient and flexible, and to what extent does it make it less consistent? I'm really glad that we have VenocStorm and NateG in here to offer some good perspective on both angles.
"As I see it, we can do this two ways. We can ask questions about the differences between what this thread arrived at and what you play, or if you are willing, you could sleeve up the core we like and just tell us Smile"
-e032
I am by no means an expert on the deck. However, I have been playing some version of the deck for over a year now. I have played with only chords and wall of roots. I've played the Kiki-Nahiri version with Emrakul. I've tried a blue version before saheeli was printed with chords and eldritch evolutions. I have played a black version with orzhov pontiff and shriekmaw. And now I am back to playing blue because of saheeli rai. Every iteration has its strengths and weaknesses, but I've always loved the deck. Normally, I would prefer to keep Kiki-Jiki and more red cards; you guys seem to want to go very heavy GW, just barely splashing UR. However, this is for SCIENCE! I will try out something very similar to your shell tomorrow at FNM. Haven't really decided on an exact sideboard yet, but here is the list I will play:
Good luck! Thanks for taking the time to test this list, I think it will make comparison between the lists much easier and move us along to something more optimal faster.
I will also be playing tomorrow night, though I haven't finalized my 75 yet. I would try out your list but I don't have Kikki or the lands to run it at the moment.
As far as Archmage and Unified Will go, I think that having some number of counterspells is definitely worth it in the board. Like you said, it's extremely hard to cover as much ground as Unified Will and Negate can, so I personally think that they're somewhat of a necessary evil. Holding up 1U is awkward, but as somewhat of a consolation prize, the Unified Will matchups (other than burn) are often less about jamming Finks or Courser on 3 and more about comboing, so it's slightly more bearable.
Magus is definitely fine against tricolor midrange decks, sometimes it's just going to be a liability when drawn, but overall it's relatively low cost for the ability to have a blowout. Be aware of your opponents though, often having to respect a Moon effect is going to be nearly as strong as landing the Moon. Against Eldrazi Tron and Bant, I would 100% bring in every Blood Moon I had. Eldrazi Tron has the capability to go so far over the top of what we're doing with Planeswalkers, Smasher, and massive Ballista that we want both the dorks and Blood Moons to leverage any speed advantage we can get - even if Moon is far from a hard lock, buying a couple turns is immense. Bant Eldrazi has pretty much the greediest manabase that exists in Modern, and Blood Moon is absolutely backbreaking against them, as they're basically a 4 color non-red deck. Add in the fact that they play two basics and zero fetches to find them in the first couple turns, Moon is basically unbeatable - even if I wanted to board my dorks out (I don't in this matchup) I would still have Moon as an autowin. It's also worth noting that neither one of these decks have the critical mass of removal/discard/counters that make manadorks especially bad.
Also, two other notes on Blood Moon. First, I took a quick look at your sideboarding chart a few posts back, and it looks pretty good but I would note what you're taking out as that's just as important. Other than disagreeing with Moon against Shadow and Junk, the only other thing I'd say is that you should 100% bring in Blood Moon against Ad Nauseam. The deck only has two basics with zero fetches, and whenever I'm playing Ad Naus I find it harder to beat than Chalice, Eidolon, or Stony because it destroys my ability to cantrip for Echoing Truth or other answers. The other thing is that you might want to consider a different sideboard card for the Blood Moon spot. I think that Fulminator and Avalanche Riders are underwhelming, but Crumble to Dust is a very strong contender for the slot. Generally it's better against Gx Tron, comparable against Eldrazi Tron, and good against UWx where Moon isn't even worth bringing in. The tradeoff is that it's a bit worse against Valakut decks, and not generally worth boarding against Bant Eldrazi or Ad Nauseam. If your chart of decks in your metagame is accurate, then I would probably stick on Moon but it's worth considering for the future.
Also, I figure that I might as well share the (very slightly) changed list that I might play tomorrow if I decide audible off of Storm. Still thinking about Misty over the Horizon Canopy, and I'd have a Linvala on me to swap into the board over Keranos depending on which players I see showing up 5-10 minutes before the event starts, but overall I'm fairly confident in this list.
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Arid Mesa
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy (Misty?)
