Has anyone tried Collected Company or Aether Vial yet?
Uh, neither would do much for us as we don't play creatures that way. In fact, for most lists, other than our 1 drops and Squee, nothing good would be used for CoCo, and the vial wouldn't be something we can abuse either; our creatures mostly either have madness making them essentially instants, or are 1 drops or discard fodder.
With some of the smaller creature decks falling even lower this is the list I've been grinding a ton lately. If you keep copter in I really like having sniper but with cutting copter I've found it ok to drop them out of the 75 in the current meta. This list has over preformed for me and I don't feel like I have too much worse than a 50/50 matchup in any top decks (granted this testing is on xmage). The bad matchups just get way better post board I feel. I'm beating titanshift, drazi tron, gbx, (lingering souls is the only problem card I've been seeing), control, dredge, affinity, and obviously every ds deck. Don't have too much testing vs storm or burn yet sadly. I even have a second copy of the deck that a buddy is playing this week too. So here is my current and likely final list (always swapping just a couple sb cards). Everyone I talk to about this deck just think it looks super janky but I'm probably selling a dual land or two to purchase it on mtgo at this point.
So it was the correct choice to take out snipers for Bridges and moons? Little toggy knows a little bit about the game after all. ๐๐๐ Rock on my dude..
This build does look pretty good though.
KTROJAN is that a mistake in the list? 4 Call the Bloodline while only 3 Zombie Infestation, when the infestation's easily the better between the two. That on purpose? If so what's your logic in those numbers?
Yeah, I said that in the first post when I created this thread; it looks janky on paper, but once you sit down at the table with it or accross from it, doesn't take long to see just how much CA there actually is in there.
No Grave Scrabbler? With an infestation out, discard any creature as the first discard requirement for infestation, then discard the scrabbler, madnessing it into play for 1B, getting the first creature back you discarded, and getting 2, 2/2 zombies for CMC of 2, all at instant speed at that! I've seen some lists not run it and some run it. I tried a few games without it and it was immediately missed by moi. I find the scrabbler actually enables some of the BEST Hollow One plays. Just take the above example of just making a zombie token with infestation and getting scrabbler, 2 2/2s for 1B and 0 cards. Just that little interaction alone makes the hollow one cost only 1; this was what made me try out hollow one in the first place.
That said, I'm glad you've had some success with hollow one as well; I think it's a great card for us, if nothing else just as a free 4/4 or, worst case, a cycler. Faithless Looting is fine, and a bit better in hollow one lists than the others, but it's good for either. Street Wraith is something I've been thinking about, if nothing else just for the ability to either make a zombie with infestation or use looting, then cycle the wraith and play any hollow ones in hand for 0. I just don't think changing the core of the deck in order to try to accomidate a faster hollow one is where we want to go. At least on the face, the wraith is somewhat out of place, although it looks a lot better in your list as well as mine, or any version running the Ruthless Snipers or Faith of the Devoted(which is great sideboard tech for us vs burn/hyper aggro).
Lightning Axe isn't bad, but I'd probably run 3 with about 1 copy of Fatal Push. Beyond that, your list looks pretty solid, except for the lack of Cryptbreaker. I'm flabbergasted you'd take that one out; it's probably our 2nd best discard outlet second to the infestation, as the breaker's easily better than Call. It actually regularly will draw you cards, it fuels its' own draw ability; it's a 1-drop that can make 2/2 zombies at instant speed, as well as draw you cards relatively easily in our list, while also still being a zombie. Also, although not a huge thing, it's worth noting the exact syntax of Cryptbreaker's draw ability; you can use the draw ability by tapping zombies that even have summoning sickness(think of Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel interaction). I would never drop the 'breaker. That said, I'll suggest to you something I've been an advocate of for a while: Rally the Peasants. You can happily discard it, and it can steal wins out of nowhere quite often.
So it was the correct choice to take out snipers for Bridges and moons? Little toggy knows a little bit about the game after all.
I'm going to try to take this as you not trolling, Yes and no. Lingering souls (abzan in general) is the hardest card to deal with imo. Sniper is great there and as I stated if you are on copter (not convinced you shouldn't be) you def want sniper. Now that I'm testing ssg as titan shift is gaining big time steam sniper gets cut. There are many games where I'd love to have sniper out! Also moons and bridges (I bel I was the only one even playing bridge) have been in my main so idk how I'm cutting snipers for them but ok. Now that I'm running 3 cb main I still have a little removal too.
