On the midrange topic I really feel like ooze's and finks are some of the best creatures green has right now. Finks in particular are incredibly annoying. They are great at anti LotV duty and protecting your own PWs. Plus you can use them with discards/counter setup to bait out PtE and make it look pretty bad when you respond with an early fatty.
Completely agree with you. Finks in particular is a very annoying card to deal with, especially for a deck like ours that wants to consistently trade 1-for-1s. PtE is one of the better answers to it, and baiting your opponent to waste one on a Finks when you will conceivably have Tasigur and Thragtusk to close out the game seems very strong. They also give the deck a much better shot at the Burn matchup, serving as both a speed bump for their creatures and a vitamin.
I have been brewing with the intention of gearing the deck towards a more controlling build, piggybacking off of your comments about Tarmogoyf. I still love the card, but as you mentioned, if we are truly going for a gameplan of slowing grinding our opponents, I don't think they really fit. I also like the idea of putting the deck in a position where Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay are at best sub-optimal answers to our threats and at worst will completely blank them. This strategy is not as conducive to running Ooze but certainly makes Thrun, the Last Troll an attractive option.
- Not sure about the counter suite. Stubborn Denial is not really viable in the deck so I'm playing a one-of Spell Pierce instead. Disdainful Stroke is underrated IMO as it counters Siege Rhino, Cryptic Command, Splinter Twin, Collected Company, Tasigur, and a slew of other cards. I almost want to up the count but I'm aware that it will be a straight up dead card in certain matchups like Burn and Merfolk. Even the one-of may be incorrect.
- Engineered Explosives serves as another versatile sweeper, but Drown in Sorrow may be a better choice
- The absence of discard is an obvious diversion from the original decklist, and follows the desire to create a more control-oriented build. I feel that without Tarmogoyf they aren't necessarily worth including
- I really want to run a copy or two of Phyrexian Arena to add some card advantage to the deck, but I hate that it 1. does nothing the turn it comes into play and 2. is a Decay target. It was mentioned that 2 Compulsive Research may be too clunky. What are some other options here? Another Jace AoT?
- I was trying to think of some other options for win-conditions outside of creatures and Ashiok, and Jace, Memory Adept came to mind. His 0 ability will make short work of an opponent and we have Snapcasters and Finks to protect him, but he's vulnerable to direct damage. Is he even viable? Maybe as a SB option vs. other control decks?
Would appreciate any feedback on the deck, including land breakdown.
Edit: Was supposed to be Jace AoT in the main, oops!
Thanks for the input. There are definitely some good takeaways, but one of the good things about running true mix of Goyf and Tasigur/Angler is that most of my big guys pass the Bolt test. Cutting Tasigurs for Bob not only weakens my threat mix against Bolt, but also Abrupt Decay. I am pretty light on threats as-is, and need what I resolve to stick around and do some damage.
Fair enough. I was actually picturing a mix of the two altough I didn't convey that I guess.. i.e. add 2 bobs at the expense of 1 tas and something would be great.
On the bolt/decay thing, while this is true I have been having similar issues with these removals simply because I have not saturated enough viable targets for either. This has led me to choose to either eliminate certain cards or increase the targets. Its actually one of the only reasons I miss goyfs in my build so far. On the brite side Bob forces them to have it quick or lose. I can't think of another compliment threat to goyf that does that for 2 cmc. Just a friendly idea.
Going off the RUG build which I've been following as well - the pilot that won the SCG event is a frequent poster here. He runs Curiosity and a bunch of cantrips to keep the cards flowing. The way this deck is built so far, it does not have a card advantage engine at that level.
I've been following that thread a little as well. Fantastic deck btw and unusual to see a CA engine in RUG. Curiosity might be worth testing here as well idk.
What I like about Slaughter Pact is that against Twin, it is essentially a Force of Will that does not cost you an extra card and actually 2 for 1s the opponent. With it, you can engage in a counter war with them over Splinter Twin and still win by playing Pact.
Ok gotcha, this shows my limited experience with this format but good to know. Pact was always for hatebears when I used it but I can see the broader value now so thanks.
About the lands - I am casually familiar with Legacy and know a few general decks and game plans. I would assume that the deck we are approximating this list to runs Brainstorms - that card pulls so much weight in the format and does its job so well, I don't think there is a good comparison here with Serum Visions. I guess there must be a lot of similarities to Team America the way this deck is built, but those similarities are not intentional - these are the cards I've selected to attack the format.
This is true to an extent because all tempo run 4 wasteland which isn't actually counted as a land but a 0cc spell so they usually function on 15-16 lands fueled by at least 8 strong cantrip engine. I was kinda picturing something similar with visions + dimir charm etc although thats all theory. Its very roughly similar, mostly due to BUG colors and plan.
I don't mean to slam your ideas as there's a lot of good stuff here - I particularly like the idea of running soft permission and mana denial with Tec Edge. Mana Leak is not only easier to cast, it also synergies well with discard. With previous midrangy builds of this deck, I ran a full 4 Mana Leak with 3 Snares, 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Inquisition. This enabled really messed up starting lines of play where you could T1 discard, T2 Spell Snare, T3 Mana Leak, or T1 discard, T2 discard with Spell Snare up, T3 Serum Vision with Mana Leak up and set up the rest of your game... then drop a Goyf with a bunch of stuff in the bin and bash until the opponent top decks an answer.
No offense taken. I haven't piloted the deck but I like the shell and decided to throw some ideas out there. Tec edge + leaks have been one of the better things for me in BUG honestly and for all the reasons you've stated. I really really wish there was a better wasteland variant. Hmm squeltch could be worth considering as well. Also any thoughts on dimir charm?
HelloFriendo:
My creature suite is identical to yours right now +1 thragtusk/finks. I've been bringing goyfs back here and there in place of finks and a SCM or random card. Its hard to say man, in some matches goyfs come out early and just win but at least just as often they don't contribute anything. Ooze is always an MVP and so is grave titan and swagtusks. Double swags or a titan is usually game.
