Agree! That's also what the deck's creator called it. The name just stuck with me. The other options aren't that bad though.
idutra's Deck
I have a few suggestions:
I think Leylines should be a 0-of of a 4-of in decks. In my eyes, there's no in between. Especially in our deck, where we do not have a reliable method to hard cast them, we want to give ourselves to the best possible chance to have them in our opening hand where they're most valuable. You maximize the effectiveness of the other three copies by adding a forth copy to the deck.
I don't think LEAF is well suited to play Vendilion Clique in the main deck. Clique doesn't effectively further our main gameplan of assembling As Foretold + Living End. It is actively bad in our bad matchups and unnecessary for our good matchups. I would suggest adding the fourth Living End in it's place.
I had a chance to watch some of Urza's stream yesterday. (Thanks for streaming!)
Urza, I believe that 23 lands is too many. Aside from that crazy game against Tron where you drew like 20 lands in the top 40 cards, I think land count was an issue in most of the games I watched. I think part of the deck's strength is the ability to chain cyclers together to find your combo pieces. This becomes more problematic when you break the cycle by drawing lands in between cyclers. For me, I've found 21 lands and four Street Wraith to be the sweet spot for mana.
If you feel the need to go up on lands, I'd suggest replacing one of the your 23 lands with Fetid Pools. It's not a great card, but it minimizes the risk of flooding out by replacing itself in the late game.
I believe the deck is generally well positioned right now in Modern. Any deck in Modern needs to be able to pick up "free wins" by preying on specific deck archetypes. Humans is at the top of the format. The popularity of Humans has led to a rise in Jeskai and other Snapcaster Mage decks. Our deck matches up extremely well against other blue decks like these.
I'm starting to come around to the idea that a heavier black splash is important for the deck based on the strength of Collective Brutality. I'm envious of other lists that play the card. It fills a specific hole in the deck and it improves our burn and humans matchups.
Hey all, I'm back after a big hiatus. It also looks like the metagame has shifted a bit with the last couple of grand prixs. This shift is both good and bad for us, but regardless definitely requires some sideboard shaking up.
The increase in Grixis Death Shadow and Infect is awful. If those continue to rise drastic changes will be required (if you're stubborn enough to not drop the deck, perhaps maindecking fatal push or splashing white for path to exile is where I'd start). However, they are still rare enough that you can try to dodge those awful matchups. The rise in tron, krack-clan, and control decks to fight them is probably an overall wash for us but you'll definitely want to put back some of those ceremonious rejections, nimble obstructionists, and field of ruins we've been cutting in the past few months.
Urza, I believe that 23 lands is too many.
You are probably right, I upped to 23 as an experiment and have probably 25 games under my belt with it (still likely too few to get a strong significant evaluation) but for all the reasons you mentioned replacing land 23 with a impactful card is seems better. I don't like Fetid Pools at all. You already have a ton of come-into-play tapped lands and adding yet another land that can't suspend a first turn visions is not somewhere I'd want to be. Also, I like keeping zero swamps in the deck. Street Wraith is a popular card and against decks that run him when you Living End you're often at a low enough life total that an unblockable swing-back could definitely kill you.
I'm going to reconfigure my list and sideboard today with the latest results in mind and do some streaming later on.
- Update -
I did two leagues and went 4-1 in both. Here's a link permalink to the stream. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/275056627. For what it's worth both losses were to two decks that are probably 75% or better matchups for us (Affinity and Skred Red).
Previously had been playing for about 5 weeks with 4 Spreading Seas instead of Siren Stormtamer. It comes down early as protection from burn spells (also a bad matchup), discard spells, and gives the deck additional play with it returning off Living End. There are also some decks that can't really beat it - Ad Nauseam is cold to it unless they have the Laboratory Maniac kill, and it randomly blocks against Affinity (favorably) and Infect (less so, but still pretty well - they can only get by with Blighted Agent and Apostle's Blessing).
I've cut Street Wraith for now - the life loss is non-trivial in such an aggressive meta. If KCI/Tron start to become truly dominant, I think I'd be happier putting them back in, but even then, I don't feel that the problem is that we draw cards too slowly - the problem is whether or not we can live long enough to get an As Foretold to stick. I've added a 21st land, and the Cliques/Obstructionist.