Yes the 4/3 is correct in my list (it's taken a lot of games to drop the 4th). A second infestation does nothing where as a second call actually can add the the board. I almost always just discard an infestation and very few decks play enchantment hate (abzan imo my worst matchup aside)that can deal with the first infestation dropped. Call also lets me get the odd card out of my hand if I can't seem to otherwise. I'm also hedging a lot more towards life gain (3 cb main now) because burn/aggro doesn't really care about our game plan.
My decision are because of other cards I'm running so if you aren't on bridge (or you are building a deck for your specific meta) and such your deck is likely very different.
I also don't think this should be called mardu. Even for people splashing it's just misleading.
Yes your list is close similar to mine so I think I could understand some of your choices too ;).
As You can see in my list finally I've included white for lingering souls and although the card is really good I'm not sure if it worthwhile. I mean, is great with pariah out and help you to grind but looking at your list with the wraiths you have the potential to cast hollow ones in the first turn while not loosing CA.
About the other choices, i understand you cut the Grave Scrabblers and Cryptbreakers.
I don't know your reason to do that but i'm going to give mines. Grave Scrabblers: I think this guy doesn't worthwhile. It cost two to have a grizzly bears and return a creature from your grave which usually are squee, goblin nabobs (which are going to return anyways) or other creatures that usually you don't want in your hand (ruthless sniper doesn't worthwhile too, you only want Hollow ones if you can cast it for 0 (so you need to have a way to do it, and you don't want more than one hazoret the fervent). So the only creatures that you probably want to recover are big game hunters or voldaren pariahs but using four slots to do it is painful. Anyways You could play any number of them to gain CA but the slots in the deck are limited so you must to choose.
Cryptbreakers:this card is the one i don't like the most. Is a 1/1 irrelevant to kill the opponent that needs TO TAP to be able to discard cards (and because of that you are restricted to one activation per turn). This guy is not going to be in the table for much time and also the discard it provides is ridiculous. The advantage of being capable of tapping THREE zombies and lose one life to draw ONE card seems also horible to me because If I have zombies in the table I probably would like to attack or hold the ground to block, and tapping three of them at any EOT (which seems the more plausible window of time to do that) to draw a card, in my opinion doesn't worthwhile and make the deck much slower. Also having hazoret is not good to have much cards in hand so sometimes this second ability is going to be ignored.
These are my opinion on these cards after intensive testing, but anybody have his own ones so I'm not trying to convince or change your mind but only reasoning why I cutted them from my list.
Anyways if I would have to play any of them I would choose the Grave Scrabblers for sure.
Yes your list is close similar to mine so I think I could understand some of your choices too ;).
As You can see in my list finally I've included white for lingering souls and although the card is really good I'm not sure if it worthwhile. I mean, is great with pariah out and help you to grind but looking at your list with the wraiths you have the potential to cast hollow ones in the first turn while not loosing CA.
About the other choices, i understand you cut the Grave Scrabblers and Cryptbreakers.
I don't know your reason to do that but i'm going to give mines. Grave Scrabblers: I think this guy doesn't worthwhile. It cost two to have a grizzly bears and return a creature from your grave which usually are squee, goblin nabobs (which are going to return anyways) or other creatures that usually you don't want in your hand (ruthless sniper doesn't worthwhile too, you only want Hollow ones if you can cast it for 0 (so you need to have a way to do it, and you don't want more than one hazoret the fervent). So the only creatures that you probably want to recover are big game hunters or voldaren pariahs but using four slots to do it is painful. Anyways You could play any number of them to gain CA but the slots in the deck are limited so you must to choose.
Cryptbreakers:this card is the one i don't like the most. Is a 1/1 irrelevant to kill the opponent that needs TO TAP to be able to discard cards (and because of that you are restricted to one activation per turn). This guy is not going to be in the table for much time and also the discard it provides is ridiculous. The advantage of being capable of tapping THREE zombies and lose one life to draw ONE card seems also horible to me because If I have zombies in the table I probably would like to attack or hold the ground to block, and tapping three of them at any EOT (which seems the more plausible window of time to do that) to draw a card, in my opinion doesn't worthwhile and make the deck much slower. Also having hazoret is not good to have much cards in hand so sometimes this second ability is going to be ignored.
