The only aspect of my play that had me second-guessing things was sideboarding against Jund. What do you all typically swap in and out in that matchup?
Shriekmaws taking place of the slower cyclers for scooze and that's about it.
The matchup is generally considered to be one of the more favorable ones to begin with.
Thanks. That's exactly what I did, in addition to an Ingot Chewer in case of Relic/Spellbomb. Is that a thing with Jund, or are they more likely to pack Leylines?
You can never go wrong per se with an ingot chewer, the downsides are minimal (sorcery speed "cycle" without the draw) when compared to the upside of taking out a spellbomb/relic. That said, jund doesn't pack too much specific GY hate unless it's a known meta like a local one. Leylines are almost never played, even during GGT dredge meta and they favor spellbomb and cage alongside MB scooze as their preferred GY hate.
edit: if anything, you should be scared of surgical SB option combined with more discard.
You can never go wrong per se with an ingot chewer, the downsides are minimal (sorcery speed "cycle" without the draw) when compared to the upside of taking out a spellbomb/relic. That said, jund doesn't pack too much specific GY hate unless it's a known meta like a local one. Leylines are almost never played, even during GGT dredge meta and they favor spellbomb and cage alongside MB scooze as their preferred GY hate.
edit: if anything, you should be scared of surgical SB option combined with more discard.
Thanks, that makes total sense. I agree with your assessment of Chewer; so much so, in fact, that I was tinkering with him in the maindeck prior to Amonkhet. Never a bad sideboard call if you're unsure.
@Red_Night, the list looks good to me. Have you found Faith of the Devoted better than two more Boar/Gnaw/Pulse, or just different (hence the 2/2 split)?
so much so, in fact, that I was tinkering with him in the maindeck prior to Amonkhet. Never a bad sideboard call if you're unsure.
That's pretty overboard, can't see this meta justifying it. The known tiered decks that have MB artifact gy hate (usually relic) are
Skred
Some tron lists
Some R/x prison
Some scapeshift lists
Not exactly something to sweat over. Sure you can also hit the other artifacts in decks that don't have MB artifact hate like
Merfolk
Affinity
Tron
but none of these matchups strike me as something that required pre-sideboarding, in fact, I consider most of these matchups somewhat favorable to me based on my experience with living end.
The only times I heavily considered MB ingot chewers was during Eldrazi winter when people when chalice was in many Eldrazi lists and the tech to beat eldrazi usually had artifacts that had splash damage on us like ensnaring bridge, and the other time is GGT dredge when we'd take splash damage from certain decks like skred/prison with slight uptick in playability and some decks presideboarding artifact hate in their flex slots like R/G Valakut.
I've been playing this with minor tweaks since Amonkhet dropped. This week, I dropped an Architects for a 19th land, which was Forbidden Orchard. Seems good.
@Raver, I agree. In my case it was a meta call: Tron, Merfolk, Lantern Control, and a rouge artifact brew based around Walking Ballista all have a presence where I play, to say nothing of Affinity, which is probably the most common archetype.
You play Blood Moon without Verdant Catacombs ?
How does it work out ?
I only have access to Khans fetches and stayed away from blood moon because I didn't want my mana base to feel clunky if I couldn't fetch enough basic forests under the Moon.
My land base is pseudo-budget. For one thing, Grove of the Burnwillows should probably be included as a 2-of or so. And you're right; Catacombs is the best fetch, especially under the Blood Moon. However, in my opinion, the difference between Catacombs and a split of Mire/Foothills (I run more total fetches than the average pilot FWIW) is not as large as you may think.
I don't find the manabase too clunky. It's all about reading the matchup and knowing when you can afford to fetch basics for less diverse, less painful mana access and when you can't. I'm also not scared to lock myself out of a color if powering out an early Moon is going to cripple my opponent!
It seems like whenever Corbin puts a decklist together, he usually has some strange manabase that is suboptimal. I didn't really like some of the decisions he made. I don't like the lack of SSG. I feel MD Shriekmaw or Fairie is a meta call. Currently, I don't have that many creature decks in my meta, so I have them in the SB. I also like AOW over Minotaur, right now.
There's a pretty big IQ happening tomorrow and i'm using it as preliminary testing for a couple of the SCG modern opens happening near me in the next couple months.