I tried thrun in the main and hes just outclassed too often. Bummer because theres times when he shines but its just not often enough to warrant a main slot IMO. That said I found some nice synergy with bow of nylea form the SB and thrun/finks both.
On your list I really think you should go back to jace, architect of thought. That card is house against lingering souls and generates huge card advantage if left unchecked for even 3 turns. I've owned one forever but only recently started playing with it and I'm seriously impressed. I've never really been sad to seem him. The other walker thats been really good to me so far is garruk wildspeaker. He ramps into early thragtusks/titan especially if they pathed something early and his untap ability leaves counter magic up. He does a lot to stall the board and I've also won a fair amount of games off his overrun especially with 6/5 tarpits.
I don't think spell pierce is good in a midrange shell. It would be better off as another leak if you aren't wanting to run cryptics. I also feel you need discard in this format. Our counterspell options are just too weak to carry disruption alone without hand information but together they answer a lot of threats that are harder/impossible to deal with once resolved. Hmm might rune snag be worth considering?
In general I'm almost at the point of considering just running 4 oozes and jamming them whenever I draw one. Can't say enough about that card.
Fair enough. I was actually picturing a mix of the two altough I didn't convey that I guess.. i.e. add 2 bobs at the expense of 1 tas and something would be great.
On the bolt/decay thing, while this is true I have been having similar issues with these removals simply because I have not saturated enough viable targets for either. This has led me to choose to either eliminate certain cards or increase the targets. Its actually one of the only reasons I miss goyfs in my build so far. On the brite side Bob forces them to have it quick or lose. I can't think of another compliment threat to goyf that does that for 2 cmc. Just a friendly idea.
I would think Bob would be effective in this deck if you played some number of Death's Shadow to make the life loss more relevant. If we choose to go in this direction though, we are losing percentage points vs. GBx decks as our 'closing' threat is vulnerable to a topdecked Abrupt Decay. There is a UB suicide deck floating around with Delvers, Death's Shadow, and Vendetta/Dismember that looks like a heck of a lot of fun to play.
Thinking about it a little more - I ran an earlier version of this deck with: 4 Goyf, 4 Bob, 2 Tasigur, 3 Death's Shadow coupled with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or two with some number of Funeral Charm - I was even able to win a game by making my Death's Shadow a swampwalking 9/9! ...I somehow managed to top-8 a 45-player event with this but lost in the first round to a Goryo's Vengeance deck because I drew too many Death's Shadow and had no way to force myself to lose life.
Ok gotcha, this shows my limited experience with this format but good to know. Pact was always for hatebears when I used it but I can see the broader value now so thanks.
I am actually a really big fan of Pact right now; it's not the most versatile removal spell in the format, but lets you kill stuff while still leaving mana up for a counter (provided you don't only have 3 lands in play with just Deprive...lol). You don't have to really make a choice between binning a dude on their combat step vs. countering whatever they're holding back - and ideally, we've already deployed a threat so we technically will be tempo positive by dealing with their threat while keeping ours on board. It's also got great synergy with a Tasigur activation or a Snapcaster Mage re-buy.
This is true to an extent because all tempo run 4 wasteland which isn't actually counted as a land but a 0cc spell so they usually function on 15-16 lands fueled by at least 8 strong cantrip engine. I was kinda picturing something similar with visions + dimir charm etc although thats all theory. Its very roughly similar, mostly due to BUG colors and plan.
I'm thinking without access to Brainstorm to fix our draw, running 15-16 lands with so many multicolored spells is asking for trouble. Maybe if we had Ponder?
No offense taken. I haven't piloted the deck but I like the shell and decided to throw some ideas out there. Tec edge + leaks have been one of the better things for me in BUG honestly and for all the reasons you've stated. I really really wish there was a better wasteland variant. Hmm squeltch could be worth considering as well. Also any thoughts on dimir charm?
Squelch seems good, but not always relevant. The prospect of hitting the other team's fetchland activation on T2 is very tempting...
Not sure about Dimir Charm. For it's cost, you are getting a pseudo-Smother that can't target Vendilion Clique (amongst other things, but I couldn't think of any other relevant cards with CMC under 3 and power over 2) and a weaker Negate, but you *are* getting a better Thought Scour that has potential to help flip Delver. I know UB Faeries was running it in Modern for awhile but I think for what it does, the modes are a little too expensive - it's a lot like Sultai Charm in that way (you're paying 1 extra mana for a loot/Ultimate Price (aka a worse Doom Blade)/Naturalize effect.
HelloFriendo:
My creature suite is identical to yours right now +1 thragtusk/finks. I've been bringing goyfs back here and there in place of finks and a SCM or random card. Its hard to say man, in some matches goyfs come out early and just win but at least just as often they don't contribute anything. Ooze is always an MVP and so is grave titan and swagtusks. Double swags or a titan is usually game.
I tried thrun in the main and hes just outclassed too often. Bummer because theres times when he shines but its just not often enough to warrant a main slot IMO. That said I found some nice synergy with bow of nylea form the SB and thrun/finks both.
On your list I really think you should go back to jace, architect of thought. That card is house against lingering souls and generates huge card advantage if left unchecked for even 3 turns. I've owned one forever but only recently started playing with it and I'm seriously impressed. I've never really been sad to seem him. The other walker thats been really good to me so far is garruk wildspeaker. He ramps into early thragtusks/titan especially if they pathed something early and his untap ability leaves counter magic up. He does a lot to stall the board and I've also won a fair amount of games off his overrun especially with 6/5 tarpits.
I don't think spell pierce is good in a midrange shell. It would be better off as another leak if you aren't wanting to run cryptics. I also feel you need discard in this format. Our counterspell options are just too weak to carry disruption alone without hand information but together they answer a lot of threats that are harder/impossible to deal with once resolved. Hmm might rune snag be worth considering?
In general I'm almost at the point of considering just running 4 oozes and jamming them whenever I draw one. Can't say enough about that card.
Jace is incredible in the midrange/control version. Two is too many, though.
Garruk seems good to incredible if you are running some number of Bitterblossom in your 75.
I agree that counters by themselves are awful in this format - I am willing to bet a lot of us have felt the sting of clutching a Negate while staring down an opponent's Keranos on the stack.