These are my opinion on these cards after intensive testing, but anybody have his own ones so I'm not trying to convince or change your mind but only reasoning why I cutted them from my list.
Anyways if I would have to play any of them I would choose the Grave Scrabblers for sure.
Ok so I think this post explains perfectly why I don't care for this type of build.
1) bridge-No bridges means you now have to worry about defending and killing your opponent much more.
2)hollow one- T1 hollow one spends 2 cards and 2 life and does less than t1 breaker. It doesn't take long to out class a vanilla 4/4 and let's hope they don't have a chump blocker. On top of that you cut your way to actually recur it.
3)looting- Looting as a discard engine cost 1 less than breaker and you don't get a 2/2 or the power to actually gain card advantage. Where as breaker actually digs through your deck. You're Willing to try street wraith that cost 2 life to replace itself but then state paying a life to draw a straight up card is a downside? 3 zombies are easy to hit if let's say you didn't cut 8 of them from your list along with 4 ways to make them. At some point the disadvantage on looting means you are either not able to madness or you are not hitting land drops.
4) Hazoret- hazoret (in my testing) is just too mana intensive. This doesn't even count how bad 2 in the opener are. I'm playing a faith of the devoted in its spot and like it much better. Faith and even breaker is the same cost for the effect and again a 5/4 gets to be outclassed easily in the current meta.
5) scrabbler- zombie, recurs (card advantage), best creatures to sac to pariah because you can keep chaining them together, and it adds threat/blocker to the board for blow out double/triple blocks. I close to never get a squee back infact vs dredge I often return a creature from their yard to their hand because it can completely mess with what they're trying to do. Between breaker, bgh, pariah, and scrabblers themselves there are plenty of other things to return not to mention hollow ones and hazorets in your list.
Blood moon and bridge just win games by themselves faster than trying to land a cheap 4/4 artifact creature imo. No blood moon basically throws away the titan shift matchup. No moon/bridge makes you lose a ton of percentages against eldrazi tron, ds decks, gbx, d&t.....
What decks are better matchups with your builds? What have you been crushing and what has been your hardest to deal with decks? Lastly what's you sb plan vs the t1 decks?
So it was the correct choice to take out snipers for Bridges and moons? Little toggy knows a little bit about the game after all.
I'm going to try to take this as you not trolling, Yes and no. Lingering souls (abzan in general) is the hardest card to deal with imo. Sniper is great there and as I stated if you are on copter (not convinced you shouldn't be) you def want sniper. Now that I'm testing ssg as titan shift is gaining big time steam sniper gets cut. There are many games where I'd love to have sniper out! Also moons and bridges (I bel I was the only one even playing bridge) have been in my main so idk how I'm cutting snipers for them but ok. Now that I'm running 3 cb main I still have a little removal too.
Yes the 4/3 is correct in my list (it's taken a lot of games to drop the 4th). A second infestation does nothing where as a second call actually can add the the board. I almost always just discard an infestation and very few decks play enchantment hate (abzan imo my worst matchup aside)that can deal with the first infestation dropped. Call also lets me get the odd card out of my hand if I can't seem to otherwise. I'm also hedging a lot more towards life gain (3 cb main now) because burn/aggro doesn't really care about our game plan.
My decision are because of other cards I'm running so if you aren't on bridge (or you are building a deck for your specific meta) and such your deck is likely very different.
I also don't think this should be called mardu. Even for people splashing it's just misleading.
No I wasn't trolling...man am I really coming off gruff? Someone else said this to me the other day on another thread...if I ever come off like a jerk or butthead I don't mean to, for the record! This particular deck poses a different situation than most: I have a whole heap of skepticism about anyone saying this or that is better than what was in Tenshi's original 75 that top 8'ed, at least until someone else puts up similar results, in a similarly huge, many-participant event, with changes made to the original 75. When a deck like this that could easily be called 'fringe', 'rogue', and I'm almost 100% certain 'unique'(as Tenshi was the original creator, taking a lot of inspiration from Sam Black's old attempt at a Grixis Zombie madness deck((see youtube videos)) comes along and does as well as it did, it can be argued then that assuredly the deck has the ability to win games against at least some portion of the top tier decks of modern, while also statistically being true that 51%+ of us, including all of us, don't know as much about the build as Tenshi does(or we'd have put up results that were comparable), at least at the time Tenshi top 8'ed. Now? I can't say; many of us have played lots of games with various iterations of this deck, and I'd say we've fleshed out an even more refined version than what Tenshi ran, plus we've gotten more cards since.
