I have had them when I needed in most match ups, but I really haven't like them when I drew more than 1 in some match ups. I felt like 3 was too much because of this in the later games against Jeskai Ascendancy, and I tend to hold them in that match up more until I see a graveyard more of spells or they hit more than just 3 lands.
Against Delver, I felt I would usually need more than 2 anyways, but I haven't dealt with this matchup one after another to be able to debate having a third. I know that Delver is running rampant at 20% of the meta, but I also don't go into a round against Delver expecting another round unless I am playing on Magic Online. That is why I stick to two, because I still usually get it when I need it. And I spend more of my time dealing with a Delver than there spells. It is a house, though, so if I face more and more delver, I will play 3-4 Chalice.
I just think that having 2 in the maindeck is enough to support my deck in the format when I am running 2 O Stones and 2 Dismember maindeck against "aggro" decks, where Chalice does shine as well. For me, 2 is the appropriate number right now since I haven't had any reason to need more until game 2 or 3.
Well, they can still loot, +1/1 with chalice on 1 as they can cast spells, causing ascendancy to trigger. It's when they cast the spells and not on the resolution that they get it.
They can still get out their threats like Fatestitcher from the graveyard with unearth (CMC on the stack is 4). This also still doesn't stop Treasure Cruise, which is just being fueled by them running cantrips into the graveyard (in game 1).
Also, they can just go to the gifts ungiven sideboard, resulting in them just not at all caring about that. Siding into pact of negation, wear//tear, gifts package and out of cantrips works well enough to give the deck some resiliency.
My sideboard for Omaha is probably going to include a Grafdigger's Cage.
Also we don't really care about Iona so not sure why that matters.
I was just mentioning that largely, the deck doesn't get punished completely if they think they're going to be under a Chalice on 1. They can go to a sideboard plan. Iona on blue is (I imagine) still annoying and a big beater that's larger than anything we're going to have on the board on T4/5 in most cases. Only 1 WC will have that effect. No blue means it'd be hard to remove without drawing an oblivion stone. The only thing we could do is make sure to hold up counters for an EOT gifts and not tap out. Which in most cases that means we won't have to care about Iona because Unburial Rites is a 1 of and if they whiff on a flashback, it'd be devastating (which also means they're NOT going to cast it into counter mana without backup).
We have enough counters to respond to that sideboard plan, but we would win against Wish Ascendancy with a chalice on 1. The Jeskai would play around our counters, but we have a lot of counters to fight through. It would be a game of cat and mouse until someone finally makes a move, and the longer the game goes the better position we are in anyways.
Hand 1 (mulliganed once, on the play vs random): Power Plant, Mine, Mindslaver, Treasure Mage, Thirst for Knowledge, Condescend
Easy mulligan. That hand needs blue or the other tron piece to go anywhere. Even getting tron together isn't even good in this hand--You get a single mindslaver for it. You can never keep hands like this and shouldn't even consider it.
Hand 2 (on the draw vs burn): Island, Island, Power Plant, Condescend, Thirst for Knowledge x2, Batterskull
This hand is really good, what is even questionable here? Condescend is immensely powerful and the combination ofthirst + condescend gives you 5 more cards to see. Plus you even have batterskull to just win the game. Not sure what more you want vs. them.
Hand 3 (mulliganed once, on the draw vs random): Island, Map, Thirst for Knowledge, Repeal, Remand, Platinum Angel
This is an easy keep. What is the question? Repeal + remand gives you early interaciton and digs you to the third land, you can pitch angel if you need to. What 5 card hand is better than this?
[quote[Hand 4 (on the play vs affinity): Island x3, Hurkyl's Recall, Dismember, Wurmcoil Engine, Mind Slaver[/quote]
This is an awkward hand. I'd be tempted to keep though simply because dismember + recall is going to buy you a lot of time. Going go a random 6 here seems far scarier.
Not sure what your questions really are, most of these hands were pretty easy. Perhaps you could give more insight here what your hesitations are.
The point of these hands is to encourage discussion about mulliganing. Some of these may be easy but I think some of these are difficult and worth discussing. I'm probably too greedy with my keeps, but here's my opinion of them:
I agree exactly with you on hand 1.
Personally, I think hand 2 is really tough. It's quite mediocre vs Burn. You're on the draw, and you don't have the time to Thirst twice. It's also incredibly soft to a goblin guide or swiftspear and a t2 Eidolon spells GG. They also might have Smash to Smithereens for the Batterskull. It might be better than an average 6, but I don't think this hand can beat the average draw of burn.
Hand 3 is an one lander. I'd probably keep because the one land is an island, but if it was an Urza land or worse a Tectonic Edge you can't deploy a blue spell until t3 if you don't draw a blue source.
