No. Drift will be running cycle lands, which are tap lands. Chalice is usually for decks with fast mana, and never for ones with maindeck ~6-10 tap lands...
I'm really not sure what Drift will need sideboard. I guess I'll learn in playtesting.
I actually have been brewing this deck since the preview of the card and came to think GWb is the best combo. There were a few cards that I saw in this thread that really made the deck go from C tier jank to (B)ish tier. One of those cards was indeed nest invader, a seriously important 2 drop that this deck SERIOUSLY needed. The lack of early game bodies meant inititally that I pretty much auto scooped to a good aggro deck. Another card that I havent seen yet here is [Shadow of the grave]. This card has won me a lot of games because it works perfectly with our free cyclers when youre struggling to hit the right top decks and need to sift through your deck quickly. You will also notice a lack of Paths. This is an issue you see with a lot of B tier decks. YOu have to COMMIT to the plan. Youre goal here is to get drift out, and out value your opponent in in turns 5 on. You will not have room to be spending mana to exile something early, you have to get to turn 5 or you lose. Here is my list, including the maybeboard. I am still working on a sideboard, but one step at a time, right?
//deck-1
4 Street Wraith
3 Edge of Autumn
2 Restoration Angel
4 Astral Drift
2 Eternal Witness
2 Wasteland Strangler
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Knight of Autumn
2 Life from the Loam
2 Shadow of the Grave
3 Wall of Omens
4 Nest Invader
2 Unearth
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Secluded Steppe
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
2 Scattered Groves
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
I agree that the most viable form of the deck is GWb, but I've been having a hell of a time figuring out what to put in it.
One thing about your list that I wonder about is the lack of 1 drops. With 8-10 taplands, which is what I've been running in my lists, 1 mana on turn 2 happens a lot, and like you said the deck frequently gets stomped by decks with a strong aggro early-game.
A card I've tried out and seemed not terrible is Riftsweeper. It fits well into a plan to abuse Tidehollow sculler and flickerwisp. My issue has been that the manabase rarely plays nice enough to play those minions when they matter.
I think mainboard Finks is going to be a staple. Wasteland Strangler too in any deck with black.
Below is where I'm currently at in theory. I wanted to gather my thoughts on the deck's history from Extended compared to what we have in Modern and lay them out here. I'll be presuming a metagame based off of mtggoldfish's data.
I'm not sold on the idea of being a predominantly creature deck trying to gain value from flickering different creatures. As such a strategy seems similar to collected company, which hasn't performed well in recent memory. Instead, I'm trying to keep with the spirit of Astral Slide decks from the old extended format, whereby we primarily abuse eternal witness. Notably, Extended-then and Modern-now are entirely different, with the latter being much more hostile and linear. Moreover, the card pool is vastly different where Extended had a better selection of cards with cycling than we do currently.
Arboreal Grazer looks to be perfect for this deck it provides an early blocker, ramps, and late-game helps us play several utility lands in a turn. Since my land count is spread out I figured knight of the reliquary can help us find a silver bullet while also being a huge treat that can end a game quickly. Admittedly, some of the spells seem odd but they add a means of locking the game up; angelsong while we have the loop stops combat and gilded light provides a lock vs storm, ad nauseam, and burn. However, it could be the case that since we already have wraths that only gilded light matters since it's more unique. unearth I think is another linchpin; late in the game allowing us to start chaining together e-wits. Oddly I don't have path to exile and instead opted to use assassin's trophy because of Tron just being nothing but problematic permanents, it's still cheap enough to be meaningful against humans, can kill the new planeswalkers that UW is maining, and still provides the land lock with ghost quarter. Also I am not playing edge of autumn as chaining grazers together turns the card into just sac a land cycle, but having more ways to ramp might be correct with an adjusted land base. The lands are rather greedy what with 8 tap lands and 4 colorless utility lands. I split the ghost quarter triplet to add a blast zone as another wrath and since I have loam and knight I tried to squeeze in some more utility lands.
Originally I was playing traverse but I decided to go with knights and an extra raven's crime. I think if anyone is going to play a creature toolbox they should consider some kind of tutor else they just have a clunky stack of creatures.
I agree with Ohmybottomglasses. I think packing the deck with a bunch of different etb creatures is a mistake. It's already accepted that the deck has a slow start; I'd much rather spend the early game casting removal and disruption to reach the lynchpin turns than try to go toe-to-toe with an aggro deck in creature combat.
We should be able to ride Knight of the Reliquary/Tireless Tracker/Ayula's Influence to victory with the Loam engine, while Drift and Witness give us never-ending disruption.
I agree with Ohmybottomglasses. I think packing the deck with a bunch of different etb creatures is a mistake. It's already accepted that the deck has a slow start; I'd much rather spend the early game casting removal and disruption to reach the lynchpin turns than try to go toe-to-toe with an aggro deck in creature combat.
