Why not play 4 SoH in addition to 4 SV? I mean since consistency > everything in control?
We could cut Fatal Push and Path to Exile down to 1 copy a piece, since we'd be able to draw it whenever we wanted and don't want to see dead removal against Ad Nauseam. This would allow us to cut our lands down to 20-22 which means more room for extra cantrips such as Peek. We could even go a bit deeper and shave our Supreme Verdict down to 1 copy too since it's a horrible card to see against our non-creature match ups and add in a bunch of Reach Through Mists too, further dropping our land count down to about 18-19 so we are able to fit in a couple more cantrips like Manamorphose or Thought Scour. We'd still see enough lands to cast a big Sphinx's Revelation since we're seeing what cards we want, but without any of the drawbacks of flood or screw or drawing the wrong half of our deck with so many cantrips. What could go wrong?
Would this not adhere to the consistency rule that more cantrips > actual answers provides? But then we'd probably be better off trying to goldfish with all that consistency and play Storm combo... Where do we actually draw the line when it comes to the addition of cantrips > answers? Is there a hard and fast formula, or is it just mainly anecdotal evidence?
Why not play 4 SoH in addition to 4 SV? I mean since consistency > everything in control?
We could cut Fatal Push and Path to Exile down to 1 copy a piece, since we'd be able to draw it whenever we wanted and don't want to see dead removal against Ad Nauseam. This would allow us to cut our lands down to 20-22 which means more room for extra cantrips such as Peek. We could even go a bit deeper and shave our Supreme Verdict down to 1 copy too since it's a horrible card to see against our non-creature match ups and add in a bunch of Reach Through Mists too, further dropping our land count down to about 18-19 so we are able to fit in a couple more cantrips like Manamorphose or Thought Scour. We'd still see enough lands to cast a big Sphinx's Revelation since we're seeing what cards we want, but without any of the drawbacks of flood or screw or drawing the wrong half of our deck with so many cantrips. What could go wrong?
Would this not adhere to the consistency rule that more cantrips > actual answers provides? But then we'd probably be better off trying to goldfish with all that consistency and play Storm combo... Where do we actually draw the line when it comes to the addition of cantrips > answers? Is there a hard and fast formula, or is it just mainly anecdotal evidence?
Food for thought.
I made a similar reductio ad absurdum argument before on "Do Nothing Cantrips" and was laughed at for a couple pages even though nobody ever did well with 12 of them in their lists (or anything past a few serum visions for that matter) and I predict soon you will be as well. Prepare yourself.
RE: Spell Snare
For the longest time I was a staunch defender of running 3 main and never less while not disliking a full 4 copies. However this was in the jund + affinity + twin every other round days and eventually the format got a bit more spread out with the typical CMC curve of decks and I went down to only 2 and was happy with it. At this point the main decks that snare was a house against (while still popular) was only jund, affinity, and sort of merfolk. While playing Grixis for a while I actually cut them entirely from the main and only had 1 in the board. Today however jund is still popular and the company decks have basically gone mono 2-Drops and while green death's shadow decks aren't the flavor of shadow decks that are en vogue these days it is still an all star against them and the grixis versions still have very powerful snapcaster mage targets.
As things stand currently, granted this can change weekly since it's modern, I am back on my thought of "always play two copies and never less." I don't like 3/4 copies right now, but if you see a heavy population of goyf and snapcaster decks then 3 is completely justifiable. That being said, I'm pretty sure you can still find some better options than the third one that have a bit more versatility. I'm quite high on collective brutality main with CoCo being popular and being great against burn so I'd recommend that instead most likely.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
So I'm torn guys... Going to the Charlotte open this week and don't know what to play. It's either gifts storm, Esper control, or jeskai queller (btw this deck feels really well positioned right now). What do y'all think?
I meant to do this before but I was busy with other stuff... Below is my report on GP Copenhagen, where I ended up 4-4 drop.
Round 1: Scapeshift (2-1) / 1-0
Game 1 I resolved an early runed halo and sphinx for a bunch under sakura beats (:p). No real worries that game. Game 2 I missed the opportunity to remove 2 valakuts in his hands with esper charm. I really misplayed hard here by passing back priority after he cast a lambda spell... The rest was just me not topdecking my lands and dying to valakut triggers. Game 3 was a bit grindier since we fought around runed halo. I resolved a baneslayer angel and he was too light on valakut triggers to kill it. I countered basically anything that could give him one more trigger and baneslayer got me there.
Round 2 Abzan vizier (0-2) / 1-1
First game he coco'ed early into his only selfless spirit (I checked his deck game 2 with surgical) and his (only :s) rhonas before I could try to verdict. I removed the spirit and verdict but this put me so far behind that any two drop he played and pumped with rhonas closed the deal. Game 2: I kept a land light hand with surgical + Thoughtseize. I extracted part of its combo but could not find my land drops (I knew that hand smelled ) and died to creature beats (If not mistaken rhonas again helped a lot).