4 Oozes seems like a lot. I don't know if there are enough creatures hitting the bin to justify running 4 (although I can see running up to 3 if Collected Company becomes a more prominent threat in the meta).
Took me a while to craft this post so I hope there's some helpful information here.
Mx42- thanks for the insights. I was just spit balling on the oozes but 3 are great.
Back on the midrange subject again I've been brewing on the concept HelloFriendo and I have been messing with and I'd like some input on it. Heres where the concept is at:
So I've been running more green to support my creature suite and make oozes better, plus I just don't need UUU for cryptics. Also I've found 2 tar pits to be excellent but rarely can I activate both, thus the treetop village. I feel village is the better manland more often than not and I'd really love a 2nd but I don't want to give up the fastlands quite yet.
So the other new inclusions are the vastwoods and bow of nylea. Both have crazy good synergy with finks. Bow I feel is already a borderline maindeck inclusion and the added synergy in this shell might just push it into maindeck territory. It breaks board stalls with deathtouch and +1/+1 counters, makes endless reoccurring finks, actively combats grave strategies and souls, trumps opposing oozes, makes villages and garruk tokens 4/4's, and grinds by recycling spent cards like snaps/damnation etc. Bow and vastwood also cancel out lightning bolts on swagtusks/villages/beast tokens. The only downside is the amount of removal that can hit bow which I kinda touched on above.
Anyway I'm not sure if 2 vastwood is correct at this point but the card has serious potential. Think of it as our gavony township. Not quite as good an ability but it costs nothing to activate as opposed to 4 and it produces colored mana. Also garruk can use it twice.. picture the times when you may have 1 or even 2 vastwood and garruk putting four +1/+1 counters on your finks/swags/tokens etc.
Oh wow I never even considered the synergy between Oren-Rief and Finks, that is awesome! Can you imagine casting Damnation with two finks on the board and then +1ing both of them once they persist? Will definitely be trying out at least 1 in the main. May even be worth playing a 25th land if you're also running manlands.
So the other new inclusions are the vastwoods and bow of nylea. Both have crazy good synergy with finks. Bow I feel is already a borderline maindeck inclusion and the added synergy in this shell might just push it into maindeck territory. It breaks board stalls with deathtouch and +1/+1 counters, makes endless reoccurring finks, actively combats grave strategies and souls, trumps opposing oozes, makes villages and garruk tokens 4/4's, and grinds by recycling spent cards like snaps/damnation etc. Bow and vastwood also cancel out lightning bolts on swagtusks/villages/beast tokens. The only downside is the amount of removal that can hit bow which I kinda touched on above.
It can only target your own GY Though the card does seem interesting. The fact that it shoots down Delvers, Cliques, and Bitterblossom tokens isn't irrelevant.
I have been considering trying Bitterblossom as well, and would fit in nicely with a list with Finks. Is the Garruk synergy being referred to due to his overrun effect?
Played this list http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/29-05-15-CIJ-sultai-control/ yesterday on a PRE on MTGO (http://goo.gl/fopHsK) to a top 8, beating Twin, Burn, Soul Sisters, U Tron and losing to Mono Green Stompy in the top 8 (the guy went on to win it all, dropping only 3 games, one to me - he had a lot of hate cards like Thrun, Choke and Dungrove Elder, so basically not finding a Damnation equals a defeat).
Deck behaved well. I feel like I have too many 4 drops, but they were all great anyway. Victim of the Night is totally greedy but I wanted a 2cc kill spell that also worked against Affinity (hence removing Go for the Throat).
I have played this deck for weeks now, my list can be shown a bit further up. I struggle hard versus the Tier 1 aggro (Burn, affinity and Infect) and most other aggro strategies that relies on creatures. What you think about including 4 Lightning bolt? I am thinking about swapping the 2 Creeping tar pit and 1 Tectonic edge versus something like Steam vents, stomping ground and Frontier Bivouac. I am removing 2 Thoughtseize and Ashiok, Nightmare weaver due to the lackluster this cards are versus aggro.
I have done many tests against Affinity, and I have to agree that this match up is very tough.
Even using the SB, It is not 50:50 match up if Affinity starts the game first.
If anyone has a better SB idea without changing the 15 SB cards much, please let me know.
------------------------------------------------
Regarding the match up against Burn, it is relatively easier for Sultai-Control.
SB in:
2 Feed the Clan
1 Spellskite
1 Nature's Claim
3 Disfigure
How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Golgari Charm is good against them, as is Darkblast if you're looking for other answers in your 75.
Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
I have played this deck for weeks now, my list can be shown a bit further up. I struggle hard versus the Tier 1 aggro (Burn, affinity and Infect) and most other aggro strategies that relies on creatures. What you think about including 4 Lightning bolt? I am thinking about swapping the 2 Creeping tar pit and 1 Tectonic edge versus something like Steam vents, stomping ground and Frontier Bivouac. I am removing 2 Thoughtseize and Ashiok, Nightmare weaver due to the lackluster this cards are versus aggro.
I have done many tests against Affinity, and I have to agree that this match up is very tough.
Even using the SB, It is not 50:50 match up if Affinity starts the game first.
If anyone has a better SB idea without changing the 15 SB cards much, please let me know.
------------------------------------------------
Regarding the match up against Burn, it is relatively easier for Sultai-Control.
SB in:
2 Feed the Clan
1 Spellskite
1 Nature's Claim
3 Disfigure
How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Golgari Charm is good against them, as is Darkblast if you're looking for other answers in your 75.
Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
>> How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
>> Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Sower and Clique are the only creatures with flying we have, that can block Affinity creatures. This is why I leave them there.
Board control (removal) are the primary way I do to fight against Affinity, if you look at my sideboard plan.
