Ok, Chart a Course, do we have time to durdle around with it? It should be awesome in slow and grindy matchups, obviously, but how about the fast ones? Any experience?
I think it should require at least 8 one-drop creatures, as only 4 delvers doesn't make it consistent. It has anti-synergy with Swiftspear, so maybe in a Steppe Lynx-build? The extra card draw from chart should fuel him good. Gonna try something like this, I think:
Ok, Chart a Course, do we have time to durdle around with it? It should be awesome in slow and grindy matchups, obviously, but how about the fast ones? Any experience?
I think it should require at least 8 one-drop creatures, as only 4 delvers doesn't make it consistent. It has anti-synergy with Swiftspear, so maybe in a Steppe Lynx-build? The extra card draw from chart should fuel him good. Gonna try something like this, I think:
I've always been turned off by the tension between Delver and Steppe --- one requires us to play many i/s, the other many lands, and a successful Delver shell in UWx probably wants Queller and Snapcaster, meaning it's tough to fit all that stuff. But I also love Lynx's implications with Chart a Course (makes drawing fetchlands great again) and think you may be on to something here. I'll mess around too; the primary question I think we should look to answer is what the optimal numbers are for creatures/spells/lands. Once/if we find an internally consistent shell, we can consider matchups etc.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Very good point about Steppe Lynx. That is not something I had considered for the same reason that Jordan touched on. I have never liked the relationship between delver and steppe lynx. In addition, I run 4 monastery swiftspear so chart is good, but does have some anti-synergy as you noted. In my personal build, I have not loved Chart a Course. However, my list is more aggro-control and relies on efficiency and burn rather than card advantage so it didn't fit well. I have seen multiple lists like Jordan's list that run chart and have heard from a number of players that love chart in their deck so I can't argue against trying it.
I agree with Jordan that you may have found a very interesting way to utilize chart in this shell without resorting to a more midrange style with young pyromancer. Very cool.
Hello, I'd like some feedback on my list. I'm trying to make this deck extremely tempo oriented, so I'm playing 4 Remands and a lot of burn. Boros Charm has been nice and the couple of Dispels seems fine in the current meta. I only play 2 Path to exile because I don't like seeing them in the early game. The deck has a nice curve and can finish games rather quickly. I found that I dont like wraths and angers very much, so I've been testing with Magus of the Moat and it works. I usually take out the Geist for the Magus and improves a lot the match against Dredge and Aggro swarm strategies without hurting my own creatures. Overall I'm happy, I struggle a bit against hard control, Eldratron and burn, so I'll be happy to hear some advice, thanks!.
"The sparkmage shrieked, calling on the rage of the storms of his youth. To his surprise, the sky responded with a fierce energy he'd never thought to see again."
Hello, I'd like some feedback on my list. I'm trying to make this deck extremely tempo oriented, so I'm playing 4 Remands and a lot of burn. Boros Charm has been nice and the couple of Dispels seems fine in the current meta. I only play 2 Path to exile because I don't like seeing them in the early game. The deck has a nice curve and can finish games rather quickly. I found that I dont like wraths and angers very much, so I've been testing with Magus of the Moat and it works. I usually take out the Geist for the Magus and improves a lot the match against Dredge and Aggro swarm strategies without hurting my own creatures. Overall I'm happy, I struggle a bit against hard control, Eldratron and burn, so I'll be happy to hear some advice, thanks!.
Serum Visions is pretty mandatory with delver to set up the flip. They are also the best card to find your 20 lands, which is a bit few considering your high curve of 12 3+ drops, counting snappy. I would go up to 21 with that curve, and switch out Opts for Serum Visions. 4 Remands are probably a bit much these days, as they are weak in many matchups. I would switch out some with leak or knot.
How do you deal with Death's Shadow, Tasigur, Angler, Goyfs, Thoughtknot Seers etc etc without paths?
Ok, Chart a Course, do we have time to durdle around with it? It should be awesome in slow and grindy matchups, obviously, but how about the fast ones? Any experience?
I think it should require at least 8 one-drop creatures, as only 4 delvers doesn't make it consistent. It has anti-synergy with Swiftspear, so maybe in a Steppe Lynx-build? The extra card draw from chart should fuel him good. Gonna try something like this, I think:
I've always been turned off by the tension between Delver and Steppe --- one requires us to play many i/s, the other many lands, and a successful Delver shell in UWx probably wants Queller and Snapcaster, meaning it's tough to fit all that stuff. But I also love Lynx's implications with Chart a Course (makes drawing fetchlands great again) and think you may be on to something here. I'll mess around too; the primary question I think we should look to answer is what the optimal numbers are for creatures/spells/lands. Once/if we find an internally consistent shell, we can consider matchups etc.
I've been testing Chart a Course with this this list in some matches now, and I'm not sure about it... It works very well against decks with little removal, like company decks, death and taxes etc., but it's not that good against removal-heavy decks like Jeskai midrange, jund/abzan etc., and those are probably the matchups where the card advantage is needed the most. I think I'll go back to gaining card advantage with Electrolyze and Cryptic Command, which have the added benefit of dealing with swarms, bouncing problematic permanents and generally being better tempo plays by affecting the board.
Maybe my creatures are just too fragile for chart and that it's better with Pyromancer tokens and hexproof geist. Might be worth trying.
Hello, I'd like some feedback on my list. I'm trying to make this deck extremely tempo oriented, so I'm playing 4 Remands and a lot of burn. Boros Charm has been nice and the couple of Dispels seems fine in the current meta. I only play 2 Path to exile because I don't like seeing them in the early game. The deck has a nice curve and can finish games rather quickly. I found that I dont like wraths and angers very much, so I've been testing with Magus of the Moat and it works. I usually take out the Geist for the Magus and improves a lot the match against Dredge and Aggro swarm strategies without hurting my own creatures. Overall I'm happy, I struggle a bit against hard control, Eldratron and burn, so I'll be happy to hear some advice, thanks!.
