Yeah, I meant running at least 20 lands to support a 4 drop.
I figured that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure! Thank you! From my testing I can hit 4 lands pretty consistently now. I wonder how Chandra, ToD would do over Hazoret instead. Has anyone tested either of these?
4 drops can get interesting in such a land-light deck. Running it through the hypergeometric calculator (and ignoring mulligan decisions), on the play with a 20 land deck you'll have at least 4 land on turn 5 ~62% of the time; on the draw that becomes ~70%. Those numbers are better than I thought. I wouldn't expect to play either Hazoret or Chandra on curve though, probability drops closer to 50/50.
Off the top of my head I think Chandra is more powerful in a vacuum, although she requires protection versus Hazoret requiring being turned on. Hazoret could potentially limit one of my favorite plays -- hoarding two land in hand to dump to Faithless Looting. Maybe I'd just toss those lands to her ability anyway and it's nice that it's untargeted damage. Chandra's first +1 also has that advantage although I wish it dumped into the GY rather exile.
If anyone gives either a try definitely share how it goes, where you found them beneficial, etc. At first glance they don't seem out of place, so I can't think of a reason not to test them. Which do we think would be more beneficial in our bad match-ups?
Hello everyone
#Darkest_before_dawn - Just to mention, remember hypergeometric calc also doesnt take into account the use of fetches; since they "land-thin" the deck, the odds you calculated may actually be a bit lower than 62 /70%
I wonder if we could play 2 or 3-of Monastery Mentor in this deck; it definitely goes along with the midrange plan, and adds a bit of redundancy to the deck.
I´m also thinking in maybe 1 or maximum 2 copies of Rally the peasants, since we can easily discard it to Bedlam Reveler or Faithless looting if we need to, and it can net us a lot of damage out of nowhere. Im still finding space for that cards, ill try to post a list ASAP.
Hello everyone
#Darkest_before_dawn - Just to mention, remember hypergeometric calc also doesnt take into account the use of fetches; since they "land-thin" the deck, the odds you calculated may actually be a bit lower than 62 /70%
I wonder if we could play 2 or 3-of Monastery Mentor in this deck; it definitely goes along with the midrange plan, and adds a bit of redundancy to the deck.
I´m also thinking in maybe 1 or maximum 2 copies of Rally the peasants, since we can easily discard it to Bedlam Reveler or Faithless looting if we need to, and it can net us a lot of damage out of nowhere. Im still finding space for that cards, ill try to post a list ASAP.
I think Mentor looks good at first, but it doesn't go well with Bedlam Reveler sometimes discarding spells we might need with Mentor. Mentor also wants a full hand and this deck tries to operate on a smaller hand size than what Mentor wants. Plus you'd have to hit your land drops no matter what, and sometimes that isn't going to happen in this deck. I think it could work but you have to drop Bedlam Revelers and Swiftspears for Mentors I think.
4 drops can get interesting in such a land-light deck. Running it through the hypergeometric calculator (and ignoring mulligan decisions), on the play with a 20 land deck you'll have at least 4 land on turn 5 ~62% of the time; on the draw that becomes ~70%. Those numbers are better than I thought. I wouldn't expect to play either Hazoret or Chandra on curve though, probability drops closer to 50/50.
Off the top of my head I think Chandra is more powerful in a vacuum, although she requires protection versus Hazoret requiring being turned on. Hazoret could potentially limit one of my favorite plays -- hoarding two land in hand to dump to Faithless Looting. Maybe I'd just toss those lands to her ability anyway and it's nice that it's untargeted damage. Chandra's first +1 also has that advantage although I wish it dumped into the GY rather exile.
If anyone gives either a try definitely share how it goes, where you found them beneficial, etc. At first glance they don't seem out of place, so I can't think of a reason not to test them. Which do we think would be more beneficial in our bad match-ups?
Sorry for the double post, meant to reply to this as well but I'm on my phone and it isn't very easy to do this from a phone haha. I thought the same as you do about Chandra and Hazoret, and it deserves some testing I think. They're both good inclusions but requires the 20th land.
Hello everyone
#Darkest_before_dawn - Just to mention, remember hypergeometric calc also doesnt take into account the use of fetches; since they "land-thin" the deck, the odds you calculated may actually be a bit lower than 62 /70%
I wonder if we could play 2 or 3-of Monastery Mentor in this deck; it definitely goes along with the midrange plan, and adds a bit of redundancy to the deck.
I´m also thinking in maybe 1 or maximum 2 copies of Rally the peasants, since we can easily discard it to Bedlam Reveler or Faithless looting if we need to, and it can net us a lot of damage out of nowhere. Im still finding space for that cards, ill try to post a list ASAP.
That's a good catch. The probability gets a nudge lower with the thinning from fetches and a nudge higher when you consider reasonable mulligans; like most hypergeometric numbers, those figures should really only be used as a rough guide. I would love to include Monastery Mentor since it's another pet card for me, but the three mana is an investment and it's difficult to make it a turn 4 play to ensure some value when you likely won't be curving out. I've always struggled with finding a home for Mentor. To me it feels like it needs enough creatures around it to soak up removal, but enough instants/sorceries to make use of its abilities. If it works for you, definitely share though!
