@ Spsiegel I agree that's really the only slot that works, without raising the curve. In a vaccum Kommand is the stronger card imo, but vs Eldrazi specifically Kommand is pretty weak (though I spose it kills Chalice).
@Shriez If I were running Moon I'd start with 3 Swamp 2 Plains 1 Mountain & 8 fetches, and going +1 Swamp might be correct (or even +1 Swamp -1 Plains may work, Grixis Moon decks often get away with just 1 Swamp after all). You could run more, it probably wouldn't be too hard to find room since like I said creature-lands are an easy cut (though if your moons are in the SB I may keep a few around).
edit: First crack at a MD Moon manabase is something like this
You could possibly place Crackling Doom in K-Command's spot, depending on how bad you want it
I think cutting liliana for crackling is a viable option. I had experimented with earlier iterations of mardu and found plenty of situations where crackling would have felt better than liliana
keep in mind you can jam down a lili vs eldrazi, make them sac... and then they just sac a 1/1 tokens
Why on earth would you cut Liliana? She's possibly the best card in the deck, awful idea, I'm pretty sure Ben Starks and Paul Reitzel would agree, too
1 or 2 Crackling Dooms on the side could be nice, or MAYBE replacing a K-Command, thats about it though
I mean I've playtested the deck extensively online and with the current metagame, it is SURPRISINGLY often better to have crackling doom in a situation than liliana. Look at the % of the meta and compare it to how often you can afford to resolve a liliana on turn 3 and stabilize behind it. I honestly don't see that happening vs eldrazi unless you're going full wrath effect. Going down 1-2 Liliana and potentially jamming them into the sideboard for crackling doom works just fine for a HUGE number of matchups right now. LOTV is great when the board is stable enough in the early turns, but any explosive eldrazi draw can more or less ignore liliana.
UR eldrazi it would feel especially painful to draw into liliana, because oftentimes the board has multiple generic 1/1s due to drowner of hope and skyspawner.
Added benefits of being able to snipe infect creatures while going through hexproof (very common right now in the meta) and sniping the cranial plating target with affinity.
Also I tended to jam down abbots pretty often(my list ran 4), and the combat tricks you can do with prowess trigger + obliterate their most powerful creature can be pretty relevant. A huge aspect of my list tended to run around the idea of jamming down abbot, grabbing a free card, and then k commanding abbot back when it dies, to get another free card (also k-commanding fulm). I mean it might be less relevant to be running kolaghans command vs eldrazi menace, I could agree... but I think we're probably at a spot where having maindeck artifact hate is integral to performing well (destroying chalice of the void/plating etc).
Tune it to your local meta but on MTGO you have a higher chance of running into eldrazi/affinity than all other decks combined. This leads to some very weird deckbuilding to stay competitive. The meta is so degenerate that maindeck damnations aren't even a bad idea at this point.
I personally am not a fan of cutting Liliana, she is the reason to play the deck for me, as you are supporting her by having many removals and discard spells in the Main. As you said, I would experiment first by putting MB Damnations in, or at least more in the side.
Looked through my collection, no Arid Mesa or Marsh Flats to be found. Just 4 Bloodstained Mire and plenty of Windswept Heath and Flooded Strand. So until I get a Mesa or a Flats I've only got the 4 Mires. This is about the best mana base I can make with what I have, still deciding what else is going to make it in.
Abbot or soulfire grand master??? Please help me to choose
if your meta is burn heavy soulfire can be great, I like abbot more overall due to prowess, and smoothing draws/digging for answers (miss a land drop, jam down an abbot, hit the land drop)
Soulfire is great, but I've found that there's very little reason to run more than 1-2 copies, since it's really only at its best once you hit 5+ mana to buyback spells and isn't very useful in multiples. The only MU that breaks that mold is Burn, where it's great on turn 2 almost every time, so if you have lots of burn in your meta like Mooffz said then you could pack 2 I spose. I'm running one SFGM now simply because there are a fair number of decks that just can't beat a grizzly bear that buys back bolt every turn. Abbot on the other hand has been pretty impressive at putting down the beats with prowess, synergizes nicely with Kommand, and works better in multiples. Plus, in MUs where it counts you can wait until you have enough mana to ensure you cast your free card for the 2-for-1.
Been testing a 2/2 split on soulfire and abbot. It works fine, but I should test some more. Soulfire is ridiculously good in the burn match-up and can be good to keep reusing spells in the mid-late game in more grindy games. I Agree with no more than 2 soulfires in the list. haven't played enough with abbot yet to give a proper view on it yet.
Ive been doing well with a pyro/mentor build vs the eldrazi decks, so they definitely arent just terribly (admittedly, I think this has more to do with having 10 MD discard spells and 3 each of confidant/truths). In general, I've found that unless the eldrazi deck has a hand along the lines of *eye temple tks ssg smasher* we are in pretty good shape. Even then though, if we have a nice removal spell in hand for the smasher we tend to be set. Post board, of course, we get all the goodies with damnation, moon, etc. The only creature pyro and mentor are bad against in the eldrazi decks is smasher, the others we can chump into oblivion.
