I ran his list before and loved it. It was great. Ashiok wasn't ideal though, I think Liliana would be better. I do like the idea of Cryptics with a couple more basics I think.
If I recall correctly, I ran Commands and a few Mana Leaks along with the IoKs. Thoughtseize were in the side for me.
edit: The more I think about it, the more I am leaning toward not having the thopter combo. It seems smoother without I think. I am going to test both ways. 4x Ancestral Vision for sure though.
I made this about a year ago and have slowly added new cards as sets spoiled. It's more Midrange, based off Jund as I play that the most of the Midrange builds I have.
So far, I haven't been able to find a solid removal spell that costs 1; maybe Dismember (awfully suicidal in conjunction to Snap), pongify or ulcerate (they all seem bad). I settled for Disfigure.
With AV back, I haven't been able to incorporate it -- if it fits. Maybe replace SV.
There are so many cards that I wish I could add too: Clique and Taz are just a couple. A card that seems solid but may be too "cute" is Alchemist's Refuge. EOT Lili or Bob sounds great.
Played around with this last night. It feels powerful. It is going to take some tweaking to get it where we want it I think. I am now on board with not running thopter combo. Without a way to easily search it up (like Muddle the Mixture) each half of that combo is dead. I would rather have a deck that has live top decks. Here is where I am leaning currently:
I need to pick up a couple Tarpits (I sold mine a bit ago) and probably a Lumbering Falls or two.
I recall when I ran Ashiok before that it completely decimated every creature deck I played against (which is the majority of the decks in Modern). I had a winning record against Tron because of Ashiok and Remand.
I am dropping Cryptic because it feels clunky and I don't like the mana in this shell.
The main matchup that is concerning is burn. Thragtusk will help. The matchup shouldn't really be much worse than Jund's I guess.
Played around with this last night. It feels powerful. It is going to take some tweaking to get it where we want it I think. I am now on board with not running thopter combo. Without a way to easily search it up (like Muddle the Mixture) each half of that combo is dead. I would rather have a deck that has live top decks. Here is where I am leaning currently:
I need to pick up a couple Tarpits (I sold mine a bit ago) and probably a Lumbering Falls or two.
I recall when I ran Ashiok before that it completely decimated every creature deck I played against (which is the majority of the decks in Modern). I had a winning record against Tron because of Ashiok and Remand.
I am dropping Cryptic because it feels clunky and I don't like the mana in this shell.
The main matchup that is concerning is burn. Thragtusk will help. The matchup shouldn't really be much worse than Jund's I guess.
Not a bad list, but 9 creatures that aren't huge win cons make me very nervous
There's issues with Ultimate Price, Doom Blade, and Go for the Throat, but what if you put in 1 of each?
The truth is, I REALLY think this deck cannot thrive without an instant 2 mana kill spell in an aggro full of meta, I just don't think it'll work out, it could be a good compromise. I don't think having dismembers and pulses themselves will cut it
But then I guess there could be issues with Ultimate Price and Doom Blade not hitting some GBx stuff
I suppose facing down a vault skirge with cranial plating having a GFT and doomblade could be a horrible feeling
On the topic of removal, Ive always found that 6 or so removal spells is not a lot, even with snapcaster/jace. Because of this, my pre-banlist update removal suite looked like:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
1 Putrefy (yeah it's kind of bad but I'm a budget player)
1 Reality Shift (as a control player newlamog gave me nightmares)
1 Smother
1 Victim of Night (doesn't hit gurmag angler but I have 2 dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Here's what I've been testing for a while. Some notes:
I have started to become a little uncertain about Jace. He gives some decent card advantage in certain matchups, but doesn't offer a clock the same way the other card advantage engines of Snapcaster Mage and Dark Confidant do. After testing with him a lot, I'm not convinced the deck should run 4 and I also feel there is room for some copies of Snaps or Bobs.
Scavenging Ooze has been awesome most of the time. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet on the other hand is sometimes a little awkward. Sultai doesn't get access to quite as much removal as Jund does, so getting his triggered ability to go off can be challenging at times. I do think running 1 is still necessary. The combination of 2 Scooze, 1 Kalitas helps position this deck well against the Abzan Coco deck floating around and other random graveyard strategies.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang has performed great as well when I could get him to stick. I think 2 is the right number, but if other delve spells needed to be played, 1 copy would be ok.