We should be able to ride Knight of the Reliquary/Tireless Tracker/Ayula's Influence to victory with the Loam engine, while Drift and Witness give us never-ending disruption.
We are not playing a loam shell. This has been discussed earlier in the thread. We are trying to make a Drift shell. Loam is not the intended engine, though, we will see plenty of loam decks entering the format. Our goal with this thread is to make drift the intended engine.
Below is where I'm currently at in theory. I wanted to gather my thoughts on the deck's history from Extended compared to what we have in Modern and lay them out here. I'll be presuming a metagame based off of mtggoldfish's data.
I'm not sold on the idea of being a predominantly creature deck trying to gain value from flickering different creatures. As such a strategy seems similar to collected company, which hasn't performed well in recent memory. Instead, I'm trying to keep with the spirit of Astral Slide decks from the old extended format, whereby we primarily abuse eternal witness. Notably, Extended-then and Modern-now are entirely different, with the latter being much more hostile and linear. Moreover, the card pool is vastly different where Extended had a better selection of cards with cycling than we do currently.
Arboreal Grazer looks to be perfect for this deck it provides an early blocker, ramps, and late-game helps us play several utility lands in a turn. Since my land count is spread out I figured knight of the reliquary can help us find a silver bullet while also being a huge treat that can end a game quickly. Admittedly, some of the spells seem odd but they add a means of locking the game up; angelsong while we have the loop stops combat and gilded light provides a lock vs storm, ad nauseam, and burn. However, it could be the case that since we already have wraths that only gilded light matters since it's more unique. unearth I think is another linchpin; late in the game allowing us to start chaining together e-wits. Oddly I don't have path to exile and instead opted to use assassin's trophy because of Tron just being nothing but problematic permanents, it's still cheap enough to be meaningful against humans, can kill the new planeswalkers that UW is maining, and still provides the land lock with ghost quarter. Also I am not playing edge of autumn as chaining grazers together turns the card into just sac a land cycle, but having more ways to ramp might be correct with an adjusted land base. The lands are rather greedy what with 8 tap lands and 4 colorless utility lands. I split the ghost quarter triplet to add a blast zone as another wrath and since I have loam and knight I tried to squeeze in some more utility lands.
Originally I was playing traverse but I decided to go with knights and an extra raven's crime. I think if anyone is going to play a creature toolbox they should consider some kind of tutor else they just have a clunky stack of creatures.
While I personally feel that this variation of the deck simply loses to surgical extraction. This is something I will be hoping to address in my sideboard, since I seriously expect to see extraction in game 2.
EDIT: Found it pull from eternity
I struggle to see you win con. with only 2 knights, I can hardly see that as a solution. Grazer is... well--grazer. and Ewit is in the same boat as knight. I would think that your best call would be to play Approach of the second sun since the direction of your deck at the moment is to simply stall the game. Also, your tutor argument is solved by eldritch evolution, and, further, toolbox decks are JUST THAT, a bunch of value creatures that play well on their own, but with the right engine become more. For instance, Kiki and Vanifar pod... Strong in their own right even if your take out pieces.
Technically speaking if our opponent is crippled to the point they can't play from us using ghost quartering, raven's crime, and returning whatever answer we need having a dedicated win-con is frivolous. It very well could be the case that the slots I have for knight of the reliquary could be better spent elsewhere. Sure with the commonplace of surgical extraction, it can be problematic.
Just as you advocate to not play Ayulu's influence as it dilutes the focus of the deck away from astral drift, the same argument can be made for both approach of the second sun and eldritch evolution. The former being useless in almost every phase of the game and even when we have someone locked out it will still take a while to get the same copy back. The latter especially troubles me because it adds another three-drop that doesn't do anything on its own. We don't gain anything from sacrificing a creature, also, I wouldn't we rather have them in play to be flickered by astral drift, correct? I think eladamri's call or finale of devastation makes more sense.
For eladamri's call the pros: it's cheap so we can play it early, and it works independently of board state; the cons: it doesn't put the creature into play. I don't think that is so problematic as by nature of this deck, especially if you're on the loam plan, you'll have a land to play every turn and can most likely cast your tutor target. As for finale of devastation the pros: we can also tutor from our graveyard; the cons: mana intensive. Again I don't think mana will be much of an issue when tutoring smaller creatures.
Also has anyone considered commune with the gods or sun titan? Commune adds consistency and allows us to dig for either of our best targets astral drift, eternal witness, or any silver bullet creature you might be playing. sun titan seems strong as it brings back either of the aforementioned cards so we can either get more flickers to control the board or recure more cards.
It's mixing the idea of the deck with others that can already work (blinks deck) and yes, Astral Drift, is a blink engine but not in a normal way, cycling.
Life from the Loam is a really good card if we play with cycling lands, for 2 mana we can recover 3 lands (cycling or utility lands like Ghost Quarter, Bojuka Bog) and these 3 lands are 3 draw's and 3 blink on Eternal for take what we need of the graveyard.