The idea is to either ultimate Nahiri or else win with Souls/Vent/Burn. Usually one of the two plans works and the burn is more than it looks (14 burn spells in the 75). Sculler is pretty amazing out of the sideboard in this deck. Most tier 1 and tier 2 decks are actually positive MUs for this deck if played carefully. I'm starting to think this is a good moment to play some reactive Mardu.
At first glance I'd guess Scapeshift is a tough opponent for you. Tidehollow Sculler is an interesting sideboard choice I hadn't considered despite playing Eldrazi & Taxes before. How are you finding your match-ups with the Nahiri version? Definitely a different path than Pyromancer/Reveler. I'd second that the meta is fairly positive for removal/burn heavy Mardu at the moment.
At first glance I'd guess Scapeshift is a tough opponent for you. Tidehollow Sculler is an interesting sideboard choice I hadn't considered despite playing Eldrazi & Taxes before. How are you finding your match-ups with the Nahiri version? Definitely a different path than Pyromancer/Reveler. I'd second that the meta is fairly positive for removal/burn heavy Mardu at the moment.
Scapeshift is not what you want to see. But it's not as bad as it looks. Discard spells, Liliana and Nahiri are allright against them. We have a lot of ways to deal with the first Titan, so we don't die right away. We have some decent options out of the sideboard (Sculler, Surgical, more copies of Brutality). But if this MU is a big concern, the sideboard should be different (we have all sort of good sideboard options against them).
How am I finding the MUs?
Well, I played quite a few CoCo decks (Humans and Spirits are very popular online right now), and I like to play these MUs. They're tricky but if you play it right you usually win.
I also did well against Affinity and, surprisingly, Burn (traditionally I'm having trouble with Burn whenever I play Mardu decks). The thing is I have 4 Helix and 4 Brutality here. It's quite a lot for them to take.
I played just a couple times vs Grixis Death's Shadow, won both times 2-0. It's not a big sample but I know for a fact Death's Shadow decks are a good MU for a deck like this one.
Eldratron is tight. I know it looks like a bad MU for us, but actually it's if they don't have the nut draws it's reasonable. Our two ladies planeswalkers are very good against them and I find Souls pretty good against them too. Crackling Doom is obviously nuts in this MU. I bring in all Scullers, Wear//Tear and the Stony Silences. I'd rather play against something else but I prefer them to Valakut decks.
Midrange decks are positive MUs. They have too many dead draws and their answers do not line up well against our threats (Souls, Liliana, Nahiri). We have quite a lot of graveyard hate.
Control decks such as UW and Jeskai are tricky. I would call them 50-50. It looks like we should be favored (a ton of discard, Liliana, Souls, grave hate for Snappy) but I found Cryptic Command to be backbreaking for us. Fun fact: yesterday I played a "Nahiri mirror" against a Jeskai version and I got to Crackling Doom their Emrakul and win with my own Emrakul the following turn.
In general one reason I never quite got to love Pyromancer/Reveler type of Mardu decks is the fact the cards in a Nahiri build like this one are so much stronger individually. And whenever I play with Dark Confidant and Soulfire Grand Master + a ton of Burn I always have that "bad BGx deck" type of feeling, where I'm like Jund with no Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and Abrupt Decay. So I have to say although I think all Mardu decks aren't quite good enough that I would take them to a big tournament, if I were to choose, it would be Nahiri.
Robert Mania top 8 a SCG event recently with his Mardu Nahiri deck by the way, and it's not the first time he does that.
You convinced me to give Mardu Nahiri a try. I think there's a "core" in Mardu/Rakdos that's well placed at the moment, so I was curious how that would translate. I played 7 matches with a list similar to yours and ended up 3-4, although I probably should've picked up another win if I'd played tighter. Not a terrible record; if I'd been playing the Reveler version I may have won one more based on the match-ups, may not. You're right that the cards are more individually powerful in the Nahiri version. I struggled to get full value out of them at points versus creature heavy decks though. Playing Liliana or Nahiri when you're behind feels bad. Maybe I was on the wrong side of variance, but I always felt behind on tempo. That was a surprise after playing the Reveler version.
I can understand why Reveler superficially feels like a bad Jund, especially if you're playing Soulfire Grand Master and Dark Confidant. The difference I've found in my current version is that going wide with Pyromancer and Souls makes you a lot harder to disrupt with spot removal. And board wipes? Not so scary when you've only invested a card or two and generated tokens from doing what you'd be doing anyway -- creature removal or burn. The current iteration generates a lot of incremental/virtual card advantage while maintaining tempo. Threatening Blood Moon helps as well. I think the match-ups are similar for both versions, based on your comments (appreciate you sharing!). My hunch is that the Reveler version is more consistent in the positive MUs at the expense of some points versus the negative. I keep record of my matches so maybe I can delve more into how the Reveler version has fared in a future post.
