Hi guys, so I'm thinking about running this deck at one of the upcoming GPs! I've played it for a while now, and I'd like to pick your collective brains with a few questions:
1) Which basic land to run? I'm currently running shadowgripper's list(mostly), and theoretically I feel like a mountain is a better choice than a forest, since it allows us to pyroclasm off a ghost quarter and a non-red-producing land.
2) Which discard spells to run? I'm currently on 4 Inquisition, 2 Thoughtseize and 1 Duress. Is this too many? Could we just go up to 3 Thoughtseize or even 4(and 3 Inquisitions)?
3) How good is infernal tutor? I'm currently running a Spellskite in its place, and it doesn't seem to be doing much. Would running an infernal tutor continue to justify a singleton Spellskite?
4) Ghirapur Aether Grid - One in the side or no? My reasoning is that the Grid allows us a quick(er) way to close out matches, especially since it is a long tournament and losing game 1 means we are under some real time pressure.
My English isn't so good, so apologies and thank you in advance!
1) Which basic land to run? I'm currently running shadowgripper's list(mostly), and theoretically I feel like a mountain is a better choice than a forest since it allows us to pyroclasm off a ghost quarter and a non-red-producing land.
I personally run a Swamp, Forest, and an Island. Swamp and/or Forest are the two I usually head to if I am facing a Stony Silence type deck because I use Abrupt Decay as my defense more than Pyroclasm. I aim for an Island if I want to always recur with Academy Ruins or if I think I need more Spellskite activations. My defense is based on Sulti colors(and I'm historically more aggressive with my mana base with this deck)
If you run 3-4 Pyroclasms in your 75, take a mountain. Your Defense is based on red, so that is the basic land you want.
2) Which discard spells to run? I'm currently on 4 Inquisition, 2 Thoughtseize and 1 Duress. Is this too many? Could we just go up to 3 Thoughtseize or even 4(and 3 Inquisitions)?
With Eldrazi, Thoughseize might be better than Inquisition. I think the ideal amount most people want is 6 to 7 discard spells. I personally go with 6. Also, note that if they are playing white, they usually board in Leyline of Sanctity. This is a reason I went down to 6 after a short stint of using 7.
3) How good is infernal tutor? I'm currently running a Spellskite in its place, and it doesn't seem to be doing much. Would running an infernal tutor continue to justify a singleton Spellskite?
I'm biased for both of those cards. I personally would run 3 Spellskites in my 75 minimum. Infernal Tutor is my baby, and I love that card to death. That bias aside, Infernal tutor in this deck is basically a Demonic Tutor. I've won stalled games just by drawing it. It is never a dead card in my opening hand, as I'm playing out my hand as fast as I can anyway. I would not run more than 1, but I would run just 1.
I'd say find something else to take out, especially with Infect/Burn being a decent match chance after you miss an Eldrazi deck.
4) Ghirapur Aether Grid - One in the side or no? My reasoning is that the Grid allows us a quick(er) way to close out matches, especially since it is a long tournament and losing game 1 means we are under some real time pressure.
Grid is good, but imo not a good card currently. I like it, but in most matchups it isn't really helping enough. It is not something I am usually digging for in any match up, therefore, doesn't have a place in my 75 right now. Later that might change.
Hope this helped, and good luck piloting it!
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@Spage, infernal tutor in your opening hand is the definition of a dead card. Unless you are planning on playing it while you still have cards in your hand to get a copy of something, that tutor literally is dead. It can't provide support. You can't cast it on the first few turns. It doesn't offer any interaction. I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm merely stating how useful the card can be.
I do like it in the list for two reasons. It doubles as a bridge if they thought knot our first one away. Having five effective bridges is better than four. Secondly, it lets our mulligans be stronger. When we mull we lose cards in our hand. Hitting a tutor post-mulligan is nice as it is easier to cast.