I personally don't like playing Thragtusk but there are not many other good options for gaining life. Sultai's mana base can be pretty painful and I wish there was a better option. Adding a Kalitas could help out, but I don't think the deck wants 2 copies. I'm totally open to hear some opinions on the top end of my curve though because it has been changing pretty frequently.
The spell set is pretty self explanatory. Sultai doesn't get to play Terminate so I had to make do with 1 Murderous Cut, Doom Blade, and Dismember each. I was playing Painful Truths in the slot where I now run Compulsive Research, but I'm not sure which is better for this situation. It is REALLY relevant that Compulsive Research doesn't hurt you.
Profane Command has been a total all-star. I love this card. It performs extremely well with Jace. Can be used to make some really amazing plays in dire situations and completely turns around some bad matchups if you get one in a pinch. A pretty standard example against Jund is one where you control a 4/5 Goyf and they've managed to grind out the game and establish a board of their own. Commanding on Fear and Drain to sneak in the extra punch of a Goyf can be really awesome. It is definitely a card worth testing.
Since the recent unbannings I have yet to change anything, but I'd like to hear what you all have to say about the list. I play Sultai Delver in Legacy, so I'd really like to get to reuse some of the cards in modern
The sideboard is sort of a mess, but it does pretty well to help where needed. I was running 2 Kitchen Finks before, but replaced them with Feed the Clan because burn was nearly unwinnable without a really fast clock. Drawing a single Feed the Clan pretty much guarantees a win in that matchup. The 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal is up from 1 because I'm expecting more Thopter/Sword shenanigans and it is probably one of the best cards Black has access to for this deck. Turning off Lingering Souls is extremely important in the Junk, UW Control, and Esper matchups. Sultai doesn't have a very elegant way of dealing with those pesky little spirits aside from Betrayal. It also turns off Elspeth which is very useful.
Overall the deck really struggles against Man Lands (Jund/UW Control), Planeswalkers (UW Control/Tron), and Burn. Aggro decks didn't really give me much trouble with my sideboard, but grinding out against Jund or UW control can be very difficult because it is hard to set up pressure on board and also get rid of their man lands which give them free board pressure.
I'm getting more and more convinced Sultai is not the way to go, the color combination doesn't work. There is no unconditional, 2 cmc removal, the counters, discards and kill spells are not working well
Why the hell are we playing this over Grixis? Tarmogoyf is awesome, but this awful removal base looks like a joke next to terminate and bolt and having access to Gurmag, Tasigur and K-Command, along with wanting to splash AV or thopter
I'm getting more and more convinced Sultai is not the way to go, the color combination doesn't work. There is no unconditional, 2 cmc removal, the counters, discards and kill spells are not working well
Why the hell are we playing this over Grixis? Tarmogoyf is awesome, but this awful removal base looks like a joke next to terminate and bolt and having access to Gurmag, Tasigur and K-Command, along with wanting to splash AV or thopter
Goyf, Abrupt Decay and spending your Delve ammo on Murderous Cut
vs
Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, Lightning Bolt and Delve ammo for threats basically right?
With Eldrazi on the decline, Abrupt Decay takes care of the vast majority of what I care about killing in this format. Even against Eldrazi it hits Endless One, Reshaper, and Mimic.
2x Dismember is easy for this deck to utilize. Yeah we'll pay life for it sometimes. Scavenging Ooze and a mainboard Thragtusk help mitigate that. Murderous Cut is also great here. We will be able to deploy it for 2 mana quite regularly.
All that said, is this the best BGx option? Honestly probably not in the current iteration. We need to see how people tweak it. I think Junk is the strongest BGx deck currently.
Hi guys, I see no-one brewing with Traverse the Ulvenwald? IMO the card is super good in a sultai midrange deck just to keep fetching snappies and goyfs. I tweaked the deck to include 4 ancestral visions (which is working out good, but not great). Main issues atm are lingering souls and burn.