On our creature base:
I think that we really want Riverwinder and Curator. Those do the heavy lifting in many games. I've started playing more interactive elements because it allows for a) a better plan B should we not be able to find our namesake cards and b) it makes our matchups less polarizing - all of a sudden, we aren't such a dog to aggressive strategies while at the same time maintaining our cards that are very good against controlling ones. Cliques and Obstructionist have continued to impress me, and Stormtamer has been pretty good as well in my limited testing.
On the meta:
I'm of the opinion that a meta full of Jeskai is good for us, as we have many ways to grind them out and put ourselves into an advantageous position in terms of resources. I personally have not experienced any issues with the Shadow matchup - although I imagine part of that is having to do with my playing Chalice and another part of it has to do with me having a sideboard that allows me to shift into an even grindier plan that does not rely on the Living End to close a game. I have lost plenty of games to Jund though - I'm not quite sure what I want to be doing in that matchup. Humans is a coin flip - Thalia, Guardian of Thraben draws are hard to beat, Meddling Mage is only bad if they know what we're on or what to name, and Kitesail Freebooter hurts but is not the end of the world. I haven't played the KCI matchup, but I imagine that it should be fine? We play ~ 8 counterspells mainboard which should delay a resolution of Krark-Clan Ironworks long enough for us to win.
Remorseful Cleric and the new Mistcaller are definitely problematic for our deck. I've never played with Merfolk before, but I would think that Mistcaller is good enough to mainboard in Merfolk decks and in large numbers (as a 3 of even 4-of). Mistcaller gives Merfolk matchup points against quite a few strategies at a low opportunity cost. Merfolk, in that sense, would become similar to Humans -- a deck with disruptive elements that also synergize with tribal support cards. Merfolk's disruption would looks quite different from Humans', but the same idea applies.
There was an article on Channel Fireball recently about Remorseful Cleric. The author suggested Remorseful Cleric will be adopted as a 1-of in toolbox decks or as a 2-of in sideboards. This is best case scenario for us. If people believe that the current graveyard hate is more powerful or if they believe that Remorseful Cleric isn't good enough against a large enough percentage of Modern to make mainboards, then we can breathe a sigh of relief.
Just like Mistcaller, the worse cast scenario with Remorseful Cleric is that it pushes a tribe over the edge. If Merfolk, Spirits or Wizards become a tier deck, we will need to adjust back and change our spell configuration. Spirits curving Remorseful Cleric into Drogskol Captain is incredibly powerful and it's something I do not want to see happening frequently in Modern.
Is Mistcaller really that bad for us though? Sure we don’t reanimate anything, but they don’t get anything back either. In that case, Living End just becomes a board wipe, which is still pretty good against Merfolk. I’d rather see Mistcaller sitting on the other side of the table turn 1 than Cursecatcher any day.
Remorseful Cleric is more problematic because it’s a card that can be put into Spirits, which isn’t a great matchup. I feel like our standard game plan of Living End wiping the board is good enough against other creature toolbox decks that if our opponent chooses to Chord for it, isn’t that still good for us? They use a Chord to ensure that we don’t get anything back, and then they lose their board anyways. I’m more scared of my opponent floating mana for a post-Living End Collected Company.
In all of these matchups, the main problem is getting the first Living End to resolve to alleviate pressure. I’ve found that piecing together a win from there is a pretty reasonable ask.
I agree with Xexen's insight completely and think it's a great analysis. Mistcaller likely won't see much play and if it does it's definitely not the best card those decks could be playing against us.
Remorseful Cleric is much scarier especially when you consider the decks that can play it against us. I don't think I've ever played against Bant Spirits but I'd imagine that matchup wouldn't be our best, if they are running multiple copies of this it would likely be awful. The other decks that would play it would be company-esque decks. The kind of decks that we have great matchups against. If they run a couple copies of this then it turns those auto-wins into more reasonable matchups.