I'm going to run a playset of leyline of sanctity in the SB, despite my risk adverse attitude, it does at the very least buy me time and keeps me insulated against a variety of decks if not outright stopping them. If it goes well, I might consider it for the first open
I managed to 5-0 with a list I copied and pasted from Goldfish as I am currently testing different decks for GP Copenhagen, I should have 5-0d two more times but I played some turns pretty sub optimal (deck is surprisingly difficult to play when you don't get the cookie cutter hands), with minimal experience of the deck I just took the only list I could find with archfiend and ran some leagues with it.
For the first half of this week I'm going to be working on living end some more to see if it is the real deal, so far I can tell you
- Archfiend is great (I bought one back and killed 2 4/5 goyfs in a single turn)
- Grove was surprisingly good vs DS, but I don't think I like it vs other aggro decks
- The new one mana cyclers are really good, I have casted a few desert cerodons vs opponents who I have fulminated out the game haha
This is the list which I will be trying out tonight any feedback would be great.
27 CREATURES
4 Desert Cerodon
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Monstrous Carabid
3 Archfiend of Ifnir
2 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Street Wraith
14 INSTANTS and SORC.
3 Beast Within
4 Demonic Dread
3 Living End
4 Violent Outburst
SIDEBOARD
2 Gnaw to the bone
2 Blood Moon
3 Ingot Chewer
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Avalanche Rider
2 Shriekmaw
Had a few questions for you, some related to this list and others related to recent 5-0
[1]I noticed that you switched to Leyline of Sanctity, what was the reason for this over Void? What did you bring it in against or take out against?
[2] Blood moon? Is this better than Avalanche Riders? Your list online shows 3 blood moons and 0 riders. Which matches did you bring blood moon in against?
[3] Do you miss the speed of Simian Spirit guide?
[4] Looks like you cut a Ingot Chewer down to 2? Did you feel you needed more?
[5] Not sure why Lost Legacy made the sb, what were you bringing it in for?
Lots of questions I know but I'm trying to fine tune my sideboard for a tournament this weekend and just want to leverage your testing to save some time.
[quote from="YellowMimic »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/220258-living-end?comment=6212"]Ok guys, maybe first 5-0 with the new cycle cards?? Thoughs?
Honestly something similar to this was what I had in mind when the spoilers came out. Swap the 2 mana spiders for Archfiend and AOW was replaced by Horrors. Not sure how I feel about dropping SSG in favor of the Cerodon but I can see it working. What I like is the new adaptation of Leyline of Sanctity instead of brindle boar or gnaw to the bone as leyline serves double duty vs. burn and it also happens to catch lantern control, 8 rack, and most importantly comes in against junk and junds discard effects. Very excited to test with the leylines my self.
I like this deck minus lost legacy. I would up the chewer count to 3 at least. Also not sure on the loss of simian. Against very fast aggressive decks that card is needed to help get you back in the game.
As far as leyline goes? That card is nuts in some matchups. People don't expect it and just lose. It is also the reason I stated to cut lost legacy. Leyline helps against a few combo decks to help even up the odds.
Here's my thoughts playing a similar list last night.
1. I think the 20th land instead of a land cycler (I played 19 and a Twisted Abomination) is probably a better idea. I really would like to fit in Kessig Wolf Run if I can though...
2. I agree that Lost Legacy can go and a third Ignot Chewer is probably better. When it comes to combo, isn't the best solution LD and racing them?
3. I do like playing two Ricochet Trap SB, so I will test one of the open spots for that and maybe one of the Blood Moon spots. I think we need answers against counters and this is the easiest one. W/O a mainboard SSG though it's harder to cheat this.
4. Speaking of Simian Spirit Guide it makes since to replace him with cyclers for consistency, but we're heading towards a weird place with less explosive starts and literally no play until turn 3. Maybe 2 would be a better number than 0. Cut 1 Archfiend and 1 Ceradon?
5. Finally I liked having 4 of each of the cascaders. I never was in a place where all of my enablers were stripped from hand, even playing against DS.
1. I run 19 with Kessig in the mix. I also run 3 simians though which is land 20, 21, 22 ( been thinking of cutting to 2 ). Kessig is really good though.