Someone mentioned a lack of one drops. Because just under 50% (9/20) of my mana lands come into play tapped, the curve of
T1 Tap land
T2 land, "Do I play this one drop instead of a two drop"
T3 uhhhh Grazer, cycle something?
vs
T1 Fetch land, pass
EOT crack
T2 Land, nest invader/Wall
T3 any of my toolbox 3 drops, or drift.
I do concede however, that your iteration of the deck does provide a better home for one drops because of all the 2 drop disruption and removal you have.
EDIT: 2 other potential cards are noxious gearhulk and cataclysmic gearhulk
I feel like this deck wants some variety of Birds of Paradise and Noble Heirarch. Just for early speed.
Ramp you into a T2 slide, then maybe you can stabilize from there.
The problem is that running multiple ETB tapped lands strongly conflicts with that approach.
It can cause issues even running *one* etb tapped land much less 4+.
Generally when constructing a modern deck you should think of ETB tapped lands as 1-drops from a curve perspective, since they essentially "Cost 1." Playing 8 dorks and 8 cycling lands is a crapload of 1-drops, and makes for a lot of air in your deck.
Those are my 75 right now.
I'm still testing and tweaking the mana base. I'm trying to avoid the typical land toolbox build because we aren't running Knight of the Reliquary.
I feel like this deck wants some variety of Birds of Paradise and Noble Heirarch. Just for early speed.
Ramp you into a T2 slide, then maybe you can stabilize from there.
The problem is that running multiple ETB tapped lands strongly conflicts with that approach.
It can cause issues even running *one* etb tapped land much less 4+.
Generally when constructing a modern deck you should think of ETB tapped lands as 1-drops from a curve perspective, since they essentially "Cost 1." Playing 8 dorks and 8 cycling lands is a crapload of 1-drops, and makes for a lot of air in your deck.
I dont see how ETB would prevent us from wanting 1 drops. We would just land it T2, and ramp T3. 1 Mana ramp just seems too good to pass up. Honestly, if anything it seems like we need this MORE because of our come into play tapped situation. We cant be slow and clunky all game or we'll get wrecked by anything remotely fast. Def wouldnt be thinking of the 1 drops as 'air' when they are helping take some weight off the manabase. We cant expect to come into play tapped land every turn and be behind all game every game and do well can we?
Also 8 Cycling lands only? My list has a LOT more than that. I would use 4 of every single cycle land in your decks colors, then just add more lands that come in untapped on top of that. Im currently at 29 lands.
I feel like this deck wants some variety of Birds of Paradise and Noble Heirarch. Just for early speed.
Ramp you into a T2 slide, then maybe you can stabilize from there.
The problem is that running multiple ETB tapped lands strongly conflicts with that approach.
It can cause issues even running *one* etb tapped land much less 4+.
Generally when constructing a modern deck you should think of ETB tapped lands as 1-drops from a curve perspective, since they essentially "Cost 1." Playing 8 dorks and 8 cycling lands is a crapload of 1-drops, and makes for a lot of air in your deck.
I dont see how ETB would prevent us from wanting 1 drops. We would just land it T2, and ramp T3. 1 Mana ramp just seems too good to pass up. Honestly, if anything it seems like we need this MORE because of our come into play tapped situation. We cant be slow and clunky all game or we'll get wrecked by anything remotely fast. Def wouldnt be thinking of the 1 drops as 'air' when they are helping take some weight off the manabase. We cant expect to come into play tapped land every turn and be behind all game every game and do well can we?
Also 8 Cycling lands only? My list has a LOT more than that. I would use 4 of every single cycle land in your decks colors, then just add more lands that come in untapped on top of that. Im currently at 29 lands.
Not to sound rude, but how much actual play testing have you been doing? Any amount of playtesting would reveal that one drops indeed, feel extremely out of place while trying to play them t1. And why would you ever play it on T2 when you have wall of blossoms/omens or nest invader? And on top of that, how terrible is it to top deck a 1 drop do nothing in turns 5+ when all you want to see is either (depending on your decklist) Removal/disruption, Some sort of value creature, or a cycler.
I've also been thinking about Astral Drift decks (right now my idea is to use Drake Haven as a backup payoff). I had a casual Astral Slide deck back in the day and by far the most powerful card was Tilling Treefolk. Yeah, it's probably not powerful enough for Modern, but I just wanted to throw that out there since no one's mentioned it. Life from the Loam is probably better on most counts but obviously you can blink the Treefolk.
Also, is there anything to be said for Riftsweeper and Hallowed Moonlight? They're kind of like Processors but in our colors.
I feel like this deck wants some variety of Birds of Paradise and Noble Heirarch. Just for early speed.
Ramp you into a T2 slide, then maybe you can stabilize from there.
The problem is that running multiple ETB tapped lands strongly conflicts with that approach.