Serum Visions is pretty mandatory with delver to set up the flip. They are also the best card to find your 20 lands, which is a bit few considering your high curve of 12 3+ drops, counting snappy. I would go up to 21 with that curve, and switch out Opts for Serum Visions. 4 Remands are probably a bit much these days, as they are weak in many matchups. I would switch out some with leak or knot.
How do you deal with Death's Shadow, Tasigur, Angler, Goyfs, Thoughtknot Seers etc etc without paths?
Well I think that's the point, you don't have to deal with everything when playing tempo. That's why I still think that Remand is the way to go with Delver strategies, I only find it weak against super aggro matchups, but almost all countermagic is. For example the other day I was playing against storm, he started casting rituals, he was full of mana and played gifts, I placed Past in flames in the graveyard and then Remanded the flashback, he conceded there. I couldn't have done it with mana leak/logic knot. There are many matchs that are T1 Delver T2 Remand T3 Queller T4 Snap Remand etc and its over. Sometimes I ignore the Goyfs and big creatures because I'm going for 5 every turn and have lots of burn.
However I still have that 2 Path for emergencies and get what you say, maybe its a matter of playstyles. The mana base is something that needs work, sometimes I get screwed and sometimes I get flooded, I can't seem to find the balance. I understand the serum and delver sinergy but I don't like playing sorcery speed cards other than Delver and Geist, but maybe the serums can help me with the mana problems like you said, I'll test them out, thanks!
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"The sparkmage shrieked, calling on the rage of the storms of his youth. To his surprise, the sky responded with a fierce energy he'd never thought to see again."
Toroks- I have found similar results with chart a course toroks. I just didn't like tapping out 2 mana at sorcery speed for additional card advantage. I often wanted to hold up Remand, Opt, Spell Pierce, burn, or a combination and felt like I was almost forced to cast the chart because I had attacked. Like you said, with electrolyze, cryptic, remand, bedlam reveler (in my case),snapcaster-opt, etc we do have ways to make a up a little card advantage. In addition, we aren't always a card advantage deck. I can definitely see chart working in the Disrupting Shoal decks and the pure tempo style builds as chart gives another 2 CMC blue target to pitch to shoal and mitigates the card "loss" from the shoal. It just didn't fit what I was trying to do.
Sei- I play a more aggressive version as well and only run 3 path to exile. However, I run 2 copies of Vapor Snag and one copy of Echoing Truth to deal with some of the more problematic permanents and creatures. They don't permanently deal with them, but they give us enough time to get through enough damage to kill them. I highly recommend giving snag and/or echoing truth a try. They are also great on defense and can bounce a snapcater mage or bedlam reveler to reactivate their enter the battlefield trigger (although it's not free because you have to cast them again). I don't think I would be comfortable with only 2 "answers" to larger threats currently since modern has shifted to having more beefier creatures with tarmogofy, prime time, delve creatures, and eldrazi running around. If I had to pick I would likely cut one remand and one helix for two copies of vapor snag or an additional path. However, everyone's game plan is different and if you want to just tempo and burn the opponent out in game one and then side in additional answers that is fine too.
I am also a huge opt fan and run 4 opts and 2 visions right now. I have gone 3 and 3 in the past as well, but opt really fits my deck/playstyle more I think. I have been an opt fan boy for awhile and actually wrote to WOTC before it was printed asking them to print it :). Serum Visions does help to flip delvers and that can't be discounted, but it's rare that I want to tap out after playing a delver on turn one. Delver normally flips by turn 3 anyways so I don't feel I am losing a lot of I typically want to hold up remand or spell pierce if I have them and opt lets me do that. It's also awesome with snapcaster mage as an instant speed target to get some card advantage.
I also love Boros Charm. It's so versatile and I can't tell you how many lilianas I have killed with it and how many times my opponent has been at 4 life instead of 3 and charm killed them. I think it's much worse in multiples so I only run 1 copy, but it's another card that fits the gameplan of versatility and speed that this deck thrives on.
Toroks- I have found similar results with chart a course toroks. I just didn't like tapping out 2 mana at sorcery speed for additional card advantage. I often wanted to hold up Remand, Opt, Spell Pierce, burn, or a combination and felt like I was almost forced to cast the chart because I had attacked. Like you said, with electrolyze, cryptic, remand, bedlam reveler (in my case),snapcaster-opt, etc we do have ways to make a up a little card advantage. In addition, we aren't always a card advantage deck. I can definitely see chart working in the Disrupting Shoal decks and the pure tempo style builds as chart gives another 2 CMC blue target to pitch to shoal and mitigates the card "loss" from the shoal. It just didn't fit what I was trying to do.
Sei- I play a more aggressive version as well and only run 3 path to exile. However, I run 2 copies of Vapor Snag and one copy of Echoing Truth to deal with some of the more problematic permanents and creatures. They don't permanently deal with them, but they give us enough time to get through enough damage to kill them. I highly recommend giving snag and/or echoing truth a try. They are also great on defense and can bounce a snapcater mage or bedlam reveler to reactivate their enter the battlefield trigger (although it's not free because you have to cast them again). I don't think I would be comfortable with only 2 "answers" to larger threats currently since modern has shifted to having more beefier creatures with tarmogofy, prime time, delve creatures, and eldrazi running around. If I had to pick I would likely cut one remand and one helix for two copies of vapor snag or an additional path. However, everyone's game plan is different and if you want to just tempo and burn the opponent out in game one and then side in additional answers that is fine too.