Plan disruption (discard or counters) does not work well: Mana Leak: It is basically a one for one trading. When Affinity dumps so many threars on the board on the first two turns, I always feel that holding a mana leak on my hand is useless. Thoughtseize: It is very good to remove Plating, but you need to draw it before turn 2 or turn 3. Otherwise, it is also a dead card. Another reason I am afraid of using Thoughtseize is the 2 life point lose, which is painful against Affinity
>> Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Tarmogoyf can help you win the game after turn 4 or turn 5, but he cannot help you not to lose the game before turn 3 or turn 4. Because he cannot block most of the Affinity creatures. I feel that I need be alive in the earlier game, thus I take out Goyf and Tasigur.
>> Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
Mana Leak is a potential good option. I might give it more chance for the match-up against Affinity.
Has anyone else been testing this deck? I really like it but it sure doesn't seem to be picking up any steam. I think some adjustments should be made to the main deck for it to be more competitive. Mainly it needs more mainboard removal (I love Victim of Night and Murderous Cut)and I think just one Thragtusk would be a good start.
I think this deck actually has a better matchup against Tron and Amulet than Jund and Abzan, at least game 1 (g2 Abzan can side Stony Silence, which's probably the best anti-Tron card and Jund can go greedy with Blood Moon to crush Amulet).
Here's the description I copied from Tappedout:
Victim of Night is a poor's man Terminate. It's definitely greedy, but the deck is capable of hitting BB quite consistently. Urborg is probably worth a try, but I'm happy with the current manabase.
I had a 1/1 split of Victim and Murderous Cut but I already have 2 Tasigur and Goyfs, so I don't want to delve that much.
I removed both Ashioks from the MD. Tested Phyrexian Arena first and now I'm trying Monastery Siege. The Khans mode draws an extra card and feeds Tasigur/Goyf, which's nice. The Dragons mode is decent against Burn albeit a bit too slow at 3cc, but it's also good against random decks.
An earlier version had 1 Jace AoT but I wanted to lower the curve while still keeping 2 Cryptics and 2 Damnations, so Jace had to go. It's probably a good SB option.
If you're feeling extra greedy, you can cut down to 23 lands but I like to be sure I won't get stuck at 2-3 lands and Serum Visions helps a lot to avoid flooding.
I feel one slot from the SB should be geared towards the grindy BGx and URx matchups. I had a Wurmcoil Engine there (castable under Blood Moon) but another Thragtusk is also an option.
For a while I had 4 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize but Tron and Amulet basically require the turn 1 discard to be beatable and Thoughtseize is better than IoK against Tron.
I think this deck actually has a better matchup against Tron and Amulet than Jund and Abzan, at least game 1 (g2 Abzan can side Stony Silence, which's probably the best anti-Tron card and Jund can go greedy with Blood Moon to crush Amulet).
Here's the description I copied from Tappedout:
Victim of Night is a poor's man Terminate. It's definitely greedy, but the deck is capable of hitting BB quite consistently. Urborg is probably worth a try, but I'm happy with the current manabase.
I had a 1/1 split of Victim and Murderous Cut but I already have 2 Tasigur and Goyfs, so I don't want to delve that much.
I removed both Ashioks from the MD. Tested Phyrexian Arena first and now I'm trying Monastery Siege. The Khans mode draws an extra card and feeds Tasigur/Goyf, which's nice. The Dragons mode is decent against Burn albeit a bit too slow at 3cc, but it's also good against random decks.
An earlier version had 1 Jace AoT but I wanted to lower the curve while still keeping 2 Cryptics and 2 Damnations, so Jace had to go. It's probably a good SB option.
If you're feeling extra greedy, you can cut down to 23 lands but I like to be sure I won't get stuck at 2-3 lands and Serum Visions helps a lot to avoid flooding.
I feel one slot from the SB should be geared towards the grindy BGx and URx matchups. I had a Wurmcoil Engine there (castable under Blood Moon) but another Thragtusk is also an option.
For a while I had 4 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize but Tron and Amulet basically require the turn 1 discard to be beatable and Thoughtseize is better than IoK against Tron.
Good stuff. I actually really like Ashiok, which I was very surprised by. He seems great in pretty much all decks that have resilient threats (Jund, Junk, Tron, CC Abzan, etc.)
I currently have 2x Thoughtsieze and 4x IoK and I like that better than the 1/4 split. I think a Dismember in the MB would be beneficial as well. A variety of kill spells (VoN, Dismember, Cut, Decay, Maesltrom) keeps most of our bases covered.
What is your current plan against Affinity? I would bring in some Disfigures and such, maybe a Nature's Claim or two.
Yeah, Ashiok is definitely good against BGx decks. I had 1 in the SB for a while, but removed due to lack of space. I don't like it MD because it's just dead too often in the format and we need flexible cards MD.
I top 8d a PRE event two weeks ago with Ashiok in the SB and won a game against Soul Sisters by milling my opponent while using Jace's +1 to stall the board. That was fun.
I like Dismember too. Can see the list with 1 Victim/1 Dismember. I played against Grixis with Angler this weekend and, well, Angler is a zombie, so that wasn't fun.
Affinity is the reason I'm playing Victim over Go for the Throat. I'm currently testing 3 Fulminators because Amulet and Tron are the flavor of the week, but I actually had 1 Creeping Corrosion there before. Night of Souls' Betrayal is really good against them (just make sure they don't stick an Overseer or Ravager, all the rest is dead). Between the early discard, Decay, Darkblast (a house against that deck), Disfigures, Snapcaster, the matchup is okay unless they have these ridiculous nut draws that even more copies of Creeping Corrosion wouldn't be able to beat.
BUG is my favorite color combination hands down. However this deck competes with the other two premiere BGx decks for a midrange spot in the format and here it just seems it falls short.
I guess I feel like this is what the deck needs to be tuned for anyway, otherwise whats the point exactly? People will play the best BGx deck, or as evidenced one of the two.. but 3rd is a bench warmer.
Problem is the removal and threat packages are almost all strictly worse than jund or junk and conditional. disfigure vs bolt, Victim/GftT vs terminate/path etc. After having messed with the OP list and diverging quite heavily from it I find myself shoehorned right back into that shell, but its still lacking because decks are adapting. Annoying. This archetype needs a reprint or something new to shake it up.
Thing is I do feel like the colors have what it takes but I can't find the right combinations.. lilianas maybe? Bobs, finks, sweepers, dragonlords or titans even?