I find leyline stopping thought knot to be more useful than having pyro or surgical in all three matchups, though there is debate about this. It's better on the draw, since its not unlikely for them to play him on turn three, before we can land a bridge, and having that protection out lets us strip away other hate they have in their hands. It also stops U/W from forcing us to draw before we find a needle, and stops U/R from using Hurkylls, which is their primary hate against us.
Very much agree with this. Being able to play your hand untouched by Thought Knot makes such a huge difference. Turning off recall is fantastic too.
Continuing the "which basic land' questions, can those who are running md pyroclasms and mountain comment on how valuable the mountain is. Ie how often do you need to quarter yourself to get the mountain to cast them?
I'm currently testing the md pyros but have always stuck to forest as the sole basic to help cast abrupt decay under blood moon. Admittedly i havent really seen many blood moons floating around these days though so maybe it isn't much of a worry anymore
Continuing the "which basic land' questions, can those who are running md pyroclasms and mountain comment on how valuable the mountain is. Ie how often do you need to quarter yourself to get the mountain to cast them?
I'm currently testing the md pyros but have always stuck to forest as the sole basic to help cast abrupt decay under blood moon. Admittedly i havent really seen many blood moons floating around these days though so maybe it isn't much of a worry anymore
I prefer a forest as that still allows me to cast stirrings to find the cards (and other colors) I need. I'd be more inclined to run a swamp before I ran a mountain. as swamps cast our discard, tutor and half of abrupt decay (as does forest)
I've just recently made the switch to -1 Sun Droplet, +1 Quiet Disrepair in the sideboard due to the higher prevalence of Affinity. It's still useful against Burn, but now that Affinity is a larger portion of the meta, I want something that is more useful in more matchups. It also seems good as another answer for Stony Silence and creatures like Noble Hierarch that can attack under Bridge. I like how it answers both of those threats in the CoCo matchup all in one card, as well as being useful in one of the more prevalent matchups in the meta. I didn't like it much before because Burn was more common and I couldn't grab it off of an Ancient Stirrings, but I think the inclusion in the side is correct at this point.
In my opinion, Mox Opal and Simian Spirit Guide aren't even in the same league as the eldrazi lands. Not only does Opal require you to build around an artifact theme, but you also have to have 2 other artifacts on the battlefield or it's a do nothing card. Combine that with the fact that it's legendary and I feel it's on the fairer side of things. SSG is a one shot effect that doubles as an over costed 2/2 without haste. All you have to do with the eldrazi lands is have eldrazi in your hand.
I'd rate the likelihood of Mox Opal being banned somewhere in the neighborhood of zero. Anyone that's talking about it being banned either has a sodium problem with Affinity, and/or really fails to understand the rationale behind cards being banned. Opal has been in the Modern metagame since forever, it's always been juicing Affinity strategies, and it's never been seriously considered ban-worthy. Nothing about the current Eldrazi situation makes Opal (or SSG for that matter) a problem. The Eldrazi deck exists because the "colorless Eldrazi only" drawback on the 8 quasi-sol lands that modern had available stopped being a drawback when they printed enough competitively-costed colorless Eldrazi to fill a deck. Fast mana with a meaningful drawback (like metalcraft or card disadvantage) isn't a problem - fast mana without a drawback (like it's being used in Eldrazi) is.
I agree that Ensnaring Bridge is a more likely ban target than Mox Opal, but even then the chances are low. Bridge exemplifies a style of Magic that WotC has been moving away from, but they wouldn't ban bridge simply because it doesn't fit their modern ethos for card design. It would have to be the core of a deck that was oppressive to the metagame before it would be in the conversation for banning. Currently Lantern is the deck that is abusing Bridge the most, and we're not nearly enough of a percentage of the metagame for WotC to hit with the banhammer.
@Spage, infernal tutor in your opening hand is the definition of a dead card. Unless you are planning on playing it while you still have cards in your hand to get a copy of something, that tutor literally is dead. It can't provide support. You can't cast it on the first few turns. It doesn't offer any interaction. I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm merely stating how useful the card can be.