Round 3 abzan traverse (2-0) 2-1
It really went as expected. He shredded my hand and put some threats and I "outcarded" him while removing the threats. Killed him twice with the cats.
Round 4 eldrazi tron (2-0) / 3-1
Game 1 I removed all his threats and put two runed halo: first on tks and second on reality smasher. He nevertheless drew a bunch of cards with that stupid land so that the first game took forever. I killed him with an army of cats after a wrath.
Game 2 was even grindier as he managed to resolved a crucible of worlds, with a ghost quarter up and a batterskull but a resolved elspeth carried me there as I managed to ultimate it with some board presence and attack for 30+.
Round 5 BW eldrazi taxes (0-2) / 3-2
Vial turn 1 each game was basically cancer.. Thalia and leonin were basically there to kill the pain and myself.... I thought it would be easier but my hands did not line up well and these vials.....
Round 6 rakdos moon (0-2) / 3-3
Game 1 after swamp, discard your counter / swamp do nothing, I was not expecting fetch red sources blood moon .... On the draw I had landed colonnade and a shockland tapped with removal up (no more counters in hand unfortunately). He then dropped a goblin rabblemaster for the win as I was locked.
Game 2 all was well until I made the stupid mistake to activate my colonnade to block one mutavault (I was at 8 and he attacked with 2). Stupid because I had rev and esper charm in hand and he landed blood moon that turn .... (I was pretty confident he had nothing because I thoughtseized him the turn before). Well...
Round 7 Puresteel paladin combo (2-0) / 4-3
It was an easy one with all the interactions we have against such a deck.
Round 8 GW tron (0-2) / 4-4
Game 1 was ulamog twice turn 4 and 6 (sigh). Game 2 he resolved an early o'stone and a karn (no counters, I kept on the back of thoughtseize). Basically no way to pressure the karn with the o'stone. Karn took the game over by ripping land, hand, land, etc...
So that's it. I also made a side event and I beat the previous winner of GP copenhagen (he was on storm for the side event but he runs fish for GPs) It just feels good for the record.
After a 3 months' crash course with the deck, I am not too disappointed of the results. The deck ran smoothly (most of the times). Mistakes (even small ones) are very punishing. I am still on the learning curve but I hope to do better next GP
On the deck: I was not impressed by surgical extraction and dispel from the sideboard. Fatal push was also quite neglectable. Engineered explosives from the board were great against storm (it basically turns off their empty the warrens plan and they can remand it all day long if they want) and is very flexible in many match ups. I found serum visions really useful in such a wide meta (I guess I changed my mind on these).
Going forward I made some adjustments to the deck and will carry on with this:
Looks pretty solid other than zero fatal push - I would be alittle nervous about leaning on halos with vizier combo out there. halos Also presents an abrupt decay target vs bgx when you need them to shut down deaths shadow in particular.
How do you find two leylines in the board? Ive done single copy generally with esper but 3-4 anywhere else
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Why not play 4 SoH in addition to 4 SV? I mean since consistency > everything in control?
We could cut Fatal Push and Path to Exile down to 1 copy a piece, since we'd be able to draw it whenever we wanted and don't want to see dead removal against Ad Nauseam. This would allow us to cut our lands down to 20-22 which means more room for extra cantrips such as Peek. We could even go a bit deeper and shave our Supreme Verdict down to 1 copy too since it's a horrible card to see against our non-creature match ups and add in a bunch of Reach Through Mists too, further dropping our land count down to about 18-19 so we are able to fit in a couple more cantrips like Manamorphose or Thought Scour. We'd still see enough lands to cast a big Sphinx's Revelation since we're seeing what cards we want, but without any of the drawbacks of flood or screw or drawing the wrong half of our deck with so many cantrips. What could go wrong?
Would this not adhere to the consistency rule that more cantrips > actual answers provides? But then we'd probably be better off trying to goldfish with all that consistency and play Storm combo... Where do we actually draw the line when it comes to the addition of cantrips > answers? Is there a hard and fast formula, or is it just mainly anecdotal evidence?
Food for thought.
Is there a "hard and fast formula" for anything in Magic? Do you have non-anecdotal evidence to support anything you could ever say on a Magic forum? Has someone seriously done a controlled experiment with 2 different styles of deck and compared win rates? Frank Karsten is the one person to have ever published anything close, and even those articles are just him validating common conventions. This game is an art, not a science.
I'm not even going to debate the card choice, because that doesn't even matter; people can and should play what feels right to them. This pretend mathematical elitism is seriously a problem, though. Don't forget that a moderator jumped in and asked people to cut it out; not because he's a moron, but because it reads like complete nonsense to any outside observer.