Ok so on your piece about the 4/3 split, I think I get what you're saying I'm going to word it as I understand what you said and you correct me if I'm mistaken, ok? So you're basically saying that because Call only requires a single card to discard, while infestation costs 2, you're saying call is better than infestation in multiples, which it totally is I agree; I always discard any extra infestations I draw, and I found that you can sometimes, not often, find yourself unable to fuel infestation much. Especially if you haven't drawn a squee. And you also pointed out the added utility you get from call in the form of lifelink, and that deff isn't something to be scoffed at. It helps the burn match like you said, helps any super aggro matches, etc. I actually agree with every single word you said, and have seen some of those interactions and problems with infestation first-hand, so I'm gonna swap my numbers(i was running 3/4, not 4/3). I just wish we had a really really GOOD 2 drop enabler that had no mana cost, no tap cost, no # of times per turn restrictions, gave a somewhat useful ability, and only required 1 card per activation(with no restrictions on card type like Lotleth Troll). Sadly I think copter, call, and infestation are the best we've got in the 2 slot. I'm temped to try some number of Oona's Prowler; I feel that if the copter's as good as it is then the prowler's gotta be at least decent; doesn't require another creature to be able to attack, same power, and no attack/block requirement to discard. Ofc copter's kinda in a different class altogether because you're actually looting with that, but yeah. Idk, what's your thoughts on the faerie? Here's my current 60
That meta has already changed a lot from when he t8'd. I have no want for a discard outlet that doesn't do anything and does to all the removal in the format still. Imagine playing against dredge or vengvine with it lol.
yes, the reasoning after my list are similar at what Pcrusader said. In my testings the two zombies were dissapointing and hazoret was an all star all day long but anyways would be good testing other lists.
I'm very intrigued on the ensnaring bridges KTROJAN plays. did them worthwhile? With which frecuence you draw one of them in time? do you think are a must? why then not four? (you can discard multiples if needed)
There are more decks that don't care about bridge in modern than there are that don't care about blood moon. I've been loving my build but this week I'm trying something different. Im swapping my mana base to grixis. 4 delta 3 mire 1 island 1 of each shock and the rest swamps. Then in my board I'm cutting 1 surgical 1 fulminator 1 ts 2 artifact hate for 2 abrade 2 rejection 1 static caster. This will help me (I believe) hedge vs drazi/tron/affinity (or it will be an epic disappointment lol).
I feel like I'm getting closer every day through testing. I like the mana base a lot now with only 2 odd lands you don't want to see t1/2. I think I also have a good plan vs all the t1 stats now too. Static caster was sometimes too odd and late but haveing 3 colors now helps with ee. 1 shock being both my off colors has been great and having 7 fetches to get to is seems just fine. Abrade I love and I don't forsee it going lower than 2 in my 75 any time soon. Token/coco (2 people running pridemage's main in my meta) deck have been the hardest for me and considering they aren't really t1 I'm ok with that. Another odd card I'm trying in the sb is Shadow of Doubt it huts titan shift, storm, gds, chord.... and worst case it cantrips or discard it for value.
Spicy. Abrade is a great card. Seeing as I took your advice and used bridge to great success, I'm gonna try brutality. Seems like in some matches it can be awesome, others meh. Oh, and shadow of doubt seems good; essentially a Sinkhole for modern, and more flexible with mana cost, AND cantrips. Seems good! Let us know how it works out!
Opt isn't that good in all honesty.bwas okay in invasion time but let's be honest. Invasion standard vs today's modern? A superior to opt card already exists in peek. The information you get from seeing their hand greatly outweighs the scry 1.
Now, Chart a Course... That's different. Looks like it could possibly be the new standard for card draws.
Oh sorry if I was mistook; those cards will see big play in other decks not necessarily ours(unless you run a version with U), but there's been a TON of debate on Opt(which essentially digs 2 cards deep for 1 mana at instant speed, potentially 3 if done at EoT). I'd say peek is better for a combo-esque deck, but the fact that opt is instant means snapcaster decks got what they wanted. Chart is just bonkers tbh, it's essentially 1U draw 2, cuz you're not winning if you're not attacking, at least in creature decks.