Noncreatures (14)
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
Other Creatures (18)
4 Felidar Guardian
3 Wall of Omens
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
1 Angel of Sanctions
1 Sun Titan
1 Path to Exile
1 Fiery Justice
2 Unified Will
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Thragtusk
1 Reveillark
1 Keranos, God of Storms (Linvala?)
A few comments on your updated list: pretty much every player here has settled on the full playset of Voices, trimming Wall if necessary. One my favorite plays is to tick Saheeli down to copy Voice, play Felidar to flicker Saheeli, then tick her down to copy Felidar. If your opponent tries to interact to stop the combo you get two free Elemental tokens which can help you to stall until you line up another combo attempt and sometimes even win the game themselves. The deck is also a little softer to Ux control than some other instant-speed Toolbox decks, so having the set of Voices is really helpful there as well. If you have a 4th copy available I'd really recommend it.
I think you can replace your Fire-Lit Thicket with your 10th fetch. If you're not trying to cast Kiki anymore the red filtering seems unnecessary, whereas the 10th fetch will help to turn on Rallier more reliably and generally improve your mana / mull consistency.
Might Sigarda be a more effective "Bx midrange can't beat this" card than Keranos with additional application to All is Dust and easier casting cost?
How have you felt about Sun Titan?
As far as the lands, you're absolutely right that Thicket can become a different land without the need to cast Kiki. This also opens me up to shaving to one Stomping Ground, and not worrying so much about every one of my lands hitting Stomping Ground. Right now I think that they can get cut for some combination of Flooded Strand, Horizon Canopy, and Temple Garden. I'm leaning slightly to Strand/Canopy right now, but double Canopy might be excessive.
For Sigarda, she's definitely a very powerful card against BGx, but I'm less comfortable jamming her in a world with plenty of Supreme Verdict and Gurmag Angler. Keranos might not be the right answer, but I'd lean more towards Chameleon Colossus or Whipserwood Elemental than Sigarda right now, depending on if I wanted a Shadow/BGx or UWx/BGx focused card.
Right now I think I'm happy with Sun Titan. The utility of being a combo piece with double Saheeli and also a finisher on its own is great. Also, I think that having one very powerful six-drop to find off evolving Felidar is good. I will admit that part of this is (slightly) due to the fact that Sun Titan has been one of my favorite cards from back when I first started playing, and I love my Japanese prerelease copy. In a meta where I wanted to lower my curve, I would probably put a Huntmaster in this slot, though more realistically I'd play a different deck.
Nathan Grossfeld
8th Place at StarCityGames.com Classic on 10/15/2017
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=116690
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Wall of Omens
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Reflector Mage
2 Renegade Rallier
3 Felidar Guardian
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Reveillark
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sun Titan
Spells (13)
3 Path to Exile
1 Chord of Calling
3 Eldritch Evolution
3 Saheeli Rai
3 Oath of Nissa
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Breeding Pool
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Raging Ravine
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Thragtusk
2 Stony Silence
1 Worship
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Unified Will
Interesting list. Why choose when you can have it all.
Worship has come up here a few times and probably warrants further consideration.
just started playing this deck, I don't have a ton of experience with it yet but it seems like a really interesting concept.
I wanted to mention that a lot of the decks posted here have reclamation sage in the sideboard. Great card, and I understand it being the default, but isn't harmonic sliver a potentially better option? I have less than ten games on MODO but its already come up twice where saheeli copying harmonic sliver for a double naturalize has been game winning.
Not sure if the synergy with saheeli is worth the slightly more difficult casting cost and smaller stats, but I think its at least worth mentioning.
Harmonic Sliver is interesting. 1GW isn't really any harder for the deck than 2G -- we can usually cast either through Blood Moon and it makes no difference for Evolution -- and I rarely attack with Rec Sage to keep it around for flickering/copying anyways. I will try this substitution, thanks.
The other thing worth noting is that Harmonic Sliver's ability is not a "may" effect. I think it'd be pretty rare for this to backfire but worth mentioning.
How is Chord good with Titan? I'm not sure I follow there.
VenocStorm, you've articulated the Blood Moon scenarios quite well, thank you. I see people side it in against any tricolor deck they see, and it can be worse than time walking themselves.
After a bit of hiatus, I'm back to testing Saheeli for the RPTQ next month. I've recently fallen in love with Domri Rade, and how it interacts with Courser.