2. Land destruction is a good route against some combo decks. It's actually an effective way to beat them. I almost won an Ad Nauseum match due to constant land destruction. Ended up losing game 3 but that is a very bad matchup for living end. There are some matches that the Leyline will be better, aka storm.
3. I play one Trap in my sideboard. If you have a heavy control meta up the count because this card is nuts but if it's far and few between not worth eating up too many slots
4. I would run 2 and test it. I wouldn't cut Ceradon or Archfiend. The way I look at the cyclers is this. How many cyclers do I need to have to alpha strike or do the most damage. Ceradon hits for 6. I would cut a Carabid before Ceradon due to the fact that Ceradon has better stats and isnt' required to attack. As far as Archfiend? The card is nuts, I run 4. Although they are my only two mana cyclers. There are games though where this guy and just one other guy on the board just takes over. When looking at creatures for living end there are a few things to factor in. 1 is their cycling cost, 2 is how much damage they can do. Archfiend doesn't pass the cycling cost due to costing 2, but it can do 5 damage and has an ability. The best part about it doing 5 damage is the evasion which can pretty much mean unblockable in some matchups. It is also a better hard cast at 5 then most of the other creatures.
5. 4 of each casacaders is the right call.
</blockquote>
Just wanted to update this. I have cut the archfiend down a bit. I'm floating between 2 and 3 right now. I'm at 2 right now. The rest of the list is very close to what I'm running. No Dismember and Avalanche Riders instead of Blood Moon. I actually may test out Blood Moon over them because it will probably have a similar effect.
RE: Yellow Mimic
Props to this person "Hippies" for going w/ blue. What I'm wondering is if he/she is going all out with 4x Mana Confluence, 4x Forbidden Orchard and 4x Gemstone Mines why not run Ardent Plea > Demonic Dread?
Also interesting to see the 4-of SSG still with no F.mages. I'm wondering how effective those 2 and 3-of leylines really are in the SB...
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Standard // nRG Aggro
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
Since I got confirmation you could run Blood Moons without Verdant Catacombs I decided to give it a shot, and it's really good !
I made my deck in a hurry so I just kinda swapped the Fearies to the sideboard, but I don't like that, the SB is still a WIP.
my MUs were:
2-0 Vs. Sultai Control
1-2 Vs. Jund
2-1 Vs. Bant Tempo
2-1 Vs. Sultai Thopter Foundry
2-0 Vs. Eldrazi TRON
Nice job, dude. Looks like you're on a very similar list to me. Just look at your matchups: 4 three-color decks and Tron. Modern manabases are so greedy! Blood Moon seriously steals games, and with all of our cycling we can hit it rather consistently.
It's especially amusing when you side out the Moon post-board in games where it's effective but not crucial, and the opponent cripples himself by playing carefully around a Moon that's never to rise.
Since I got confirmation you could run Blood Moons without Verdant Catacombs I decided to give it a shot, and it's really good !
I am not trying to sound rude, but I believe one person on here said you would be fine without Catacombs. I would not call that "conformation" as that is a tiny sample size.
Since I got confirmation you could run Blood Moons without Verdant Catacombs I decided to give it a shot, and it's really good !
I am not trying to sound rude, but I believe one person on here said you would be fine without Catacombs. I would not call that "conformation" as that is a tiny sample size.
That one person was me, and you're right: a playset of Catacombs is still ideal. My contention is simply 1) the difference between an optimized landbase and a slightly budget landbase is probably smaller than most people are thinking, and 2) the advantage derived from playing Blood Moon in a meta filled with greedy landbases outweighs any disadvantages accrued by using Moon in conjunction with Mires and Foothills.
Alright so the IQ I went to over the weekend was a 7 rounder. Matchups were fairly diverse, no tron or Death shadow decks which was upsetting, instead I drew the short straw and faced storm and burn. I did manage to beat out ad naus which was nice.
The leylines which I was testing came in against storm and burn and I managed to see them both in the opening hands. Against storm, it actually did quite a bit and bought me a lot of time but sadly, I didn't pull the trigger fast enough on pressuring with creatures and let the guy dig for his echoing truth and I got stormed out.