I am also a huge opt fan and run 4 opts and 2 visions right now. I have gone 3 and 3 in the past as well, but opt really fits my deck/playstyle more I think. I have been an opt fan boy for awhile and actually wrote to WOTC before it was printed asking them to print it :). Serum Visions does help to flip delvers and that can't be discounted, but it's rare that I want to tap out after playing a delver on turn one. Delver normally flips by turn 3 anyways so I don't feel I am losing a lot of I typically want to hold up remand or spell pierce if I have them and opt lets me do that. It's also awesome with snapcaster mage as an instant speed target to get some card advantage.
I also love Boros Charm. It's so versatile and I can't tell you how many lilianas I have killed with it and how many times my opponent has been at 4 life instead of 3 and charm killed them. I think it's much worse in multiples so I only run 1 copy, but it's another card that fits the gameplan of versatility and speed that this deck thrives on.
I share your love for Boros Charm, its absolute amazing. Do you mind sharing the list of your deck? I'm very interested now! And are you having success?
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"The sparkmage shrieked, calling on the rage of the storms of his youth. To his surprise, the sky responded with a fierce energy he'd never thought to see again."
Toroks- I have found similar results with chart a course toroks. I just didn't like tapping out 2 mana at sorcery speed for additional card advantage. I often wanted to hold up Remand, Opt, Spell Pierce, burn, or a combination and felt like I was almost forced to cast the chart because I had attacked. Like you said, with electrolyze, cryptic, remand, bedlam reveler (in my case),snapcaster-opt, etc we do have ways to make a up a little card advantage. In addition, we aren't always a card advantage deck. I can definitely see chart working in the Disrupting Shoal decks and the pure tempo style builds as chart gives another 2 CMC blue target to pitch to shoal and mitigates the card "loss" from the shoal. It just didn't fit what I was trying to do.
Sei- I play a more aggressive version as well and only run 3 path to exile. However, I run 2 copies of Vapor Snag and one copy of Echoing Truth to deal with some of the more problematic permanents and creatures. They don't permanently deal with them, but they give us enough time to get through enough damage to kill them. I highly recommend giving snag and/or echoing truth a try. They are also great on defense and can bounce a snapcater mage or bedlam reveler to reactivate their enter the battlefield trigger (although it's not free because you have to cast them again). I don't think I would be comfortable with only 2 "answers" to larger threats currently since modern has shifted to having more beefier creatures with tarmogofy, prime time, delve creatures, and eldrazi running around. If I had to pick I would likely cut one remand and one helix for two copies of vapor snag or an additional path. However, everyone's game plan is different and if you want to just tempo and burn the opponent out in game one and then side in additional answers that is fine too.
I am also a huge opt fan and run 4 opts and 2 visions right now. I have gone 3 and 3 in the past as well, but opt really fits my deck/playstyle more I think. I have been an opt fan boy for awhile and actually wrote to WOTC before it was printed asking them to print it :). Serum Visions does help to flip delvers and that can't be discounted, but it's rare that I want to tap out after playing a delver on turn one. Delver normally flips by turn 3 anyways so I don't feel I am losing a lot of I typically want to hold up remand or spell pierce if I have them and opt lets me do that. It's also awesome with snapcaster mage as an instant speed target to get some card advantage.
I also love Boros Charm. It's so versatile and I can't tell you how many lilianas I have killed with it and how many times my opponent has been at 4 life instead of 3 and charm killed them. I think it's much worse in multiples so I only run 1 copy, but it's another card that fits the gameplan of versatility and speed that this deck thrives on.
I share your love for Boros Charm, its absolute amazing. Do you mind sharing the list of your deck? I'm very interested now! And are you having success?
I always love an excuse to post my list :). Here it is:
As for success, I have had a lot of success playing locally, but I don't travel for magic so my results don't add up to a lot. I will be writing a FNM report this evening for everyone to enjoy. I also have plans to start playing the deck in leagues on MTGO when I find more time (winter is the slower months for my real estate appraisal job).
Great Nate (jeskai royalty) recently played my list on Youtube if you want to see the deck in action. He went 4-1 in the league and played fairly well. If he had more experience with the deck I think he would have won the first round (if he sided in the deflecting palms) to go 5-0. Here is a link to his page-
I'm always open to recommendations and/or constructive critiscm so feel free to let me know. Also I do know that the list is 61 cards. I like the deck at 18 lands, but thought one more land would be a little more consistent so I simply added another. It has been great so far.
Overall- Overall I went 3-1 which is totally fine for me. I don't know about your area, but UW control is all the rage right now. I played against it twice winning once and losing once. I also got to play against Abzan which was nice since it hasn't been popular for awhile now. Finally, I won a close one against UG Merfolk. The deck ran well and I didn't have too many games that were one sided.
Round 1- UW Control
Game 1- Loss- I had a slow opener that is fine against unknown opponenet, but isn't good against control. I didn't draw a geist early enough and by the time I had a geist it was impossible to land him. I was able to do a little damage to him by top decking a bunch of burn, but he was able to take control of the late game after sweeping my board of snapcasters and a swiftspear.
Game 2- Win- This time I had a very aggressive start with two swiftspears and 2 opts. I actually took a Distortion Strike off of one of the opts and wasn't sure if that was right, but wanted to keep the aggression going. The swiftspears in combination with burn and remands were enough to slowly widdle away his life.