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Thragtusk
1 Angel of Sanctions
Spells
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
2 Domri Rade
4 Saheeli Rai
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Unified Will
2 Blood Moon
Lotus Cobra's best attribute was getting people with their shields down. They'd see a Cobra, and no other combo pieces, tap out, and die to a burst of mana and the wombo. I love the explosions, but I don't want to lean on my opponents sloppy play to steal wins as the competition gets stiffer. I've been liking the single
RecruiterRallier as it can occasionally enable a silly sequence, while contributing to a grindy game when needed. Domri Rade has been surprisingly strong. I tried it on a whim, and have been delighted by the action it generates. 22 creatures is right on the edge of acceptable for his plus, but quickly gets out of control when paired with Courser. Domri on turn 2 is one of the best things we can do against U/W/x. We're a legitimate threat to plus him right up to the ult, and turn the game into a nightmare for them. There's still a lot of room for tinkering with the sideboard, but I'm going to try out Keranos for grindy matchups.Your points about Lotus Cobra are fair. For most metas I agree that it makes sense to trade them out for something more consistent, I'm just clinging on to them to keep up with the disproportionate amount of linear aggro decks in my local meta. But I'll try a 3rd Hierarch and Duskwatch Recruiter as well. I was also thinking about running 1x Spellskite over one of my Walls.
I like running the first copy of Courser of Kruphix a lot but I wasn't totally happy with the second one when I was running it since they don't synergize with Saheeli/Felidar/Evo very well and its filtering ability doesn't stack in multiples. With this in mind I'm personally reluctant to further build off of Courser with Domri, although I do appreciate you bringing the spice. One suggestion might be to give Lark another shot with Domri since his -2 is another way to favorably kamikaze your Lark into something for value (I was thinking about doing the same with Dromoka's Command).
I agree with Maniospas that your number of good flicker targets seems to be dipping too low for my tastes, but you also have a lot of filtering so maybe you'll make up for the low number of targets by finding the good ones slightly more reliably... I don't know. Good luck! Eager to hear how more about how it handles.
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@Maniospas: ah, gotcha regarding Titan & Chord
@Shelldell Spellskite for a long time was a usual MB 1 of for kiki, and its odd how card seems to have totally fallen out of favor everywhere. The good news is this deck can get more U mana consistently avoiding the life loss. Bad news is it is a card helped by running chord as its a solid 2CC to fetch in response to removal/pump. I'd say if you're at 3 walls then trying 1 out instead should be fine. I think it's fall out of favor also coincided with the fall of infect as that one one of the srongest cards against them. I also agree that 2nd courser can feel bad without something able to loot 2nd copy away. I like as a 1 of for now. Seems in seifer's list the purpose of 2nd is same as my nahiri list to try to get more value of the other planeswalker.
Seems lotus cobra is new card on the potential chopping block, which makes sense as it can be winmore and not a great value in of itself. A more consistent winning deck probably does drop them in the end, kind of like how the best death shadow in the end wasn't the uber speed temur battle rage build
@Siefer my initial reaction to domri was "Oh yeah, awesome!". Then thought about it and turned out more "ehhh...idk". I have flirted with using domri in EDH where I had more deathtouch creatures to take advantage of the -2. As I see it domri to get value needs to play as a sort of liliana of the veil. The +1 gettng you card advantage, and -2 being somewhat consistent creature removal. The +1 is good here potentially but the synergy with courser is with a card at same 3CC so you can't properly curve into it. Yes felidar can flicker it but if you don't know top card you could show a land and get nothing. Main issue is -2 seems unreliable. With eldrazi and death shadow popular we don't have the creatures to fight often. Its good for devoted druid combo sure, but feels like a lot of decks its going to set us back. I myself was pushing Nahiri, the Harbinger before and it seems similar to domri (more consistent) just was also at precious 4cc slot.
Sideboard is interesting, btw for the unified wills, merfolk started to use Disdainful Stroke if main intended target is valakut decks or tron as more consistent option, fyi. Also seems you're still going with forge tender, haven't been seeing in recent lists here.
I know we're not a company deck, but leading with a dork seems really powerful in a deck like ours, especially with a walker to drop on turn 2.
As it seems that most agree with this, I'd like to dig a little into it so you can enlighten me if I'm wrong.
I haven't played with kiki-chord, but I'm a fan of the archetype and know the lists. They have a mess of a manabase playing hard to cast things in 4 colors. It would make sense that under Blood Moon they have to rely on dorks, not only for all the colors, but also having green creatures for the XGGG spell that they build around.
This would be true for the versions that we were experimenting with in the last few pages with heavier U or B splashes and whatnot, but the Blood Moon idea came in the "perfecting" version 1.0. We are just a GW deck splashing Saheeli with Oaths. That's the reason Moon didn't hurt us when opponents brought it in. It's not just dorks, we have 3 Forest, 2 Plains, 10-11 Fetches and spells to match.