You want to play tap out and run out as much as possible before taking a refill with Ancestral Vision. This grinds really well (but those Lingering Souls are a big problem though), generates humongous Tarmogoyfs for a very fast clock and the maindeck Thrun (tutorable) smacks down opposing blue decks. Not great vs aggro and some choices are still in doubt, like the maindeck Batterskull. Note that in very grindy matchups you can traverse for academy ruins to get back the batterskull you tought scoured/discarded to lily. Once you get to this point Lingering Souls are no longer an issue.
4 Dark Confidants, 2 Kalitas, 1/1 Imp's Mischief were the interesting choices imo.
This deck should have just been Jund. You're playing 75% of the same list and Jund got 2nd Place. Not taking away anything from the pilot, but this list is trying to out-Jund Jund and that's just not feasible.
Discard turn 1 of often fine, but any deck you want to discard early are the combo decks and not too many of those actually go off before turn 2. On the play I would lead with vision and on the draw leading with discard is likely fine. Dropping a goyf turn 2 isn't necessarily ideal. Since you want some disruption early, drop a goyf, reload with ancestral and beat face while controlling what your opponent is doing for a few turns to ensure goyf connects turn 3 to 5 or 6. However long you need to kill with it. You're a control deck, not tempo. Dropping a threat past turn 2 is fine as long as you can protect it and finish off an opponent.
So I just read the whole thread (except for the few pages where everything was warped by Eldrazi) and built this list: http://deckbox.org/sets/1413250
Um, I think it looks good? Courser is a great card advantage engine. A lot of decks want to remove other things and that card is silently there winning the game. Ancestral Vision I think is fine with the controlly of a deck. 3-2 Jace/Snap split since I like Jace better (legendary though) and Snap interacts with counterspells. Murderous Cut is my unconditional removal. Dropped Cryptic Command because I don't think the mana will support it. 3 Thought Scour may be greedy, I'll need some testing. I'll add another win-con if I drop one.
I'm not sure on my counterspells main, but I still haven't tested anything.
I mostly like my kill spell suite maindeck. I may drop a Murderous Cut for an Abrupt Decay. If I do that and drop the third Thought Scour, I'll add a Tasigur over the Thought Scour.
I have sooooo many ways to get card advantage
My wincons are scary though. I'm unsure if I'll ever kill anyone. Jace Ult isn't supposed to be a thing. I can hope for manland beats with help from other cards. Still suspicious.
My sideboard is sorta wonky but I like the idea.
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If I recall correctly, I ran Commands and a few Mana Leaks along with the IoKs. Thoughtseize were in the side for me.
edit: The more I think about it, the more I am leaning toward not having the thopter combo. It seems smoother without I think. I am going to test both ways. 4x Ancestral Vision for sure though.
4 Goyf
2 Clique
4 Bob
2 Snapcaster
4 Ancestral Vision
4 IoK
1 Pulse
3 Decay
2 Serum
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
and some man lands, shocks and fetch
I suck in part of building a mana base, not that I'm good for the rest hahahaha
What do you think? Best go for a version without bob even with tasigur?
Grixis Delver RBU
Abzan BGW
Legacy
Elves GB
Abzan Deathblade BGW
i Agree with you, I love Bob too and so I would like to see it on the deck, but I think better Tasigur in place
Grixis Delver RBU
Abzan BGW
Legacy
Elves GB
Abzan Deathblade BGW
1x Breeding Pool
3x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Darkslick Shores
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
3x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
1x Twilight Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
Planeswalker (4)
4x Liliana of the Veil
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Disfigure
2x Mana Leak
2x Remand
1x Victim of Night
Creature (13)
4x Dark Confidant
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
Sorcery (10)
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Serum Visions
2x Thoughtseize
1x Countersquall
1x Creeping Corrosion
1x Damnation
2x Dispel
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Golgari Charm
2x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal
2x Spellskite
I made this about a year ago and have slowly added new cards as sets spoiled. It's more Midrange, based off Jund as I play that the most of the Midrange builds I have.
So far, I haven't been able to find a solid removal spell that costs 1; maybe Dismember (awfully suicidal in conjunction to Snap), pongify or ulcerate (they all seem bad). I settled for Disfigure.
With AV back, I haven't been able to incorporate it -- if it fits. Maybe replace SV.
There are so many cards that I wish I could add too: Clique and Taz are just a couple. A card that seems solid but may be too "cute" is Alchemist's Refuge. EOT Lili or Bob sounds great.