Just play the game and leave opinions as stated opinion. Don't label dozens of posted tournament results "anecdotal" when all of the non-verifiable FNM and playtesting data people may offer to the contrary are both personal accounts and non-verifiable...the definition of anecdotal.
If you want to play 50-game sets and analyze different success and failure rates for different card configurations, then by all means go ahead. If not, just accept that it's all based off theory and intuition, with the only exception coming from posted, verified tournament results available in bulk. If this deck doesn't see enough play for those to be accurate, then we're just out of luck. No mathematical high ground for anybody.
I've actually been testing a tiny bit with Hieroglyphic Illumination and liking it. In matchups that are more about efficiency it cantrips at instant speed to make use of as much mana as possible whenever it's convenient, and it serves as a true card advantage spell in matchups where you have time to cast it for full value.
If I recall one of Amalek's posts correctly, I'm pretty sure the "best" argument against playing lots of maindeck cantrips isn't that doing so is inherently crazy--legacy decks plays loads of them--it's that the modern cantrips mostly suck. But whether or not you think the cantrips actually suck is a subjective call, which is what Cipher is saying.
To answer Teferi's hypothetical, the cutoff point is when you think the power of the next cantrip you are adding is worth less then the next most powerful card you could add. It just looks confusing because it's difficult to quantify how powerful the card selection is- obviously Mystical Tutor or even Brainstorm has a lot more selective power then Reach Through Mists. If your opinion is all the modern cantrips are bad, then you end up with a 26 land deck with no cantrips. If you think some of them are good, you end up with a different looking deck.
As I've mentioned before, the major difference between practice and theory is that the modern card pool, in regards to blue cards, is garbage.
I'd love to play 20 land miracles with 12 cantrips, but we have 0 good cantrips in modern. Serum visions is possibly in the acceptable range, but its not good. While legacy portent miracles does seem to promote the fewer lands, more cantrip style of deck as being optimal, even in a straight draw-go deck, I think its too incomparable to modern because we don't have the cardpool to replicate that and remain at a reasonable power level compared to the rest of the field.
While I think your point about cantrips vs the next best card is good, you do have to acknowledge that our cantrips are probably worse than most of our do-something spells (even if our counterspells are lackluster) but for blue decks in general, serum visions sees a good deal of play, and its not always wrong.
A lot of it is simply looking at a decks game plan. Miracles plays a lot of cantrips because it has to be consistent, to a greater extent than modern decks, because of the nature of legacy as a format. It does not have to hit its land drops all that consistently. 3 lands on t3 is the goal, and is easily attainable. Jace and emtreat are not "must cast on curve" type cards, so being able to choose answers over lands is fine. Past that, being able to choose card selection over card advantage spells is fine. Modern, and esper specifically, can't just make these same assumptions with the card pool we currently have.
IMO, 26 lands is the best if you do not play serum visions. Depending on your exact build, I'd still put the floor at 25 with serum. With donny's AV build, 24 might be acceptable, though his posted list does play 25.
I've played a bit of hieroglyphic illumination myself, and I do agree, I like it more than I expected to. I currently do think is does not belong in this deck (its not better than think twice/charm for us) but I could see many modern decks/brews wanting this. (In particular, the gearhulk blue moon lists that have been floating around). Esper charm is still the undisputed best draw spell in the format, IMO, and for us atleast, think twice is preferable to illumination, but for decks in different colors with different strategies, illumination is very promising.
I haven't tested pull from tomorrow very much, but I suspect its in the same boat: worse than rev, but playable in decks that aren't white.
While both cards are below the power level I'd like to be seeing for blue cards in modern, the fact that they're playable at all is certainly exciting.
3-1 at modern tonight. 35 players showed up. Punted R2 against Eldrazi Tron. Had GG if I just didn't get cute. Opponent is a GP Top 8'er so I was trying to show off, escalated blessed alliance into attacking Walking Ballista (3 counters) and Reality Smasher with 9 mana up at 6 life, should've just cryptic command tapped the team and attacked with my 6 StW tokens for GG. Instead I untapped his dudes and gained 4 life, for some reason thought untapping removed from combat (thank you, maze of ith)
Round one
I 2-0d Counter Company, G1 was 27 minutes with fast play on both sides. Finally got him up to a board of double persisted Finks, 2 Druid, 1 birds, 1 seer, 1 hierarch and no cards in hand (2 Esper charms in early turns), untapped into a verdict and then StW for 8 tokens the next turn. G2 he mulled to 4, I opened with leyline of the void and a strong 7. He scooped.