Idk about nuts. I think a lot of people are over evaluating it. I can't really see wanting to flip it unless you have a second one to cast and deck s that want to flip it for the value of the land I think are going to quickly see it's just too slow. The fact that the front side is very high value for this deck though seems like it might be good here.
Part of me wants to try to get off the 1 drops and just play chalice for even more of a prison effect but breaker is just so good that I can't bring myself to try it. Maybe if these filter/draw engines can get me value like breaker (and I can find another good discard outlet) I can bring myself to do it. The black one in a prison style deck isn't horrible either and once you flip it you can climb back up gaining usually 2 life per turn if you aren't under your bloodmoon. Definitely interesting card to try to innovate with.
I personally think it will be a sleeper. They also basically reprinted Gaea's Cradle too with Growing Rites of Itlimoc. I think there's a few cards coming that will boost our build, manly Sanctum Seeker and Bloodcrazed Paladin. Seem good; gonna proxy some and see,.
Uh, neither would do much for us as we don't play creatures that way. In fact, for most lists, other than our 1 drops and Squee, nothing good would be used for CoCo, and the vial wouldn't be something we can abuse either; our creatures mostly either have madness making them essentially instants, or are 1 drops or discard fodder.
3 Ensnaring Bridge
Creature (21)
4 Big Game Hunter
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Grave Scrabbler
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Voldaren Pariah
Enchantment (12)
4 Blood Moon
4 Call the Bloodline
1 Faith of the Devoted
3 Zombie Infestation
3 Collective Brutality
Land (21)
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
11 Swamp
1 Abrade
1 By Force
1 Darkblast
2 Fatal Push
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
This build does look pretty good though.
Yeah, I said that in the first post when I created this thread; it looks janky on paper, but once you sit down at the table with it or accross from it, doesn't take long to see just how much CA there actually is in there.
That said, I'm glad you've had some success with hollow one as well; I think it's a great card for us, if nothing else just as a free 4/4 or, worst case, a cycler. Faithless Looting is fine, and a bit better in hollow one lists than the others, but it's good for either. Street Wraith is something I've been thinking about, if nothing else just for the ability to either make a zombie with infestation or use looting, then cycle the wraith and play any hollow ones in hand for 0. I just don't think changing the core of the deck in order to try to accomidate a faster hollow one is where we want to go. At least on the face, the wraith is somewhat out of place, although it looks a lot better in your list as well as mine, or any version running the Ruthless Snipers or Faith of the Devoted(which is great sideboard tech for us vs burn/hyper aggro).
Lightning Axe isn't bad, but I'd probably run 3 with about 1 copy of Fatal Push. Beyond that, your list looks pretty solid, except for the lack of Cryptbreaker. I'm flabbergasted you'd take that one out; it's probably our 2nd best discard outlet second to the infestation, as the breaker's easily better than Call. It actually regularly will draw you cards, it fuels its' own draw ability; it's a 1-drop that can make 2/2 zombies at instant speed, as well as draw you cards relatively easily in our list, while also still being a zombie. Also, although not a huge thing, it's worth noting the exact syntax of Cryptbreaker's draw ability; you can use the draw ability by tapping zombies that even have summoning sickness(think of Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel interaction). I would never drop the 'breaker. That said, I'll suggest to you something I've been an advocate of for a while: Rally the Peasants. You can happily discard it, and it can steal wins out of nowhere quite often.
I'm going to try to take this as you not trolling, Yes and no. Lingering souls (abzan in general) is the hardest card to deal with imo. Sniper is great there and as I stated if you are on copter (not convinced you shouldn't be) you def want sniper. Now that I'm testing ssg as titan shift is gaining big time steam sniper gets cut. There are many games where I'd love to have sniper out! Also moons and bridges (I bel I was the only one even playing bridge) have been in my main so idk how I'm cutting snipers for them but ok. Now that I'm running 3 cb main I still have a little removal too.
Yes the 4/3 is correct in my list (it's taken a lot of games to drop the 4th). A second infestation does nothing where as a second call actually can add the the board. I almost always just discard an infestation and very few decks play enchantment hate (abzan imo my worst matchup aside)that can deal with the first infestation dropped. Call also lets me get the odd card out of my hand if I can't seem to otherwise. I'm also hedging a lot more towards life gain (3 cb main now) because burn/aggro doesn't really care about our game plan.
My decision are because of other cards I'm running so if you aren't on bridge (or you are building a deck for your specific meta) and such your deck is likely very different.