BGW ABZAN WGB
BGR JUND RGB
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Thragtusk
2x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Mana Leak
3x Remand
2x Dismember
2x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Disfigure
I need to pick up a couple Tarpits (I sold mine a bit ago) and probably a Lumbering Falls or two.
I recall when I ran Ashiok before that it completely decimated every creature deck I played against (which is the majority of the decks in Modern). I had a winning record against Tron because of Ashiok and Remand.
I am dropping Cryptic because it feels clunky and I don't like the mana in this shell.
The main matchup that is concerning is burn. Thragtusk will help. The matchup shouldn't really be much worse than Jund's I guess.
Not a bad list, but 9 creatures that aren't huge win cons make me very nervous
There's issues with Ultimate Price, Doom Blade, and Go for the Throat, but what if you put in 1 of each?
The truth is, I REALLY think this deck cannot thrive without an instant 2 mana kill spell in an aggro full of meta, I just don't think it'll work out, it could be a good compromise. I don't think having dismembers and pulses themselves will cut it
But then I guess there could be issues with Ultimate Price and Doom Blade not hitting some GBx stuff
I suppose facing down a vault skirge with cranial plating having a GFT and doomblade could be a horrible feeling
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
1 Putrefy (yeah it's kind of bad but I'm a budget player)
1 Reality Shift (as a control player newlamog gave me nightmares)
1 Smother
1 Victim of Night (doesn't hit gurmag angler but I have 2 dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse
WUB Puresteel Midrange WUB
22 Lands,
Instant :
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Disfigure
2x Dismember
2x go for the throat
Sorcery :
4x Ancestral Vision
4x IoK
1x Maelstrom pulse
Planeswalker :
3x Lili of the Veil
Creature :
3x Ooze
4x Snapcaster
4x Goyf
1x Tasigur ( Maybe try whit Kalitas)
Artifacts :
2x Sword of the Meek
3x Thopter foundry
Ty !
WBG Junk
BGR Jund
UBG Sultai Thopter Developing
XAffinity
I have started to become a little uncertain about Jace. He gives some decent card advantage in certain matchups, but doesn't offer a clock the same way the other card advantage engines of Snapcaster Mage and Dark Confidant do. After testing with him a lot, I'm not convinced the deck should run 4 and I also feel there is room for some copies of Snaps or Bobs.
Scavenging Ooze has been awesome most of the time. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet on the other hand is sometimes a little awkward. Sultai doesn't get access to quite as much removal as Jund does, so getting his triggered ability to go off can be challenging at times. I do think running 1 is still necessary. The combination of 2 Scooze, 1 Kalitas helps position this deck well against the Abzan Coco deck floating around and other random graveyard strategies.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang has performed great as well when I could get him to stick. I think 2 is the right number, but if other delve spells needed to be played, 1 copy would be ok.
I personally don't like playing Thragtusk but there are not many other good options for gaining life. Sultai's mana base can be pretty painful and I wish there was a better option. Adding a Kalitas could help out, but I don't think the deck wants 2 copies. I'm totally open to hear some opinions on the top end of my curve though because it has been changing pretty frequently.
The spell set is pretty self explanatory. Sultai doesn't get to play Terminate so I had to make do with 1 Murderous Cut, Doom Blade, and Dismember each. I was playing Painful Truths in the slot where I now run Compulsive Research, but I'm not sure which is better for this situation. It is REALLY relevant that Compulsive Research doesn't hurt you.
Profane Command has been a total all-star. I love this card. It performs extremely well with Jace. Can be used to make some really amazing plays in dire situations and completely turns around some bad matchups if you get one in a pinch. A pretty standard example against Jund is one where you control a 4/5 Goyf and they've managed to grind out the game and establish a board of their own. Commanding on Fear and Drain to sneak in the extra punch of a Goyf can be really awesome. It is definitely a card worth testing.
Since the recent unbannings I have yet to change anything, but I'd like to hear what you all have to say about the list. I play Sultai Delver in Legacy, so I'd really like to get to reuse some of the cards in modern
Here is a spreadsheet of some of the games.