I'd define dead card as something like Pithing Needle vs Burn, Abrupt Decay vs Eldrazi, Spellskite vs Ad Nauseum. In those situations, the card you have will not have a large impact, more often than not it is going to be cast to leave your hand rather than to impact the board. Infernal Tutor is a threat that you can reach any card the other deck does not want to see, which is why in mirror matchups if I can Duress a Infernal Tutor, I will(So long as the card I don't want to see isn't already in their hand). I've seen other players do the same vs me when they play discard spells on me.
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@Spage, infernal tutor in your opening hand is the definition of a dead card. Unless you are planning on playing it while you still have cards in your hand to get a copy of something, that tutor literally is dead. It can't provide support. You can't cast it on the first few turns. It doesn't offer any interaction. I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm merely stating how useful the card can be.
I'd define dead card as something like Pithing Needle vs Burn, Abrupt Decay vs Eldrazi, Spellskite vs Ad Nauseum. In those situations, the card you have will not have a large impact, more often than not it is going to be cast to leave your hand rather than to impact the board. Infernal Tutor is a threat that you can reach any card the other deck does not want to see, which is why in mirror matchups if I can Duress a Infernal Tutor, I will(So long as the card I don't want to see isn't already in their hand). I've seen other players do the same vs me when they play discard spells on me.
As a note, Needle can be played early against burn naming a fetch, which might cut them off of a color. It's also a permanent to give you metalcraft, which does come up. It's not completely dead.
Decay vs. Eldrazi hits Chalice, Ratchet Bomb, Mimic, Endless One, Displacer, and gets Relic/RiP/Stony Silence off the table post-board. Its no where close to uncastable in the first couple of turns.
Spellskite vs Ad Nauseam is not dead. If the list only has lightning storm and no Slaughter Pact main, they just lose to a resolve spellskite. Conflagurate gets around this tho.
None of those three cards are dead as you can always play them early to hit something. Tutor can *never* be played early. Again, not saying this is a bad choice, I really want this card now, it just doesnt provide the type of options and coverage other cards can *early* in a game; it's only good after it sits there and brews for a bit.
Needle on fetches might keep Burn off colors, but it is far from the best defensive strategy that you want to be spending mana on. Again for me strategically I'm not casting Needle to hurt them as much as I'm casting it to get it out of my hand, which means in all reality I don't want it in that match up.
You got me on the Abrupt Decay one. I haven't faced enough Eldrazi decks to be fair. Most people at my LGS think it will be banned, so aren't buying into them.
Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm actually. Every land they discard they get to change Lightning Storm's targets. It happened to me at GP Pittsburgh.
Tutor to me isn't an early game card, that much I do agree. It is a late game finisher, much like Bridge. In this deck, it is cast on turn 3-4 to get whatever your deck has that will ruin the other person's day.
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Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm actually. Every land they discard they get to change Lightning Storm's targets. It happened to me at GP Pittsburgh.
Yes, every time they discard a land they can change the target of Lightning Storm. However if you're using Spellskite to retarget Storm before they've made it big enough to kill you, then that is just a huge misplay on your part.
Most Ad Nauseam decks contain 20 lands, and no real direct damage. One of the benefits of Lantern is that we don't do a lot of damage to ourselves with our mana base. So let's assume through Llanowar Wastes and Thoughtseize we're at 15 life. In order for Storm to be lethal, they first need to discard 6 lands to it. Now from here, we can redirect Storm with Spellskite 7 times before we're at 1 and just die to it. This means that in their combo, the Nauseam player needs to have drawn 14 lands to pitch to Lightning Storm, in addition to any of the lands they've already used from playing their deck.
So tell me again how Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm 95% of the time?
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Well, the first mistake I'd say is that you are still losing life needlessly by playing Llanowar Wastes instead of Overgrown Tomb, but that's just me being overly trite.
So normally if you are at 15 health, you have lost. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off, as most Ad Nauseum players do when they know you won't be hurting yourself with fetchs like the average deck. He now has 16 lands in his hand. He needs 6 to kill me, and 7 to win through spellskite. He still has 2 left. Maybe he was forced to play his 5th Land or even 6th. He has 14 lands in his hand now. We still lose.