Now that most people are going back to the GW core splashing Saheeli, it's back to WW being the craziest mana requirement we have. We can play most of the deck with a forest and a plains, we need 2nd G for 4-6 cards, 2nd W for 1 card and a U for Saheeli if no Oaths.
I thought this is why we are a very good moon deck. With dorks we can just play a normal game, without, we slow down to 1 spell a turn but majority of our cards are live, while the same is very likely not true for the opponent.
Board is mainly GW, too. We can have a bit more U after boarding which the players acknowledged, so it's a question of figuring out what you board alongside Moon and have a plan for that.
Are you going to 0 dorks vs Jund/Abzan and control? I cut Hierarchs when I want "every card to do something", but I considered birds somewhat a must for the T3 combo potential and just getting ahead. 0 dorks seems crazy to me, you are just slowing down to control's speed. I'd go down a felidar or two before cutting first bird. Am I doing it wrong?
If going 0 dorks is correct I would like someone to name matchups, because a lot was thrown in there that can't be true.
Worst thing for dorks is Verdict that isn't even there. Still not sure I would sacrifice the speed vs Control, curious what you all do.
Push/Sieze/Terminate is Death's Shadow where you probably don't side out dorks?
With the classic midrange decks I could see it, but our value is stretching them pretty well and getting the mana adv. isn't worthless as they always trade up in mana.
Spellskite
+Can shave damage off Burn spells & Valakut triggers
+Shuts down Modular schemes, steals Plating, blocks Etched Champion vs Affinity
+Can take a bullet to insulate combo against any type of spot removal vs Midrange & Control
+Works well with Rallier
-Applies zero pressure
Selfless Spirit
+Aggressive, evasive damage promotes beatdown plan B, especially with 3rd Hierarch
+Can answer all wraths except All is Dust
+Can protect the combo against non-exiling removal
+Works well with Rallier
+Best copy target of the utility 2-drops?
Duskwatch Recruiter
+Mana sink
+Dig for combo pieces / beaters as needed
+Provides non-GY-dependent card advantage
+Transform can be useful to cast curve toppers when mana constrained..
-Transform can be inconvenient when you want to keep using its draw ability
Scavenging Ooze
+Mana sink
+gives the deck some much-welcomed GY hate
+Life gain & growing body is useful in almost all moderately-paced fair matches
-Weak to bounce effects
-Without extra mana & GY targets available can be a 2/2 bear
Three Mana is insanely expensive - even in decks with way more Mana creatures and all-creature combos it's a grizzly bear 75% of the time.
I think if you're looking for a fragile high reward 2/2 I would go with fauna shaman. Card is just as good in board stalls and doesn't require the same mana investment
LSV just did a video on it as well.
Going for maximum value as Plan A with 9 (!) flicker effects and 17 ETB targets not including Saheeli and then making the combo more of an incidental Plan B? Probably good against slower fair decks, looks like it needs a lot of hate to shore up the unfair matchups.
Coiling Oracle probably isn't doing much ramp with 18 lands (30% ramp rate) and I'm unsure of Vial in this list.
If anyone watches the videos before I can get to it I'd be curious to read a summary of the matches.
Round 1: Sultai Midrange (2-0 Win)
Round 2: Eldrazi Tron (2-1 Win)
Round 3: Affinity/Robots (2-0 Win)
Round 4: Jeskai Control (2-0 Win)
Round 5: Affinity/Robots (1-2 Loss)
Round 6: Green Devotion (2-1 Win)
Round 7: U/R Gifts Storm (Intentional Draw)
Top8 Match: U/R Gifts Storm (1-2 Loss)
I will begin talking about my list, my card selections, and why I made them. But first, I just want to give a little back story. Feel free to skip down if you're only interested in the decklist discussion.
Back Story:
When I first got into modern I actually played Mono Black devotion with Geralf's Messenger, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Grey Merchant, among others. The linchpin of the deck was being able to play a turn 2 Geralf's Messenger or Liliana of the Veil with the help of Deathrite Shaman. Then, right before GP Richmond, DRS got banned. At this point I had already invested so much of my time, energy, and money, that I didn't have an option to change decks. I swapped DRS with more removal and played at GP Richmond anyways. Believe it or not, the deck sucked. I scrubbed out after 4 or 5 rounds and signed up for the "Modern Redemption" event. It was basically a losers bracket, not unlike the Modern Classic this past weekend. In this redemption tournament, I played against an Abzan Birthing Pod deck, and got absolutely crushed. But after that match, I knew exactly what deck I wanted to play moving forward. Before leaving the GP, I dumped half of my Black Devotion list to vendors to pick up some of the staples of the Pod List and had the deck built by the start of the summer. The deck was insane, as I'm sure most of you remember. I played it at just about every modern event I could participate in.