What's everyone's thoughts on this version of the deck, recently played by Jeff Hoogland with a good league result (not saying actual result since I don't want to spoil for those wanting to watch): Grixis Goryo As Foretold - Modern - June 25th, 2018
Goryo's Vengeance and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy also have some good synergy. You can reanimate Jace, flip him and get to keep him as a planeswalker at end of turn. The looting on Jace is very useful for getting cards into the graveyard. You can also downtick Jace when he's flipped to planeswalker to re-cast the Goryo's on a different target.
The deck also has some resiliency to graveyard hate in that it's not too difficult to cast the Kiki Exarch combo from hand via lands and As Foretold. It's even possible, if the game goes long enough, to cast Griselbrand with As Foretold, which Jeff did at least once.
Anyway, I suggest watching the video. There were some really entertaining matches in there!
Yup, the version is 1-2 months old or so, it posted some result and several streamers played it afterwards.
HolyShamgar played a bunch of leagues with it a month ago, I think they were like 5 leagues, don't know how long Twitch stores the videos, but he managed aroung 70% win rate.
The deck has a ton of lines, and plays surprisingly good for its looks (lets be honests, the list looks like a frankenstein abomination of decks)
I traded the Goryo's Vengeance today, all I'm missing is a couple of Griselbrands and I want to give it a try.
Went 3-2 today with the deck, losing to UTron and chalices on 0 and some bad draws, and barely 2-1 to Storm (t3 through a remand! and the last one t4 through Dispel and with lethal on board on my part). The t3 kill hurt a lot, I had Nimble Obstructionist ready the following turn to counter the storm trigger and rejoy in his tears, haha.
The deck really felt great, but man it is slow... I don't think I played slowly, but I used up every minute of all 5 50 minute rounds. First time playing the deck on paper! Managed to beat Hollow One, a Mill deck and a weird UW control deck.
Cool, thanks for pointing me to HolyShamgar. It's good having more videos to watch
I already had most of the cards in Magic Online so I decided to get the rest to try it out. I've only had 3 matches so far and, while I made plenty of mistakes while learning it, it still felt very powerful. The potential to combo win out of nowhere is so good. One game I won was in a very unexpected way, which was by goryo's vengeancing griselbrands 3 turns in a row, getting the win that way (3 * 7 = 21).
The only match I lost was due to bad luck rather than my opponent beating me. I just failed to draw into enough action or more looting to get things going game one and then flooded out on lands the next (which should be really hard to do with 19 lands). Was a blast playing but I definitely need a lot more practice with it.
Hi guys, I think that the most powerful card that we are missing from the original living end is Fulminator Mage. Is there any viable black splash (more consistent than the current one) to let this card be playble in this version?
The only way I see that happening is running a combination of [river of tears] and [sunken ruins] keep in mind this will make you weaker to [blood moon].
I have been thinking a lot about the card Gemstone Caverns for Mono Blue Living End. The card has some real upside, but I'm not sure if it is worth it.
On one hand, the allure of "stealing the play" from opponents is tempting. We can, in theory, make up the card disadvantage with Ancestral Vision and the mana advantage is maximized by the amount of countermagic in the deck. I've found that perhaps more than any deck, our deck operates more effectively on the play. I am a big fan of Spell Pierce in the deck; having the turn zero Gemstone Caverns makes Spell Pierce even better.
On the other hand, Gemstone Caverns is normally a colorless land and that is a real cost for the deck. We can't use it to cycle or counter spells in the early game and most builds already have between 3 and 4 colorless lands with Field of Ruin and Sunken Ruins. Considering the deck plays between 20-22 lands, I worry that another colorless land will render more opening hands unkeepable and hurt the deck's overall effectiveness.
If I were to play Gemstone Caverns, I would likely bring it in as the 22nd land out of the sideboard. Even then, sideboard slots are precious in Modern and even more so in our deck as most builds run 4x Leyline of the Void.
I've written a bit about Spell Pierce on these forms. I just wanted to restate how important I think this card is in the metagame and in the context of this deck.
In my humble opinion, Spell Pierce should be played as a 3- or 4-of in all Mono Blue Living End decks. Spell Pierce is a great counter to turn one discard (situationally of course) and it helps force through the combo. It gives us much needed percentage points against some of the top decks in the format. Spell Pierce is a big reason why our deck should be favored against KCI, Storm, Bogles, Infect, Mardu, Blue Control variants (Jeskai, Blue Moon, UW, etc.) and Ensnaring Bridge decks. Also, you haven't lived until you've Spell Pierced a T3 Karn Liberated.