Let's say we are playing my version, where I'm usually not causing myself to lose life from anything but Thoughtsize or shocking myself, and rarely doing both. Or even the standard version and haven't hurt ourselves literally to death. So I'm at 18 life. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off. Chances are, he isn't playing a 21 land deck that sometimes pops itself around, but every once and awhile it does. Luckily, even that doesn't win him game 1 in this situation. But you would have lost if you were at 15 life. In fact, if you are at 17 life, you have lost as well unless you milled a land.
More importantly for this match up though : Game 2 and 3. Patrician's Scorn will come out of their sideboard, Hurkyl's Recall as well. Spellskite is useless, as is Leyline of Sanctity. Pithing Needle is useless on the same basis. They are the definition of dead cards after sideboarding. Patrician gets played for free, and Hurkyl soon after. They can play their 6th or even 7th lands and be fine. On board defenses are useless, as are counterspells. The only nondead cards are cards that can disrupt their hand or exile their combo.
If you're playing overgrown tomb then you're doing it wrong. Having to pay 2 life every time you need that mana the turn it comes down WILL kill you more often than the 1 life lost from potentially having to use wastes for colored mana. But what do I know, I've only been playing the deck since its breakout performance at GP Charlotte...
My case against Llanowar Wastes is that if I need to use it 2 times for colored mana in a match, it is equal to Overgrown Tomb. If I only used it once, then sure the waste is better. Then again, Tendo Ice Bridge accomplishes the same goal. More often than not I found myself using it 2 times or more. If that is my only green source that I see for 4 turns in a deck that runs so far into golgari as this deck does, I'm going to be doing a bunch of damage to myself.
But what do I know, I've only been playing the deck since its breakout performance at GP Charlotte...
How long you have been playing the deck does not always equate to how well you know the deck. Be careful with that. It does give experience, but it won't mean you are always right. I don't think I'm wrong currently, but I have been proved wrong in the past, as an example of that.
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In other news, Tezzeret the Seeker still seems weak, but I'm trying it out as an over-costed 5th bridge. To its credit it did save me in the game I drew it, but I still feel queasy having a 5 cc card that has double blue in the deck.
My case against Llanowar Wastes is that if I need to use it 2 times for colored mana in a match, it is equal to Overgrown Tomb. If I only used it once, then sure the waste is better. Then again, Tendo Ice Bridge accomplishes the same goal. More often than not I found myself using it 2 times or more. If that is my only green source that I see for 4 turns in a deck that runs so far into golgari as this deck does, I'm going to be doing a bunch of damage to myself.
How long you have been playing the deck does not always equate to how well you know the deck. Be careful with that. It does give experience, but it won't mean you are always right.
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In other news, Tezzeret the Seeker still seems weak, but I'm trying it out as an over-costed 5th bridge. To its credit it did save me in the game I drew it, but I still feel queasy having a 5 cc card that has double blue in the deck.
Tomb would not be good in this deck because you would consistently have to play it untapped. Life loss from wastes is negligable because we usually have 3 colored spells in our hand tops and more ways to generate colored mana pain free. Wastes is usually used for colorless mana unless you have no other option. For instance you have wastes/tomb and glimmervoid in hand with no lantern, but you do have iok. The correct play is to slam iok turn one and see what your opp is up to. With wastes you only lose 1 life and can rely on glimmervoid for colored mama later. With tomb you are forced to take 2 damage and still won't need it for colored mana later.
Edit: tezzeret, the seeker would be terrible in this deck. I have seen decks run tezz agent of bolas since it is easier to cast, but no one has ever suggested that 5cmc card with 3 from our splash color would be right
Typically I would say you will be at 18 life or more against Ad Nauseum. This requires 8 lands to be discard to be lethal. That leaves them with 8 more in their hand (being generous). This forces you to activate Spellskite 8 times for those lands they hold back plus one time for the initial load of lightning dmg. That's 9 activations, or 18 life. This is pretty close for both sides assuming they are playing it perfectly well while holding back resources and we are failing to acquire a blue source to pay for redirect, and failing to mill every chance we get to strip lands from their deck. Note, it's unlikely they go off asap because we have discard + surgical options to buy time while we mill away lands.