It can cause issues even running *one* etb tapped land much less 4+.
Generally when constructing a modern deck you should think of ETB tapped lands as 1-drops from a curve perspective, since they essentially "Cost 1." Playing 8 dorks and 8 cycling lands is a crapload of 1-drops, and makes for a lot of air in your deck.
I dont see how ETB would prevent us from wanting 1 drops. We would just land it T2, and ramp T3. 1 Mana ramp just seems too good to pass up. Honestly, if anything it seems like we need this MORE because of our come into play tapped situation. We cant be slow and clunky all game or we'll get wrecked by anything remotely fast. Def wouldnt be thinking of the 1 drops as 'air' when they are helping take some weight off the manabase. We cant expect to come into play tapped land every turn and be behind all game every game and do well can we?
Also 8 Cycling lands only? My list has a LOT more than that. I would use 4 of every single cycle land in your decks colors, then just add more lands that come in untapped on top of that. Im currently at 29 lands.
Not to sound rude, but how much actual play testing have you been doing? Any amount of playtesting would reveal that one drops indeed, feel extremely out of place while trying to play them t1. And why would you ever play it on T2 when you have wall of blossoms/omens or nest invader? And on top of that, how terrible is it to top deck a 1 drop do nothing in turns 5+ when all you want to see is either (depending on your decklist) Removal/disruption, Some sort of value creature, or a cycler.
I still feel like you are thinking about the 1 drops wrong. They arent that bad to draw late game at all TBH. You can just fill out your mana with them and give you more breathing room. Like if you 'need' 2 mana to leave up for cycling things, and you have 1 'extra' that you wouldnt use, perfect chance to be less cramped in terms of mana, next turn. Also not irrelevant is the flying on birds if you need to block a flyer, then tap the bird and use that mana to 1 mana cycle and drift your bird away.
Im still testing but I dont think I'll be cutting my 5 minimum 1 drop accel creatures any time soon. I also use a LOT of lands, too; and feel they are almost necessary. Im currently at 30 lands, 28 cycling effects, and 8 ETB creatures.
been thinking about this deck since it was spoiled such an exciting card turns lands into a cloudshift that draw cards a dream come true.First time i pre ordered anything.
Im thinking of abzan as the colors if the mana works mainly because of unearth being an additional way to reuse a creature while also being a cycler. the 2 for one potential with wasteland strangler and astral drift is also nice. there's also mangara of corondor in other colors. but he doesn't combo with tidehollow sculler and has to stick around a whole turn.
a card im considering that i haven't seen mentioned yet is judge's familiar. At least for the side board. to give some way to interact with less creature dependent decks along side tidehollow sculler seems extra nice due to being recurable with both unearth and eternal witness. Also being a flying blocker is nice. also was thinking of cards like thalia, guardian of thraben and dovin, hand of control. however thalia slows down resolving astral drift. And dovin while nice being a one sided tax and an additional fogging effect is a three drop and this deck is very three drop heavy so not fan of him either. hes just to slow
for creatures to blink i agree with the two drops of nest invader and the walls. good value and defence. For three drops im partial to kitchen finks and blade splicer. because they can be played turn three used to get a block and astral drift cycle blink one of them can be the turn 4 play. i also like the team of strangler and sculler for this reason as well. and of course eternal witness. flickerwisp serems nice due to being able to use the end step flickerwisp tricks but i'm not sure if there's room.
My main issue with the deck is how much it wants to use the three drop slot so trying to decide what goes there to start while still having enough early plays to not lose before turn 4.
I have been reading you these days because I am a total fan of Astral Slide engine. I played it back in time in extended with exalted angels, eternal dragon and orim chant's lock. I have read you all and I'd like to share my ideas.
- Midrange: It is basically a "blink and taxes" gameplan, without the taxes. I use 3 walls instead of 4 (either omens or blossoms) to block and get cards the early turns, 4 blade splicer as our main weapon, 3 witness to use the astral engine and recover our cards, 3 knight of autumn as our "everything" tool (lives, attack or protection against art/ench) and finally restoration to help with the ETB effects and thragtusk as a mid-late game plan. I think 4 path to exile are a must-have, and I complement it with 2 cast out for other threats. 25 lands are more than fine. I don't run street wraith as I already play edge of autumn as a free cycler and I wouldn't cast wraith ever.
- Abzan Aggro control: This is more similar to the one I used to play. It can protect itself from most threats and although it hasn't got any discard engine like other rock/abzan, we add tidehollows to control opponent's hand and wasteland strangler to get a perfect sinergy. Unearth is simply a must in this deck. Siege Rhino is probably the best way to kill our opponent and balance our life totals. I do include street wraith in this version as we need more free mana to cast our defenses via PtE/Trophy/decay. I love Worm Harvest and I cannot see a deck like this without 1 copy.