From my perspective on the rock archetype variant (i.e. midrange):
Why are we in blue at all?
Cantrips/snaps/jace/cryptics/countermagic. These are great cards and make playing alternatives like bob/siege etc less essential unlike the other BGx deck(s). And counter/discard split should be better than 6-7 discards for multiple reasons, and well it is sometimes. Would be always if the counters were on par with the discards in this damned format. Sorry /rant.
So is the consistency/CA from blue worth the trade off for red or even white?
Bolts/terminates/kolaghans/angers/olivias/huntmasters/outposts/chandras.. doesn't quite seem that way at this point sadly. White is honestly less appealing to me but the SB options are great while still having good MB reasons for the splash.
Meh maybe a 4th color wouldn't be the worst thing since it could open up some options.. while folding to moon strats like nuthin'. At least in the meantime until Wiz reprints shardless and strix.
Dominus, I do agree with you. In the general picture, I'd rank the BGx decks Abzan > Jund > Sultai (just because Jund is big now, and Abzan has the edge on the pseudo-mirror and great SB options).
I play all three decks. But I love playing blue cards, so that's why I keep tuning Sultai and testing it. I do think that Sultai is better than the others against Tron, Amulet, Storm and probably other linear decks because you have discard + counters. That said, our "4 drops" are Damnation and Cryptic, and these cards aren't able to close games like Rhino and Olivia/Huntmaster. Liliana is also a better mirror breaker and superior to the 3 drops on Sultai.
Thanks for the thoughts lucas. Heres where I'm at..
I think we need to reevaluate this deck. Lower the curve in general to compete with the bolt decks and not just the above but also all grixis. Specifically add a few removals like disfigure/dismember/GftT as opposed to say the higher end damnations which I feel need to get sided. Golgari charm is stellar but explosives could stand to be reconsidered also. Decays and pulse are in essence our bolts due to flexibility meaning they allow us to increase the removal density in conjunction with cantrips.
Change up the counter suite to include some number of snares and possibly denials. Denial is conditional but going a little more aggro-control to force on-curve plays plus the number of ferocious enablers we have access to in these colors (goyf/tas/angler/hooters/stalker) makes denial often a 1 mana hard counter. We NEED hard counters and OtD answers and both of these are super relevant right now in a sea of snaps/goyfs/blooms/bobs and so on. On that note go up to the 4th darkslick shores probably at the expense of a tar pit and increase the snap count and drop the land count too.
And lastly bring in some tech like say a couple monastery siege, maybe even a single redirect for sooo many reasons. twin, decays etc but some of the best would probably be redirecting twin or kolaghan's command or a cryptic.
I've also been reconsidering anglers and maybe even a tombstalker or possibly even thassa.
Now how to put this all together I'm still brewing. So theres my spitball for the day.
During my initial tests I had 1 Spell Snare and liked it. Since then I replaced it with 1 Darkbast because MTGO has lots of random creature decks and Darkblast is also awesome against Affinity, but it's dead a lot of times.
I also tried a Jund-like version with Bob and leaving only Jace AoT as the 4 drop. Problem is we just don't have enough cheap impactful cards like Bolt and Ooze (who provide lifegain to counterbalance Bob's effect). It had more velocity but also less late game power.
I went up to 4 Darkslick Shores cutting one Breeding Pool. Also tried 23 lands but was mana screwed some times and went back to 24.
Stubborn Denial could work, but the "noncreature" clause makes me doubt how good it would be. That said, I don't usually have problems removing Goyfs and Tasigurs (I'm playing 3 Decays, 1 Pulse, 2 Victim of Night and 2 Damnation), so it might be good.
I'm liking Monastery Siege. Doubles up as anti-Burn tech g1. I'm even considering going to 2 MD copies (probably replacing the Compulsive Research, which's good too).
Another card I'm considering now is Shadow of Doubt. Amulet and Tron are everywhere (at least online) and this is even maindeckable. I'm thinking 1 copy MD, 2-3 SB (replacing the Fulminators). We don't have K Command to recur Fulminators, but we do have 3 Snapcasters to recur Shadow of Doubt.
The biggest problem I used to have while playing this deck is that black does not provide a "good" (in terms of maindeck-able) removal spell for 1 mana. Decaying a Delver on the draw is so much tempo negative. The opposing battlefield clocked sometimes really fast and you had to rely on your damnation, which is a 4 mana sorcery...
Dont know if Darkslick shores are what we want to do. They are great for painless visions/discard on the first turn, but they are getting so much worse after t3. We are already super slow and granting the 4th land we hit is darkslick shores/or the fifth, we are going to timewalk ourself and dont get Jace/thragtusk/command/damnation. Therefore I´d hesitate to play more than 2 copies of this land. Also blood moon becomes more and more an issue because its a given to beat Bloom Titan...
I think Dismember is very much main deck worthy, and maybe even a Disfigure. Both are good against Affinity, which I consider to be just about the worst matchup. I would start with a removal suite like this:
Drawing Darkslick Shores as my 4th or 5th land hasn't happened a lot. Also, regarding Blood Moon, you're probably cutting down on Shores to add other nonbasics, so it should be the same thing.
I've been considering Disfigure MD (as our really poor's man Bolt) but went with Darkblast instead.
Drawing Darkslick Shores as my 4th or 5th land hasn't happened a lot. Also, regarding Blood Moon, you're probably cutting down on Shores to add other nonbasics, so it should be the same thing.
I've been considering Disfigure MD (as our really poor's man Bolt) but went with Darkblast instead.
I think we need to have 2x Dismember MD. It is so good and hits all the manlands we struggle with. I put the deck back together and I just don't have room for Disfigure in the main, so 2x Dismember and 1x Cut for the main, 2x Disfigure in the side.
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Completely agree with you. Finks in particular is a very annoying card to deal with, especially for a deck like ours that wants to consistently trade 1-for-1s. PtE is one of the better answers to it, and baiting your opponent to waste one on a Finks when you will conceivably have Tasigur and Thragtusk to close out the game seems very strong. They also give the deck a much better shot at the Burn matchup, serving as both a speed bump for their creatures and a vitamin.