Spellskite is a safety net. It works most of the time.
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On the topic of Llanowar Wastes vs Overgrown Tomb, I find this problem fairly simple to solve. Consider how often you need to play one of your first three lands untapped to get use out of it in the first few turns of the game? You pretty much need the mana asap always during turns 1, 2, or 3. Therefore you are very likely to pay 2 life for a tomb. Now consider how often you require black mana for a card from the land slot occupied by wastes/tomb. There are what, 8ish cards in the deck that require black? This means at most wastes will ever only deal 8 damage to us (thats how many black symbols are in our deck). Given how distribution works, its unlikely we have 3 or more of these 8 black cards in our first few turns. We also get the opportunity to skip paying black mana from wastes to pay for these as we have Glimmervoids and Mox opals. We have the option to avoid dmg given certain draws, but with overgrown tomb we do not have the option to skip out of the 2 life in the first few turns; we MUST get mana from tomb asap to cast our spells.
Typically I would say you will be at 18 life or more against Ad Nauseum. This requires 8 lands to be discard to be lethal. That leaves them with 8 more in their hand (being generous). This forces you to activate Spellskite 8 times for those lands they hold back plus one time for the initial load of lightning dmg. That's 9 activations, or 18 life. This is pretty close for both sides assuming they are playing it perfectly well while holding back resources and we are failing to acquire a blue source to pay for redirect, and failing to mill every chance we get to strip lands from their deck. Note, it's unlikely they go off asap because we have discard + surgical options to buy time while we mill away lands.
Spellskite is a safety net. It works most of the time.
Game 1, if they don't have a way to remove it and if they only have Lightning Storm as their wincon. Even if it saves us game 1, it will not save us game 2 or 3, as by then they have Enchantment Removal with Artifact Removal boarded in. That makes it a dead card for sure in game 2 and 3. It is possibly useful game 1.
On the topic of Llanowar Wastes vs Overgrown Tomb, I find this problem fairly simple to solve. Consider how often you need to play one of your first three lands untapped to get use out of it in the first few turns of the game? You pretty much need the mana asap always during turns 1, 2, or 3. Therefore you are very likely to pay 2 life for a tomb. Now consider how often you require black mana for a card from the land slot occupied by wastes/tomb. There are what, 8ish cards in the deck that require black? This means at most wastes will ever only deal 8 damage to us (thats how many black symbols are in our deck). Given how distribution works, its unlikely we have 3 or more of these 8 black cards in our first few turns. We also get the opportunity to skip paying black mana from wastes to pay for these as we have Glimmervoids and Mox opals. We have the option to avoid dmg given certain draws, but with overgrown tomb we do not have the option to skip out of the 2 life in the first few turns; we MUST get mana from tomb asap to cast our spells.
I do see where you are coming from, but it has been my experience that the Waste usually deals 2-3 damage as the game progresses. While there are green producing lands, I count 13-15 cards that need those colors. We might run a lot of Colorless spells, but enough times I have played games without a G/B producing permanent other than a singular Tomb.
- If I have an active Spellskite, I'd rather my rainbow producing permanents producing the possible blue.
- If know 2 turns from now I will want to cast Abrupt Decay, I do not want to be playing 2 life to do so after playing some of those other 1 mana discard/cantrip spells.
- If I know I am playing against a burn deck, I'd rather the knowing that I shocked myself 2 than the pigeon hole that might happen later on in the game from paying for my third black spell.