Speaking of records -- I racked up my first 5-0 in a competitive league this morning! I'm stoked. Beat the mirror (first time I've faced it), three good MUs (Grixis Death's Shadow, Humans x2), and rode Moon/Rabblemaster over ETron. Let's see if it gets published. If not, I can share my list although it's very similar to what I last posted.
At first glance I'd guess Scapeshift is a tough opponent for you. Tidehollow Sculler is an interesting sideboard choice I hadn't considered despite playing Eldrazi & Taxes before. How are you finding your match-ups with the Nahiri version? Definitely a different path than Pyromancer/Reveler. I'd second that the meta is fairly positive for removal/burn heavy Mardu at the moment.
Scapeshift is not what you want to see. But it's not as bad as it looks. Discard spells, Liliana and Nahiri are allright against them. We have a lot of ways to deal with the first Titan, so we don't die right away. We have some decent options out of the sideboard (Sculler, Surgical, more copies of Brutality). But if this MU is a big concern, the sideboard should be different (we have all sort of good sideboard options against them).
How am I finding the MUs?
Well, I played quite a few CoCo decks (Humans and Spirits are very popular online right now), and I like to play these MUs. They're tricky but if you play it right you usually win.
I also did well against Affinity and, surprisingly, Burn (traditionally I'm having trouble with Burn whenever I play Mardu decks). The thing is I have 4 Helix and 4 Brutality here. It's quite a lot for them to take.
I played just a couple times vs Grixis Death's Shadow, won both times 2-0. It's not a big sample but I know for a fact Death's Shadow decks are a good MU for a deck like this one.
Eldratron is tight. I know it looks like a bad MU for us, but actually it's if they don't have the nut draws it's reasonable. Our two ladies planeswalkers are very good against them and I find Souls pretty good against them too. Crackling Doom is obviously nuts in this MU. I bring in all Scullers, Wear//Tear and the Stony Silences. I'd rather play against something else but I prefer them to Valakut decks.
Midrange decks are positive MUs. They have too many dead draws and their answers do not line up well against our threats (Souls, Liliana, Nahiri). We have quite a lot of graveyard hate.
Control decks such as UW and Jeskai are tricky. I would call them 50-50. It looks like we should be favored (a ton of discard, Liliana, Souls, grave hate for Snappy) but I found Cryptic Command to be backbreaking for us. Fun fact: yesterday I played a "Nahiri mirror" against a Jeskai version and I got to Crackling Doom their Emrakul and win with my own Emrakul the following turn.
In general one reason I never quite got to love Pyromancer/Reveler type of Mardu decks is the fact the cards in a Nahiri build like this one are so much stronger individually. And whenever I play with Dark Confidant and Soulfire Grand Master + a ton of Burn I always have that "bad BGx deck" type of feeling, where I'm like Jund with no Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and Abrupt Decay. So I have to say although I think all Mardu decks aren't quite good enough that I would take them to a big tournament, if I were to choose, it would be Nahiri.
Robert Mania top 8 a SCG event recently with his Mardu Nahiri deck by the way, and it's not the first time he does that.
You convinced me to give Mardu Nahiri a try. I think there's a "core" in Mardu/Rakdos that's well placed at the moment, so I was curious how that would translate. I played 7 matches with a list similar to yours and ended up 3-4, although I probably should've picked up another win if I'd played tighter. Not a terrible record; if I'd been playing the Reveler version I may have won one more based on the match-ups, may not. You're right that the cards are more individually powerful in the Nahiri version. I struggled to get full value out of them at points versus creature heavy decks though. Playing Liliana or Nahiri when you're behind feels bad. Maybe I was on the wrong side of variance, but I always felt behind on tempo. That was a surprise after playing the Reveler version.
I can understand why Reveler superficially feels like a bad Jund, especially if you're playing Soulfire Grand Master and Dark Confidant. The difference I've found in my current version is that going wide with Pyromancer and Souls makes you a lot harder to disrupt with spot removal. And board wipes? Not so scary when you've only invested a card or two and generated tokens from doing what you'd be doing anyway -- creature removal or burn. The current iteration generates a lot of incremental/virtual card advantage while maintaining tempo. Threatening Blood Moon helps as well. I think the match-ups are similar for both versions, based on your comments (appreciate you sharing!). My hunch is that the Reveler version is more consistent in the positive MUs at the expense of some points versus the negative. I keep record of my matches so maybe I can delve more into how the Reveler version has fared in a future post.
Speaking of records -- I racked up my first 5-0 in a competitive league this morning! I'm stoked. Beat the mirror (first time I've faced it), three good MUs (Grixis Death's Shadow, Humans x2), and rode Moon/Rabblemaster over ETron. Let's see if it gets published. If not, I can share my list although it's very similar to what I last posted.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
So far, im testing 2 Monastery Mentor, as some people told me before, sometimes its not the best option; 3 could be too many, since i started to play 2, he has been useful every time i got him.