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Thragtusk
Spells (23):
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
1 Doom Blade
1 Compulsive Research
1 Golgari Charm
2 Profane Command
1 Dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Murderous Cut
1 Twilight Mire
1 Polluted Delta
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Watery Grave
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Breeding Pool
The sideboard is sort of a mess, but it does pretty well to help where needed. I was running 2 Kitchen Finks before, but replaced them with Feed the Clan because burn was nearly unwinnable without a really fast clock. Drawing a single Feed the Clan pretty much guarantees a win in that matchup. The 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal is up from 1 because I'm expecting more Thopter/Sword shenanigans and it is probably one of the best cards Black has access to for this deck. Turning off Lingering Souls is extremely important in the Junk, UW Control, and Esper matchups. Sultai doesn't have a very elegant way of dealing with those pesky little spirits aside from Betrayal. It also turns off Elspeth which is very useful.
Sideboard:
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Disfigure
3 Rain of Tears
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Painful Truths
2 Feed the Clan
1 Thoughtseize
1 Batterskull
Overall the deck really struggles against Man Lands (Jund/UW Control), Planeswalkers (UW Control/Tron), and Burn. Aggro decks didn't really give me much trouble with my sideboard, but grinding out against Jund or UW control can be very difficult because it is hard to set up pressure on board and also get rid of their man lands which give them free board pressure.
Why the hell are we playing this over Grixis? Tarmogoyf is awesome, but this awful removal base looks like a joke next to terminate and bolt and having access to Gurmag, Tasigur and K-Command, along with wanting to splash AV or thopter
Goyf, Abrupt Decay and spending your Delve ammo on Murderous Cut
vs
Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, Lightning Bolt and Delve ammo for threats basically right?
2x Dismember is easy for this deck to utilize. Yeah we'll pay life for it sometimes. Scavenging Ooze and a mainboard Thragtusk help mitigate that. Murderous Cut is also great here. We will be able to deploy it for 2 mana quite regularly.
All that said, is this the best BGx option? Honestly probably not in the current iteration. We need to see how people tweak it. I think Junk is the strongest BGx deck currently.
I always forget about that. Yeah it does. Doesn't hit Kalitas, Olivia, or Gurmag, but pretty much everything else it is great against.
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Breeding Pool
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Island
2 Forest
1 Swamp
//[creatures]
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spellskite
3 Liliana of the Veil
//[instants]
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
4 Tought Scour
1 Disfigure
1 Sultai Charm
//[sorcery]
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
//[enchantment]
1 Bitterblossom
//[artifact]
1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
1 ThoughtSeize
3 Spreading Seas
2 Feed The Clan
1 Nature's Claim
1 Countersquall
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Damnation
2 Nihil Spellbomb
You want to play tap out and run out as much as possible before taking a refill with Ancestral Vision. This grinds really well (but those Lingering Souls are a big problem though), generates humongous Tarmogoyfs for a very fast clock and the maindeck Thrun (tutorable) smacks down opposing blue decks. Not great vs aggro and some choices are still in doubt, like the maindeck Batterskull. Note that in very grindy matchups you can traverse for academy ruins to get back the batterskull you tought scoured/discarded to lily. Once you get to this point Lingering Souls are no longer an issue.
This deck should have just been Jund. You're playing 75% of the same list and Jund got 2nd Place. Not taking away anything from the pilot, but this list is trying to out-Jund Jund and that's just not feasible.
Um, I think it looks good? Courser is a great card advantage engine. A lot of decks want to remove other things and that card is silently there winning the game. Ancestral Vision I think is fine with the controlly of a deck. 3-2 Jace/Snap split since I like Jace better (legendary though) and Snap interacts with counterspells. Murderous Cut is my unconditional removal. Dropped Cryptic Command because I don't think the mana will support it. 3 Thought Scour may be greedy, I'll need some testing. I'll add another win-con if I drop one.
I'm not sure on my counterspells main, but I still haven't tested anything.
I mostly like my kill spell suite maindeck. I may drop a Murderous Cut for an Abrupt Decay. If I do that and drop the third Thought Scour, I'll add a Tasigur over the Thought Scour.
I have sooooo many ways to get card advantage
My wincons are scary though. I'm unsure if I'll ever kill anyone. Jace Ult isn't supposed to be a thing. I can hope for manland beats with help from other cards. Still suspicious.
My sideboard is sorta wonky but I like the idea.