Hand 4...This was an actual hand that I kept vs affinity. It did buy a ton of time, but the wurmcoil and mindslaver almost meant a mull to 5 as they were in my hand for so long that I nearly lost the game to nexus beats. I would probably keep due to the strength of Recall, but the Mindslaver was close to uncastable.
Keep 2, 3, 4. The first hand has a high ceiling but I won't likely keep it on the play.
Thinking more on hand 1: The odds of getting a blue source in a 5 card hand are about 62 percent, but a significant number of those hands are one landers. I'm not sure I'd want to roll the dice when I have two Tron pieces in hand. 38 percent of the time you'll mulligan into a 5 card hand without blue, and over 90 percent of those hands will be worse than this one. It's more complicated to calculate the odds that you get a better hand, but keeping 1 is at least mathematically debatable.
WotC Christmas present to us! I really like the idea of including Ugin in U-Tron. His minus X can go a long way towards stabilizing the board in our favor. I can certainly see myself running him in place of Sundering Titan.
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"Let me show you what someone with real power can create." - Liliana Vess
I'm liking almost everything about this guy. He's a one-sided board wipe for us that can be used almost as many times as we want and he's extremely hard to remove. When his -X = 0, say bye-bye to flipped delvers and pyromancer tokens for free. He still costs 8 mana, though, so it's not something you can rush for like a Platinum Angel when you're getting aggro'd down. If the goal is to completely deny the opponent from establishing a board presence, though, I can see this guy being played instead of Sundering Titan. Still, I don't think it's a substitute for a bunch of chalices right now. Cool card, though!
EDIT: The big pitfall of this card is that it's not an artifact so it can't be tutored for. That may be a dealbreaker.
Any thoughts on the new Ugin, the Spirit Dragon planeswalker? Seems like a great way to turn the tide of the battlefield completely with his second ability. Definitely great in Gr Tron, but what about Mono U tron? Would you guys consider it? Karn isn't viable because it's way too slow to do its thing by the time it comes into play in Mono U tron, but Ugin just needs to wipe the board with his second ability, and our threats have generally high CMC too. I find it to be a great one sided board wipe that can be used multiple times when needed as most creatures in Modern are of pretty low CMC.
Mana Cost: 8 (colorless)
Loyalty: 7
+2: Ugin, the Spirit Dragon deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
-X: Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors.
-10: You gain 7 life, draw 7 cards, then put up to seven permanent cards from your hand onto the battlefield.
You're right to focus on that -X, definitely my favorite part of the card. Not entirely one sided- we would probably lose 1-2 Trinket/Treasure/Snapcaster Mage. That said, those guys generally aren't our endgame anyway and can be expendable after their ETB effects. Being able to bolt the opponent as well as kill most creatures in Modern is very nice. His ult, while it doesn't entirely win on the spot, will put us so far ahead that it might as well have. The 7life is welcome for us. As for downsides? He's slow of course. If they have haste creatures like Monastery Swiftspear, they can come back from the wipe and beat. Ugin is very resilient, so he can survive most single hits.
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I really like this in Mono U Tron, because that -X is going to be either 1 or 0, which will wipe a board and leave us with a colossally sized Planeswalker at a very high loyalty that threatens to just win the game on its own (though at that point, I think we just keep +2'ing him).
I think he's a good post-board replacement for Sundering Titan against 1 or 2 color decks (which tend to be the most aggressive anyway), or for Platinum Angel when we don't realistically expect it to survive to the next turn. Pod and other three color decks are still too prevalent for Sundering Titan to be rotated out to the Sideboard, but I think this is going to be an 8 drop we want in the current meta.
Against Delver, I felt I would usually need more than 2 anyways, but I haven't dealt with this matchup one after another to be able to debate having a third. I know that Delver is running rampant at 20% of the meta, but I also don't go into a round against Delver expecting another round unless I am playing on Magic Online. That is why I stick to two, because I still usually get it when I need it. And I spend more of my time dealing with a Delver than there spells. It is a house, though, so if I face more and more delver, I will play 3-4 Chalice.
I just think that having 2 in the maindeck is enough to support my deck in the format when I am running 2 O Stones and 2 Dismember maindeck against "aggro" decks, where Chalice does shine as well. For me, 2 is the appropriate number right now since I haven't had any reason to need more until game 2 or 3.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
Well, they can still loot, +1/1 with chalice on 1 as they can cast spells, causing ascendancy to trigger. It's when they cast the spells and not on the resolution that they get it.