Then the following January, I was devastated to find out about the Birthing Pod banning. After Pod was banned, I floated from deck to deck for months until finally settling on Infect. While playing infect nearly full time, I picked up a unique deck that was getting some buzz. The deck was Kiki-Chord and with the publicity of it being championed by modern all-star Jeff Hoogland, the deck really grew in popularity. It really appealed to me because of all the different choices you could make throughout the game, getting to play some long-time favorite cards of mine, and being able to really out-value and out-grind your opponents into submission. I played this and infect for a while, until the Gitaxian Probe banning. Luckily by this time, I had built up my collection to the point where I was able to port the "dead" modern infect list into legacy infect. That left me still playing Kiki-Chord throughout "Eldrazi Winter". I felt that Kiki-Chord had a fairly good matchup against the eldrazi menace, and at the time the oppressiveness of the deck was keeping some of Kiki-Chord's bad matchups out of the meta. When Eye of Ugin got the ban hammer those fast, linear combo decks started to come out of the woodwork, and Kiki-Chord started to fall out of favor. About a month later I competed in SCG Open Baltimore, which did not end up going well. However, I did end up gaining some insight on my deck. After losing to one of my opponents, he complimented my deck and said that he used to play something similar. He mentioned that he had recently changed the list to accommodate Saheeli Rai and Felidar Guardian as a different way to win, and he said the change was working really well for him. After that match I immediately picked up what I needed to try the new list, and the rest is history.
Decklist Discussion:
I have been playing a version of this list for about 5 months now. During which time, I have made some changes to fit my play-style as well as to adapt to the meta for each event. One of my friends played a similar list in the main event on Saturday. He played a list with 3x Renegade Rallier and 2x Lotus Cobra. Up until this point, I wasn't playing a single copy of either in my 75. However, based on some of the explosive plays my friend had boasted to me about, I wanted to try them out, as well as a ghost quarter to go along with the Ralliers.
Creatures
I was running 3x Voice and 2x Wall of Omens, but with the rise of UWx control decks, I decided to go 4-1 respectively. Haven't been too impressed with Wall of Omens. I have played a variety of utility three drops throughout my time playing the deck. Without black in the deck, the deck needed a Shriekmaw/FlametongueKavu sort of effect to combat decks like Eldrazi, Shadow, as well as midrange strategies. I felt like Relfector mage perfectly fit this role, and I have been thrilled with it since it's inclusion. Eternal Witness is just an absolute auto-include in my opinion. Some matches you get back a threat, some times she lets you Path another creature. Overall it's just incredible. Kitchen finks is a nod to the burn/aggro decks I expect to see at larger tournaments. Its also good against Jund and Shadow as they generally have to use two removal spells. I had Magus and Rec Sage in the maindeck for a while, but I decided to leave these "silver-bullet" type cards in the sideboard for the larger event. Even when I was playing the Kiki-Chord version, I was playing 4-5 four drops, so I knew the manabase could handle it. I never felt like I needed a full playset of Restoration Angels in the previous build, so I decided to only run 3x Felidar Guardian. I wanted to be able to get some more utility out of my four drops. I think Pia & Kiran Nalaar is outstanding in a lot of matchups, primarily Affinity. Huntmaster is great against the midrange decks, the other creature-combo decks, as well as against burn. Overall, I like Reveillark quite a bit, but in this current list, you could make an argument for cutting it, considering the number of 3-power creatures we're running. Kiki-Jiki is a big part of the combo, but it's also a huge value engine. He can be difficult to cast sometimes, but unless you're moving away from the combo entirely, I would never cut Kiki-Jiki. Sun Titan has actually been amazing. You can routinely get to 6 mana on turn 4 or 5, sometimes earlier with the help of Lotus Cobra or Saheeli Rai. Every time he hit's the table, he is just heart attack good. He always shifts the entire momentum and pace of the game in your favor. He really shines in the Eldrazi, Jund/Midrange, and Control Matchups. He works incredibly well with Saheeli as she can copy him to get two return triggers in a single turn; and then you have the Sun Titan combo when you have two Saheeli's. Despite his high mana cost, I've been extremely impressed with Sun Titan.