I have a 10-card discard package, which gives me best chances vs combo decks, and also the 2 Collected brutality improves the burn and creature-based matchups. With 10 spells that can make myself discard, 1 Fiery temper is most of the time welcome (normal with reveler, great with faithless looting and awesome with collected brutality)
Regarding sideboard, 1-of Boros charm when i expect wrath-effects or when i need to close games fast.
2-of Blood moon ; desperate choice to try to improve at least a bit the sad tron-matchup, also comes handy vs Scapeshift
and shutting enemy manlands.
Rest of it is pretty standard.
Currently the deck has 14 threats ( Young Py, Mentor, Revelers and Lingering ), not sure if im fine with that or if i need 1 more.
Also thinking a lot of the 20th land, since some games it becomes a problem when not getting 3rd land.
So far, im testing 2 Monastery Mentor, as some people told me before, sometimes its not the best option; 3 could be too many, since i started to play 2, he has been useful every time i got him.
I have a 10-card discard package, which gives me best chances vs combo decks, and also the 2 Collected brutality improves the burn and creature-based matchups. With 10 spells that can make myself discard, 1 Fiery temper is most of the time welcome (normal with reveler, great with faithless looting and awesome with collected brutality)
Regarding sideboard, 1-of Boros charm when i expect wrath-effects or when i need to close games fast.
2-of Blood moon ; desperate choice to try to improve at least a bit the sad tron-matchup, also comes handy vs Scapeshift
and shutting enemy manlands.
Rest of it is pretty standard.
Currently the deck has 14 threats ( Young Py, Mentor, Revelers and Lingering ), not sure if im fine with that or if i need 1 more.
Also thinking a lot of the 20th land, since some games it becomes a problem when not getting 3rd land.
Every feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Have you thought to use zealous persecution? I have found it very useful in my mardu deck where my build is also 4x pyros, 2x mentor and 4x souls.
Has anyone tried smugglers copter in selfeisek's version? Seems like it's a good way to filter your draws and make better use of some elemental tokens. It's cheap and also works well with the bedlam strategy.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
Thanks! There are obviously games where Blood Moon is a surprise "I win" card on T3; those are nice. But I think it fills a strategic weakness in Mardu Reveler against decks that can go bigger than us. In those matches I find myself grinding out an early edge with Souls or Pyromancer knowing that if I let my opponent turn the corner, so to speak, there's no way for me to regain initiative. In that situation, Blood Moon can buy you an extra turn either through locking down man-lands or strangling an opponent's mana enough that 1 spell at turn isn't going to stop a horde of tokens. It's also not dead in most matches -- I've left it in against aggressive decks like Zoo or Burn because it can lock them off colors and cripple their velocity.
They can still be clunky (and drawing more than 1 a game is nearly always dead), but I try to mitigate that by only playing 3 copies. It's also a prime candidate for tossing to Faithless Looting. I've tried a few different versions of Mardu Reveler and I've felt the most confident playing the builds with Blood Moon because it's frequently a must-answer card.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
Thanks! There are obviously games where Blood Moon is a surprise "I win" card on T3; those are nice. But I think it fills a strategic weakness in Mardu Reveler against decks that can go bigger than us. In those matches I find myself grinding out an early edge with Souls or Pyromancer knowing that if I let my opponent turn the corner, so to speak, there's no way for me to regain initiative. In that situation, Blood Moon can buy you an extra turn either through locking down man-lands or strangling an opponent's mana enough that 1 spell at turn isn't going to stop a horde of tokens. It's also not dead in most matches -- I've left it in against aggressive decks like Zoo or Burn because it can lock them off colors and cripple their velocity.
They can still be clunky (and drawing more than 1 a game is nearly always dead), but I try to mitigate that by only playing 3 copies. It's also a prime candidate for tossing to Faithless Looting. I've tried a few different versions of Mardu Reveler and I've felt the most confident playing the builds with Blood Moon because it's frequently a must-answer card.
I was thinking the same thing about Blood Moon as you do, good in certain matchups but when it's bad it can be pitched easily. I'll have to test out more Blood Moons and see how I like it.
Your detailed notes are reminding me that I'll have to do a full run down of positive/negative match-ups for Mardu Reveler here soon since I've played enough matches against most decks to have a decent feel.
I definitely agree on Affinity and Burn. The damned robots aren't terrible to face, but we have no answer to Etched Champion. In my list below you'll see my sideboard has warped to combat them since I think it's a winnable match with hate, especially against their non-explosive hands. Burn is rough without a little luck and drawing your Collective Brutalities and Helixes. I think your manabase determines whether this is unwinnable or merely unfavorable; no basic Plains means you're shocking for white or timewalking yourself.