Round two
Here's where I punted Eldrazi Tron. G2 I had in the bag, 2 big misplays cost me the match. Felt pretty strong about the game overall, tight play with a huge misplay led to the loss. Tilted slightly after first error
Round three
Affinity got me game 1, he drew 7 man lands total with a T1 resolved cranial plating. Just couldn't keep enough dudes gone to stay in the game. G2 windmill slammed stony silence into his double thopter, citadel, mox, Springleaf, overseer, nihil spellbomb And rode it to a long slow victory. G3 he put out 5 mana sources by T2, my t3 stony silence followed by t5 baneslayer got me the game.
Round four
Jeskai Nahiri, a close personal friend of mine piloting. We go back and forth draw-go style, I resolve 2 think twice and 2 Esper charm (discard first; then draw) before his ancestral visions rolls out. We have a 4-counter war over it, no resolution, he passes. Draw go, he slams nahiri with snap-> Negate backup. Spent 3 turns trying to connect with a Colonnade but got pte'd, ghost quarter, and Colonnade-traded, with Negate for my fatal push pre-blockers. Lured and attacked for exact game. G2 grinded down to a halt, realized I could let him resolve AVisions because his card quality was lower than mine, he had two counting down by t3, I got secure for 3 off with double backup, he took 3, ajani vengeant to lock one down, EOT sphinx rev for 4, untapping attack him for 2, he casts nahiri and uses -2 on both walkers, passes, EOT snap-> secure and rode the 6 tokens to a long victory. 4:30 left in round as we started game 3, took the 2-1 victory and split the credit.
Deck felt really solid tonight. I never felt like I wasn't in a game. Eldrazi Tron even felt strongly winnable, despite the nut draw. A wrath would've put me right back into that game. G2 he got wrecked by snap/cryptic loop until he finally set up game-winning board state. I had the lethal but blew it
Against jeskai nahiri: before I resolved snap-> secure for the game-winning tokens, I extirpated his two negates in yard. He had 2 snap in hand and just lost because he didn't have any other counters. I will forever advocate extirpate over surgical in this deck (dredge also can't respond to it by cracking fetch to save a bloodghast, or sacrificing neonate to dredge). We always have the mana up, so why not play a card they can't play around?
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Against jeskai nahiri: before I resolved snap-> secure for the game-winning tokens, I extirpated his two negates in yard. He had 2 snap in hand and just lost because he didn't have any other counters. I will forever advocate extirpate over surgical in this deck (dredge also can't respond to it by cracking fetch to save a bloodghast, or sacrificing neonate to dredge). We always have the mana up, so why not play a card they can't play around?
How many extraction effects are you playing in the side? You could always do a split if you play more than 1. Generally, SE being "free" is going to better in most cases. For example, even though Ext gets around Dredge's fetch triggers, you may be colour screwed off a black source on turns 1-2 where if you had SE you'd be fine and sometimes having to pay a single B can be awkward when wanting to do other things EOT. Though, the difference between the 2 is mostly irrelevant and Extirpate does have it's upsides against other control decks and Academy Ruins. The one and only deck I'd snap-keep Extirpate over Surgical Extraction would be those jank Metalwork Colossus decks where it's nigh impossible to Surgical. I think they are both good cards and same same but different.
I play 2 Extirpate SB, and in my meta it's probably best choice. 3-4 control decks, 2 dredge decks, 4 Tron decks, 2 storm decks (target a Card in gy inresp to a flashback, they can't continue flashing back things, and if a kill spell is on stack then enabler just dies), a few counters company decks (company inresp to surgical to grab a copy of the target = GG).
Like I said, never been a time when it's been awkward for me, I played a split back in original eggs meta and eventually went double extirpate because they couldn't respond. Can't play around it either
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If I recall one of Amalek's posts correctly, I'm pretty sure the "best" argument against playing lots of maindeck cantrips isn't that doing so is inherently crazy--legacy decks plays loads of them--it's that the modern cantrips mostly suck. But whether or not you think the cantrips actually suck is a subjective call, which is what Cipher is saying.
To answer Teferi's hypothetical, the cutoff point is when you think the power of the next cantrip you are adding is worth less then the next most powerful card you could add. It just looks confusing because it's difficult to quantify how powerful the card selection is- obviously Mystical Tutor or even Brainstorm has a lot more selective power then Reach Through Mists. If your opinion is all the modern cantrips are bad, then you end up with a 26 land deck with no cantrips. If you think some of them are good, you end up with a different looking deck.
Not quite. My argument against SV in most decklists is that you can't play both cantrips and the 10 card draw suite while still packing enough answers, and you can't cut the card advantage spells or the deck doesn't function.
If we got ponder back tomorrow, you better believe I would re-tool and be playing a deck that was not designed to just cast x-spells. But serum visions isn't strong enough of a cantrip for me to rely on to do that.