They can still get out their threats like Fatestitcher from the graveyard with unearth (CMC on the stack is 4). This also still doesn't stop Treasure Cruise, which is just being fueled by them running cantrips into the graveyard (in game 1).
Also, they can just go to the gifts ungiven sideboard, resulting in them just not at all caring about that. Siding into pact of negation, wear//tear, gifts package and out of cantrips works well enough to give the deck some resiliency.
Also we don't really care about Iona so not sure why that matters.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
I was just mentioning that largely, the deck doesn't get punished completely if they think they're going to be under a Chalice on 1. They can go to a sideboard plan. Iona on blue is (I imagine) still annoying and a big beater that's larger than anything we're going to have on the board on T4/5 in most cases. Only 1 WC will have that effect. No blue means it'd be hard to remove without drawing an oblivion stone. The only thing we could do is make sure to hold up counters for an EOT gifts and not tap out. Which in most cases that means we won't have to care about Iona because Unburial Rites is a 1 of and if they whiff on a flashback, it'd be devastating (which also means they're NOT going to cast it into counter mana without backup).
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
Hand 1 (mulliganed once, on the play vs random): Power Plant, Mine, Mindslaver, Treasure Mage, Thirst for Knowledge, Condescend
Hand 2 (on the draw vs burn): Island, Island, Power Plant, Condescend, Thirst for Knowledge x2, Batterskull
Hand 3 (mulliganed once, on the draw vs random): Island, Map, Thirst for Knowledge, Repeal, Remand, Platinum Angel
Hand 4 (on the play vs affinity): Island x3, Hurkyl's Recall, Dismember, Wurmcoil Engine, Mind Slaver
Edit: Hand 3 was supposed to contain an Island not a Mine, Added Hand 4
Easy mulligan. That hand needs blue or the other tron piece to go anywhere. Even getting tron together isn't even good in this hand--You get a single mindslaver for it. You can never keep hands like this and shouldn't even consider it.
This hand is really good, what is even questionable here? Condescend is immensely powerful and the combination ofthirst + condescend gives you 5 more cards to see. Plus you even have batterskull to just win the game. Not sure what more you want vs. them.
This is an easy keep. What is the question? Repeal + remand gives you early interaciton and digs you to the third land, you can pitch angel if you need to. What 5 card hand is better than this?
[quote[Hand 4 (on the play vs affinity): Island x3, Hurkyl's Recall, Dismember, Wurmcoil Engine, Mind Slaver[/quote]
This is an awkward hand. I'd be tempted to keep though simply because dismember + recall is going to buy you a lot of time. Going go a random 6 here seems far scarier.
Not sure what your questions really are, most of these hands were pretty easy. Perhaps you could give more insight here what your hesitations are.
I agree exactly with you on hand 1.
Personally, I think hand 2 is really tough. It's quite mediocre vs Burn. You're on the draw, and you don't have the time to Thirst twice. It's also incredibly soft to a goblin guide or swiftspear and a t2 Eidolon spells GG. They also might have Smash to Smithereens for the Batterskull. It might be better than an average 6, but I don't think this hand can beat the average draw of burn.
Hand 3 is an one lander. I'd probably keep because the one land is an island, but if it was an Urza land or worse a Tectonic Edge you can't deploy a blue spell until t3 if you don't draw a blue source.
Hand 4...This was an actual hand that I kept vs affinity. It did buy a ton of time, but the wurmcoil and mindslaver almost meant a mull to 5 as they were in my hand for so long that I nearly lost the game to nexus beats. I would probably keep due to the strength of Recall, but the Mindslaver was close to uncastable.
Thinking more on hand 1: The odds of getting a blue source in a 5 card hand are about 62 percent, but a significant number of those hands are one landers. I'm not sure I'd want to roll the dice when I have two Tron pieces in hand. 38 percent of the time you'll mulligan into a 5 card hand without blue, and over 90 percent of those hands will be worse than this one. It's more complicated to calculate the odds that you get a better hand, but keeping 1 is at least mathematically debatable.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
EDIT: The big pitfall of this card is that it's not an artifact so it can't be tutored for. That may be a dealbreaker.
Mana Cost: 8 (colorless)
Loyalty: 7
+2: Ugin, the Spirit Dragon deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
-X: Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors.
-10: You gain 7 life, draw 7 cards, then put up to seven permanent cards from your hand onto the battlefield.
I think he's a good post-board replacement for Sundering Titan against 1 or 2 color decks (which tend to be the most aggressive anyway), or for Platinum Angel when we don't realistically expect it to survive to the next turn. Pod and other three color decks are still too prevalent for Sundering Titan to be rotated out to the Sideboard, but I think this is going to be an 8 drop we want in the current meta.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
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