I also don't think this should be called mardu. Even for people splashing it's just misleading.
Yes your list is close similar to mine so I think I could understand some of your choices too ;).
As You can see in my list finally I've included white for lingering souls and although the card is really good I'm not sure if it worthwhile. I mean, is great with pariah out and help you to grind but looking at your list with the wraiths you have the potential to cast hollow ones in the first turn while not loosing CA.
About the other choices, i understand you cut the Grave Scrabblers and Cryptbreakers.
I don't know your reason to do that but i'm going to give mines.
Grave Scrabblers: I think this guy doesn't worthwhile. It cost two to have a grizzly bears and return a creature from your grave which usually are squee, goblin nabobs (which are going to return anyways) or other creatures that usually you don't want in your hand (ruthless sniper doesn't worthwhile too, you only want Hollow ones if you can cast it for 0 (so you need to have a way to do it, and you don't want more than one hazoret the fervent). So the only creatures that you probably want to recover are big game hunters or voldaren pariahs but using four slots to do it is painful. Anyways You could play any number of them to gain CA but the slots in the deck are limited so you must to choose.
Cryptbreakers:this card is the one i don't like the most. Is a 1/1 irrelevant to kill the opponent that needs TO TAP to be able to discard cards (and because of that you are restricted to one activation per turn). This guy is not going to be in the table for much time and also the discard it provides is ridiculous. The advantage of being capable of tapping THREE zombies and lose one life to draw ONE card seems also horible to me because If I have zombies in the table I probably would like to attack or hold the ground to block, and tapping three of them at any EOT (which seems the more plausible window of time to do that) to draw a card, in my opinion doesn't worthwhile and make the deck much slower. Also having hazoret is not good to have much cards in hand so sometimes this second ability is going to be ignored.
These are my opinion on these cards after intensive testing, but anybody have his own ones so I'm not trying to convince or change your mind but only reasoning why I cutted them from my list.
Anyways if I would have to play any of them I would choose the Grave Scrabblers for sure.
Ok so I think this post explains perfectly why I don't care for this type of build.
1) bridge-No bridges means you now have to worry about defending and killing your opponent much more.
2)hollow one- T1 hollow one spends 2 cards and 2 life and does less than t1 breaker. It doesn't take long to out class a vanilla 4/4 and let's hope they don't have a chump blocker. On top of that you cut your way to actually recur it.
3)looting- Looting as a discard engine cost 1 less than breaker and you don't get a 2/2 or the power to actually gain card advantage. Where as breaker actually digs through your deck. You're Willing to try street wraith that cost 2 life to replace itself but then state paying a life to draw a straight up card is a downside? 3 zombies are easy to hit if let's say you didn't cut 8 of them from your list along with 4 ways to make them. At some point the disadvantage on looting means you are either not able to madness or you are not hitting land drops.
4) Hazoret- hazoret (in my testing) is just too mana intensive. This doesn't even count how bad 2 in the opener are. I'm playing a faith of the devoted in its spot and like it much better. Faith and even breaker is the same cost for the effect and again a 5/4 gets to be outclassed easily in the current meta.
5) scrabbler- zombie, recurs (card advantage), best creatures to sac to pariah because you can keep chaining them together, and it adds threat/blocker to the board for blow out double/triple blocks. I close to never get a squee back infact vs dredge I often return a creature from their yard to their hand because it can completely mess with what they're trying to do. Between breaker, bgh, pariah, and scrabblers themselves there are plenty of other things to return not to mention hollow ones and hazorets in your list.
Blood moon and bridge just win games by themselves faster than trying to land a cheap 4/4 artifact creature imo. No blood moon basically throws away the titan shift matchup. No moon/bridge makes you lose a ton of percentages against eldrazi tron, ds decks, gbx, d&t.....
What decks are better matchups with your builds? What have you been crushing and what has been your hardest to deal with decks? Lastly what's you sb plan vs the t1 decks?