Spell snare is the best card in our mainboard against death's shadow short of blessed alliance. It hits goyf against the jund and 4c versions and it hits snapcaster against the grixis versions. Spell snare in general is the best g1 answer you can have against affinity, snapcaster mage, tarmogoyf, and storm. If your opponent isn't playing one of those decks, then whatever they are playing is very weak to wraths, grave hate, land hate, or some combination thereof. Or your opponent is Jeff Hogland because nobody else plays kiki chord.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Spell snare is the best card in our mainboard against death's shadow short of blessed alliance. It hits goyf against the jund and 4c versions and it hits snapcaster against the grixis versions.
Not even close. It hits just 4 spells against both. Jund will traverse for Shadow pretty much always, and Grixis doesn't usually pack more cc2 even postside. It's an obvious side-out, being much worse than it is against classical Jund/Grixis.
Blessed Alliance isn't even that great against DS tbh -- they just discard it out of your hand before attacks. And that's not just theory, it's happened to me many times in games. Path is the best card we have, because it's unconditional and helps to blank Kolaghan's Command.
With regards to the discussion on lands and cantrips, my testing has put me solidly in favor of cantrips.
Yes, Serum Visions is garbage compared to Ponder, but it's one of our best turn one plays, and it plays a key role in the deck. Since modern is so diverse, the scry 2 really helps you avoid drawing "the wrong half of the deck" problem. Also, the scry 2 synergizes really well with the Draw 2 on Esper Charm. Setting up Charm with Visions lets you dig 4 cards or draw 2 known good cards!
Speaking of turn one plays, 4x Ancestral is the best turn one play in the deck. In the past month, I've not lost a game that started with suspend AV. I see people complain that it's a bad topdeck, but it's really not that bad to suspend one late game. Also I'm running As Foretold, so a topdecked vision usually turns into a better Pot of Greed. Drawing 4 cards on turn 5 almost always sets you up to chain Snap Cryptics, which is how this deck wins.
Bicycle lands: Wow! Fetid Pools and Irrigated Farmland are perfect for the deck. I'm running one of each and love them! If I'm flooding it's a think twice, if I'm starved it's a land. Also you can just hold these in your hand vs Jund and they can't thoughtseize them away.
Man lands: I'm running Tar Pit and Shambling Vent and no collonades. The lower activation cost is the main reason, additionally, lifelink and unblockable are more relevant than flying in most games.
Win conditions: WSZ has really not impressed me and secure feels too unreliable, so I've been using 2x Tasigur 4x Snapcaster as my wincons. Turn 5 Verdict into Tasigur or Tasigur hold up Cryptic feels great and blocks better than chump tokens.
So basically I tried to make each part of the deck use less mana so I could drop lands and add more cantrips and interaction to end up with a more consistent deck. I'm currently on 22 lands (4 taplands total) with 4 AV and 4 SV and the balance feels really good.
Why not play Sleight of Hand instead?
Why not play 4 SoH in addition to 4 SV? I mean since consistency > everything in control?
We could cut Fatal Push and Path to Exile down to 1 copy a piece, since we'd be able to draw it whenever we wanted and don't want to see dead removal against Ad Nauseam. This would allow us to cut our lands down to 20-22 which means more room for extra cantrips such as Peek. We could even go a bit deeper and shave our Supreme Verdict down to 1 copy too since it's a horrible card to see against our non-creature match ups and add in a bunch of Reach Through Mists too, further dropping our land count down to about 18-19 so we are able to fit in a couple more cantrips like Manamorphose or Thought Scour. We'd still see enough lands to cast a big Sphinx's Revelation since we're seeing what cards we want, but without any of the drawbacks of flood or screw or drawing the wrong half of our deck with so many cantrips. What could go wrong?
Would this not adhere to the consistency rule that more cantrips > actual answers provides? But then we'd probably be better off trying to goldfish with all that consistency and play Storm combo... Where do we actually draw the line when it comes to the addition of cantrips > answers? Is there a hard and fast formula, or is it just mainly anecdotal evidence?
Food for thought.
WMMT5dx: Car - RK Coupe Track - Hakone Outbound
I made a similar reductio ad absurdum argument before on "Do Nothing Cantrips" and was laughed at for a couple pages even though nobody ever did well with 12 of them in their lists (or anything past a few serum visions for that matter) and I predict soon you will be as well. Prepare yourself.
RE: Spell Snare
For the longest time I was a staunch defender of running 3 main and never less while not disliking a full 4 copies. However this was in the jund + affinity + twin every other round days and eventually the format got a bit more spread out with the typical CMC curve of decks and I went down to only 2 and was happy with it. At this point the main decks that snare was a house against (while still popular) was only jund, affinity, and sort of merfolk. While playing Grixis for a while I actually cut them entirely from the main and only had 1 in the board. Today however jund is still popular and the company decks have basically gone mono 2-Drops and while green death's shadow decks aren't the flavor of shadow decks that are en vogue these days it is still an all star against them and the grixis versions still have very powerful snapcaster mage targets.