We also reduce the amount of LftL as it is not our main course of actions but a great help. I haven't included either Tarmogoyf or Grim flayer because we don't want to run but to control the game and we do not want to be totally wasted against graveyard hate. Finally, the inclusion of 2 Edge of autumn is both to let us find the 3rd colour just in case of need or just exploit tidehollow's ability with astral in the battlefield.
- GWb tempo Astral: This is a non-tested idea I have been thinking of. It is based on my old Astral slide version mixed with the aggrocontrol one. I'd like to include Ayula's influence instead of Worm Harvest to finish off as if it were a copy of Seismic assault. It includes Eladamri's call instead of traverse the ulvenwald/eldritch evolution as we are not in a rush to put creatures in play and as a substitute of Living Wish. In my opinion, this is the least competitive version of it because it has less interaction with opponent's hand and it goes more of looking for the right answer/strategy, but I think it is the funniest one to play.
And YES; As we cannot run a copy of Krosan Cloudscraper -which I would totally love to see-, I included 1 copy of Armada Wurm as our big punch creature that doesn't come along -the same goes for Deep Forest Hermit- and is good for our blink strategy with astral drift.
does loyal sentry work like i think it does with astral drift and blink effects? cause it triggers on block so im pretty sure if drifted before damage but after blocks it should kill their creature and come back. If im right it could be a strong inclusion.
does loyal sentry work like i think it does with astral drift and blink effects? cause it triggers on block so im pretty sure if drifted before damage but after blocks it should kill their creature and come back. If im right it could be a strong inclusion.
Pretty sure that works. Read the rules text of Loyal Sentry.
BTW guys theres a few more cool interactions:
Fiend Hunter / Tidehollow Sculler
With both of these cards, you can play them; ETB ability on the stack, flicker; and permanently delete something to exile. This is basically because the cards arent linked anymore or dont 'remember'. Not only that, when they come back in; you can either do it again, OR just have the 'normal version' of the card (where if it dies something comes back).
Did anybody got the chance to play the deck at FNM or other events?
I am currently building a bant version of the deck with some reflector mage and spell queller. With spell queller you can also do the permanent exile truck.
But I am also interested in the abzan version as unearth seems really nice
Also what do you think about the white cavalier from M20? It can provide answers to almost everything with the etb and the die trigger can be relevant with drift or cast out
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I'm really not sure what Drift will need sideboard. I guess I'll learn in playtesting.
//deck-1
4 Street Wraith
3 Edge of Autumn
2 Restoration Angel
4 Astral Drift
2 Eternal Witness
2 Wasteland Strangler
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Knight of Autumn
2 Life from the Loam
2 Shadow of the Grave
3 Wall of Omens
4 Nest Invader
2 Unearth
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Secluded Steppe
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
2 Scattered Groves
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
//sideboard-1
1 Thragtusk
1 Siege Rhino
2 Dissenter's Deliverance
//maybe-1
2 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Scarab Feast
4 Arboreal Grazer
I agree that the most viable form of the deck is GWb, but I've been having a hell of a time figuring out what to put in it.
One thing about your list that I wonder about is the lack of 1 drops. With 8-10 taplands, which is what I've been running in my lists, 1 mana on turn 2 happens a lot, and like you said the deck frequently gets stomped by decks with a strong aggro early-game.
A card I've tried out and seemed not terrible is Riftsweeper. It fits well into a plan to abuse Tidehollow sculler and flickerwisp. My issue has been that the manabase rarely plays nice enough to play those minions when they matter.
I think mainboard Finks is going to be a staple. Wasteland Strangler too in any deck with black.
I'm not sold on the idea of being a predominantly creature deck trying to gain value from flickering different creatures. As such a strategy seems similar to collected company, which hasn't performed well in recent memory. Instead, I'm trying to keep with the spirit of Astral Slide decks from the old extended format, whereby we primarily abuse eternal witness. Notably, Extended-then and Modern-now are entirely different, with the latter being much more hostile and linear. Moreover, the card pool is vastly different where Extended had a better selection of cards with cycling than we do currently.
4 Arboreal Grazer
4 eternal witness
2 knight of the reliquary
SPELLS: 26
4 astral drift
4 renewed faith
4 life from the loam
3 assassin's trophy
2 cast out
2 unearth
2 gilded light
2 angelsong
2 raven's crime
1 wrath of god
1 day of judgment
3 tranquil thicket
2 secluded steppe
1 barren moor
1 scattered groves
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 bojuka bog
1 hall of heliod's generosity
2 ghost quarter
1 blast zone
3 windswept heath
1 verdant catacombs
1 overgrown tomb
1 temple garden
3 forest
1 plains
1 swamp
Arboreal Grazer looks to be perfect for this deck it provides an early blocker, ramps, and late-game helps us play several utility lands in a turn. Since my land count is spread out I figured knight of the reliquary can help us find a silver bullet while also being a huge treat that can end a game quickly. Admittedly, some of the spells seem odd but they add a means of locking the game up; angelsong while we have the loop stops combat and gilded light provides a lock vs storm, ad nauseam, and burn. However, it could be the case that since we already have wraths that only gilded light matters since it's more unique. unearth I think is another linchpin; late in the game allowing us to start chaining together e-wits. Oddly I don't have path to exile and instead opted to use assassin's trophy because of Tron just being nothing but problematic permanents, it's still cheap enough to be meaningful against humans, can kill the new planeswalkers that UW is maining, and still provides the land lock with ghost quarter. Also I am not playing edge of autumn as chaining grazers together turns the card into just sac a land cycle, but having more ways to ramp might be correct with an adjusted land base. The lands are rather greedy what with 8 tap lands and 4 colorless utility lands. I split the ghost quarter triplet to add a blast zone as another wrath and since I have loam and knight I tried to squeeze in some more utility lands.