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"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." --Jaya Ballard
Just a general thought: what's stronger in this deck, the first copy of Ghost Quarter or the 5th Manland (assuming neither will detriment the manabase)? How much value do you think you'd get out of an inconsistent 1-of Quarter vs the value of more consistently having a Manland in play to start closing a game once it's locked up (something that I think this archetype has occasional problems with)?
Something to consider is that manlands enter tapped, which means playing cmc 3+ cards on curve becomes a lot harder, especially if one doesn't run many lands.
If we had better manlands, I would totally run more, but as it is, I'm topped at 4 vents, because IMO, no other manland is worth coming in to play tapped, given that I prefer to run 22-24 lands.
Played Modern at local stores the past two nights and went 7-1 across the matches with the only loss coming against storm in round 4 of an eight man night (structure was strange). Anyway I don't have Liliana's yet so I'm essentially running 2 Crackling Doom and 1 Painful Truths in the three slots I had reserved for her, and that card is great. As to the discussion earlier I could definitely see Doom being better if you're expecting a high concentratioin of U/R Eldrazi. Other takeaways agro matchups outside of burn and boggles feel incredibly favored. With Pyromancer and 2 Maindeck Doom, boggles doesn't feel as bad as it used to, and Burn feels close but slightly favored.
Kalitas continues to be insane for me. He was the reason I beat Jund and Green devotion. His ability to mess up combat and disturb graveyard shenanigans is huge. I am absolutely in love with this card and planning on going back to 2 in the Main and Olivia out of the board.
Young Pyromancer countinues to perform with me. Running it out as a 4 with the flashback on souls is my favorite way to play him if the curve allows. He makes the agro matchups so much better. Speeds up the clock and spits out blockers at a high rate. Makes it so much harder for affinity to Ravager combo you when you can just throw a token in front of extraneous Memnites or Steel overseers.
The misers Fulminator in the main has been sweet. Kommand is essentially extra copies of it. I wouldn't go to two as it can be a bit clunky but having one to pick off random creaturelands has been sweet.
@maverickzero: I used to run a misers Ghost Quarter in the main and I always found it to be more annoying then anything else. Having to play a colourless mana source on curve is a pain if it is in your opening hand and it is really only good against a couple of match ups. I ended up replacing it to test how how bad Needle Spires is (mediocre). We general run more removal then threats so I often find myself lacking a way to finish the game out after I have cleared the board to the point where I am considering my 5 man-land to be Lavaclaw Reaches, mostly because it can be a late game mana sink.
@Grapefruit21: It's good to hear you are doing well with the deck. Crackling seems really good in the current Eldrazi infested meta (hopefully not infested for much longer). Kalitas has been an absolute monster in a lot of games (standing record is 7 zombies in one turn) so I have upped my curve a little and now I am running 2 Kalitas and 1 Olivia in the main. I also think you might be right about YP being a good call at the moment, we are at an all time low number of bolts in the format and he gums up the ground really well against Eldrazi.
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In play: Jund Death Shadow, Grixis Control, Eldrazi Stompy, Ponza
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
@Grapefruit21 : Glad to hear you did well. Anyways you could share your list? I'm tweaking a non-lili list as well and just looking at every different list I can find. Thanks
WAZZUP PEOPLE! I'm back to this deck after a rotation through a few other decks, my latest one before I came back was BW Eldrazi. I have a good feeling that the lands will get banned so I built this again.
Just a general thought: what's stronger in this deck, the first copy of Ghost Quarter or the 5th Manland (assuming neither will detriment the manabase)? How much value do you think you'd get out of an inconsistent 1-of Quarter vs the value of more consistently having a Manland in play to start closing a game once it's locked up (something that I think this archetype has occasional problems with)?
You could try both, as the PT list. I am personally also running this manabase and it works fine for me by now.
Tried playing at a different store last night, ended up going 3-0 because not enough people showed up for 4 rounds. Played against Infect, Naya Zoo, and Goblin Burn. Several of the cards I ran I'm going to replace because they didn't have enough of an impact on the game to warrant keeping them. This is the list I ran:
I wanted World Queller to work but he doesn't get to impact the board as much as I hoped he would. He's going to get axed in favour of more P and K, Butcher of the Horde, or Young Pyromancer. I want to find room for Path to Exile main, the cards I'm thinking of cutting is Boom // Bust despite how much I like it.