Game 3- Loss- I started with a no land hand and mulled into a 4 land hand with Geist and Opt. I decided to keep since Geist is our best card in the matchup and opt can help us filter our first draw. Unfortunately the first card I drew was another land. It would have been nice to find search for azcanta early to filter away additional land drops, but that was not the case. With a lot of lands I wanted to make sure I found counter magic to hold up while attempting to cast giest. I found a remand and went for Geist. He had the cryptic into negate and all was lost. He landed a Geist out of his sideboard which did most of the work against me.
Review- I think this matchup is really dependent on the specific build of UW control. I have had sucess against them in the past, but just didn't draw well enough against them.
0-1
Round 2- Abzan
Game 1- Great, after a loss I get Abzan. The first game was a bit of a wierd one. I flipped a delver on turn two and started beating down. We went back and forth with removal and creatures until the board was a tarmogoyf against a swiftspear with him a 8 life and me at 14. He played a Dark Confidant which I decided not to bolt to see what happens. He flipped a liliana off of him and went to 5. After I remanded the liliana, he had to hold gofy back or would likely die to swiftspear. Flipping an Aburpt Decay off of confidant gave him an answer to swiftspear, but also made my lightning bolt lethal. Sometimes bob sabotages a game.
Game 2- This was a fun one. It was a long drawn out game. I think I had 20 or so cards left in my deck when all was said and done. I landed Search for Azcanta on turn two and it was an absolute house. There were several times I wanted a threat, but felt like I had to activate the land to get a free spell. This did draw the end of the game out a little bit because I kept shipping my threats to the bottom and getting spells to keep him from doing anything. The game started with a inquisition taking snapcaster mage. I drew a delver which was instantly fatal pushed. He played a goyf which I pathed and the game when on like this for a few turns. I was able to land Chandra, Pyromaster who did some work against a few lingering souls tokens, but she was evendually downed by a goyf when my board got a little slim. Echoing Truth cleaned up the souls and we were basically top decking, but I had Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin active. He did have the WB manland, but I helixed it. The additional cards I was drawing each turn slowly took over the game until I found a Bedlam Reveler which actually ended the game. The sideboard was super impactful in this matchup so it was nice to see the cards that don't often come in - revler, chandra, search do some real work.
Review- Hooray we beat Abzan again. I have actually been beating them with some regularity lately so I'm wondering if the matchup is add bad as I once thought it was. Search for Azcanta can be a little slow against some opponents, but it was super helpful against Abzan. I highly recommend giving it a slot in your board.
I have played for a long time 18 land decks (Storm and U/R Prowess), and very frecuently you have to decide whenever to keep or not a 1 land starting hand, It sucks, so I'm keen on 19+ lands even in aggro decks (unless your'e playing mishras, street wraiths and RIP gitaxian).
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
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"The sparkmage shrieked, calling on the rage of the storms of his youth. To his surprise, the sky responded with a fierce energy he'd never thought to see again."
What cards should I move mainboard and sideboard in a meta full of trons, humans and elves?
It's really getting hard to deal with them.
Maybe geists mainboard, what else?
What cards should I move mainboard and sideboard in a meta full of trons, humans and elves?
It's really getting hard to deal with them.
Maybe geists mainboard, what else?
In the sideboard definitely ceremonious rejection, disdainful stroke, izzet staticaster, anger of the gods and maybe engineered explosives. In the main lightning helix is good aganist aggro and remand is probably your best main deck wapon against tron. Geist of saint traft is pretty good against tron but horrible against the swarmy aggro decks you mentioned, so i'd put one or two in the side and that's all. young pyromancer is another good card against aggro and that snowballs against tron since they don't have many removals, but may be too slow, so i'd try it maindeck but side it out against tron
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Playing since FRF
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
I have played for a long time 18 land decks (Storm and U/R Prowess), and very frecuently you have to decide whenever to keep or not a 1 land starting hand, It sucks, so I'm keen on 19+ lands even in aggro decks (unless your'e playing mishras, street wraiths and RIP gitaxian).
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
The main difference in my build is running Monastery Swiftspear over Young Pyromancer. I think swiftspear is often overlooked based on theory rather than game play. I have always considered the deck "a death by a thousand cuts". I also want combat to be extremely hard for my opponent and swiftspear allows another area of question during combat with all of the instants in our deck. In addition, I have found that the deck functions much better with a turn one threat because it makes out spell pierces, opts, remands, etc much better. Swiftspear also allows us to transition into a more aggressive deck against decks like storm, tron, ponza, etc where we want to really have a strong start and then counter their big spells and finish them off with burn/deflecting palm. In his videos playing the deck, Great Nate does a great job explaining why swiftspear really overperformed when he played the deck. I think if more people gave swiftspear a chance and based their deck less so on theory they would be surprised.
With that said, by not including young pyromancer, we do lose the ability to play a longer grindy game as effectively. It's a pretty even trade off so I can't say that swiftspear is definitely better than young pyromancer in most lists, but swiftspear matches what I am trying to do more effectively. I do often run 1 copy of young p in my sideboard, but removed it recently. I tend to try to finish off the opponent through reach and burn rather than try to elongate the game. I have never liked young pyro because I hate tapping out on turn 2 and she is so fragile. I think she makes a great sideboard card, but I have never liked her in the maindeck of my personal build. Others have built their deck more around utilizing young pyro and the tokens and have had good results, I just prefer to go aggro-control and then have grindy aspects in my sideboard like Bedlam Reveler, Search for Azcanta, and Chandra, Pyromaster.
Echoing Truth is amazing in this deck and I think everyone should run a copy in their mainboard. It answers problem permanents like Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void on 1, Blood Moon, etc and gets rid of a bunch of tokens at once. I can't tell you how many Lingering Souls tokens I have killed with my echoing truth. In addition, it can bounce a big fatty (or two if they have two of the same one) or can be used to bounce my own Snapcaster Mages and Bedlam Revelers for value. This comes up way more than some might think.