Originally I was playing traverse but I decided to go with knights and an extra raven's crime. I think if anyone is going to play a creature toolbox they should consider some kind of tutor else they just have a clunky stack of creatures.
We should be able to ride Knight of the Reliquary/Tireless Tracker/Ayula's Influence to victory with the Loam engine, while Drift and Witness give us never-ending disruption.
We are not playing a loam shell. This has been discussed earlier in the thread. We are trying to make a Drift shell. Loam is not the intended engine, though, we will see plenty of loam decks entering the format. Our goal with this thread is to make drift the intended engine.
While I personally feel that this variation of the deck simply loses to surgical extraction. This is something I will be hoping to address in my sideboard, since I seriously expect to see extraction in game 2.
EDIT: Found it pull from eternity
I struggle to see you win con. with only 2 knights, I can hardly see that as a solution. Grazer is... well--grazer. and Ewit is in the same boat as knight. I would think that your best call would be to play Approach of the second sun since the direction of your deck at the moment is to simply stall the game. Also, your tutor argument is solved by eldritch evolution, and, further, toolbox decks are JUST THAT, a bunch of value creatures that play well on their own, but with the right engine become more. For instance, Kiki and Vanifar pod... Strong in their own right even if your take out pieces.
Just as you advocate to not play Ayulu's influence as it dilutes the focus of the deck away from astral drift, the same argument can be made for both approach of the second sun and eldritch evolution. The former being useless in almost every phase of the game and even when we have someone locked out it will still take a while to get the same copy back. The latter especially troubles me because it adds another three-drop that doesn't do anything on its own. We don't gain anything from sacrificing a creature, also, I wouldn't we rather have them in play to be flickered by astral drift, correct? I think eladamri's call or finale of devastation makes more sense.
For eladamri's call the pros: it's cheap so we can play it early, and it works independently of board state; the cons: it doesn't put the creature into play. I don't think that is so problematic as by nature of this deck, especially if you're on the loam plan, you'll have a land to play every turn and can most likely cast your tutor target. As for finale of devastation the pros: we can also tutor from our graveyard; the cons: mana intensive. Again I don't think mana will be much of an issue when tutoring smaller creatures.
Also has anyone considered commune with the gods or sun titan? Commune adds consistency and allows us to dig for either of our best targets astral drift, eternal witness, or any silver bullet creature you might be playing. sun titan seems strong as it brings back either of the aforementioned cards so we can either get more flickers to control the board or recure more cards.
for example
Akroma, Angel of Fury or Sagu Mauler
It's mixing the idea of the deck with others that can already work (blinks deck) and yes, Astral Drift, is a blink engine but not in a normal way, cycling.
I think the best way for the deck is Eternal Witness, cycling cards (cycling lands,Unearth,Edge of Autumn) and removals (Assassin's Trophy,Path to Exile,Abrupt Decay). Once we have a base of cards for 2 or 3 colors, we must add a second win condition and/or protect our strategy.
Life from the Loam is a really good card if we play with cycling lands, for 2 mana we can recover 3 lands (cycling or utility lands like Ghost Quarter, Bojuka Bog) and these 3 lands are 3 draw's and 3 blink on Eternal for take what we need of the graveyard.
3 Edge of Autumn
2 Restoration Angel
4 Astral Drift
2 Eternal Witness
2 Wasteland Strangler
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Knight of Autumn
2 Life from the Loam
2 Shadow of the Grave
3 Wall of Omens
4 Nest Invader
2 Unearth
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Secluded Steppe
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
2 Scattered Groves
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
Someone mentioned a lack of one drops. Because just under 50% (9/20) of my mana lands come into play tapped, the curve of
T1 Tap land
T2 land, "Do I play this one drop instead of a two drop"
T3 uhhhh Grazer, cycle something?
vs
T1 Fetch land, pass
EOT crack
T2 Land, nest invader/Wall
T3 any of my toolbox 3 drops, or drift.
I do concede however, that your iteration of the deck does provide a better home for one drops because of all the 2 drop disruption and removal you have.