I'm surprised by your thoughts on Jeskai Control and Humans. I'm 6/6 against Humans; I get a little giddy when I see an opponent play a T1 Ziggurat. Thalias and Mantis Riders can sting, but you have enough removal to buy time especially with a Pyromancer generating chump blockers. When required, you can block-bolt to remove a pumped up Champion since they have minimal combat tricks (besides a surprise +1/+1). Jeskai Control is more even, but I'm 2/2. That's probably not representative of the match-up. I'm a little surprised I haven't seen more of it to be honest. Most common versions play 1-2 Staticaster and 1-2 sweepers in the board; I'm only afraid of the former really. Strip their hand of early value, drop a Pyromancer, burn to their face until they remove or sweep. Between shocks and your damage, they should be walking the tight rope at that point.
You're on the right track with some of your other comments. I'll share my list first though and respond more generally below.
I've dropped from 4 Revelers to 3 to 2, back to 3, and settled on 2 again. Ideally I'd play 2.5. Drawing multiples early is bad, bad, bad.
Three unconditional removals feel close to right. I could see dropping a Helix and/or Brutality for some addition of Push/Terminate. Makes you stronger against creatures, weaker elsewhere.
Faithless Looting is a challenging card to play for value. Once you have three lands, sandbag the rest. A 2nd Lingering Souls, extra lands, dead discard are all fodder for Looting. For example, going back to Jeskai Control -- one of the ways I've beaten them is by being more card efficient. We play fewer lands and theirs eventually become dead draws. Ours get recycled for more gas.
In general, I feel safe saying I "expect" to beat any fair creature heavy deck that's not Affinity. We can remove, chump, and chip away enough that Humans, Counter Company, or D&T can't keep up. Merfolk can only hope to blow by us with multiple lords. We're a nightmare for Grixis Death's Shadow. The biggest challenges I'm finding online recently are Storm, Dredge, Tron versions, and Affinity. Despite a poor record versus those, I'm posting a 60% win rate over 91 matches. I'm open to ideas that might improve that though. Debate topic: is LoTV better than Blood Moon in this version of Mardu Reveler? Is fitting a more powerful card like that into the 60 a net positive?
Another interesting route, if one would want to move away from the pyromancer build, would be running faithless looting, Bedlam revler and gurmag angler, he's always a threat.
I realize you were just sharing your thoughts and not making pronouncements. Apologies if my responses came across otherwise. I was genuinely surprised Humans felt bad but like you said a couple matches is a small sample size.
We have that in common with Jeskai Control -- it's one of the other decks I also play, although you probably have more reps with it. You may very well be right that it's not a good match-up. I've only ran into it twice, but I felt I had the initiative as the more aggressive deck. Early discard is great, both to strip the most troublesome card from their hand, and to know what to play around. I'm preaching to the choir here, but for everyone else -- you want to bait counterspells and save Pyromancer for value (aka sometimes as a T3/4 drop). Reveler is weak unless you can immediately clear the way with discard; Blood Moon is valuable even if you only threaten it. The Jeskai manabase wants to be greedy to ensure flexibility to snap back Cryptic Command and Helix.
I hesitated to word my "expect" statement the way I did since there's a lot more nuance to it. The more accurate (and wordy) way to put it is I'm confident against any fair creature heavy deck that's not heavily focused on tribal synergy (excluding Humans). But at that point it's not really that useful a statement giving the nested caveats.
Affinity feels winnable depending on the hate you play, despite me having a bad record against it so far. Merfolk can be swingy -- the games I've lost, felt hopeless. The games I've won I felt I dictated play. Overall I've had a positive match-up, although I'd have to check my numbers on how much of that was against the more aggressive UG version. When Merfolk curve out with Vial into a Cursecatcher and a couple lords followed by a Spreading Seas, things get ugly. One for one removal will keep up a lot of times though. Elves I've played once and it felt awful despite winning; they're Merfolk on steroids with less interaction.
I'm not sure why I've struggled against Storm. I think some of the losses came from initially having Leyline of the Void in my sideboard as opposed to something like Nihil Spellbomb. Leyline is definitely more powerful but it's uncastable if it's not in your opening hand. That really encourages you to mull for it, which means fewer cards in already threat-light deck. If I remember correctly, my losses come from disrupting my opponent but not being able to clock them. Anger is a good shout for another multi-purpose SB card.
I think it's valid to question the role of Blood Moon. It's a must-answer card in some matches and has won games for me, but in others it's dead like you mention. Is it a win-more card? Not egregiously, but maybe. Maybe I would've won those matches anyway if it had been another "finisher". If we do swap it, I feel like that slot needs to be something that demands an answer. LoTV?
It may be wrong to exclude Fatal Push. My initial rationale was that most burn doubled as removal while still being live against less creature heavy decks. There weren't too many creatures with more than 2-3 toughness that couldn't wait to be dealt with by Terminate or Dreadbore. In practice, there are times where Push would've been more useful than the last Helix or the 2 Forked Bolts and the extra reach is rarely a difference maker against the non-creature match-ups where I'm already an underdog. It may not be worth hedging against creature-light decks at the expense of improving against creature-heavy decks.