Davidalb- Those are actually all decent matchups for an Echoing Truth in the mainboard because it can bounce big fatties and those decks all run a lot of 4 of creatures. Two sideboard cards I LOVE are Engineered Explosives and Deflecting Palm. Deflecting Palm is awesome against eldrazi and tron as a way to finish them off if they think they have turned the corner with fatties. EE is awesome against all swarm or go wide decks and has some other applications against weird decks like boggles, lantern control, tokens, etc. I don't run any sideboard sweepers like anger or supreme verdict, but I have a creature based list. If you have the ability to side into a more control oriented list with Vendillion Cliques, Snaps, etc you could run a copy of either. Abrade is another really interesting option right now because it can kill the Aether Vial or a just kill a creature in humans and elves. I did not like Ceremonious Rejection when I played it because it just didn't feel like it did enough to warrant a sideboard slot. In a meta with a ton of eldrazi tron, affinity, lantern control, etc I could see it being a worthy inclusion, but I didn't love it. Nico3010 brought up some great options like Izzet Staticaster. She looks unassuming but she can do some major work against humans and elves. Grim Lavamancer is similar in that role and can help you finish of the opponent in a close game.
I have played for a long time 18 land decks (Storm and U/R Prowess), and very frecuently you have to decide whenever to keep or not a 1 land starting hand, It sucks, so I'm keen on 19+ lands even in aggro decks (unless your'e playing mishras, street wraiths and RIP gitaxian).
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
The main difference in my build is running Monastery Swiftspear over Young Pyromancer. I think swiftspear is often overlooked based on theory rather than game play. I have always considered the deck "a death by a thousand cuts". I also want combat to be extremely hard for my opponent and swiftspear allows another area of question during combat with all of the instants in our deck. In addition, I have found that the deck functions much better with a turn one threat because it makes out spell pierces, opts, remands, etc much better. Swiftspear also allows us to transition into a more aggressive deck against decks like storm, tron, ponza, etc where we want to really have a strong start and then counter their big spells and finish them off with burn/deflecting palm. In his videos playing the deck, Great Nate does a great job explaining why swiftspear really overperformed when he played the deck. I think if more people gave swiftspear a chance and based their deck less so on theory they would be surprised.
With that said, by not including young pyromancer, we do lose the ability to play a longer grindy game as effectively. It's a pretty even trade off so I can't say that swiftspear is definitely better than young pyromancer in most lists, but swiftspear matches what I am trying to do more effectively. I do often run 1 copy of young p in my sideboard, but removed it recently. I tend to try to finish off the opponent through reach and burn rather than try to elongate the game. I have never liked young pyro because I hate tapping out on turn 2 and she is so fragile. I think she makes a great sideboard card, but I have never liked her in the maindeck of my personal build. Others have built their deck more around utilizing young pyro and the tokens and have had good results, I just prefer to go aggro-control and then have grindy aspects in my sideboard like Bedlam Reveler, Search for Azcanta, and Chandra, Pyromaster.
Echoing Truth is amazing in this deck and I think everyone should run a copy in their mainboard. It answers problem permanents like Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void on 1, Blood Moon, etc and gets rid of a bunch of tokens at once. I can't tell you how many Lingering Souls tokens I have killed with my echoing truth. In addition, it can bounce a big fatty (or two if they have two of the same one) or can be used to bounce my own Snapcaster Mages and Bedlam Revelers for value. This comes up way more than some might think.
Davidalb- Those are actually all decent matchups for an Echoing Truth in the mainboard because it can bounce big fatties and those decks all run a lot of 4 of creatures. Two sideboard cards I LOVE are Engineered Explosives and Deflecting Palm. Deflecting Palm is awesome against eldrazi and tron as a way to finish them off if they think they have turned the corner with fatties. EE is awesome against all swarm or go wide decks and has some other applications against weird decks like boggles, lantern control, tokens, etc. I don't run any sideboard sweepers like anger or supreme verdict, but I have a creature based list. If you have the ability to side into a more control oriented list with Vendillion Cliques, Snaps, etc you could run a copy of either. Abrade is another really interesting option right now because it can kill the Aether Vial or a just kill a creature in humans and elves. I did not like Ceremonious Rejection when I played it because it just didn't feel like it did enough to warrant a sideboard slot. In a meta with a ton of eldrazi tron, affinity, lantern control, etc I could see it being a worthy inclusion, but I didn't love it. Nico3010 brought up some great options like Izzet Staticaster. She looks unassuming but she can do some major work against humans and elves. Grim Lavamancer is similar in that role and can help you finish of the opponent in a close game.
In my experience staticaster is the best card against non-reliquary coco, elves, death&taxes, abzan (lingering is the only real problem along with lily) and affinity. Also it's very good against humans and dredge. I'm always tempted to run a second one in the side, even thoug i never actually did.
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Playing since FRF
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Hi all. I'll update you about my results with my current list. Unfortunately, since I'm still waiting the spellquellers i ordered to be delivered, I couldn't test in real yet, but my online results are pretty encouraging. Against tier 2-3 I often struggle (even though yesterday I beated aura, which I remember was sorta nemesis for me when playing the grixis version of the deck), not having a good sideboard plan nor being prepared maindeck, but against the tiers I'm often advantaged. Eldrazi Tron is one of our best matchups, since the "combo" path-pyormancer-lot of burn spells is the best recipe to defeat them. The gain life is useful against all the aggro/creature based decks and especially coco ones. G1 we slow them down with helixes, bolts and snapcaster recursion and then we deploy one or two threats that easily win the game, G2-3 is similar but I rather clean all the board with a well timed anger of the gods or izzet staticaster, which recovers us from the eventual loss in card advantage due to an uncountered collected company. Titanbreach is similar to eldrazi, with the downside that our removals are mostly useless and we have to be way faster. Shadow is the weirdest one, since we can easily outburn them when they go low on life but we suffer a lot their discard. Overall I'm happy about the matchups, but I'm not sure about the control one. I tweaked the side a bit:
with the disenchant that will become a second rest in peace as soon as I find one. I'll let you know how my first tournaments will go as soon as I start doing them!