Against burn, I resolved it but I also kept a sketchy hand that didn't pay off when I couldn't hit my land drops and it resulted in me getting hit in the face by creatures. I think leyline definitely warrants further testing, it seems to have a lot of play against the aforementioned decks as well as all the targeted discard and several surgical effects.
Raver: That really sucks about drawing Burn and Storm. I played against Storm on Friday and managed to see my MD Fairie game 1 and saw Fairie again after SB and it was too much for the Storm player to handle.
Burn is tough. Maybe LE's worst MU and unfortunately every large tournament is filled with Burn. I played in the last SCG Indy Modern Open and played against Burn in 3 of the first 4 rounds...luckily I was not on LE that day.
But have other issues with the deck now...
All our cyclers are decent/good, so I have a really hard time chosing what to sideboard out... I ended up cutting SSG more than once just because I really wanted that cycler density : Stability > Explosiveness in most MUs.
What do you usually sideboard out now that Architects and Minotaurs are disapearing from most lists ?
This is a real question. I find myself making fewer sideboard changes than pre-AKH, in general.
Blood Moon comes out in some matches; 2+ Fulminator in others; sometimes both. I am generally loathe to side out Beast Within, but on occasion, it makes sense to lose your all-purpose answers in favor of narrower, more efficient ones (though mostly you'll want access to both).
You mentioned SSG, and it's true that he can come out in certain matches, but that's a last resort for me. It's not a pure trade-off between speed and consistency; SSG brings an element of consistency as well. I still run 1-2 Architects, so sometimes they and a lone Horror will come out if I need to side but can't cut any of the aforementioned.
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Thanks. That's exactly what I did, in addition to an Ingot Chewer in case of Relic/Spellbomb. Is that a thing with Jund, or are they more likely to pack Leylines?
edit: if anything, you should be scared of surgical SB option combined with more discard.
Thanks, that makes total sense. I agree with your assessment of Chewer; so much so, in fact, that I was tinkering with him in the maindeck prior to Amonkhet. Never a bad sideboard call if you're unsure.
@Red_Night, the list looks good to me. Have you found Faith of the Devoted better than two more Boar/Gnaw/Pulse, or just different (hence the 2/2 split)?
That's pretty overboard, can't see this meta justifying it. The known tiered decks that have MB artifact gy hate (usually relic) are
Not exactly something to sweat over. Sure you can also hit the other artifacts in decks that don't have MB artifact hate like
but none of these matchups strike me as something that required pre-sideboarding, in fact, I consider most of these matchups somewhat favorable to me based on my experience with living end.
The only times I heavily considered MB ingot chewers was during Eldrazi winter when people when chalice was in many Eldrazi lists and the tech to beat eldrazi usually had artifacts that had splash damage on us like ensnaring bridge, and the other time is GGT dredge when we'd take splash damage from certain decks like skred/prison with slight uptick in playability and some decks presideboarding artifact hate in their flex slots like R/G Valakut.
4 Monstrous Carabid
4 Desert Cerodon
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
1 Architects of Will
1 Pale Recluse
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Beast Within
2 Blood Moon
3 Demonic Dread
3 Living End
1 Kari Zev's Expertise
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blooming Marsh
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamps
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Forbidden Orchard
3 Ingot Chewer
3 Shriekmaw
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Avalanche Riders
1 Anger of the Gods
I've been playing this with minor tweaks since Amonkhet dropped. This week, I dropped an Architects for a 19th land, which was Forbidden Orchard. Seems good.
@Raver, I agree. In my case it was a meta call: Tron, Merfolk, Lantern Control, and a rouge artifact brew based around Walking Ballista all have a presence where I play, to say nothing of Affinity, which is probably the most common archetype.
My land base is pseudo-budget. For one thing, Grove of the Burnwillows should probably be included as a 2-of or so. And you're right; Catacombs is the best fetch, especially under the Blood Moon. However, in my opinion, the difference between Catacombs and a split of Mire/Foothills (I run more total fetches than the average pilot FWIW) is not as large as you may think.
I don't find the manabase too clunky. It's all about reading the matchup and knowing when you can afford to fetch basics for less diverse, less painful mana access and when you can't. I'm also not scared to lock myself out of a color if powering out an early Moon is going to cripple my opponent!
It omits the SSG's completely and plays: 3x Archfiend, 3x Architects and 2x Faerie in the mainboard (and also only 2x Beast Within).