If I were facing more Burn, I'd definitely make the switch to another Brutality main and at least consider a 4th Helix in the board. For whatever reason, I haven't ran into it at all in my last 4 or 5 leagues online. No idea why, but your suggestions are worth keeping in mind when it inevitably returns. Most of my experimentation has been happening with the sideboard. I probably am over-boarded for Affinity, although a lot of that is looking for cards that pull double duty elsewhere -- Stony Silence/Shattering Spree for Tron variants, Rakdos Charm for Storm/Dredge, Shatterstorm for Lantern, etc. Probably still a lot of room for improvement there. When you've played Tidehollow Sculler in your sideboard, how have you used him? What match-ups would you bring LoTV in for?
Really interested in playing this deck and considering trading my Jeskai stuff on MTGO for it. Can anyone give me some good reasons why or why not to? Also some sideboard / general game plan advice. I've played against it a few times with UW and found RIP was my best card to more or less stop reveler from being played in a reasonable time, but it doesn't seem like GY hate is really a huge concern. This deck seems like it's crushing a lot of the top decks though and I want to try something a little different, it's between this and Blue Moon.
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Do you mean an extra land from the "stock list" playing 19 lands? I currently play 20 in my list.
I figured that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure! Thank you! From my testing I can hit 4 lands pretty consistently now. I wonder how Chandra, ToD would do over Hazoret instead. Has anyone tested either of these?
Off the top of my head I think Chandra is more powerful in a vacuum, although she requires protection versus Hazoret requiring being turned on. Hazoret could potentially limit one of my favorite plays -- hoarding two land in hand to dump to Faithless Looting. Maybe I'd just toss those lands to her ability anyway and it's nice that it's untargeted damage. Chandra's first +1 also has that advantage although I wish it dumped into the GY rather exile.
If anyone gives either a try definitely share how it goes, where you found them beneficial, etc. At first glance they don't seem out of place, so I can't think of a reason not to test them. Which do we think would be more beneficial in our bad match-ups?
#Darkest_before_dawn - Just to mention, remember hypergeometric calc also doesnt take into account the use of fetches; since they "land-thin" the deck, the odds you calculated may actually be a bit lower than 62 /70%
I wonder if we could play 2 or 3-of Monastery Mentor in this deck; it definitely goes along with the midrange plan, and adds a bit of redundancy to the deck.
I´m also thinking in maybe 1 or maximum 2 copies of Rally the peasants, since we can easily discard it to Bedlam Reveler or Faithless looting if we need to, and it can net us a lot of damage out of nowhere. Im still finding space for that cards, ill try to post a list ASAP.
I think Mentor looks good at first, but it doesn't go well with Bedlam Reveler sometimes discarding spells we might need with Mentor. Mentor also wants a full hand and this deck tries to operate on a smaller hand size than what Mentor wants. Plus you'd have to hit your land drops no matter what, and sometimes that isn't going to happen in this deck. I think it could work but you have to drop Bedlam Revelers and Swiftspears for Mentors I think.
Sorry for the double post, meant to reply to this as well but I'm on my phone and it isn't very easy to do this from a phone haha. I thought the same as you do about Chandra and Hazoret, and it deserves some testing I think. They're both good inclusions but requires the 20th land.
That's a good catch. The probability gets a nudge lower with the thinning from fetches and a nudge higher when you consider reasonable mulligans; like most hypergeometric numbers, those figures should really only be used as a rough guide. I would love to include Monastery Mentor since it's another pet card for me, but the three mana is an investment and it's difficult to make it a turn 4 play to ensure some value when you likely won't be curving out. I've always struggled with finding a home for Mentor. To me it feels like it needs enough creatures around it to soak up removal, but enough instants/sorceries to make use of its abilities. If it works for you, definitely share though!
At first glance I'd guess Scapeshift is a tough opponent for you. Tidehollow Sculler is an interesting sideboard choice I hadn't considered despite playing Eldrazi & Taxes before. How are you finding your match-ups with the Nahiri version? Definitely a different path than Pyromancer/Reveler. I'd second that the meta is fairly positive for removal/burn heavy Mardu at the moment.
You convinced me to give Mardu Nahiri a try. I think there's a "core" in Mardu/Rakdos that's well placed at the moment, so I was curious how that would translate. I played 7 matches with a list similar to yours and ended up 3-4, although I probably should've picked up another win if I'd played tighter. Not a terrible record; if I'd been playing the Reveler version I may have won one more based on the match-ups, may not. You're right that the cards are more individually powerful in the Nahiri version. I struggled to get full value out of them at points versus creature heavy decks though. Playing Liliana or Nahiri when you're behind feels bad. Maybe I was on the wrong side of variance, but I always felt behind on tempo. That was a surprise after playing the Reveler version.