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Playing since FRF
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Hey guys, published a piece this morning on my recent experiments with Jeskai Delver. It covers the 13-threat build and the Steppe Lynx build. Read it here:
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Hey guys, published a piece this morning on my recent experiments with Jeskai Delver. It covers the 13-threat build and the Steppe Lynx build. Read it here:
Great article Jordan. It’s always great to get more eyes on jeskai delver. Thank you for writing about it and for really showing the positives do the jeskai shard.
Hi all, i have some troubles developing my side. Since my lgs meta is very random (all the tier1/2s are represented, basically) i need a very catch all sb. My sure slots are the following:
Theese are 12 no brainer slots in my opinion since they cover basically all the current tiers, but i hate having 1ofs in my sb (excluding staticaster and gideon), so i'd like to make some of them 2ofs, but have no idea which ones makes more sense to improve. Any suggestion? Is there any other must-have sb card i'm missing?
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Playing since FRF
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
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I think it should require at least 8 one-drop creatures, as only 4 delvers doesn't make it consistent. It has anti-synergy with Swiftspear, so maybe in a Steppe Lynx-build? The extra card draw from chart should fuel him good. Gonna try something like this, I think:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strands
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Moorland Haunt
22 lands
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spell Queller
15 creatures
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Helix
2 Logic Knot
2 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Chart a Course
23 other spells
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Wear // Tear
2 Molten Rain
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I agree with Jordan that you may have found a very interesting way to utilize chart in this shell without resorting to a more midrange style with young pyromancer. Very cool.
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spell Queller
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Opt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
2 Boros Charm
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
2 Dispel
2 Spell Snare
2 Path to exile
4 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Ceremonious rejection
2 Stony silence
2 Rest in peace
2 Celestial Purge
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Wear // Tear
2 Magus of the Moat
Serum Visions is pretty mandatory with delver to set up the flip. They are also the best card to find your 20 lands, which is a bit few considering your high curve of 12 3+ drops, counting snappy. I would go up to 21 with that curve, and switch out Opts for Serum Visions. 4 Remands are probably a bit much these days, as they are weak in many matchups. I would switch out some with leak or knot.
How do you deal with Death's Shadow, Tasigur, Angler, Goyfs, Thoughtknot Seers etc etc without paths?
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I've been testing Chart a Course with this this list in some matches now, and I'm not sure about it... It works very well against decks with little removal, like company decks, death and taxes etc., but it's not that good against removal-heavy decks like Jeskai midrange, jund/abzan etc., and those are probably the matchups where the card advantage is needed the most. I think I'll go back to gaining card advantage with Electrolyze and Cryptic Command, which have the added benefit of dealing with swarms, bouncing problematic permanents and generally being better tempo plays by affecting the board.
Maybe my creatures are just too fragile for chart and that it's better with Pyromancer tokens and hexproof geist. Might be worth trying.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Well I think that's the point, you don't have to deal with everything when playing tempo. That's why I still think that Remand is the way to go with Delver strategies, I only find it weak against super aggro matchups, but almost all countermagic is. For example the other day I was playing against storm, he started casting rituals, he was full of mana and played gifts, I placed Past in flames in the graveyard and then Remanded the flashback, he conceded there. I couldn't have done it with mana leak/logic knot. There are many matchs that are T1 Delver T2 Remand T3 Queller T4 Snap Remand etc and its over. Sometimes I ignore the Goyfs and big creatures because I'm going for 5 every turn and have lots of burn.
However I still have that 2 Path for emergencies and get what you say, maybe its a matter of playstyles. The mana base is something that needs work, sometimes I get screwed and sometimes I get flooded, I can't seem to find the balance. I understand the serum and delver sinergy but I don't like playing sorcery speed cards other than Delver and Geist, but maybe the serums can help me with the mana problems like you said, I'll test them out, thanks!
Sei- I play a more aggressive version as well and only run 3 path to exile. However, I run 2 copies of Vapor Snag and one copy of Echoing Truth to deal with some of the more problematic permanents and creatures. They don't permanently deal with them, but they give us enough time to get through enough damage to kill them. I highly recommend giving snag and/or echoing truth a try. They are also great on defense and can bounce a snapcater mage or bedlam reveler to reactivate their enter the battlefield trigger (although it's not free because you have to cast them again). I don't think I would be comfortable with only 2 "answers" to larger threats currently since modern has shifted to having more beefier creatures with tarmogofy, prime time, delve creatures, and eldrazi running around. If I had to pick I would likely cut one remand and one helix for two copies of vapor snag or an additional path. However, everyone's game plan is different and if you want to just tempo and burn the opponent out in game one and then side in additional answers that is fine too.
I am also a huge opt fan and run 4 opts and 2 visions right now. I have gone 3 and 3 in the past as well, but opt really fits my deck/playstyle more I think. I have been an opt fan boy for awhile and actually wrote to WOTC before it was printed asking them to print it :). Serum Visions does help to flip delvers and that can't be discounted, but it's rare that I want to tap out after playing a delver on turn one. Delver normally flips by turn 3 anyways so I don't feel I am losing a lot of I typically want to hold up remand or spell pierce if I have them and opt lets me do that. It's also awesome with snapcaster mage as an instant speed target to get some card advantage.