I'm thinking of taking 1x Disallow, and adding 1x Supreme Will, given that this card can help us dig the missing piece to complete the combo, or anything else situational. From what I said, I'd keep that composition counterspell:
(0-1) UW Miracle: This match was very complicated, because in t3 I was able to solve a Living End with 4 creatures in the grave, which would total 16 damage, but my opponent found a Terminus with a miracle.
In short he reached 2 hit points and managed to turn. (2-0) Storm: Very easy with side. (2-1) Ponza: Very easy. (1-2) RG Eldrazi: The first game I won after resolving a Living End. The second game, I lost, as I ended up keeping a "weak" hand. The surprise came in the third game, I never expected that my opponent would have Choke on the side, and on t3 he lowered, and made t4 Smah and t5 Smash, I could not get back in time.
Anyway, this is my current trajectory.
I'm starting to calculate the number of games I've already had with the deck so that I can briefly measure the%
Hugs!
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Modern: UB Living End as Foretold R Skred Dragons CKCI
I think you should add a surgical extraction instead of a damping sphere, idk in what type of meta you're playing but I think that 3 sphere is too much, we don't even need them that much against storm and co.
I was already thinking about that possibility.
In my goal you usually have: Jeskai Control; Burn; Eldrazi Tron; MonoG Tron; U / W Control; Mardu Pyromancer; UR Pyromancer; Ponza; Affinity; UR Breach; Humans; RG Eldrazi; Scapeshift; Storm; Jund; Abzan;
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Modern: UB Living End as Foretold R Skred Dragons CKCI
Another letter that I am thinking about is on the side Amulet of Safekeeping?
It is a leyline "worsened", but the fact of being colorless already facilitates to lower if it comes in the draw.
Regarding Faerie Macabre, the card is too low impact for Living End As Foretold. In the matchups where we want graveyard hate, we either need to remove the entire graveyard with a one-time effect (think Storm and Dredge) or generate a continuous graveyard hate effect (like Mardu Pyromancer, Hollow One and KCI). Additionally, a two-power flyer is ineffective in closing out the game on its own.
Regarding Amulet of Safekeeping, I think the card is too narrow to see play in most Modern decks. In most cases, Damping Sphere is more effective than Amulet. LEAF should have a fairly good storm matchup anyway since we have access to efficient countermagic and graveyard disruption. Amulet isn't particularly useful versus any other strategies for it to warrant consideration.
I believe Leyline of the Void is the most effective piece of graveyard disruption for LEAF. If I weren't using Leylines, I would want some combination of Tormod's Crypts and Surgical Extractions in the sideboard.
Anyone ever considered Jace, the Living Guildpact as a two-of in the deck? It gives a another way to deal with problematic permanents that get resolved or return Bog and TWest to you hand, repeatedly put cards in the graveyard, and select what you're cycling into, but I'm not sure what I'd drop for it.
Anyone ever considered Jace, the Living Guildpact as a two-of in the deck? It gives a another way to deal with problematic permanents that get resolved or return Bog and TWest to you hand, repeatedly put cards in the graveyard, and select what you're cycling into, but I'm not sure what I'd drop for it.
It would have to take a cryptic slot (purely based on curve considerations), and it seems to me to be inferior there? It actually can't return Bog or TWest, as it's -3 specifies non-land, and I think it's +1 is too low impact (it's basically a Scry 2, if I'm paying 4 mana, I wanna brainstorm). I've experimented with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy before, it's closer to our game plan, but even it doesn't do enough I feel.
Anyone ever considered Jace, the Living Guildpact as a two-of in the deck? It gives a another way to deal with problematic permanents that get resolved or return Bog and TWest to you hand, repeatedly put cards in the graveyard, and select what you're cycling into, but I'm not sure what I'd drop for it.