I have been brewing with the intention of gearing the deck towards a more controlling build, piggybacking off of your comments about Tarmogoyf. I still love the card, but as you mentioned, if we are truly going for a gameplan of slowing grinding our opponents, I don't think they really fit. I also like the idea of putting the deck in a position where Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay are at best sub-optimal answers to our threats and at worst will completely blank them. This strategy is not as conducive to running Ooze but certainly makes Thrun, the Last Troll an attractive option.
This is what I've been testing with:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Grave Titan
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Thragtusk
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
1 Disdainful Stroke
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Golgari Charm
1 Go for the Throat
1 Compulsive Research
2 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
1 Twilight Mire
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Tectonic Edge
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Dragon's Claw
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Spellskite
3 Disfigure
2 Rain of Tears
1 Damnation
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Golgari Charm
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Some thoughts/questions:
- Not sure about the counter suite. Stubborn Denial is not really viable in the deck so I'm playing a one-of Spell Pierce instead. Disdainful Stroke is underrated IMO as it counters Siege Rhino, Cryptic Command, Splinter Twin, Collected Company, Tasigur, and a slew of other cards. I almost want to up the count but I'm aware that it will be a straight up dead card in certain matchups like Burn and Merfolk. Even the one-of may be incorrect.
- Engineered Explosives serves as another versatile sweeper, but Drown in Sorrow may be a better choice
- The absence of discard is an obvious diversion from the original decklist, and follows the desire to create a more control-oriented build. I feel that without Tarmogoyf they aren't necessarily worth including
- I really want to run a copy or two of Phyrexian Arena to add some card advantage to the deck, but I hate that it 1. does nothing the turn it comes into play and 2. is a Decay target. It was mentioned that 2 Compulsive Research may be too clunky. What are some other options here? Another Jace AoT?
- I was trying to think of some other options for win-conditions outside of creatures and Ashiok, and Jace, Memory Adept came to mind. His 0 ability will make short work of an opponent and we have Snapcasters and Finks to protect him, but he's vulnerable to direct damage. Is he even viable? Maybe as a SB option vs. other control decks?
Would appreciate any feedback on the deck, including land breakdown.
Edit: Was supposed to be Jace AoT in the main, oops!
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Fair enough. I was actually picturing a mix of the two altough I didn't convey that I guess.. i.e. add 2 bobs at the expense of 1 tas and something would be great.
On the bolt/decay thing, while this is true I have been having similar issues with these removals simply because I have not saturated enough viable targets for either. This has led me to choose to either eliminate certain cards or increase the targets. Its actually one of the only reasons I miss goyfs in my build so far. On the brite side Bob forces them to have it quick or lose. I can't think of another compliment threat to goyf that does that for 2 cmc. Just a friendly idea.
I've been following that thread a little as well. Fantastic deck btw and unusual to see a CA engine in RUG. Curiosity might be worth testing here as well idk.
Ok gotcha, this shows my limited experience with this format but good to know. Pact was always for hatebears when I used it but I can see the broader value now so thanks.
This is true to an extent because all tempo run 4 wasteland which isn't actually counted as a land but a 0cc spell so they usually function on 15-16 lands fueled by at least 8 strong cantrip engine. I was kinda picturing something similar with visions + dimir charm etc although thats all theory. Its very roughly similar, mostly due to BUG colors and plan.
No offense taken. I haven't piloted the deck but I like the shell and decided to throw some ideas out there. Tec edge + leaks have been one of the better things for me in BUG honestly and for all the reasons you've stated. I really really wish there was a better wasteland variant. Hmm squeltch could be worth considering as well. Also any thoughts on dimir charm?
HelloFriendo:
My creature suite is identical to yours right now +1 thragtusk/finks. I've been bringing goyfs back here and there in place of finks and a SCM or random card. Its hard to say man, in some matches goyfs come out early and just win but at least just as often they don't contribute anything. Ooze is always an MVP and so is grave titan and swagtusks. Double swags or a titan is usually game.
I tried thrun in the main and hes just outclassed too often. Bummer because theres times when he shines but its just not often enough to warrant a main slot IMO. That said I found some nice synergy with bow of nylea form the SB and thrun/finks both.
On your list I really think you should go back to jace, architect of thought. That card is house against lingering souls and generates huge card advantage if left unchecked for even 3 turns. I've owned one forever but only recently started playing with it and I'm seriously impressed. I've never really been sad to seem him. The other walker thats been really good to me so far is garruk wildspeaker. He ramps into early thragtusks/titan especially if they pathed something early and his untap ability leaves counter magic up. He does a lot to stall the board and I've also won a fair amount of games off his overrun especially with 6/5 tarpits.
I don't think spell pierce is good in a midrange shell. It would be better off as another leak if you aren't wanting to run cryptics. I also feel you need discard in this format. Our counterspell options are just too weak to carry disruption alone without hand information but together they answer a lot of threats that are harder/impossible to deal with once resolved. Hmm might rune snag be worth considering?
In general I'm almost at the point of considering just running 4 oozes and jamming them whenever I draw one. Can't say enough about that card.
I would think Bob would be effective in this deck if you played some number of Death's Shadow to make the life loss more relevant. If we choose to go in this direction though, we are losing percentage points vs. GBx decks as our 'closing' threat is vulnerable to a topdecked Abrupt Decay. There is a UB suicide deck floating around with Delvers, Death's Shadow, and Vendetta/Dismember that looks like a heck of a lot of fun to play.
Thinking about it a little more - I ran an earlier version of this deck with: 4 Goyf, 4 Bob, 2 Tasigur, 3 Death's Shadow coupled with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or two with some number of Funeral Charm - I was even able to win a game by making my Death's Shadow a swampwalking 9/9! ...I somehow managed to top-8 a 45-player event with this but lost in the first round to a Goryo's Vengeance deck because I drew too many Death's Shadow and had no way to force myself to lose life.