Tomb would not be good in this deck because you would consistently have to play it untapped. Life loss from wastes is negligable because we usually have 3 colored spells in our hand tops and more ways to generate colored mana pain free. Wastes is usually used for colorless mana unless you have no other option. For instance you have wastes/tomb and glimmervoid in hand with no lantern, but you do have iok. The correct play is to slam iok turn one and see what your opp is up to. With wastes you only lose 1 life and can rely on glimmervoid for colored mama later. With tomb you are forced to take 2 damage and still won't need it for colored mana later.
Let's use this example. Tomb will make me lose 2 life. Waste will only lose me one. I cast IoK.
Onto turn 2! Chances are, I'm going to draw one of the 12-14 green black cards in the deck. If I haven't drawn an artifact before then, I will have to cast the card with Tomb. Playing with a waste at this point, the two lands are identical in tradeoffs as both have dealt me 2 damage, except that from now on the Waste will get worse.
Note: I do also only run 2 Tombs with 2 more basics than other people, so this also may be why I just don't see the pain that the Tombs are causing other players instead of Wastes.
1) Which basic land to run? I'm currently running shadowgripper's list(mostly), and theoretically I feel like a mountain is a better choice than a forest, since it allows us to pyroclasm off a ghost quarter and a non-red-producing land.
2) Which discard spells to run? I'm currently on 4 Inquisition, 2 Thoughtseize and 1 Duress. Is this too many? Could we just go up to 3 Thoughtseize or even 4(and 3 Inquisitions)?
3) How good is infernal tutor? I'm currently running a Spellskite in its place, and it doesn't seem to be doing much. Would running an infernal tutor continue to justify a singleton Spellskite?
4) Ghirapur Aether Grid - One in the side or no? My reasoning is that the Grid allows us a quick(er) way to close out matches, especially since it is a long tournament and losing game 1 means we are under some real time pressure.
My English isn't so good, so apologies and thank you in advance!
If you run 3-4 Pyroclasms in your 75, take a mountain. Your Defense is based on red, so that is the basic land you want.
With Eldrazi, Thoughseize might be better than Inquisition. I think the ideal amount most people want is 6 to 7 discard spells. I personally go with 6. Also, note that if they are playing white, they usually board in Leyline of Sanctity. This is a reason I went down to 6 after a short stint of using 7.
I'm biased for both of those cards. I personally would run 3 Spellskites in my 75 minimum. Infernal Tutor is my baby, and I love that card to death. That bias aside, Infernal tutor in this deck is basically a Demonic Tutor. I've won stalled games just by drawing it. It is never a dead card in my opening hand, as I'm playing out my hand as fast as I can anyway. I would not run more than 1, but I would run just 1.
I'd say find something else to take out, especially with Infect/Burn being a decent match chance after you miss an Eldrazi deck.
Grid is good, but imo not a good card currently. I like it, but in most matchups it isn't really helping enough. It is not something I am usually digging for in any match up, therefore, doesn't have a place in my 75 right now. Later that might change.
Hope this helped, and good luck piloting it!
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@Spage, infernal tutor in your opening hand is the definition of a dead card. Unless you are planning on playing it while you still have cards in your hand to get a copy of something, that tutor literally is dead. It can't provide support. You can't cast it on the first few turns. It doesn't offer any interaction. I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm merely stating how useful the card can be.
I do like it in the list for two reasons. It doubles as a bridge if they thought knot our first one away. Having five effective bridges is better than four. Secondly, it lets our mulligans be stronger. When we mull we lose cards in our hand. Hitting a tutor post-mulligan is nice as it is easier to cast.
What is your reasoning for playing Kozilek's return?
Very much agree with this. Being able to play your hand untouched by Thought Knot makes such a huge difference. Turning off recall is fantastic too.
Hmm the fact affinity is #2 Dog is not helping us
I'm currently testing the md pyros but have always stuck to forest as the sole basic to help cast abrupt decay under blood moon. Admittedly i havent really seen many blood moons floating around these days though so maybe it isn't much of a worry anymore
I prefer a forest as that still allows me to cast stirrings to find the cards (and other colors) I need. I'd be more inclined to run a swamp before I ran a mountain. as swamps cast our discard, tutor and half of abrupt decay (as does forest)
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I agree that Ensnaring Bridge is a more likely ban target than Mox Opal, but even then the chances are low. Bridge exemplifies a style of Magic that WotC has been moving away from, but they wouldn't ban bridge simply because it doesn't fit their modern ethos for card design. It would have to be the core of a deck that was oppressive to the metagame before it would be in the conversation for banning. Currently Lantern is the deck that is abusing Bridge the most, and we're not nearly enough of a percentage of the metagame for WotC to hit with the banhammer.