Spells and Mana
I tried out playing 4x Eldritch Evolution for a brief period, and it was great against the midrange decks with a lot of removal, but the card is abysmal against control decks for the most part. Remand and other counter-magic can really be backbreaking. Chord of calling can be played at the end of a control players turn to try to free up a big play on your own turn. Being able to cast chord at instant speed and sometimes by using little to no mana really adds a lot of surprise factor. The other benefit to having the Chord as well as the Eterntal Witness is that it gives you the ability to make the classic Kiki-Chord chain: Chord for E-Wit to get back Chord, Chord for Felidar to flicker E-Wit to get back Chord, then Chord for Kiki for the win. It takes 3 turns to do it, but it can all be done off of one Chord of Calling. For all of these reasons, I believe 1x Chord of Calling is a great addition to the deck. Generally speaking, the deck doesn't care too much about large creatures. You have the ability to go bigger with Voice of Resurgence tokens or go wide with Pia & Kiran or Huntmaster. My other friend playing the deck doesn't like Path at all because it's a 2-for-1. However, I think it's a catch-all and a necessary evil to be able to handle any threat, small or big; from Vizier of Remedies to Wurmcoil Engine. With E-Wit in the deck and the argument I made about large creatures we can justify cutting a copy of Path.
From my experience playing the deck, Saheeli Rai is by far the worst card in the 75. There are scenarios where she's great and she's making a copy of your Reflector mage and tempo-ing out your opponent. But most of the time, you plus her once and she dies to a flyer or a tarmogoyf. Against aggro and combo decks, she just feels so clunky. You're playing her on turn 2/3 and just dying the next turn before you can untap and try to combo or build value. For these reasons, I decided to shave a Saheeli so I wouldn't have as many dead draws. The last non-creatures are the Oath of Nissa's. I don't have a good reason not to be playing 4x Oaths. The card is great; it gives you an early play if you don't have a dork, and it finds both halves of your combos. And with only playing 3x Saheeli, I should be playing more ways to find her. I regret not playing all 4; that will definitely change moving forward. As far as mana goes, I think I am playing the correct amount of mana sources (27). However, I could consider cutting a land to add a 6th mana dork. I'd have to do some testing to see if this change is worth it. I was very happy with my Ghost Quarter addition for this event. Without the Magus in the main, the ghost quarter gives the deck some maindeck help against big mana decks, which this type of deck generally struggles against. It also works really well in conjunction with Renegade Rallier.
Sideboard
Before I address the sideboard in detail, I just want to clarify a mistake that SCG made when posting my list online. My sideboard contains 2x Lightning Helix, NOT 2x Lightning Bolt.
I think sideboards in general are supposed to be very adaptable. You want to be able to change them to reflect the current meta, whether that's your store meta for FNM or the overall meta for a large tournament. You also want cards that have overlapping uses and aren't just designed to be brought it for one particular match-up. For example, you might bring in Thragtusk against aggro decks like Burn and Affinity to combat life loss. But you might also want to bring it in against Jund, Eldrazi, and Control decks because its such as resilient threat. There are exceptions to this rule however. Storm is a terrible match-up for the deck, so you pretty much have to play a dedicated hate card like Eidolon of Rhetoric in the sideboard. The same thing goes with Stony Silence against affinity. However, Stony Silence is still a decent sideboard card against Tron and Eldrazi, not to mention Lantern and KCI Combo. Reclamation sage falls under this umbrella as well. Selfless Spirit is for decks with board wipes obviously. But its also good at pressuring planeswalkers or protecting Saheeli against decks that have a lot of flyers, like UW Spirits or UB Faeries. Worship is for the match-ups where your opponent is ignoring your creatures and going straight to your face. Eldrazi and Burn are good examples of this. Worhip has been hit or miss for me. I've had opponents scoop on the spot to a resolved Workship. But sometimes you just die before you can even cast it; not sold on it quite yet. Glen Elendra Archmage has been phenomenal; you can see the eye-roll from my opponent every time I play her. Unified Will has been very hit-or-miss. Sometimes its backbreaking for your opponent. And sometimes they can just kill one of you guys in response to nullify the spell entirely. Lightning Helix is great against burn and other creature combo decks like Abzan CoCo, Elves, and decks like ours. Phyrexian Revoker is very good against Planeswalkers, which this deck really struggles against. It is also boarded in against the Tron variants that run Oblivion Stone. Magus of the Moon is for the big mana decks like Scapeshift, Tron, Eldrazi, as well as for the 3-color control decks.