It would have to take a cryptic slot (purely based on curve considerations), and it seems to me to be inferior there? It actually can't return Bog or TWest, as it's -3 specifies non-land, and I think it's +1 is too low impact (it's basically a Scry 2, if I'm paying 4 mana, I wanna brainstorm). I've experimented with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy before, it's closer to our game plan, but even it doesn't do enough I feel.
I would say that Search for Azcanta do it better (you don't flip it unless you need to find either a counter or As Foretold) but it is still too slow and not worth (it is dangerous to cast it turn 2 at sorc speed, you rather remand/mana leak/cycle).
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Agree! That's also what the deck's creator called it. The name just stuck with me. The other options aren't that bad though.
I have a few suggestions:
I had a chance to watch some of Urza's stream yesterday. (Thanks for streaming!)
Urza, I believe that 23 lands is too many. Aside from that crazy game against Tron where you drew like 20 lands in the top 40 cards, I think land count was an issue in most of the games I watched. I think part of the deck's strength is the ability to chain cyclers together to find your combo pieces. This becomes more problematic when you break the cycle by drawing lands in between cyclers. For me, I've found 21 lands and four Street Wraith to be the sweet spot for mana.
If you feel the need to go up on lands, I'd suggest replacing one of the your 23 lands with Fetid Pools. It's not a great card, but it minimizes the risk of flooding out by replacing itself in the late game.
I believe the deck is generally well positioned right now in Modern. Any deck in Modern needs to be able to pick up "free wins" by preying on specific deck archetypes. Humans is at the top of the format. The popularity of Humans has led to a rise in Jeskai and other Snapcaster Mage decks. Our deck matches up extremely well against other blue decks like these.
I'm starting to come around to the idea that a heavier black splash is important for the deck based on the strength of Collective Brutality. I'm envious of other lists that play the card. It fills a specific hole in the deck and it improves our burn and humans matchups.
This list 5-0ed a Magic Online league earlier this month. I don't agree with all of the card choices (Serum Visions, Faerie Macabre stick out) but with some tuning, this list has a chance to be really good.
The increase in Grixis Death Shadow and Infect is awful. If those continue to rise drastic changes will be required (if you're stubborn enough to not drop the deck, perhaps maindecking fatal push or splashing white for path to exile is where I'd start). However, they are still rare enough that you can try to dodge those awful matchups. The rise in tron, krack-clan, and control decks to fight them is probably an overall wash for us but you'll definitely want to put back some of those ceremonious rejections, nimble obstructionists, and field of ruins we've been cutting in the past few months.
You are probably right, I upped to 23 as an experiment and have probably 25 games under my belt with it (still likely too few to get a strong significant evaluation) but for all the reasons you mentioned replacing land 23 with a impactful card is seems better. I don't like Fetid Pools at all. You already have a ton of come-into-play tapped lands and adding yet another land that can't suspend a first turn visions is not somewhere I'd want to be. Also, I like keeping zero swamps in the deck. Street Wraith is a popular card and against decks that run him when you Living End you're often at a low enough life total that an unblockable swing-back could definitely kill you.
I'm going to reconfigure my list and sideboard today with the latest results in mind and do some streaming later on.
- Update -
I did two leagues and went 4-1 in both. Here's a link permalink to the stream. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/275056627. For what it's worth both losses were to two decks that are probably 75% or better matchups for us (Affinity and Skred Red).
I've been testing this list for a couple paper events - I've gone 3-1 and 4-0:
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Siren Stormtamer
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Nimble Obstructionist
Core
4 As Foretold
4 Living End
4 Ancestral Vision
Spells
4 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
6 Island
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tolaria West
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Plains
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Meddling Mage
2 Terminus
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Negate
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Previously had been playing for about 5 weeks with 4 Spreading Seas instead of Siren Stormtamer. It comes down early as protection from burn spells (also a bad matchup), discard spells, and gives the deck additional play with it returning off Living End. There are also some decks that can't really beat it - Ad Nauseam is cold to it unless they have the Laboratory Maniac kill, and it randomly blocks against Affinity (favorably) and Infect (less so, but still pretty well - they can only get by with Blighted Agent and Apostle's Blessing).