I also love Boros Charm. It's so versatile and I can't tell you how many lilianas I have killed with it and how many times my opponent has been at 4 life instead of 3 and charm killed them. I think it's much worse in multiples so I only run 1 copy, but it's another card that fits the gameplan of versatility and speed that this deck thrives on.
I share your love for Boros Charm, its absolute amazing. Do you mind sharing the list of your deck? I'm very interested now! And are you having success?
I always love an excuse to post my list :). Here it is:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Bedlam Reveler
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
1 Boros Charm
3 Path to Exile
2 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
3 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
4 Opt
2 Serum Visions
1 Distortion Strike
3 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Inspiring Vantage
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Deflecting Palm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Wear // Tear
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Bedlam Reveler
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Abrade
1 Celestial Purge
1 Izzet Staticaster
As for success, I have had a lot of success playing locally, but I don't travel for magic so my results don't add up to a lot. I will be writing a FNM report this evening for everyone to enjoy. I also have plans to start playing the deck in leagues on MTGO when I find more time (winter is the slower months for my real estate appraisal job).
Great Nate (jeskai royalty) recently played my list on Youtube if you want to see the deck in action. He went 4-1 in the league and played fairly well. If he had more experience with the deck I think he would have won the first round (if he sided in the deflecting palms) to go 5-0. Here is a link to his page-
https://www.youtube.com/user/GreatNateMTG
I'm always open to recommendations and/or constructive critiscm so feel free to let me know. Also I do know that the list is 61 cards. I like the deck at 18 lands, but thought one more land would be a little more consistent so I simply added another. It has been great so far.
Overall- Overall I went 3-1 which is totally fine for me. I don't know about your area, but UW control is all the rage right now. I played against it twice winning once and losing once. I also got to play against Abzan which was nice since it hasn't been popular for awhile now. Finally, I won a close one against UG Merfolk. The deck ran well and I didn't have too many games that were one sided.
Round 1- UW Control
Game 1- Loss- I had a slow opener that is fine against unknown opponenet, but isn't good against control. I didn't draw a geist early enough and by the time I had a geist it was impossible to land him. I was able to do a little damage to him by top decking a bunch of burn, but he was able to take control of the late game after sweeping my board of snapcasters and a swiftspear.
Game 2- Win- This time I had a very aggressive start with two swiftspears and 2 opts. I actually took a Distortion Strike off of one of the opts and wasn't sure if that was right, but wanted to keep the aggression going. The swiftspears in combination with burn and remands were enough to slowly widdle away his life.
Game 3- Loss- I started with a no land hand and mulled into a 4 land hand with Geist and Opt. I decided to keep since Geist is our best card in the matchup and opt can help us filter our first draw. Unfortunately the first card I drew was another land. It would have been nice to find search for azcanta early to filter away additional land drops, but that was not the case. With a lot of lands I wanted to make sure I found counter magic to hold up while attempting to cast giest. I found a remand and went for Geist. He had the cryptic into negate and all was lost. He landed a Geist out of his sideboard which did most of the work against me.
Review- I think this matchup is really dependent on the specific build of UW control. I have had sucess against them in the past, but just didn't draw well enough against them.
0-1
Round 2- Abzan
Game 1- Great, after a loss I get Abzan. The first game was a bit of a wierd one. I flipped a delver on turn two and started beating down. We went back and forth with removal and creatures until the board was a tarmogoyf against a swiftspear with him a 8 life and me at 14. He played a Dark Confidant which I decided not to bolt to see what happens. He flipped a liliana off of him and went to 5. After I remanded the liliana, he had to hold gofy back or would likely die to swiftspear. Flipping an Aburpt Decay off of confidant gave him an answer to swiftspear, but also made my lightning bolt lethal. Sometimes bob sabotages a game.
Game 2- This was a fun one. It was a long drawn out game. I think I had 20 or so cards left in my deck when all was said and done. I landed Search for Azcanta on turn two and it was an absolute house. There were several times I wanted a threat, but felt like I had to activate the land to get a free spell. This did draw the end of the game out a little bit because I kept shipping my threats to the bottom and getting spells to keep him from doing anything. The game started with a inquisition taking snapcaster mage. I drew a delver which was instantly fatal pushed. He played a goyf which I pathed and the game when on like this for a few turns. I was able to land Chandra, Pyromaster who did some work against a few lingering souls tokens, but she was evendually downed by a goyf when my board got a little slim. Echoing Truth cleaned up the souls and we were basically top decking, but I had Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin active. He did have the WB manland, but I helixed it. The additional cards I was drawing each turn slowly took over the game until I found a Bedlam Reveler which actually ended the game. The sideboard was super impactful in this matchup so it was nice to see the cards that don't often come in - revler, chandra, search do some real work.
Review- Hooray we beat Abzan again. I have actually been beating them with some regularity lately so I'm wondering if the matchup is add bad as I once thought it was. Search for Azcanta can be a little slow against some opponents, but it was super helpful against Abzan. I highly recommend giving it a slot in your board.
Rounds 3 and 4 to follow.
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
It's really getting hard to deal with them.
Maybe geists mainboard, what else?