Wrap Up
I would love to hear more feedback about the deck, as well as any suggestions you guys have for changes or additions to the list. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience with the deck! And tell me your stories playing 4-color Saheeli!
Funny extra story about the Modern Classic in Charlotte:
The event started at 9am. I was planning on doing legacy at 10am, but I decided at 8:47am to audible and jam modern. Because the deck is a pile of 1-of's, I actually gave my decklist to the judges a couple minutes after they collected. The judge then sat down next to me and told me that I would receive a game loss in round 1 because of my "late decklist submission rules infraction". I figured it would be a slap on the wrists, but to my surprise, this rule is taken very seriously. I decided to appeal the judge call to the Head Judge of the event. Luckily she was merciful and waived the game loss penalty. I then rushed to my the pairings board and made it to my seat for round 1.
Well, an SCG Classic is a pretty large event, so it's tuned to the meta at large rather than the 30-40 person LGS metas that I'd normally consider tuning to. Overall I really like the look of it, with Huntmaster and only 3x Oath. Bolt is pretty interesting from the board, especially considering there's no Staticaster.
Agreed that 2RR is tricky, but if you look at his manabase, it makes a lot of sense, he's pretty heavy toward red with Fire-Lit, Grove, Raging Ravine, and Steam Vents.
I think what he's saying is that even with one Felidar Guardian gone, you still have 4 creatures that will combo with Saheeli, so there's still enough of them that control can't kill every one, compared to chewing through 3 Felidars wouldn't be too tough. I don't think it's really that relevant, but I don't inherently disagree with Chord over 4th Guardian.
With regards to Harmonic Sliver, the card is definitely sweet, and it gives more incentive to play with Phantasmal Image (especially sweet with a Chord in the deck) so that's something I welcome.
EDIT:
Well, somehow I missed that there was another page, and only replied to page 17 stuff. I'll just edit in here rather than make another post.
As far as dorks, I think that they're definitely cuts against control. Sure, they can help with speed to get things underneath Cryptic/Snap-Leak/etc, but realistically we aren't set up to win that quickly against control decks anyway so the dorks are just air. Against midrange boarding out dorks follows the same logic as why Jund or Abzan will usually side out their targeted discard in mirrors - the games come down to the top of the deck, and you can't afford to have dead draws. Even against Shadow, we aren't a deck that they're looking to get quick kills on or Battle Rage out of the game - we can force them to go long. Comparing the likelyhood of comboing early against the Thoughtseize/Push/Terminate deck, going long sounds like a way better plan to me, so no dorks.
For Blood Moon, I still believe that this isn't a Blood Moon deck because we aren't built to take advantage of it in the same way that Skred, Ponza, or even Blue Moon are. It's fine as an "I win" against the right decks, but things like tricolor midrange or Shadow (which is really just tricolor midrange...) are concerned, Moon is just "ok" against those decks, so I think that it should stay in the board. I also think that having to play 3 Forest 2 Plains is more of a concession to the fact that you have Blood Moon in your deck rather than something that enables Moon. Also, it's somewhat self-defeating that Blood Moon or Magus is a known quantity from the board out of the GWRx creature toolbox decks,so opponents can very easily fetch around it to minimal downside. Especially because there are no land destruction effects (Ghost Quarter doesn't really count in this context) in the 75, Blood Moon can very easily do nothing against a lot of decks.
Duskwatch Recruiter is awkward because I think that he's being underrated, while also not at his best in this deck. For Abzan Company, I often think he's the best creature in the deck alongside Eternal Witness, and singlehandedly lets you stay in games that you'd otherwise have no business winning. Especially against Control or Midrange without an immediate clock on board, activating Recruiter is the best thing you can do short of hitting Witness off Company. However, in this deck, the lack of Company's cmc restriction means that it's very often going to be harder to activate him while playing another creature to the board if necessary. However, the flip side is better here, which wile not as big a deal is worth considering. Overall I'm not sure if he's good enough, but almost certainly he's better than Fauna Shaman.
Lastly, congrats on the top8, Nate. Glad to see you showing up in this thread.