I've cut Street Wraith for now - the life loss is non-trivial in such an aggressive meta. If KCI/Tron start to become truly dominant, I think I'd be happier putting them back in, but even then, I don't feel that the problem is that we draw cards too slowly - the problem is whether or not we can live long enough to get an As Foretold to stick. I've added a 21st land, and the Cliques/Obstructionist.
On our creature base:
I think that we really want Riverwinder and Curator. Those do the heavy lifting in many games. I've started playing more interactive elements because it allows for a) a better plan B should we not be able to find our namesake cards and b) it makes our matchups less polarizing - all of a sudden, we aren't such a dog to aggressive strategies while at the same time maintaining our cards that are very good against controlling ones. Cliques and Obstructionist have continued to impress me, and Stormtamer has been pretty good as well in my limited testing.
On the meta:
I'm of the opinion that a meta full of Jeskai is good for us, as we have many ways to grind them out and put ourselves into an advantageous position in terms of resources. I personally have not experienced any issues with the Shadow matchup - although I imagine part of that is having to do with my playing Chalice and another part of it has to do with me having a sideboard that allows me to shift into an even grindier plan that does not rely on the Living End to close a game. I have lost plenty of games to Jund though - I'm not quite sure what I want to be doing in that matchup. Humans is a coin flip - Thalia, Guardian of Thraben draws are hard to beat, Meddling Mage is only bad if they know what we're on or what to name, and Kitesail Freebooter hurts but is not the end of the world. I haven't played the KCI matchup, but I imagine that it should be fine? We play ~ 8 counterspells mainboard which should delay a resolution of Krark-Clan Ironworks long enough for us to win.
Modern: U Living End
Standard: UW Approach of the Second Sun
In a word, UGH.
Remorseful Cleric and the new Mistcaller are definitely problematic for our deck. I've never played with Merfolk before, but I would think that Mistcaller is good enough to mainboard in Merfolk decks and in large numbers (as a 3 of even 4-of). Mistcaller gives Merfolk matchup points against quite a few strategies at a low opportunity cost. Merfolk, in that sense, would become similar to Humans -- a deck with disruptive elements that also synergize with tribal support cards. Merfolk's disruption would looks quite different from Humans', but the same idea applies.
Back to Remorseful Cleric. This card is trouble, but it's beatable. Whatever strategies you use to defend against Arcbound Ravager can be applied to Remorseful Cleric. (For me, that means Pithing Needle and Nimble Obstructionist out of the sideboard.) Those with a heavy black splash can kill it with Collective Brutality. Like I said, troublesome, but beatable.
There was an article on Channel Fireball recently about Remorseful Cleric. The author suggested Remorseful Cleric will be adopted as a 1-of in toolbox decks or as a 2-of in sideboards. This is best case scenario for us. If people believe that the current graveyard hate is more powerful or if they believe that Remorseful Cleric isn't good enough against a large enough percentage of Modern to make mainboards, then we can breathe a sigh of relief.
Just like Mistcaller, the worse cast scenario with Remorseful Cleric is that it pushes a tribe over the edge. If Merfolk, Spirits or Wizards become a tier deck, we will need to adjust back and change our spell configuration. Spirits curving Remorseful Cleric into Drogskol Captain is incredibly powerful and it's something I do not want to see happening frequently in Modern.
Remorseful Cleric is more problematic because it’s a card that can be put into Spirits, which isn’t a great matchup. I feel like our standard game plan of Living End wiping the board is good enough against other creature toolbox decks that if our opponent chooses to Chord for it, isn’t that still good for us? They use a Chord to ensure that we don’t get anything back, and then they lose their board anyways. I’m more scared of my opponent floating mana for a post-Living End Collected Company.
In all of these matchups, the main problem is getting the first Living End to resolve to alleviate pressure. I’ve found that piecing together a win from there is a pretty reasonable ask.
Modern: U Living End
Standard: UW Approach of the Second Sun
Remorseful Cleric is much scarier especially when you consider the decks that can play it against us. I don't think I've ever played against Bant Spirits but I'd imagine that matchup wouldn't be our best, if they are running multiple copies of this it would likely be awful. The other decks that would play it would be company-esque decks. The kind of decks that we have great matchups against. If they run a couple copies of this then it turns those auto-wins into more reasonable matchups.