As things stand currently, granted this can change weekly since it's modern, I am back on my thought of "always play two copies and never less." I don't like 3/4 copies right now, but if you see a heavy population of goyf and snapcaster decks then 3 is completely justifiable. That being said, I'm pretty sure you can still find some better options than the third one that have a bit more versatility. I'm quite high on collective brutality main with CoCo being popular and being great against burn so I'd recommend that instead most likely.
I meant to do this before but I was busy with other stuff... Below is my report on GP Copenhagen, where I ended up 4-4 drop.
Round 1: Scapeshift (2-1) / 1-0
Game 1 I resolved an early runed halo and sphinx for a bunch under sakura beats (:p). No real worries that game. Game 2 I missed the opportunity to remove 2 valakuts in his hands with esper charm. I really misplayed hard here by passing back priority after he cast a lambda spell... The rest was just me not topdecking my lands and dying to valakut triggers. Game 3 was a bit grindier since we fought around runed halo. I resolved a baneslayer angel and he was too light on valakut triggers to kill it. I countered basically anything that could give him one more trigger and baneslayer got me there.
Round 2 Abzan vizier (0-2) / 1-1
First game he coco'ed early into his only selfless spirit (I checked his deck game 2 with surgical) and his (only :s) rhonas before I could try to verdict. I removed the spirit and verdict but this put me so far behind that any two drop he played and pumped with rhonas closed the deal. Game 2: I kept a land light hand with surgical + Thoughtseize. I extracted part of its combo but could not find my land drops (I knew that hand smelled
Round 3 abzan traverse (2-0) 2-1
It really went as expected. He shredded my hand and put some threats and I "outcarded" him while removing the threats. Killed him twice with the cats.
Round 4 eldrazi tron (2-0) / 3-1
Game 1 I removed all his threats and put two runed halo: first on tks and second on reality smasher. He nevertheless drew a bunch of cards with that stupid land so that the first game took forever. I killed him with an army of cats after a wrath.
Game 2 was even grindier as he managed to resolved a crucible of worlds, with a ghost quarter up and a batterskull but a resolved elspeth carried me there as I managed to ultimate it with some board presence and attack for 30+.
Round 5 BW eldrazi taxes (0-2) / 3-2
Vial turn 1 each game was basically cancer.. Thalia and leonin were basically there to kill the pain and myself.... I thought it would be easier but my hands did not line up well and these vials.....
Round 6 rakdos moon (0-2) / 3-3
Game 1 after swamp, discard your counter / swamp do nothing, I was not expecting fetch red sources blood moon .... On the draw I had landed colonnade and a shockland tapped with removal up (no more counters in hand unfortunately). He then dropped a goblin rabblemaster for the win as I was locked.
Game 2 all was well until I made the stupid mistake to activate my colonnade to block one mutavault (I was at 8 and he attacked with 2). Stupid because I had rev and esper charm in hand and he landed blood moon that turn .... (I was pretty confident he had nothing because I thoughtseized him the turn before). Well...
Round 7 Puresteel paladin combo (2-0) / 4-3
It was an easy one with all the interactions we have against such a deck.
Round 8 GW tron (0-2) / 4-4
Game 1 was ulamog twice turn 4 and 6 (sigh). Game 2 he resolved an early o'stone and a karn (no counters, I kept on the back of thoughtseize). Basically no way to pressure the karn with the o'stone. Karn took the game over by ripping land, hand, land, etc...
So that's it. I also made a side event and I beat the previous winner of GP copenhagen (he was on storm for the side event but he runs fish for GPs)
After a 3 months' crash course with the deck, I am not too disappointed of the results. The deck ran smoothly (most of the times). Mistakes (even small ones) are very punishing. I am still on the learning curve but I hope to do better next GP
On the deck: I was not impressed by surgical extraction and dispel from the sideboard. Fatal push was also quite neglectable. Engineered explosives from the board were great against storm (it basically turns off their empty the warrens plan and they can remand it all day long if they want) and is very flexible in many match ups. I found serum visions really useful in such a wide meta (I guess I changed my mind on these).
Going forward I made some adjustments to the deck and will carry on with this:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Drowned Catacomb
1 Mystic Gate
4 Celestial Colonnade
Instants (22)
4 Path to Exile
3 Think Twice
3 Negate
2 Logic Knot
4 Esper Charm
3 Cryptic Command
2 Sphinx's Revelation
1 White Sun's Zenith
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Runed Halo
4 Serum Visions
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Negate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
2 Vendilion Clique
Glad to explain certain choices if you have questions.
Have a nice day !
How do you find two leylines in the board? Ive done single copy generally with esper but 3-4 anywhere else
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
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Even though it costs more mana EE is significantly better in the fact that you can set it to whatever X value you need and crack it the same turn.