No I wasn't trolling...man am I really coming off gruff? Someone else said this to me the other day on another thread...if I ever come off like a jerk or butthead I don't mean to, for the record! This particular deck poses a different situation than most: I have a whole heap of skepticism about anyone saying this or that is better than what was in Tenshi's original 75 that top 8'ed, at least until someone else puts up similar results, in a similarly huge, many-participant event, with changes made to the original 75. When a deck like this that could easily be called 'fringe', 'rogue', and I'm almost 100% certain 'unique'(as Tenshi was the original creator, taking a lot of inspiration from Sam Black's old attempt at a Grixis Zombie madness deck((see youtube videos)) comes along and does as well as it did, it can be argued then that assuredly the deck has the ability to win games against at least some portion of the top tier decks of modern, while also statistically being true that 51%+ of us, including all of us, don't know as much about the build as Tenshi does(or we'd have put up results that were comparable), at least at the time Tenshi top 8'ed. Now? I can't say; many of us have played lots of games with various iterations of this deck, and I'd say we've fleshed out an even more refined version than what Tenshi ran, plus we've gotten more cards since.
Ok so on your piece about the 4/3 split, I think I get what you're saying I'm going to word it as I understand what you said and you correct me if I'm mistaken, ok? So you're basically saying that because Call only requires a single card to discard, while infestation costs 2, you're saying call is better than infestation in multiples, which it totally is I agree; I always discard any extra infestations I draw, and I found that you can sometimes, not often, find yourself unable to fuel infestation much. Especially if you haven't drawn a squee. And you also pointed out the added utility you get from call in the form of lifelink, and that deff isn't something to be scoffed at. It helps the burn match like you said, helps any super aggro matches, etc. I actually agree with every single word you said, and have seen some of those interactions and problems with infestation first-hand, so I'm gonna swap my numbers(i was running 3/4, not 4/3). I just wish we had a really really GOOD 2 drop enabler that had no mana cost, no tap cost, no # of times per turn restrictions, gave a somewhat useful ability, and only required 1 card per activation(with no restrictions on card type like Lotleth Troll). Sadly I think copter, call, and infestation are the best we've got in the 2 slot. I'm temped to try some number of Oona's Prowler; I feel that if the copter's as good as it is then the prowler's gotta be at least decent; doesn't require another creature to be able to attack, same power, and no attack/block requirement to discard. Ofc copter's kinda in a different class altogether because you're actually looting with that, but yeah. Idk, what's your thoughts on the faerie? Here's my current 60
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Big Game Hunter
3 Voldaren Pariah
4 Grave Scrabbler
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Ruthless Sniper
2 Smuggler's Copter
4 Call the Bloodline
3 Zombie Infestation
3 Blood Moon
2 Bad Moon
Other
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Fatal Push
1 Rally the Peasants
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
9 Swamp
1 Mountain
That meta has already changed a lot from when he t8'd. I have no want for a discard outlet that doesn't do anything and does to all the removal in the format still. Imagine playing against dredge or vengvine with it lol.
There are more decks that don't care about bridge in modern than there are that don't care about blood moon. I've been loving my build but this week I'm trying something different. Im swapping my mana base to grixis. 4 delta 3 mire 1 island 1 of each shock and the rest swamps. Then in my board I'm cutting 1 surgical 1 fulminator 1 ts 2 artifact hate for 2 abrade 2 rejection 1 static caster. This will help me (I believe) hedge vs drazi/tron/affinity (or it will be an epic disappointment lol).
3 Ensnaring Bridge
Creature (19)
4 Big Game Hunter
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Grave Scrabbler
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Voldaren Pariah
//Enchantment (12)
4 Blood Moon
4 Call the Bloodline
1 Faith of the Devoted
3 Zombie Infestation
2 Fatal Push
Sorcery (3)
3 Collective Brutality
Land (21)
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Steam Vents
1 Sunken Hollow
10 Swamp
2 Abrade
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Darkblast
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Shadow of Doubt
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
Plus, we'll get Opt and Chart a Course. Both seem decent.
Now, Chart a Course... That's different. Looks like it could possibly be the new standard for card draws.
Idk about nuts. I think a lot of people are over evaluating it. I can't really see wanting to flip it unless you have a second one to cast and deck s that want to flip it for the value of the land I think are going to quickly see it's just too slow. The fact that the front side is very high value for this deck though seems like it might be good here.
Part of me wants to try to get off the 1 drops and just play chalice for even more of a prison effect but breaker is just so good that I can't bring myself to try it. Maybe if these filter/draw engines can get me value like breaker (and I can find another good discard outlet) I can bring myself to do it. The black one in a prison style deck isn't horrible either and once you flip it you can climb back up gaining usually 2 life per turn if you aren't under your bloodmoon. Definitely interesting card to try to innovate with.
Maybe in non bridge builds