Grixis Goryo As Foretold - Modern - June 25th, 2018
It plays the As Foretold, Ancestral Vision and Living End core but uses the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Deceiver Exarch combo as a finisher, along with cards like Faithless Looting, Goryo's Vengeance, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Griselbrand to speed things along for the graveyard.
At the very least, it looks like a tonne of fun to play!
3 Living End
4 As Foretold
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Goryo's Vengeance
Spells
1 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Izzet Charm
3 Lightning Axe
4 Faithless Looting
Creatures
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Griselbrand
2 Simian Spirit Guide
Lands
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Steam Vents
2 Spirebluff Canal
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Collective Brutality
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Repeal
1 Dispel
1 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Engineered Explosives
It could probably do with Tolaria West and Bojuka Bog in there somewhere. Jeff suggested dropping the Thirst for Knowledge for another land.
There's a lot of interesting lines available. The aim is to get both Deceiver Exarch and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker in the graveyard, then cast Living End via As Foretold to get them into play and attack with infinite 1/1's.
If you already have Deceiver Exarch in play with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker in the graveyard, you can use Goryo's Vengeance to get Kiki into play to combo off.
Goryo's Vengeance is also there to reanimate Griselbrand, which you use to fill your hand with enough cards that lets you discard Deceiver Exarch and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to graveyard (either at end of turn to hand size or by using cards like Faithless Looting), ready to get Living End going.
Goryo's Vengeance and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy also have some good synergy. You can reanimate Jace, flip him and get to keep him as a planeswalker at end of turn. The looting on Jace is very useful for getting cards into the graveyard. You can also downtick Jace when he's flipped to planeswalker to re-cast the Goryo's on a different target.
The deck also has some resiliency to graveyard hate in that it's not too difficult to cast the Kiki Exarch combo from hand via lands and As Foretold. It's even possible, if the game goes long enough, to cast Griselbrand with As Foretold, which Jeff did at least once.
Anyway, I suggest watching the video. There were some really entertaining matches in there!
HolyShamgar played a bunch of leagues with it a month ago, I think they were like 5 leagues, don't know how long Twitch stores the videos, but he managed aroung 70% win rate.
The deck has a ton of lines, and plays surprisingly good for its looks (lets be honests, the list looks like a frankenstein abomination of decks)
I traded the Goryo's Vengeance today, all I'm missing is a couple of Griselbrands and I want to give it a try.
Went 3-2 today with the deck, losing to UTron and chalices on 0 and some bad draws, and barely 2-1 to Storm (t3 through a remand! and the last one t4 through Dispel and with lethal on board on my part). The t3 kill hurt a lot, I had Nimble Obstructionist ready the following turn to counter the storm trigger and rejoy in his tears, haha.
The deck really felt great, but man it is slow... I don't think I played slowly, but I used up every minute of all 5 50 minute rounds. First time playing the deck on paper! Managed to beat Hollow One, a Mill deck and a weird UW control deck.
I already had most of the cards in Magic Online so I decided to get the rest to try it out. I've only had 3 matches so far and, while I made plenty of mistakes while learning it, it still felt very powerful. The potential to combo win out of nowhere is so good. One game I won was in a very unexpected way, which was by goryo's vengeancing griselbrands 3 turns in a row, getting the win that way (3 * 7 = 21).
The only match I lost was due to bad luck rather than my opponent beating me. I just failed to draw into enough action or more looting to get things going game one and then flooded out on lands the next (which should be really hard to do with 19 lands). Was a blast playing but I definitely need a lot more practice with it.
On one hand, the allure of "stealing the play" from opponents is tempting. We can, in theory, make up the card disadvantage with Ancestral Vision and the mana advantage is maximized by the amount of countermagic in the deck. I've found that perhaps more than any deck, our deck operates more effectively on the play. I am a big fan of Spell Pierce in the deck; having the turn zero Gemstone Caverns makes Spell Pierce even better.
On the other hand, Gemstone Caverns is normally a colorless land and that is a real cost for the deck. We can't use it to cycle or counter spells in the early game and most builds already have between 3 and 4 colorless lands with Field of Ruin and Sunken Ruins. Considering the deck plays between 20-22 lands, I worry that another colorless land will render more opening hands unkeepable and hurt the deck's overall effectiveness.