I can understand why Reveler superficially feels like a bad Jund, especially if you're playing Soulfire Grand Master and Dark Confidant. The difference I've found in my current version is that going wide with Pyromancer and Souls makes you a lot harder to disrupt with spot removal. And board wipes? Not so scary when you've only invested a card or two and generated tokens from doing what you'd be doing anyway -- creature removal or burn. The current iteration generates a lot of incremental/virtual card advantage while maintaining tempo. Threatening Blood Moon helps as well. I think the match-ups are similar for both versions, based on your comments (appreciate you sharing!). My hunch is that the Reveler version is more consistent in the positive MUs at the expense of some points versus the negative. I keep record of my matches so maybe I can delve more into how the Reveler version has fared in a future post.
Speaking of records -- I racked up my first 5-0 in a competitive league this morning! I'm stoked. Beat the mirror (first time I've faced it), three good MUs (Grixis Death's Shadow, Humans x2), and rode Moon/Rabblemaster over ETron. Let's see if it gets published. If not, I can share my list although it's very similar to what I last posted.
Congrats on the 5-0! Awesome stuff, really hoping this deck gets the notoriety it deserves. How have three main deck Moons been working for you? Seems too clunky for me to include three in the main but if you're having success with it then I'm all ears.
1 Marsh Flats
2 Blood Crypt
1 Plains (1)
1 Mountain (1)
1 Godless Shrine
1 Mountain (2)
1 Swamp (1)
3 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Sacred Foundry
Creatures 10
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Bedlam Reveler
2 Monastery Mentor
4 Faithless Looting
1 Dreadbore
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Helix
4 Lingering Souls
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Fiery Temper
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
1 Rally the Peasants
1 Terminate
2 Collective Brutality
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Collective Brutality
1 Boros Charm
2 Crackling Doom
2 Blood Moon
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Wear/Tear
So far, im testing 2 Monastery Mentor, as some people told me before, sometimes its not the best option; 3 could be too many, since i started to play 2, he has been useful every time i got him.
I have a 10-card discard package, which gives me best chances vs combo decks, and also the 2 Collected brutality improves the burn and creature-based matchups. With 10 spells that can make myself discard, 1 Fiery temper is most of the time welcome (normal with reveler, great with faithless looting and awesome with collected brutality)
Regarding sideboard, 1-of Boros charm when i expect wrath-effects or when i need to close games fast.
2-of Blood moon ; desperate choice to try to improve at least a bit the sad tron-matchup, also comes handy vs Scapeshift
and shutting enemy manlands.
Rest of it is pretty standard.
Currently the deck has 14 threats ( Young Py, Mentor, Revelers and Lingering ), not sure if im fine with that or if i need 1 more.
Also thinking a lot of the 20th land, since some games it becomes a problem when not getting 3rd land.
Every feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Have you thought to use zealous persecution? I have found it very useful in my mardu deck where my build is also 4x pyros, 2x mentor and 4x souls.
Thanks! There are obviously games where Blood Moon is a surprise "I win" card on T3; those are nice. But I think it fills a strategic weakness in Mardu Reveler against decks that can go bigger than us. In those matches I find myself grinding out an early edge with Souls or Pyromancer knowing that if I let my opponent turn the corner, so to speak, there's no way for me to regain initiative. In that situation, Blood Moon can buy you an extra turn either through locking down man-lands or strangling an opponent's mana enough that 1 spell at turn isn't going to stop a horde of tokens. It's also not dead in most matches -- I've left it in against aggressive decks like Zoo or Burn because it can lock them off colors and cripple their velocity.
They can still be clunky (and drawing more than 1 a game is nearly always dead), but I try to mitigate that by only playing 3 copies. It's also a prime candidate for tossing to Faithless Looting. I've tried a few different versions of Mardu Reveler and I've felt the most confident playing the builds with Blood Moon because it's frequently a must-answer card.
I was thinking the same thing about Blood Moon as you do, good in certain matchups but when it's bad it can be pitched easily. I'll have to test out more Blood Moons and see how I like it.
I definitely agree on Affinity and Burn. The damned robots aren't terrible to face, but we have no answer to Etched Champion. In my list below you'll see my sideboard has warped to combat them since I think it's a winnable match with hate, especially against their non-explosive hands. Burn is rough without a little luck and drawing your Collective Brutalities and Helixes. I think your manabase determines whether this is unwinnable or merely unfavorable; no basic Plains means you're shocking for white or timewalking yourself.
I'm surprised by your thoughts on Jeskai Control and Humans. I'm 6/6 against Humans; I get a little giddy when I see an opponent play a T1 Ziggurat. Thalias and Mantis Riders can sting, but you have enough removal to buy time especially with a Pyromancer generating chump blockers. When required, you can block-bolt to remove a pumped up Champion since they have minimal combat tricks (besides a surprise +1/+1). Jeskai Control is more even, but I'm 2/2. That's probably not representative of the match-up. I'm a little surprised I haven't seen more of it to be honest. Most common versions play 1-2 Staticaster and 1-2 sweepers in the board; I'm only afraid of the former really. Strip their hand of early value, drop a Pyromancer, burn to their face until they remove or sweep. Between shocks and your damage, they should be walking the tight rope at that point.