EDIT: 2 other potential cards are noxious gearhulk and cataclysmic gearhulk
Ramp you into a T2 slide, then maybe you can stabilize from there.
The problem is that running multiple ETB tapped lands strongly conflicts with that approach.
It can cause issues even running *one* etb tapped land much less 4+.
Generally when constructing a modern deck you should think of ETB tapped lands as 1-drops from a curve perspective, since they essentially "Cost 1." Playing 8 dorks and 8 cycling lands is a crapload of 1-drops, and makes for a lot of air in your deck.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm still testing and tweaking the mana base. I'm trying to avoid the typical land toolbox build because we aren't running Knight of the Reliquary.
4 Eternal Witness
2 Knight of Autumn
4 Astral Drift
2 Faith of the Devoted
2 Cast Out
4 Renewed Faith
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Day of Judgement
1 Wrath of God
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Blast Zone
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Barren Moor
2 Secluded Steppe
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Scattered Groves
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Nurturing Peatland
3 Life from the Loam
2 Unearth
4 Edge of Autumn
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
2 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Scarab Feast
3 Path to Exile
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Dissenter's Deliverance
2 Gilded Light
- T2:
UWB Esper Hero
UR Phoenix
UGB Steal-o-matic
- Modern:
UR Storm
WBG Vizier
*testing* WBG Astral Drift
I dont see how ETB would prevent us from wanting 1 drops. We would just land it T2, and ramp T3. 1 Mana ramp just seems too good to pass up. Honestly, if anything it seems like we need this MORE because of our come into play tapped situation. We cant be slow and clunky all game or we'll get wrecked by anything remotely fast. Def wouldnt be thinking of the 1 drops as 'air' when they are helping take some weight off the manabase. We cant expect to come into play tapped land every turn and be behind all game every game and do well can we?
Also 8 Cycling lands only? My list has a LOT more than that. I would use 4 of every single cycle land in your decks colors, then just add more lands that come in untapped on top of that. Im currently at 29 lands.
Here is my rough draft:
(27 Cards with Cycling + 8 ETB trigger creatures)
1 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Soulherder
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Acidic Slime
4 Street Wraith
4 Astral Drift
2 Cast Out
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Wrenn and Six
3 Life from the Loam
1 Reap the Past (or some other draw spell like fact or fiction maybe for instant speed)
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Lonely Sandbar
4 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Stomping Ground
4 Irrigated Farmland
1 Forest
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
2 Coiling Oracle
3 Knight of Autumn
1 Cast Out
1 Drake Haven
2 Dissenter's Deliverance
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Reap the Past
Not to sound rude, but how much actual play testing have you been doing? Any amount of playtesting would reveal that one drops indeed, feel extremely out of place while trying to play them t1. And why would you ever play it on T2 when you have wall of blossoms/omens or nest invader? And on top of that, how terrible is it to top deck a 1 drop do nothing in turns 5+ when all you want to see is either (depending on your decklist) Removal/disruption, Some sort of value creature, or a cycler.
Also, is there anything to be said for Riftsweeper and Hallowed Moonlight? They're kind of like Processors but in our colors.
I still feel like you are thinking about the 1 drops wrong. They arent that bad to draw late game at all TBH. You can just fill out your mana with them and give you more breathing room. Like if you 'need' 2 mana to leave up for cycling things, and you have 1 'extra' that you wouldnt use, perfect chance to be less cramped in terms of mana, next turn. Also not irrelevant is the flying on birds if you need to block a flyer, then tap the bird and use that mana to 1 mana cycle and drift your bird away.
Im still testing but I dont think I'll be cutting my 5 minimum 1 drop accel creatures any time soon. I also use a LOT of lands, too; and feel they are almost necessary. Im currently at 30 lands, 28 cycling effects, and 8 ETB creatures.
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Eternal Witness
2 Knight of Autumn
4 Coiling Oracle
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Street Wraith
4 Astral Drift
4 Cast Out
1 Wrenn and Six
3 Life from the Loam
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Lonely Sandbar
4 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
2 Knight of Autumn
4 Avalanche Riders
1 Soulherder
1 Drake Haven
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Dissenter's Deliverance
1 Wrenn and Six
Im thinking of abzan as the colors if the mana works mainly because of unearth being an additional way to reuse a creature while also being a cycler. the 2 for one potential with wasteland strangler and astral drift is also nice. there's also mangara of corondor in other colors. but he doesn't combo with tidehollow sculler and has to stick around a whole turn.
a card im considering that i haven't seen mentioned yet is judge's familiar. At least for the side board. to give some way to interact with less creature dependent decks along side tidehollow sculler seems extra nice due to being recurable with both unearth and eternal witness. Also being a flying blocker is nice. also was thinking of cards like thalia, guardian of thraben and dovin, hand of control. however thalia slows down resolving astral drift. And dovin while nice being a one sided tax and an additional fogging effect is a three drop and this deck is very three drop heavy so not fan of him either. hes just to slow
for creatures to blink i agree with the two drops of nest invader and the walls. good value and defence. For three drops im partial to kitchen finks and blade splicer. because they can be played turn three used to get a block and astral drift cycle blink one of them can be the turn 4 play. i also like the team of strangler and sculler for this reason as well. and of course eternal witness. flickerwisp serems nice due to being able to use the end step flickerwisp tricks but i'm not sure if there's room.