If I were to play Gemstone Caverns, I would likely bring it in as the 22nd land out of the sideboard. Even then, sideboard slots are precious in Modern and even more so in our deck as most builds run 4x Leyline of the Void.
Has anyone had any experience playing with Gemstone Caverns?
In my humble opinion, Spell Pierce should be played as a 3- or 4-of in all Mono Blue Living End decks. Spell Pierce is a great counter to turn one discard (situationally of course) and it helps force through the combo. It gives us much needed percentage points against some of the top decks in the format. Spell Pierce is a big reason why our deck should be favored against KCI, Storm, Bogles, Infect, Mardu, Blue Control variants (Jeskai, Blue Moon, UW, etc.) and Ensnaring Bridge decks. Also, you haven't lived until you've Spell Pierced a T3 Karn Liberated.
If you're playing Mana Leak, Censor, Disallow or Supreme Will, I highly suggest you test out Spell Pierce in those slots!
My version uses the following composition:
2x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Leak
2x Disallow
1x Supreme Will
I'm thinking of taking 1x Disallow, and adding 1x Supreme Will, given that this card can help us dig the missing piece to complete the combo, or anything else situational. From what I said, I'd keep that composition counterspell:
4x Remand
3x Command Cryptic
2x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Leak
1x Disallow
2x Supreme Will
Yes, I know I'm playing with no less than 14 counterspell, though, as the deck idea.
UB Living End as Foretold
R Skred Dragons
CKCI
It's not cycling, but it's free and can be discarded at instant speed.
Has this been explored and cut?
The list used was:
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Curator of Mysteries
3 Street Wraith
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Nimble Obstructionist
Spells (20)
4 Remand
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Cryptic Command
3 Living End
1 Disallow
2 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
1 Supreme Will
4 As Foretold
Artifacts (1)
1 Engineered Explosives
Lands (20)
3 Field of Ruin
10 Island
4 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Dispel
2 Dismember
3 Damping Sphere
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
Where I had the following results:
(0-1) UW Miracle: This match was very complicated, because in t3 I was able to solve a Living End with 4 creatures in the grave, which would total 16 damage, but my opponent found a Terminus with a miracle.
In short he reached 2 hit points and managed to turn.
(2-0) Storm: Very easy with side.
(2-1) Ponza: Very easy.
(1-2) RG Eldrazi: The first game I won after resolving a Living End. The second game, I lost, as I ended up keeping a "weak" hand. The surprise came in the third game, I never expected that my opponent would have Choke on the side, and on t3 he lowered, and made t4 Smah and t5 Smash, I could not get back in time.
Anyway, this is my current trajectory.
I'm starting to calculate the number of games I've already had with the deck so that I can briefly measure the%
Hugs!
UB Living End as Foretold
R Skred Dragons
CKCI
In my goal you usually have: Jeskai Control; Burn; Eldrazi Tron; MonoG Tron; U / W Control; Mardu Pyromancer; UR Pyromancer; Ponza; Affinity; UR Breach; Humans; RG Eldrazi; Scapeshift; Storm; Jund; Abzan;
UB Living End as Foretold
R Skred Dragons
CKCI
It is a leyline "worsened", but the fact of being colorless already facilitates to lower if it comes in the draw.
UB Living End as Foretold
R Skred Dragons
CKCI
Regarding Amulet of Safekeeping, I think the card is too narrow to see play in most Modern decks. In most cases, Damping Sphere is more effective than Amulet. LEAF should have a fairly good storm matchup anyway since we have access to efficient countermagic and graveyard disruption. Amulet isn't particularly useful versus any other strategies for it to warrant consideration.
I believe Leyline of the Void is the most effective piece of graveyard disruption for LEAF. If I weren't using Leylines, I would want some combination of Tormod's Crypts and Surgical Extractions in the sideboard.
I would say that Search for Azcanta do it better (you don't flip it unless you need to find either a counter or As Foretold) but it is still too slow and not worth (it is dangerous to cast it turn 2 at sorc speed, you rather remand/mana leak/cycle).