In the sideboard definitely ceremonious rejection, disdainful stroke, izzet staticaster, anger of the gods and maybe engineered explosives. In the main lightning helix is good aganist aggro and remand is probably your best main deck wapon against tron. Geist of saint traft is pretty good against tron but horrible against the swarmy aggro decks you mentioned, so i'd put one or two in the side and that's all. young pyromancer is another good card against aggro and that snowballs against tron since they don't have many removals, but may be too slow, so i'd try it maindeck but side it out against tron
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
The main difference in my build is running Monastery Swiftspear over Young Pyromancer. I think swiftspear is often overlooked based on theory rather than game play. I have always considered the deck "a death by a thousand cuts". I also want combat to be extremely hard for my opponent and swiftspear allows another area of question during combat with all of the instants in our deck. In addition, I have found that the deck functions much better with a turn one threat because it makes out spell pierces, opts, remands, etc much better. Swiftspear also allows us to transition into a more aggressive deck against decks like storm, tron, ponza, etc where we want to really have a strong start and then counter their big spells and finish them off with burn/deflecting palm. In his videos playing the deck, Great Nate does a great job explaining why swiftspear really overperformed when he played the deck. I think if more people gave swiftspear a chance and based their deck less so on theory they would be surprised.
With that said, by not including young pyromancer, we do lose the ability to play a longer grindy game as effectively. It's a pretty even trade off so I can't say that swiftspear is definitely better than young pyromancer in most lists, but swiftspear matches what I am trying to do more effectively. I do often run 1 copy of young p in my sideboard, but removed it recently. I tend to try to finish off the opponent through reach and burn rather than try to elongate the game. I have never liked young pyro because I hate tapping out on turn 2 and she is so fragile. I think she makes a great sideboard card, but I have never liked her in the maindeck of my personal build. Others have built their deck more around utilizing young pyro and the tokens and have had good results, I just prefer to go aggro-control and then have grindy aspects in my sideboard like Bedlam Reveler, Search for Azcanta, and Chandra, Pyromaster.
Echoing Truth is amazing in this deck and I think everyone should run a copy in their mainboard. It answers problem permanents like Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void on 1, Blood Moon, etc and gets rid of a bunch of tokens at once. I can't tell you how many Lingering Souls tokens I have killed with my echoing truth. In addition, it can bounce a big fatty (or two if they have two of the same one) or can be used to bounce my own Snapcaster Mages and Bedlam Revelers for value. This comes up way more than some might think.
Davidalb- Those are actually all decent matchups for an Echoing Truth in the mainboard because it can bounce big fatties and those decks all run a lot of 4 of creatures. Two sideboard cards I LOVE are Engineered Explosives and Deflecting Palm. Deflecting Palm is awesome against eldrazi and tron as a way to finish them off if they think they have turned the corner with fatties. EE is awesome against all swarm or go wide decks and has some other applications against weird decks like boggles, lantern control, tokens, etc. I don't run any sideboard sweepers like anger or supreme verdict, but I have a creature based list. If you have the ability to side into a more control oriented list with Vendillion Cliques, Snaps, etc you could run a copy of either. Abrade is another really interesting option right now because it can kill the Aether Vial or a just kill a creature in humans and elves. I did not like Ceremonious Rejection when I played it because it just didn't feel like it did enough to warrant a sideboard slot. In a meta with a ton of eldrazi tron, affinity, lantern control, etc I could see it being a worthy inclusion, but I didn't love it. Nico3010 brought up some great options like Izzet Staticaster. She looks unassuming but she can do some major work against humans and elves. Grim Lavamancer is similar in that role and can help you finish of the opponent in a close game.
In my experience staticaster is the best card against non-reliquary coco, elves, death&taxes, abzan (lingering is the only real problem along with lily) and affinity. Also it's very good against humans and dredge. I'm always tempted to run a second one in the side, even thoug i never actually did.
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Hi all. I'll update you about my results with my current list. Unfortunately, since I'm still waiting the spellquellers i ordered to be delivered, I couldn't test in real yet, but my online results are pretty encouraging. Against tier 2-3 I often struggle (even though yesterday I beated aura, which I remember was sorta nemesis for me when playing the grixis version of the deck), not having a good sideboard plan nor being prepared maindeck, but against the tiers I'm often advantaged. Eldrazi Tron is one of our best matchups, since the "combo" path-pyormancer-lot of burn spells is the best recipe to defeat them. The gain life is useful against all the aggro/creature based decks and especially coco ones. G1 we slow them down with helixes, bolts and snapcaster recursion and then we deploy one or two threats that easily win the game, G2-3 is similar but I rather clean all the board with a well timed anger of the gods or izzet staticaster, which recovers us from the eventual loss in card advantage due to an uncountered collected company. Titanbreach is similar to eldrazi, with the downside that our removals are mostly useless and we have to be way faster. Shadow is the weirdest one, since we can easily outburn them when they go low on life but we suffer a lot their discard. Overall I'm happy about the matchups, but I'm not sure about the control one. I tweaked the side a bit:
2 geist of saint traft
2 engineered explosives
2 stony silence
1 rest in peace
2 ceremonious rejection
2 disdainful stroke
1 disenchant
1 by force
2 anger of the gods
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm
http://modernnexus.com/boremandos-enraged-brewing-jeskai-delver/
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Great article Jordan. It’s always great to get more eyes on jeskai delver. Thank you for writing about it and for really showing the positives do the jeskai shard.
2 geist of saint traft
2 ceremonious rejection
1 disdainful stroke
2 stony silence
1 rest in peace
1 by force
1 anger of the gods
1 gideon, ally of zendikar
Theese are 12 no brainer slots in my opinion since they cover basically all the current tiers, but i hate having 1ofs in my sb (excluding staticaster and gideon), so i'd like to make some of them 2ofs, but have no idea which ones makes more sense to improve. Any suggestion? Is there any other must-have sb card i'm missing?
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Jeskai Delver
Standard:
Temur Energy
EDH:
Roon of the Hidden Realm