As I see it, we can do this two ways. We can ask questions about the differences between what this thread arrived at and what you play, or if you are willing, you could sleeve up the core we like and just tell us
Here is a shell we are currently building on:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
2 flex (2 Courser/Rallier+Finks)
Spells 15
4 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
10 Fetch lands
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
1 Razorverge Thicket
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
What I'm curious about:
The curve: Are you happy running the 8 4+ drops? I didn't like it in testing, prefer to keep it closer to 6 otherwise I noticed some hand-clumping. On top of that you play less ramp, generally we use 6 1cmc dorks, 0-2 cobra and 1-3 rallier. Again, when I played the deck with just 6 dorks it was slower than I'd like.
The 1ofs: How do the 1ofs perform for you in an Evolution deck? Seems like most of us came to 4c Saheeli from Chord, but it doesn't take long to realize Evo is not Chord. I was happier switching from the "toolbox" approach to having more universal 1ofs on top of the curve. From that point of view the 1of Reflector Mage, Cobra, P&K, Wall seem a little unfocused. How do you draw Reflector mage in Eldrazi and Pia and Kiran in Affinity?
I didn't mind Reflector Mage when I tried it but it's not an effect I'd Evo for, even blink with Guardian isn't that exciting when we're backing up the tempo with 2/3 and 1/4 on the ground. I chose to focus on furthering our plan instead of trying to hit these favorable 1ofs in the exact matchup.
Pia and Kiran is fine, I don't play it mostly because of the RR cost, but it is a little narrower than some other options. At least it's worth Evoing into in the right matchup.
IMO you can play 2 Resto Angel in Chord because of the Chord. It plays the silver bullet, stall-out game much better. Saheeli wants to combo asap, we can't hang out in a game that long. That's why the 4 Saheeli 4 Felidar is preffered. How much do you T3 combo? Isn't it worth it to maximalize that?
What does Saheeli Evo in this config. give you over Kiki Chord? If you prefer that playstyle aren't you playing worse combo cards? The advantage of Saheeli Guardian is the mana cost - it's faster and easier on the manabase.
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@e302: I agree with most of your post with a few minor exceptions:
I would argue that the 2x Lotus Cobras, 2nd Rallier, 4th Path, Thragtusk, and Sun Titan can all be really excellent somewhere in the 75 but their inclusion
in the MB is still somewhat of a meta call as we've seen successful lists without each of them. I would personally lump them into the flex slots. When I was running Reflector Mage I didn't usually Evo for it. The exceptions were (1) when they had a creature such as Thalia, Heretic Cathar that prevented me from comboing and I had the combo ready to go, (2) when I knew or had reason to suspect that they had another copy of the reflected card in hand that would also get caught by the casting block, and (3) against Delve and other threats that I knew they wouldn't be able to recast easily. While I agree that our board pressure isn't always strong, I think the fact that we can suddenly combo out means that our overall Tempo (both real and "virtual") is perhaps better than you give it credit for. Furthermore, Saheeli alternating between cloning Reflector Mage and Scrying has bought me several turns against aggro before, enough to close out some close games.
I do agree that the major draws to building around Saheeli are the potential to build a consistent, lower-pain manabase and the ability to more reliably threaten the opponent with an early combo or proactive value-beats. It's hard for me to say how much you gain vs lose when you start splashing in Kiki-Chord pieces and their requisite manabase... to what extent does it make the plan more resilient and flexible, and to what extent does it make it less consistent? I'm really glad that we have VenocStorm and NateG in here to offer some good perspective on both angles.
I am by no means an expert on the deck. However, I have been playing some version of the deck for over a year now. I have played with only chords and wall of roots. I've played the Kiki-Nahiri version with Emrakul. I've tried a blue version before saheeli was printed with chords and eldritch evolutions. I have played a black version with orzhov pontiff and shriekmaw. And now I am back to playing blue because of saheeli rai. Every iteration has its strengths and weaknesses, but I've always loved the deck. Normally, I would prefer to keep Kiki-Jiki and more red cards; you guys seem to want to go very heavy GW, just barely splashing UR. However, this is for SCIENCE! I will try out something very similar to your shell tomorrow at FNM. Haven't really decided on an exact sideboard yet, but here is the list I will play:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
3 Renegade Rallier
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reflector Mage
Spells 14
3 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Worship
1 Path to Exile
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Keranos, God of Storms
I will follow up on Saturday with the results from FNM and my input on this particular list. Wish me luck!
I will also be playing tomorrow night, though I haven't finalized my 75 yet. I would try out your list but I don't have Kikki or the lands to run it at the moment.