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Collecting Timbermare, hit me up if you have any for trade
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You could possibly place Crackling Doom in K-Command's spot, depending on how bad you want it
@Shriez If I were running Moon I'd start with 3 Swamp 2 Plains 1 Mountain & 8 fetches, and going +1 Swamp might be correct (or even +1 Swamp -1 Plains may work, Grixis Moon decks often get away with just 1 Swamp after all). You could run more, it probably wouldn't be too hard to find room since like I said creature-lands are an easy cut (though if your moons are in the SB I may keep a few around).
edit: First crack at a MD Moon manabase is something like this
3 Arid Mesa
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
I think cutting liliana for crackling is a viable option. I had experimented with earlier iterations of mardu and found plenty of situations where crackling would have felt better than liliana
keep in mind you can jam down a lili vs eldrazi, make them sac... and then they just sac a 1/1 tokens
1 or 2 Crackling Dooms on the side could be nice, or MAYBE replacing a K-Command, thats about it though
I mean I've playtested the deck extensively online and with the current metagame, it is SURPRISINGLY often better to have crackling doom in a situation than liliana. Look at the % of the meta and compare it to how often you can afford to resolve a liliana on turn 3 and stabilize behind it. I honestly don't see that happening vs eldrazi unless you're going full wrath effect. Going down 1-2 Liliana and potentially jamming them into the sideboard for crackling doom works just fine for a HUGE number of matchups right now. LOTV is great when the board is stable enough in the early turns, but any explosive eldrazi draw can more or less ignore liliana.
UR eldrazi it would feel especially painful to draw into liliana, because oftentimes the board has multiple generic 1/1s due to drowner of hope and skyspawner.
Added benefits of being able to snipe infect creatures while going through hexproof (very common right now in the meta) and sniping the cranial plating target with affinity.
Also I tended to jam down abbots pretty often(my list ran 4), and the combat tricks you can do with prowess trigger + obliterate their most powerful creature can be pretty relevant. A huge aspect of my list tended to run around the idea of jamming down abbot, grabbing a free card, and then k commanding abbot back when it dies, to get another free card (also k-commanding fulm). I mean it might be less relevant to be running kolaghans command vs eldrazi menace, I could agree... but I think we're probably at a spot where having maindeck artifact hate is integral to performing well (destroying chalice of the void/plating etc).
Tune it to your local meta but on MTGO you have a higher chance of running into eldrazi/affinity than all other decks combined. This leads to some very weird deckbuilding to stay competitive. The meta is so degenerate that maindeck damnations aren't even a bad idea at this point.
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Plains
4 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Flagstones of Trokair (thinking these or windswept/flooded)
4 Fulminator Mage
2 Blood Moon
3 Boom // Bust (only if Flagstones stay)
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Crackling Doom
2 Terminate
1 Ajani Vengeant
I'm hoping to get my hands on KCommand and Helix at next FNM.
if your meta is burn heavy soulfire can be great, I like abbot more overall due to prowess, and smoothing draws/digging for answers (miss a land drop, jam down an abbot, hit the land drop)
Primers
4C Walkers
If we had better manlands, I would totally run more, but as it is, I'm topped at 4 vents, because IMO, no other manland is worth coming in to play tapped, given that I prefer to run 22-24 lands.
Kalitas continues to be insane for me. He was the reason I beat Jund and Green devotion. His ability to mess up combat and disturb graveyard shenanigans is huge. I am absolutely in love with this card and planning on going back to 2 in the Main and Olivia out of the board.
Young Pyromancer countinues to perform with me. Running it out as a 4 with the flashback on souls is my favorite way to play him if the curve allows. He makes the agro matchups so much better. Speeds up the clock and spits out blockers at a high rate. Makes it so much harder for affinity to Ravager combo you when you can just throw a token in front of extraneous Memnites or Steel overseers.
The misers Fulminator in the main has been sweet. Kommand is essentially extra copies of it. I wouldn't go to two as it can be a bit clunky but having one to pick off random creaturelands has been sweet.
@Grapefruit21: It's good to hear you are doing well with the deck. Crackling seems really good in the current Eldrazi infested meta (hopefully not infested for much longer). Kalitas has been an absolute monster in a lot of games (standing record is 7 zombies in one turn) so I have upped my curve a little and now I am running 2 Kalitas and 1 Olivia in the main. I also think you might be right about YP being a good call at the moment, we are at an all time low number of bolts in the format and he gums up the ground really well against Eldrazi.
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
Here's my latest list...
3 Abbot of Keral Keep
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Path to Exile
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Crackling Doom
2 Painful Truths
3 Lingering Souls
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Blood Crypt
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Fetid Heath
3 Shambling Vent
2 Mountains
2 Swamps
1 Plains
Sideboard:
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Damnation
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Crumble to Dust
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Rest for the Weary
1 Shatterstorm
1 Outpost Siege
1 Crackling Doom
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
There's a lot of Merfolk, Burn, some Affinity, and a lot of more agressive decks in my meta.
What do you guy's think?
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
You could try both, as the PT list. I am personally also running this manabase and it works fine for me by now.
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Godless Shrine
2 Blood Crypt
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Plains
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Butcher of the Horde
2 World Queller
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Magus of the Moon
Non-Creature
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lingering Souls
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Painful Truths
2 Boom // Bust
1 Terminate
1 Crackling Doom
1 Faithless Looting
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Ajani Vengeant
I wanted World Queller to work but he doesn't get to impact the board as much as I hoped he would. He's going to get axed in favour of more P and K, Butcher of the Horde, or Young Pyromancer. I want to find room for Path to Exile main, the cards I'm thinking of cutting is Boom // Bust despite how much I like it.