I'm not even going to debate the card choice, because that doesn't even matter; people can and should play what feels right to them. This pretend mathematical elitism is seriously a problem, though. Don't forget that a moderator jumped in and asked people to cut it out; not because he's a moron, but because it reads like complete nonsense to any outside observer.
Just play the game and leave opinions as stated opinion. Don't label dozens of posted tournament results "anecdotal" when all of the non-verifiable FNM and playtesting data people may offer to the contrary are both personal accounts and non-verifiable...the definition of anecdotal.
If you want to play 50-game sets and analyze different success and failure rates for different card configurations, then by all means go ahead. If not, just accept that it's all based off theory and intuition, with the only exception coming from posted, verified tournament results available in bulk. If this deck doesn't see enough play for those to be accurate, then we're just out of luck. No mathematical high ground for anybody.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
To answer Teferi's hypothetical, the cutoff point is when you think the power of the next cantrip you are adding is worth less then the next most powerful card you could add. It just looks confusing because it's difficult to quantify how powerful the card selection is- obviously Mystical Tutor or even Brainstorm has a lot more selective power then Reach Through Mists. If your opinion is all the modern cantrips are bad, then you end up with a 26 land deck with no cantrips. If you think some of them are good, you end up with a different looking deck.
I'd love to play 20 land miracles with 12 cantrips, but we have 0 good cantrips in modern. Serum visions is possibly in the acceptable range, but its not good. While legacy portent miracles does seem to promote the fewer lands, more cantrip style of deck as being optimal, even in a straight draw-go deck, I think its too incomparable to modern because we don't have the cardpool to replicate that and remain at a reasonable power level compared to the rest of the field.
While I think your point about cantrips vs the next best card is good, you do have to acknowledge that our cantrips are probably worse than most of our do-something spells (even if our counterspells are lackluster) but for blue decks in general, serum visions sees a good deal of play, and its not always wrong.
A lot of it is simply looking at a decks game plan. Miracles plays a lot of cantrips because it has to be consistent, to a greater extent than modern decks, because of the nature of legacy as a format. It does not have to hit its land drops all that consistently. 3 lands on t3 is the goal, and is easily attainable. Jace and emtreat are not "must cast on curve" type cards, so being able to choose answers over lands is fine. Past that, being able to choose card selection over card advantage spells is fine. Modern, and esper specifically, can't just make these same assumptions with the card pool we currently have.
IMO, 26 lands is the best if you do not play serum visions. Depending on your exact build, I'd still put the floor at 25 with serum. With donny's AV build, 24 might be acceptable, though his posted list does play 25.
I've played a bit of hieroglyphic illumination myself, and I do agree, I like it more than I expected to. I currently do think is does not belong in this deck (its not better than think twice/charm for us) but I could see many modern decks/brews wanting this. (In particular, the gearhulk blue moon lists that have been floating around). Esper charm is still the undisputed best draw spell in the format, IMO, and for us atleast, think twice is preferable to illumination, but for decks in different colors with different strategies, illumination is very promising.
I haven't tested pull from tomorrow very much, but I suspect its in the same boat: worse than rev, but playable in decks that aren't white.
While both cards are below the power level I'd like to be seeing for blue cards in modern, the fact that they're playable at all is certainly exciting.
Round one
I 2-0d Counter Company, G1 was 27 minutes with fast play on both sides. Finally got him up to a board of double persisted Finks, 2 Druid, 1 birds, 1 seer, 1 hierarch and no cards in hand (2 Esper charms in early turns), untapped into a verdict and then StW for 8 tokens the next turn. G2 he mulled to 4, I opened with leyline of the void and a strong 7. He scooped.
Round two
Here's where I punted Eldrazi Tron. G2 I had in the bag, 2 big misplays cost me the match. Felt pretty strong about the game overall, tight play with a huge misplay led to the loss. Tilted slightly after first error
Round three
Affinity got me game 1, he drew 7 man lands total with a T1 resolved cranial plating. Just couldn't keep enough dudes gone to stay in the game. G2 windmill slammed stony silence into his double thopter, citadel, mox, Springleaf, overseer, nihil spellbomb And rode it to a long slow victory. G3 he put out 5 mana sources by T2, my t3 stony silence followed by t5 baneslayer got me the game.