My main issue with the deck is how much it wants to use the three drop slot so trying to decide what goes there to start while still having enough early plays to not lose before turn 4.
I have been reading you these days because I am a total fan of Astral Slide engine. I played it back in time in extended with exalted angels, eternal dragon and orim chant's lock. I have read you all and I'd like to share my ideas.
- Midrange: It is basically a "blink and taxes" gameplan, without the taxes. I use 3 walls instead of 4 (either omens or blossoms) to block and get cards the early turns, 4 blade splicer as our main weapon, 3 witness to use the astral engine and recover our cards, 3 knight of autumn as our "everything" tool (lives, attack or protection against art/ench) and finally restoration to help with the ETB effects and thragtusk as a mid-late game plan. I think 4 path to exile are a must-have, and I complement it with 2 cast out for other threats. 25 lands are more than fine. I don't run street wraith as I already play edge of autumn as a free cycler and I wouldn't cast wraith ever.
1 Wall of blossoms
2 Wall of omens
4 Blade Splicer
3 Eternal Witness
3 Knight of Autumn
2 Restoration Angel
2 Thragtusk
4 Astral Drift
4 Edge of Autumn
4 Path to Exile
2 Cast Out
3 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
3 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
3 Ghost Quarter
- Abzan Aggro control: This is more similar to the one I used to play. It can protect itself from most threats and although it hasn't got any discard engine like other rock/abzan, we add tidehollows to control opponent's hand and wasteland strangler to get a perfect sinergy. Unearth is simply a must in this deck. Siege Rhino is probably the best way to kill our opponent and balance our life totals. I do include street wraith in this version as we need more free mana to cast our defenses via PtE/Trophy/decay. I love Worm Harvest and I cannot see a deck like this without 1 copy.
We also reduce the amount of LftL as it is not our main course of actions but a great help. I haven't included either Tarmogoyf or Grim flayer because we don't want to run but to control the game and we do not want to be totally wasted against graveyard hate. Finally, the inclusion of 2 Edge of autumn is both to let us find the 3rd colour just in case of need or just exploit tidehollow's ability with astral in the battlefield.
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Eternal Witness
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Siege Rhino
3 Street Wraith
2 Unearth
3 Life from the loam
4 Astral Drift
2 Edge of Autumn
3 Path to Exile
3 Assassin's trophy
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Worm Harvest
2 Overgrown tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Nurturing Peatland
2 Barren moor
2 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
- GWb tempo Astral: This is a non-tested idea I have been thinking of. It is based on my old Astral slide version mixed with the aggrocontrol one. I'd like to include Ayula's influence instead of Worm Harvest to finish off as if it were a copy of Seismic assault. It includes Eladamri's call instead of traverse the ulvenwald/eldritch evolution as we are not in a rush to put creatures in play and as a substitute of Living Wish. In my opinion, this is the least competitive version of it because it has less interaction with opponent's hand and it goes more of looking for the right answer/strategy, but I think it is the funniest one to play.
And YES; As we cannot run a copy of Krosan Cloudscraper -which I would totally love to see-, I included 1 copy of Armada Wurm as our big punch creature that doesn't come along -the same goes for Deep Forest Hermit- and is good for our blink strategy with astral drift.
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Eternal Witness
1 Siege Rhino
1 Acidic Slime
1 Deep Forest Hermit
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Armada Wurm
3 Street Wraith
3 Life from the loam
4 Astral Drift
1 Ayula's influence
3 Path to Exile
2 Assassin's trophy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Wrath of God
2 Edge of Autumn
3 Renewed Faith
2 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown tomb
1 Godless Shrine
4 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Blast Zone
1 Nurturing Peatland
1 Barren moor
3 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
I hope these help us create and find the best combination of colours and cards to defend Astral engine.
+1 Ephemerate
BTW guys theres a few more cool interactions:
Fiend Hunter / Tidehollow Sculler
With both of these cards, you can play them; ETB ability on the stack, flicker; and permanently delete something to exile. This is basically because the cards arent linked anymore or dont 'remember'. Not only that, when they come back in; you can either do it again, OR just have the 'normal version' of the card (where if it dies something comes back).
I am currently building a bant version of the deck with some reflector mage and spell queller. With spell queller you can also do the permanent exile truck.
But I am also interested in the abzan version as unearth seems really nice
Also what do you think about the white cavalier from M20? It can provide answers to almost everything with the etb and the die trigger can be relevant with drift or cast out