You're on the right track with some of your other comments. I'll share my list first though and respond more generally below.
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Bedlam Reveler
3 Faithless Looting
2 Forked Bolt
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lingering Souls
3 Lightning Helix
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Terminate
3 Blood Moon
1 Collective Brutality
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Shatterstorm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Wear/Tear
2 Collective Brutality
1 Rakdos Charm
3 Stony Silence
Card choices:
In general, I feel safe saying I "expect" to beat any fair creature heavy deck that's not Affinity. We can remove, chump, and chip away enough that Humans, Counter Company, or D&T can't keep up. Merfolk can only hope to blow by us with multiple lords. We're a nightmare for Grixis Death's Shadow. The biggest challenges I'm finding online recently are Storm, Dredge, Tron versions, and Affinity. Despite a poor record versus those, I'm posting a 60% win rate over 91 matches. I'm open to ideas that might improve that though. Debate topic: is LoTV better than Blood Moon in this version of Mardu Reveler? Is fitting a more powerful card like that into the 60 a net positive?
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Rally the Peasants
4 Lingering Souls
2 Lightning Helix
2 Terminate
3 Thoughtseize
1 Burst Lightning
1 Dreadbore
4 Faithless Looting
1 Forked Bolt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Wear/Tear
2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Fatal Push
2 Dragon's Claw
3 Blood Moon
Modern Only
Currently Running:
BG Midrange
We have that in common with Jeskai Control -- it's one of the other decks I also play, although you probably have more reps with it. You may very well be right that it's not a good match-up. I've only ran into it twice, but I felt I had the initiative as the more aggressive deck. Early discard is great, both to strip the most troublesome card from their hand, and to know what to play around. I'm preaching to the choir here, but for everyone else -- you want to bait counterspells and save Pyromancer for value (aka sometimes as a T3/4 drop). Reveler is weak unless you can immediately clear the way with discard; Blood Moon is valuable even if you only threaten it. The Jeskai manabase wants to be greedy to ensure flexibility to snap back Cryptic Command and Helix.
I hesitated to word my "expect" statement the way I did since there's a lot more nuance to it. The more accurate (and wordy) way to put it is I'm confident against any fair creature heavy deck that's not heavily focused on tribal synergy (excluding Humans). But at that point it's not really that useful a statement giving the nested caveats.
Affinity feels winnable depending on the hate you play, despite me having a bad record against it so far. Merfolk can be swingy -- the games I've lost, felt hopeless. The games I've won I felt I dictated play. Overall I've had a positive match-up, although I'd have to check my numbers on how much of that was against the more aggressive UG version. When Merfolk curve out with Vial into a Cursecatcher and a couple lords followed by a Spreading Seas, things get ugly. One for one removal will keep up a lot of times though. Elves I've played once and it felt awful despite winning; they're Merfolk on steroids with less interaction.
I'm not sure why I've struggled against Storm. I think some of the losses came from initially having Leyline of the Void in my sideboard as opposed to something like Nihil Spellbomb. Leyline is definitely more powerful but it's uncastable if it's not in your opening hand. That really encourages you to mull for it, which means fewer cards in already threat-light deck. If I remember correctly, my losses come from disrupting my opponent but not being able to clock them. Anger is a good shout for another multi-purpose SB card.
I think it's valid to question the role of Blood Moon. It's a must-answer card in some matches and has won games for me, but in others it's dead like you mention. Is it a win-more card? Not egregiously, but maybe. Maybe I would've won those matches anyway if it had been another "finisher". If we do swap it, I feel like that slot needs to be something that demands an answer. LoTV?
It may be wrong to exclude Fatal Push. My initial rationale was that most burn doubled as removal while still being live against less creature heavy decks. There weren't too many creatures with more than 2-3 toughness that couldn't wait to be dealt with by Terminate or Dreadbore. In practice, there are times where Push would've been more useful than the last Helix or the 2 Forked Bolts and the extra reach is rarely a difference maker against the non-creature match-ups where I'm already an underdog. It may not be worth hedging against creature-light decks at the expense of improving against creature-heavy decks.
If I were facing more Burn, I'd definitely make the switch to another Brutality main and at least consider a 4th Helix in the board. For whatever reason, I haven't ran into it at all in my last 4 or 5 leagues online. No idea why, but your suggestions are worth keeping in mind when it inevitably returns. Most of my experimentation has been happening with the sideboard. I probably am over-boarded for Affinity, although a lot of that is looking for cards that pull double duty elsewhere -- Stony Silence/Shattering Spree for Tron variants, Rakdos Charm for Storm/Dredge, Shatterstorm for Lantern, etc. Probably still a lot of room for improvement there. When you've played Tidehollow Sculler in your sideboard, how have you used him? What match-ups would you bring LoTV in for?