Round four
Jeskai Nahiri, a close personal friend of mine piloting. We go back and forth draw-go style, I resolve 2 think twice and 2 Esper charm (discard first; then draw) before his ancestral visions rolls out. We have a 4-counter war over it, no resolution, he passes. Draw go, he slams nahiri with snap-> Negate backup. Spent 3 turns trying to connect with a Colonnade but got pte'd, ghost quarter, and Colonnade-traded, with Negate for my fatal push pre-blockers. Lured and attacked for exact game. G2 grinded down to a halt, realized I could let him resolve AVisions because his card quality was lower than mine, he had two counting down by t3, I got secure for 3 off with double backup, he took 3, ajani vengeant to lock one down, EOT sphinx rev for 4, untapping attack him for 2, he casts nahiri and uses -2 on both walkers, passes, EOT snap-> secure and rode the 6 tokens to a long victory. 4:30 left in round as we started game 3, took the 2-1 victory and split the credit.
Deck felt really solid tonight. I never felt like I wasn't in a game. Eldrazi Tron even felt strongly winnable, despite the nut draw. A wrath would've put me right back into that game. G2 he got wrecked by snap/cryptic loop until he finally set up game-winning board state. I had the lethal but blew it
Against jeskai nahiri: before I resolved snap-> secure for the game-winning tokens, I extirpated his two negates in yard. He had 2 snap in hand and just lost because he didn't have any other counters. I will forever advocate extirpate over surgical in this deck (dredge also can't respond to it by cracking fetch to save a bloodghast, or sacrificing neonate to dredge). We always have the mana up, so why not play a card they can't play around?
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
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How many extraction effects are you playing in the side? You could always do a split if you play more than 1. Generally, SE being "free" is going to better in most cases. For example, even though Ext gets around Dredge's fetch triggers, you may be colour screwed off a black source on turns 1-2 where if you had SE you'd be fine and sometimes having to pay a single B can be awkward when wanting to do other things EOT. Though, the difference between the 2 is mostly irrelevant and Extirpate does have it's upsides against other control decks and Academy Ruins. The one and only deck I'd snap-keep Extirpate over Surgical Extraction would be those jank Metalwork Colossus decks where it's nigh impossible to Surgical. I think they are both good cards and same same but different.
WMMT5dx: Car - RK Coupe Track - Hakone Outbound
Like I said, never been a time when it's been awkward for me, I played a split back in original eggs meta and eventually went double extirpate because they couldn't respond. Can't play around it either
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Not quite. My argument against SV in most decklists is that you can't play both cantrips and the 10 card draw suite while still packing enough answers, and you can't cut the card advantage spells or the deck doesn't function.
If we got ponder back tomorrow, you better believe I would re-tool and be playing a deck that was not designed to just cast x-spells. But serum visions isn't strong enough of a cantrip for me to rely on to do that.
Spell snare is the best card in our mainboard against death's shadow short of blessed alliance. It hits goyf against the jund and 4c versions and it hits snapcaster against the grixis versions. Spell snare in general is the best g1 answer you can have against affinity, snapcaster mage, tarmogoyf, and storm. If your opponent isn't playing one of those decks, then whatever they are playing is very weak to wraths, grave hate, land hate, or some combination thereof. Or your opponent is Jeff Hogland because nobody else plays kiki chord.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Blessed Alliance isn't even that great against DS tbh -- they just discard it out of your hand before attacks. And that's not just theory, it's happened to me many times in games. Path is the best card we have, because it's unconditional and helps to blank Kolaghan's Command.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Yes, Serum Visions is garbage compared to Ponder, but it's one of our best turn one plays, and it plays a key role in the deck. Since modern is so diverse, the scry 2 really helps you avoid drawing "the wrong half of the deck" problem. Also, the scry 2 synergizes really well with the Draw 2 on Esper Charm. Setting up Charm with Visions lets you dig 4 cards or draw 2 known good cards!
Speaking of turn one plays, 4x Ancestral is the best turn one play in the deck. In the past month, I've not lost a game that started with suspend AV. I see people complain that it's a bad topdeck, but it's really not that bad to suspend one late game. Also I'm running As Foretold, so a topdecked vision usually turns into a better Pot of Greed. Drawing 4 cards on turn 5 almost always sets you up to chain Snap Cryptics, which is how this deck wins.
Bicycle lands: Wow! Fetid Pools and Irrigated Farmland are perfect for the deck. I'm running one of each and love them! If I'm flooding it's a think twice, if I'm starved it's a land. Also you can just hold these in your hand vs Jund and they can't thoughtseize them away.
Man lands: I'm running Tar Pit and Shambling Vent and no collonades. The lower activation cost is the main reason, additionally, lifelink and unblockable are more relevant than flying in most games.
Win conditions: WSZ has really not impressed me and secure feels too unreliable, so I've been using 2x Tasigur 4x Snapcaster as my wincons. Turn 5 Verdict into Tasigur or Tasigur hold up Cryptic feels great and blocks better than chump tokens.
So basically I tried to make each part of the deck use less mana so I could drop lands and add more cantrips and interaction to end up with a more consistent deck. I'm currently on 22 lands (4 taplands total) with 4 AV and 4 SV and the balance feels really good.