I am actually a really big fan of Pact right now; it's not the most versatile removal spell in the format, but lets you kill stuff while still leaving mana up for a counter (provided you don't only have 3 lands in play with just Deprive...lol). You don't have to really make a choice between binning a dude on their combat step vs. countering whatever they're holding back - and ideally, we've already deployed a threat so we technically will be tempo positive by dealing with their threat while keeping ours on board. It's also got great synergy with a Tasigur activation or a Snapcaster Mage re-buy.
I'm thinking without access to Brainstorm to fix our draw, running 15-16 lands with so many multicolored spells is asking for trouble. Maybe if we had Ponder?
Squelch seems good, but not always relevant. The prospect of hitting the other team's fetchland activation on T2 is very tempting...
Not sure about Dimir Charm. For it's cost, you are getting a pseudo-Smother that can't target Vendilion Clique (amongst other things, but I couldn't think of any other relevant cards with CMC under 3 and power over 2) and a weaker Negate, but you *are* getting a better Thought Scour that has potential to help flip Delver. I know UB Faeries was running it in Modern for awhile but I think for what it does, the modes are a little too expensive - it's a lot like Sultai Charm in that way (you're paying 1 extra mana for a loot/Ultimate Price (aka a worse Doom Blade)/Naturalize effect.
Jace is incredible in the midrange/control version. Two is too many, though.
Garruk seems good to incredible if you are running some number of Bitterblossom in your 75.
I agree that counters by themselves are awful in this format - I am willing to bet a lot of us have felt the sting of clutching a Negate while staring down an opponent's Keranos on the stack.
4 Oozes seems like a lot. I don't know if there are enough creatures hitting the bin to justify running 4 (although I can see running up to 3 if Collected Company becomes a more prominent threat in the meta).
Took me a while to craft this post so I hope there's some helpful information here.
Sales Thread
Back on the midrange subject again I've been brewing on the concept HelloFriendo and I have been messing with and I'd like some input on it. Heres where the concept is at:
4 kitchen finks
3 snapcaster mage
3 scavenging ooze
2 tasigur, the golden fang
2 thragtusk
Plainswalkers// 3
1 jace, architect of thought
1 garruk wildspeaker
1 bow of nylea
Disruption// 8
3 inquisition of kozilek
3 mana leak
1 deprive
1 thoughtseize
3 serum visions
1 anticipate
1 compulsive research
Removal// 6
3 abrupt decay
1 maelstrom pulse
1 dismember
1 damnation
Lands 24
4 misty rainforest
4 verdant catacombs
2 overgrown tomb
2 breeding pool
1 watery grave
1 hinterland harbor
3 darkslick shores
1 treetop village
1 creeping tar pit
1 swamp
1 island
1 forest
2 oran-rief, the vastwood
So I've been running more green to support my creature suite and make oozes better, plus I just don't need UUU for cryptics. Also I've found 2 tar pits to be excellent but rarely can I activate both, thus the treetop village. I feel village is the better manland more often than not and I'd really love a 2nd but I don't want to give up the fastlands quite yet.
So the other new inclusions are the vastwoods and bow of nylea. Both have crazy good synergy with finks. Bow I feel is already a borderline maindeck inclusion and the added synergy in this shell might just push it into maindeck territory. It breaks board stalls with deathtouch and +1/+1 counters, makes endless reoccurring finks, actively combats grave strategies and souls, trumps opposing oozes, makes villages and garruk tokens 4/4's, and grinds by recycling spent cards like snaps/damnation etc. Bow and vastwood also cancel out lightning bolts on swagtusks/villages/beast tokens. The only downside is the amount of removal that can hit bow which I kinda touched on above.
Anyway I'm not sure if 2 vastwood is correct at this point but the card has serious potential. Think of it as our gavony township. Not quite as good an ability but it costs nothing to activate as opposed to 4 and it produces colored mana. Also garruk can use it twice.. picture the times when you may have 1 or even 2 vastwood and garruk putting four +1/+1 counters on your finks/swags/tokens etc.
Tear it up please.
It can only target your own GY Though the card does seem interesting. The fact that it shoots down Delvers, Cliques, and Bitterblossom tokens isn't irrelevant.
I have been considering trying Bitterblossom as well, and would fit in nicely with a list with Finks. Is the Garruk synergy being referred to due to his overrun effect?
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Deck behaved well. I feel like I have too many 4 drops, but they were all great anyway. Victim of the Night is totally greedy but I wanted a 2cc kill spell that also worked against Affinity (hence removing Go for the Throat).
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30931_Daily-Digest-Modern-Is-For-Traitors.html
How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Golgari Charm is good against them, as is Darkblast if you're looking for other answers in your 75.
Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
Sales Thread
>> How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Creeping Tar Pit: work well with our Damnation
Thragtusk: Life Gain, and it still gives you a 3/3 after Damnation
>> Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Sower and Clique are the only creatures with flying we have, that can block Affinity creatures. This is why I leave them there.
Board control (removal) are the primary way I do to fight against Affinity, if you look at my sideboard plan.
Plan disruption (discard or counters) does not work well:
Mana Leak: It is basically a one for one trading. When Affinity dumps so many threars on the board on the first two turns, I always feel that holding a mana leak on my hand is useless.
Thoughtseize: It is very good to remove Plating, but you need to draw it before turn 2 or turn 3. Otherwise, it is also a dead card. Another reason I am afraid of using Thoughtseize is the 2 life point lose, which is painful against Affinity
>> Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Tarmogoyf can help you win the game after turn 4 or turn 5, but he cannot help you not to lose the game before turn 3 or turn 4. Because he cannot block most of the Affinity creatures. I feel that I need be alive in the earlier game, thus I take out Goyf and Tasigur.
>> Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
Mana Leak is a potential good option. I might give it more chance for the match-up against Affinity.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your feedback.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
I think this deck actually has a better matchup against Tron and Amulet than Jund and Abzan, at least game 1 (g2 Abzan can side Stony Silence, which's probably the best anti-Tron card and Jund can go greedy with Blood Moon to crush Amulet).
Here's the description I copied from Tappedout:
Good stuff. I actually really like Ashiok, which I was very surprised by. He seems great in pretty much all decks that have resilient threats (Jund, Junk, Tron, CC Abzan, etc.)