The land choices are rather wierd imho, I wouldn't run: Twilight Mire, Fire-Lit Thicket and Sulfurous Springs in this deck over more fast lands (or even fetches).
I'd also prefer Deadshot Minotaur + Shriekmaw over Architects of Will + Faerie Macabre in the mainboard.
I'm going to run a playset of leyline of sanctity in the SB, despite my risk adverse attitude, it does at the very least buy me time and keeps me insulated against a variety of decks if not outright stopping them. If it goes well, I might consider it for the first open
Had a few questions for you, some related to this list and others related to recent 5-0
[1]I noticed that you switched to Leyline of Sanctity, what was the reason for this over Void? What did you bring it in against or take out against?
[2] Blood moon? Is this better than Avalanche Riders? Your list online shows 3 blood moons and 0 riders. Which matches did you bring blood moon in against?
[3] Do you miss the speed of Simian Spirit guide?
[4] Looks like you cut a Ingot Chewer down to 2? Did you feel you needed more?
[5] Not sure why Lost Legacy made the sb, what were you bringing it in for?
Lots of questions I know but I'm trying to fine tune my sideboard for a tournament this weekend and just want to leverage your testing to save some time.
Just wanted to update this. I have cut the archfiend down a bit. I'm floating between 2 and 3 right now. I'm at 2 right now. The rest of the list is very close to what I'm running. No Dismember and Avalanche Riders instead of Blood Moon. I actually may test out Blood Moon over them because it will probably have a similar effect.
Props to this person "Hippies" for going w/ blue. What I'm wondering is if he/she is going all out with 4x Mana Confluence, 4x Forbidden Orchard and 4x Gemstone Mines why not run Ardent Plea > Demonic Dread?
Also interesting to see the 4-of SSG still with no F.mages. I'm wondering how effective those 2 and 3-of leylines really are in the SB...
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
I wonder if Glassdust Hulk was chosen because River Serpent's drawback as I didn't think that would be that big of an issue.
Nice job, dude. Looks like you're on a very similar list to me. Just look at your matchups: 4 three-color decks and Tron. Modern manabases are so greedy! Blood Moon seriously steals games, and with all of our cycling we can hit it rather consistently.
It's especially amusing when you side out the Moon post-board in games where it's effective but not crucial, and the opponent cripples himself by playing carefully around a Moon that's never to rise.
I am not trying to sound rude, but I believe one person on here said you would be fine without Catacombs. I would not call that "conformation" as that is a tiny sample size.
That one person was me, and you're right: a playset of Catacombs is still ideal. My contention is simply 1) the difference between an optimized landbase and a slightly budget landbase is probably smaller than most people are thinking, and 2) the advantage derived from playing Blood Moon in a meta filled with greedy landbases outweighs any disadvantages accrued by using Moon in conjunction with Mires and Foothills.
The leylines which I was testing came in against storm and burn and I managed to see them both in the opening hands. Against storm, it actually did quite a bit and bought me a lot of time but sadly, I didn't pull the trigger fast enough on pressuring with creatures and let the guy dig for his echoing truth and I got stormed out.
Against burn, I resolved it but I also kept a sketchy hand that didn't pay off when I couldn't hit my land drops and it resulted in me getting hit in the face by creatures. I think leyline definitely warrants further testing, it seems to have a lot of play against the aforementioned decks as well as all the targeted discard and several surgical effects.
Burn is tough. Maybe LE's worst MU and unfortunately every large tournament is filled with Burn. I played in the last SCG Indy Modern Open and played against Burn in 3 of the first 4 rounds...luckily I was not on LE that day.
This is a real question. I find myself making fewer sideboard changes than pre-AKH, in general.
Blood Moon comes out in some matches; 2+ Fulminator in others; sometimes both. I am generally loathe to side out Beast Within, but on occasion, it makes sense to lose your all-purpose answers in favor of narrower, more efficient ones (though mostly you'll want access to both).
You mentioned SSG, and it's true that he can come out in certain matches, but that's a last resort for me. It's not a pure trade-off between speed and consistency; SSG brings an element of consistency as well. I still run 1-2 Architects, so sometimes they and a lone Horror will come out if I need to side but can't cut any of the aforementioned.