I'd define dead card as something like Pithing Needle vs Burn, Abrupt Decay vs Eldrazi, Spellskite vs Ad Nauseum. In those situations, the card you have will not have a large impact, more often than not it is going to be cast to leave your hand rather than to impact the board. Infernal Tutor is a threat that you can reach any card the other deck does not want to see, which is why in mirror matchups if I can Duress a Infernal Tutor, I will(So long as the card I don't want to see isn't already in their hand). I've seen other players do the same vs me when they play discard spells on me.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
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As a note, Needle can be played early against burn naming a fetch, which might cut them off of a color. It's also a permanent to give you metalcraft, which does come up. It's not completely dead.
Decay vs. Eldrazi hits Chalice, Ratchet Bomb, Mimic, Endless One, Displacer, and gets Relic/RiP/Stony Silence off the table post-board. Its no where close to uncastable in the first couple of turns.
Spellskite vs Ad Nauseam is not dead. If the list only has lightning storm and no Slaughter Pact main, they just lose to a resolve spellskite. Conflagurate gets around this tho.
None of those three cards are dead as you can always play them early to hit something. Tutor can *never* be played early. Again, not saying this is a bad choice, I really want this card now, it just doesnt provide the type of options and coverage other cards can *early* in a game; it's only good after it sits there and brews for a bit.
You got me on the Abrupt Decay one. I haven't faced enough Eldrazi decks to be fair. Most people at my LGS think it will be banned, so aren't buying into them.
Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm actually. Every land they discard they get to change Lightning Storm's targets. It happened to me at GP Pittsburgh.
Tutor to me isn't an early game card, that much I do agree. It is a late game finisher, much like Bridge. In this deck, it is cast on turn 3-4 to get whatever your deck has that will ruin the other person's day.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
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Cockatrice: Spage
Yes, every time they discard a land they can change the target of Lightning Storm. However if you're using Spellskite to retarget Storm before they've made it big enough to kill you, then that is just a huge misplay on your part.
Most Ad Nauseam decks contain 20 lands, and no real direct damage. One of the benefits of Lantern is that we don't do a lot of damage to ourselves with our mana base. So let's assume through Llanowar Wastes and Thoughtseize we're at 15 life. In order for Storm to be lethal, they first need to discard 6 lands to it. Now from here, we can redirect Storm with Spellskite 7 times before we're at 1 and just die to it. This means that in their combo, the Nauseam player needs to have drawn 14 lands to pitch to Lightning Storm, in addition to any of the lands they've already used from playing their deck.
So tell me again how Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm 95% of the time?
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
So normally if you are at 15 health, you have lost. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off, as most Ad Nauseum players do when they know you won't be hurting yourself with fetchs like the average deck. He now has 16 lands in his hand. He needs 6 to kill me, and 7 to win through spellskite. He still has 2 left. Maybe he was forced to play his 5th Land or even 6th. He has 14 lands in his hand now. We still lose.
Let's say we are playing my version, where I'm usually not causing myself to lose life from anything but Thoughtsize or shocking myself, and rarely doing both. Or even the standard version and haven't hurt ourselves literally to death. So I'm at 18 life. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off. Chances are, he isn't playing a 21 land deck that sometimes pops itself around, but every once and awhile it does. Luckily, even that doesn't win him game 1 in this situation. But you would have lost if you were at 15 life. In fact, if you are at 17 life, you have lost as well unless you milled a land.
More importantly for this match up though : Game 2 and 3.