I currently have 2x Thoughtsieze and 4x IoK and I like that better than the 1/4 split. I think a Dismember in the MB would be beneficial as well. A variety of kill spells (VoN, Dismember, Cut, Decay, Maesltrom) keeps most of our bases covered.
What is your current plan against Affinity? I would bring in some Disfigures and such, maybe a Nature's Claim or two.
I top 8d a PRE event two weeks ago with Ashiok in the SB and won a game against Soul Sisters by milling my opponent while using Jace's +1 to stall the board. That was fun.
I like Dismember too. Can see the list with 1 Victim/1 Dismember. I played against Grixis with Angler this weekend and, well, Angler is a zombie, so that wasn't fun.
Affinity is the reason I'm playing Victim over Go for the Throat. I'm currently testing 3 Fulminators because Amulet and Tron are the flavor of the week, but I actually had 1 Creeping Corrosion there before. Night of Souls' Betrayal is really good against them (just make sure they don't stick an Overseer or Ravager, all the rest is dead). Between the early discard, Decay, Darkblast (a house against that deck), Disfigures, Snapcaster, the matchup is okay unless they have these ridiculous nut draws that even more copies of Creeping Corrosion wouldn't be able to beat.
I guess I feel like this is what the deck needs to be tuned for anyway, otherwise whats the point exactly? People will play the best BGx deck, or as evidenced one of the two.. but 3rd is a bench warmer.
Problem is the removal and threat packages are almost all strictly worse than jund or junk and conditional. disfigure vs bolt, Victim/GftT vs terminate/path etc. After having messed with the OP list and diverging quite heavily from it I find myself shoehorned right back into that shell, but its still lacking because decks are adapting. Annoying. This archetype needs a reprint or something new to shake it up.
Thing is I do feel like the colors have what it takes but I can't find the right combinations.. lilianas maybe? Bobs, finks, sweepers, dragonlords or titans even?
From my perspective on the rock archetype variant (i.e. midrange):
Why are we in blue at all?
Cantrips/snaps/jace/cryptics/countermagic. These are great cards and make playing alternatives like bob/siege etc less essential unlike the other BGx deck(s). And counter/discard split should be better than 6-7 discards for multiple reasons, and well it is sometimes. Would be always if the counters were on par with the discards in this damned format. Sorry /rant.
So is the consistency/CA from blue worth the trade off for red or even white?
Bolts/terminates/kolaghans/angers/olivias/huntmasters/outposts/chandras.. doesn't quite seem that way at this point sadly. White is honestly less appealing to me but the SB options are great while still having good MB reasons for the splash.
Meh maybe a 4th color wouldn't be the worst thing since it could open up some options.. while folding to moon strats like nuthin'. At least in the meantime until Wiz reprints shardless and strix.
I play all three decks. But I love playing blue cards, so that's why I keep tuning Sultai and testing it. I do think that Sultai is better than the others against Tron, Amulet, Storm and probably other linear decks because you have discard + counters. That said, our "4 drops" are Damnation and Cryptic, and these cards aren't able to close games like Rhino and Olivia/Huntmaster. Liliana is also a better mirror breaker and superior to the 3 drops on Sultai.
I think we need to reevaluate this deck. Lower the curve in general to compete with the bolt decks and not just the above but also all grixis. Specifically add a few removals like disfigure/dismember/GftT as opposed to say the higher end damnations which I feel need to get sided. Golgari charm is stellar but explosives could stand to be reconsidered also. Decays and pulse are in essence our bolts due to flexibility meaning they allow us to increase the removal density in conjunction with cantrips.
Change up the counter suite to include some number of snares and possibly denials. Denial is conditional but going a little more aggro-control to force on-curve plays plus the number of ferocious enablers we have access to in these colors (goyf/tas/angler/hooters/stalker) makes denial often a 1 mana hard counter. We NEED hard counters and OtD answers and both of these are super relevant right now in a sea of snaps/goyfs/blooms/bobs and so on. On that note go up to the 4th darkslick shores probably at the expense of a tar pit and increase the snap count and drop the land count too.
And lastly bring in some tech like say a couple monastery siege, maybe even a single redirect for sooo many reasons. twin, decays etc but some of the best would probably be redirecting twin or kolaghan's command or a cryptic.
I've also been reconsidering anglers and maybe even a tombstalker or possibly even thassa.
Now how to put this all together I'm still brewing. So theres my spitball for the day.
I also tried a Jund-like version with Bob and leaving only Jace AoT as the 4 drop. Problem is we just don't have enough cheap impactful cards like Bolt and Ooze (who provide lifegain to counterbalance Bob's effect). It had more velocity but also less late game power.
I went up to 4 Darkslick Shores cutting one Breeding Pool. Also tried 23 lands but was mana screwed some times and went back to 24.
Stubborn Denial could work, but the "noncreature" clause makes me doubt how good it would be. That said, I don't usually have problems removing Goyfs and Tasigurs (I'm playing 3 Decays, 1 Pulse, 2 Victim of Night and 2 Damnation), so it might be good.
I'm liking Monastery Siege. Doubles up as anti-Burn tech g1. I'm even considering going to 2 MD copies (probably replacing the Compulsive Research, which's good too).
Another card I'm considering now is Shadow of Doubt. Amulet and Tron are everywhere (at least online) and this is even maindeckable. I'm thinking 1 copy MD, 2-3 SB (replacing the Fulminators). We don't have K Command to recur Fulminators, but we do have 3 Snapcasters to recur Shadow of Doubt.
I think Dismember is very much main deck worthy, and maybe even a Disfigure. Both are good against Affinity, which I consider to be just about the worst matchup. I would start with a removal suite like this:
1x Disfigure
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Murderous Cut
1x Victim of Night
I've been considering Disfigure MD (as our really poor's man Bolt) but went with Darkblast instead.
I think we need to have 2x Dismember MD. It is so good and hits all the manlands we struggle with. I put the deck back together and I just don't have room for Disfigure in the main, so 2x Dismember and 1x Cut for the main, 2x Disfigure in the side.