Patrician's Scorn will come out of their sideboard, Hurkyl's Recall as well. Spellskite is useless, as is Leyline of Sanctity. Pithing Needle is useless on the same basis. They are the definition of dead cards after sideboarding. Patrician gets played for free, and Hurkyl soon after. They can play their 6th or even 7th lands and be fine. On board defenses are useless, as are counterspells. The only nondead cards are cards that can disrupt their hand or exile their combo.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage
How long you have been playing the deck does not always equate to how well you know the deck. Be careful with that. It does give experience, but it won't mean you are always right. I don't think I'm wrong currently, but I have been proved wrong in the past, as an example of that.
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In other news, Tezzeret the Seeker still seems weak, but I'm trying it out as an over-costed 5th bridge. To its credit it did save me in the game I drew it, but I still feel queasy having a 5 cc card that has double blue in the deck.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage
Tomb would not be good in this deck because you would consistently have to play it untapped. Life loss from wastes is negligable because we usually have 3 colored spells in our hand tops and more ways to generate colored mana pain free. Wastes is usually used for colorless mana unless you have no other option. For instance you have wastes/tomb and glimmervoid in hand with no lantern, but you do have iok. The correct play is to slam iok turn one and see what your opp is up to. With wastes you only lose 1 life and can rely on glimmervoid for colored mama later. With tomb you are forced to take 2 damage and still won't need it for colored mana later.
Edit: tezzeret, the seeker would be terrible in this deck. I have seen decks run tezz agent of bolas since it is easier to cast, but no one has ever suggested that 5cmc card with 3 from our splash color would be right
Spellskite is a safety net. It works most of the time.
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On the topic of Llanowar Wastes vs Overgrown Tomb, I find this problem fairly simple to solve. Consider how often you need to play one of your first three lands untapped to get use out of it in the first few turns of the game? You pretty much need the mana asap always during turns 1, 2, or 3. Therefore you are very likely to pay 2 life for a tomb. Now consider how often you require black mana for a card from the land slot occupied by wastes/tomb. There are what, 8ish cards in the deck that require black? This means at most wastes will ever only deal 8 damage to us (thats how many black symbols are in our deck). Given how distribution works, its unlikely we have 3 or more of these 8 black cards in our first few turns. We also get the opportunity to skip paying black mana from wastes to pay for these as we have Glimmervoids and Mox opals. We have the option to avoid dmg given certain draws, but with overgrown tomb we do not have the option to skip out of the 2 life in the first few turns; we MUST get mana from tomb asap to cast our spells.
Game 1, if they don't have a way to remove it and if they only have Lightning Storm as their wincon. Even if it saves us game 1, it will not save us game 2 or 3, as by then they have Enchantment Removal with Artifact Removal boarded in. That makes it a dead card for sure in game 2 and 3. It is possibly useful game 1.
I do see where you are coming from, but it has been my experience that the Waste usually deals 2-3 damage as the game progresses. While there are green producing lands, I count 13-15 cards that need those colors. We might run a lot of Colorless spells, but enough times I have played games without a G/B producing permanent other than a singular Tomb.
- If I have an active Spellskite, I'd rather my rainbow producing permanents producing the possible blue.
- If know 2 turns from now I will want to cast Abrupt Decay, I do not want to be playing 2 life to do so after playing some of those other 1 mana discard/cantrip spells.
- If I know I am playing against a burn deck, I'd rather the knowing that I shocked myself 2 than the pigeon hole that might happen later on in the game from paying for my third black spell.
Let's use this example. Tomb will make me lose 2 life. Waste will only lose me one. I cast IoK.
Onto turn 2! Chances are, I'm going to draw one of the 12-14 green black cards in the deck. If I haven't drawn an artifact before then, I will have to cast the card with Tomb. Playing with a waste at this point, the two lands are identical in tradeoffs as both have dealt me 2 damage, except that from now on the Waste will get worse.
Note: I do also only run 2 Tombs with 2 more basics than other people, so this also may be why I just don't see the pain that the Tombs are causing other players instead of Wastes.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage