Seeing people here generally have success fighting burn, i might have to question the way i play .-.
Blessed Alliance is a card you should explore. It can come in against Bogles and the lifegain mode is relevant against Burn. Between this and Collective Brutality, Burn should be an easy win.
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I have actually cut Stony Silence completely, Affinity is so naturally favorable that it's basically run just for Ad Naus/Tron at this point. Ad Naus is entirely beatable through discard/pressure, and Tron is just not going to happen so don't run hate just for it.
Ditto. Stony Silence us just not that important of a sideboard card for us anymore IMO.
I cut mine for another selfless spirit (obvious reasons) and another pithing needle (more versatile).
I once tried that build, and even though it does make my match up against burn better, it's not so good against other deck. I might do this if almost all the people play burn (which is not that unusual in my city), but if not, then i might stick with what i have on board. Of course, minor replacement can be made on D-1
I once tried that build, and even though it does make my match up against burn better, it's not so good against other deck. I might do this if almost all the people play burn (which is not that unusual in my city), but if not, then i might stick with what i have on board. Of course, minor replacement can be made on D-1
Running 2x Vault of the Archangel and 3x Sorin is pretty typical anyways. And Timely Reinforcements is a strong card against a variety of archetypes. Burn is in fact very prevalent in my meta, which is why I run it as a two-of.
The build I am running now (the first link in my signature) has been performing very strongly against most archetypes in my meta (Abzan, Jund, Death's Shadow, Grixis Delver, Affinity, etc.) and consistently places top-4 in the local 20+ person Modern events.
I'm not trying to sound defensive, but if my experience is anything to go by, your comments regarding the build are incorrect.
AH sorry i didnt read that you use 2 vaults. You dont have any problem with the mana? I once was annoyed with my opening hand cause awkward mana with vault, but this might worth to try.
AH sorry i didnt read that you use 2 vaults. You dont have any problem with the mana? I once was annoyed with my opening hand cause awkward mana with vault, but this might worth to try.
I run 8 fetches and 7 dual lands, so running two colorless lands rarely poses any problem. Vault of the Archangel is such a strong late-game card that having to wait an extra turn to play Spectral once in a blue moon (which is essentially its only disadvantage in practice) is a small price to pay. I have tried out all of the utility lands used in BW Tokens builds, and Vault is the strongest based on my experience. If you want to run more than one Ghost Quarter, though, then Shambling Vent is superior for mana fixing reasons.
Oh, and what's the consensus/general opinion on Liliana of the veil? is it worth it as a one of? Wasn't interested in the card before, but I just opened one in a MM2017 draft yesterday, and now I'm definitely interested in trying the card. From what I can gather from memory of what I read on the card and a strong "Judge a book by the cover"-type opinion:
Pros:
-Discard effect is more detrimental to our opponent then to us, seeing as we can discard excess lands, as well as Lingering Souls for potential value.
-Sacrifice effect is some nice protection/removal, that also gives us an edge agains aggro decks that likes having one big creature instead of many little ones. I can see this being killer against Infect and Boggle.
-Ultimate is game winning. Like if you come back form this, you deserve to win.
-At the very worst, she looks like a fine decoy to diverge the attention of our opponent from our life points/other planeswalker.
-At best? We have plenty of tokens to protect her, and I'm pretty sure resolving a Sorin or Gideon alongside her has to be at least backbreaking.
Cons:
-Two black man in the cost can be meh. This could make it not come out on turn 3 sometimes (Which, admitingly, I'm not sure we necessarily want). Mana base could be adapted, but then Spectral Procession becomes the problem. I don't want to cast this for 4, even if it's really not that bad doing so.
-Also Yeah, it costs 3 mana. Conflictin a bit with our 3-drop spots which is already home to most of our beloved token generators.
-Not gonna lie, I don't see myself pull off an ultimate on this card against any serious deck. Except maybe for slow control decks.
-I really can't see it being that good of a card in the mirror.
-Pretty sure 8-rack, dredge and Living end start laughing when you play the card.
Again, Very, VERY premature opinion here. If you want to shill/shun the card to me, now is the time. And it would be very appreciated.
I think the feeling is that Lili is really a board card for most BW tokens lists. If you can resolve it early, it's good against hard control lists that we might struggle against if they survive our initial onslaught. It can slow down scapeshift enough that we have a better chance of killing them as well as killing titan, and helps vs. other combo decks as well, since you've got a decent shot at stripping a key card from their hand with Turn 1 discard. Unfortunately, she's not really any good vs. most creature matchups, nor vs. burn.
Oh, and what's the consensus/general opinion on Liliana of the veil? is it worth it as a one of? Wasn't interested in the card before, but I just opened one in a MM2017 draft yesterday, and now I'm definitely interested in trying the card. From what I can gather from memory of what I read on the card and a strong "Judge a book by the cover"-type opinion:
Pros:
-Discard effect is more detrimental to our opponent then to us, seeing as we can discard excess lands, as well as Lingering Souls for potential value.
-Sacrifice effect is some nice protection/removal, that also gives us an edge agains aggro decks that likes having one big creature instead of many little ones. I can see this being killer against Infect and Boggle.
-Ultimate is game winning. Like if you come back form this, you deserve to win.
-At the very worst, she looks like a fine decoy to diverge the attention of our opponent from our life points/other planeswalker.
-At best? We have plenty of tokens to protect her, and I'm pretty sure resolving a Sorin or Gideon alongside her has to be at least backbreaking.
Cons:
-Two black man in the cost can be meh. This could make it not come out on turn 3 sometimes (Which, admitingly, I'm not sure we necessarily want). Mana base could be adapted, but then Spectral Procession becomes the problem. I don't want to cast this for 4, even if it's really not that bad doing so.
-Also Yeah, it costs 3 mana. Conflictin a bit with our 3-drop spots which is already home to most of our beloved token generators.
-Not gonna lie, I don't see myself pull off an ultimate on this card against any serious deck. Except maybe for slow control decks.
-I really can't see it being that good of a card in the mirror.
-Pretty sure 8-rack, dredge and Living end start laughing when you play the card.
Again, Very, VERY premature opinion here. If you want to shill/shun the card to me, now is the time. And it would be very appreciated.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I've pulled off her ultimate many times. Heck I did it yesterday playing Death Shadow Jund against Eldrazi Tron. You only need to tick her up twice and if your opponent has no interactions - which is common if they are on the draw - it is backbreaking. But what makes her very good is her +1 Being able to pressure the hand every turn against decks that want to keep their hand full is fantastic.
There are many games where I felt having a Liliana would have been more useful than Gideon or Sorin. This is when you know she is worth playing. I didn't have the same feeling when I was testing Elspeth Tirel for instance.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage. She isn't good against mirror, 8- rack, dredge, etc. but it is silly to evaluate how good a card is based on those particular match-ups which all demand specific answers. The problem with Modern is that there are so many goddamn linear strategies that demand specific sideboard answer. That's why it's totally reasonable to forgo the Tron match-up altogether.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
Oh, and what's the consensus/general opinion on Liliana of the veil? is it worth it as a one of? Wasn't interested in the card before, but I just opened one in a MM2017 draft yesterday, and now I'm definitely interested in trying the card. From what I can gather from memory of what I read on the card and a strong "Judge a book by the cover"-type opinion:
Pros:
-Discard effect is more detrimental to our opponent then to us, seeing as we can discard excess lands, as well as Lingering Souls for potential value.
-Sacrifice effect is some nice protection/removal, that also gives us an edge agains aggro decks that likes having one big creature instead of many little ones. I can see this being killer against Infect and Boggle.
-Ultimate is game winning. Like if you come back form this, you deserve to win.
-At the very worst, she looks like a fine decoy to diverge the attention of our opponent from our life points/other planeswalker.
-At best? We have plenty of tokens to protect her, and I'm pretty sure resolving a Sorin or Gideon alongside her has to be at least backbreaking.
Cons:
-Two black man in the cost can be meh. This could make it not come out on turn 3 sometimes (Which, admitingly, I'm not sure we necessarily want). Mana base could be adapted, but then Spectral Procession becomes the problem. I don't want to cast this for 4, even if it's really not that bad doing so.
-Also Yeah, it costs 3 mana. Conflictin a bit with our 3-drop spots which is already home to most of our beloved token generators.
-Not gonna lie, I don't see myself pull off an ultimate on this card against any serious deck. Except maybe for slow control decks.
-I really can't see it being that good of a card in the mirror.
-Pretty sure 8-rack, dredge and Living end start laughing when you play the card.
Again, Very, VERY premature opinion here. If you want to shill/shun the card to me, now is the time. And it would be very appreciated.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I've pulled off her ultimate many times. Heck I did it yesterday playing Death Shadow Jund against Eldrazi Tron. You only need to tick her up twice and if your opponent has no interactions - which is common if they are on the draw - it is backbreaking. But what makes her very good is her +1 Being able to pressure the hand every turn against decks that want to keep their hand full is fantastic.
There are many games where I felt having a Liliana would have been more useful than Gideon or Sorin. This is when you know she is worth playing. I didn't have the same feeling when I was testing Elspeth Tirel for instance.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage. She isn't good against mirror, 8- rack, dredge, etc. but it is silly to evaluate how good a card is based on those particular match-ups which all demand specific answers. The problem with Modern is that there are so many goddamn linear strategies that demand specific sideboard answer. That's why it's totally reasonable to forgo the Tron match-up altogether.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
I once tried 4 bitterblossom build and while it consistently drop on turn 2, i dont like them when i'm on top deck mode. It's different with RtA. I've been using 3 RTA/2Bitter for a pretty long time now, i'm pretty confident that this split is by far the best i've ever used.
On another note, my friend who is also playing Token tried a version with 4 knight of the white orchid, and saying that this version is super good. I might want to look deeper on this matter. For obvious reason he is leaning toward more heavy white build, while still splashing for black.
Oh, and what's the consensus/general opinion on Liliana of the veil? is it worth it as a one of? Wasn't interested in the card before, but I just opened one in a MM2017 draft yesterday, and now I'm definitely interested in trying the card. From what I can gather from memory of what I read on the card and a strong "Judge a book by the cover"-type opinion:
Pros:
-Discard effect is more detrimental to our opponent then to us, seeing as we can discard excess lands, as well as Lingering Souls for potential value.
-Sacrifice effect is some nice protection/removal, that also gives us an edge agains aggro decks that likes having one big creature instead of many little ones. I can see this being killer against Infect and Boggle.
-Ultimate is game winning. Like if you come back form this, you deserve to win.
-At the very worst, she looks like a fine decoy to diverge the attention of our opponent from our life points/other planeswalker.
-At best? We have plenty of tokens to protect her, and I'm pretty sure resolving a Sorin or Gideon alongside her has to be at least backbreaking.
Cons:
-Two black man in the cost can be meh. This could make it not come out on turn 3 sometimes (Which, admitingly, I'm not sure we necessarily want). Mana base could be adapted, but then Spectral Procession becomes the problem. I don't want to cast this for 4, even if it's really not that bad doing so.
-Also Yeah, it costs 3 mana. Conflictin a bit with our 3-drop spots which is already home to most of our beloved token generators.
-Not gonna lie, I don't see myself pull off an ultimate on this card against any serious deck. Except maybe for slow control decks.
-I really can't see it being that good of a card in the mirror.
-Pretty sure 8-rack, dredge and Living end start laughing when you play the card.
Again, Very, VERY premature opinion here. If you want to shill/shun the card to me, now is the time. And it would be very appreciated.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I've pulled off her ultimate many times. Heck I did it yesterday playing Death Shadow Jund against Eldrazi Tron. You only need to tick her up twice and if your opponent has no interactions - which is common if they are on the draw - it is backbreaking. But what makes her very good is her +1 Being able to pressure the hand every turn against decks that want to keep their hand full is fantastic.
There are many games where I felt having a Liliana would have been more useful than Gideon or Sorin. This is when you know she is worth playing. I didn't have the same feeling when I was testing Elspeth Tirel for instance.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage. She isn't good against mirror, 8- rack, dredge, etc. but it is silly to evaluate how good a card is based on those particular match-ups which all demand specific answers. The problem with Modern is that there are so many goddamn linear strategies that demand specific sideboard answer. That's why it's totally reasonable to forgo the Tron match-up altogether.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
I once tried 4 bitterblossom build and while it consistently drop on turn 2, i dont like them when i'm on top deck mode. It's different with RtA. I've been using 3 RTA/2Bitter for a pretty long time now, i'm pretty confident that this split is by far the best i've ever used.
On another note, my friend who is also playing Token tried a version with 4 knight of the white orchid, and saying that this version is super good. I might want to look deeper on this matter. For obvious reason he is leaning toward more heavy white build, while still splashing for black.
It's unfortunately not good enough for a card that turns on spot removal. I also (personally) wouldn't go down to 2 Bitterblossom. In my opinion, you play 3-4 or none at all. It's a card you don't want in multiples but it's a card you want in your opening hand against infect, affinity, midrange, and control. Playing 2 means you're much more likely to draw it mid-game where it'll probably be too slow when your hand is filled with more efficient token generators.
I'm pretty sure it is not really playable for tokens, but I just wanted to say that in the new set there is this 2 drop Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun. Even if it was BW, I don't think it would see play.
Nah it wouldn't see play even in BW. A 2/2 in Modern at least needs ridiculous card advantage like Voice of Resurgence or some evasion. Making one of our soldier tokens marginally better is not what we want to do for 2 mana.
- relatively easy to kill.
- if you draw him after the 4cmc gideon, it has to wait in your hand until the other dies (which is something we really dont want).
- 3 cmc = cmc of our tokens.
- No real synergy in our deck.
I could see him as a SB card against decks that don't care about opponent's board's state and just go for their thing, and even there, I think we have better answers. I might be wrong, though.
So last modern event went pretty smooth. Got 2nd place. However, I updated my deck quite a bit. I'm putting my Street Wraith approach aside for now. Gonna wait for Mishra's Bauble's price to calm their taytays so that I can try both at the same time. Here's the updated deck:
Went back to a more traditionnal approach. I also wanted to try the brand new Liliana of the veil I cracked open in a booster of MM17 last week. Up to now I can tell you I really like her, and I agree with jongsl5, she's really hard to evaluate, but up to now she fills a similar role to Collective brutality. I could see myself running two at some point.
Round 1 VS Living End (On the Play)(2-1) Game 1: Lost to their usual shenanigans. Game 2: An early Nihil Spellbomb was able to make him old off on his combo pieces for me to discard them with my hand hate. Game 3: No anti-grave side showed their face, but I used Pithing needle on one of their cyclers after a hand-hate turn 2. This plus a couple unlucky draws slowed him down just enough for me to get game. Overall: Was stressed the whole three game. My opponent got very unlucky with drawing their key cards. Even the game I lost was very close. One turn later and it would have been too late for him. Side-in/out: Removed all of my Fatal Push alongside Liliana of the veil to get my Rest in peace, Nihil Spellbomb and Pithing Needle
Round 2 VS Abzan Good Stuff (On the Draw) (2-0) Game 1: Usual Hand-hate+Spot removal kept him in check. Big misplay on his part though; he got a huge Tarmogoyf out, but did not keep a close eye on my lands. I was able to trade a single token for it with my Vault of the Archangel. Game 2: He did not get his sides against me and mulliganed once or twice (can't remember, but he seemed to keep a meh hand on top of that). Game went pretty smooth overall. Overall: Pretty sure he did not get what he wanted out of the deck that night, but first game was close and fun. Removal was always on time, except for one time where Deathtouch saved the day. Side-in/out: Nothing. However I could have sided some grave hate. His tarmogoyf was very present through our games.
Round 3 VS Elf Coco (On the Play) (2-0) Game 1: Used Fatal Push on a Heritage Druid, Slowed their play quite a bit. He also did not get a lot of value out of his Collected company and Lead the stampede. He got a Ezuri, Renegade leader that I immediately Pathed. Intangible Virtue allowed me to keep a respectable board to block and attack for game. Game 2: A very well timed Zealous persecution pretty much gave me the game. Like, I killed six elves with it. I almost felt bad for the guy... Almost. Overall: Like my first opponent. Got a lot of unlucky draws. Game two could have gone better for him if it wasn't for Zealous Side-in/out:Pithing Needle for Ezuri and Runed Halo for Shaman. Did not take anything out.
Round 4 VS Jund (On the Draw) (0-2) Game 1: I drew a kinda meh hand and He made me discard all of my removal. He then proceeded to curbstomp me with two Grim flayer and a Tarmogoyf. I still have the bruises. I'd also Dislike to say that I did a wrong move by blocking one of his Flayers with only four tokens, as he proceeded to Terminate one and keep his flayer, while I lost four token for basically nothing when I could have just blocked with more token I were saving to attack/chump block tarmogoyf. I don't think it would have changed the outcome of the game this time, but I keep it in mind and won't do this mistake again. Game 2: Had to mulligan a hand with five lands. Ironically, I got stuck with a Sorin and a Gideon in hand with only three lands the whole game. And he made me discard my Intangible Virtue and blasted my Bitterblossom with Abrupt Decay. Iwas able to use Pithing Needle on Liliana, the last hope, but Game was pretty much on his favor already. Overall: Same guy I fought and won against last time. He got his revenge. But War isn't over! also, why did you betray me landbase, I thought we had a serious relationship together (T^T) (In all seriousness, this is the first time I've been mana short in a very long while, landbase has a solid average) Side-in/out:Pithing Needle, for I knew he ran Liliana, the last hope and Walking ballista in his Main/side. I also sided in my grave hate in hope of jamming his Tarmogoyf and Grim flayer, but alas, they did not show their face.
Still got second place, since the only guy who had three victories was the one I fought first round. Starting to have a lot of store credit, and I'm wondering if I should put it on a second Liliana of the veil.
What do you think of the new Gideon? He stretches the game, protects himself and even combos with the Gideon we are already playing.
I'm personally Not interested in trying the new gideon of the trials. Here's a quick rundown on why.
His +1 is meh protection, and is probably not the reason you'd run it. If it is, I'd strongly recommend running Oblivion Ring or Anguished Unmaking instead.
His first +0 is actually pretty nice. a 4/4 indestructible for 3 mana is good. But in our deck, a deck that focus on quantity over quality, I don't think it has its place.
His second +0 seem good at first glance, but after a little thinking, it does not seem like it stops a lot of decks we care about. Tron does not care at all, so does Titan-shift. Burn and aggro pretty much see it as a "Gain 3 life" effect. Only deck I could see it work against is infect and a few control decks, most of which we have no real problem playing against.
I may be missing something here, but even with the culmination of these effect, I would not run it. It does not help us do any of the things we want to do in this deck (Produce token, anthem, disrupt our opponent), and it does a pretty poor job at preventing us from losing ironically.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I can see that now that I've tried her. She's both easier to cast and perform way better than I initially tought she would.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage.
Yeah, I know! That edict effect is actually pretty good. It looks Clunky as hell, but it saved my ass more than once Already.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
I feel like I would run two copies of her. One in the main + one in the side. Three copies would eat up some of my discard/removal slots and I like those how they are already. I feel two is the most copies I would run unless I went for an completely different type of build. Something with smallpox and Flagstones of trokair in mind.
As for Raise the alarm, I tried it in various number, and I feel really 50/50 about the card. It's definitely the quickest token generator we have access to, but it's undervalued compared to our other generators. Still getting to swing with two 2/2 with vigilance on turn 3 is pretty sweet and it also make stain the mind and other convoke spell that much better. If speed is what you want, give it a try, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to Liliana tough. Cards have different roles altogether.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I can see that now that I've tried her. She's both easier to cast and perform way better than I initially tought she would.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage.
Yeah, I know! That edict effect is actually pretty good. It looks Clunky as hell, but it saved my ass more than once Already.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
I feel like I would run two copies of her. One in the main + one in the side. Three copies would eat up some of my discard/removal slots and I like those how they are already. I feel two is the most copies I would run unless I went for an completely different type of build. Something with smallpox and Flagstones of trokair in mind.
As for Raise the alarm, I tried it in various number, and I feel really 50/50 about the card. It's definitely the quickest token generator we have access to, but it's undervalued compared to our other generators. Still getting to swing with two 2/2 with vigilance on turn 3 is pretty sweet and it also make stain the mind and other convoke spell that much better. If speed is what you want, give it a try, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to Liliana tough. Cards have different roles altogether.
Depending on the match-up, I did like running 3 Liliana of the Veil but I usually run 2 because it's (usually) not a priority to play it on turn 3. Preferably, you play it with a board presence but just early enough to shred your opponent's hand.
The thing about Raise the Alarm is that it's never horrible. Even in midrange matches, I often got a lot of value from my soldier tokens and this is presumably where they are at their worst. It's a very good late game card, where with anthems you are getting a ton of value for instant speed; this is excellent since it is meant to be an early game card. Against control, instant speed matters a lot when you are on the draw and they are often just as good as Lingering Souls (if not better) for this reason.
Yeah sorry for the misunderstanding but I wasn't comparing Liliana with RtA, only that they occupy the same number of slots in my particular build.
I have been thinking about doing a complete revision of our SB and I finally got some time for it. My intention is to dedicate the SB to the worst threats (and the ones that exist in my meta) and lower my consideration for win-more-type cards. For that, I came up with this list of favoured and unfavoured matchups:
From there, I tried to identify the largest threats that they represent, and I came up with these (ordered by how frequently they appear):
1- Artifacts: most of them are artifacts requiring an activated ability. However, the ones that require no activation are chalice of the void and ensnaring bridge, which are important enough (overall the latter) to consider something else than Stony Silence.
1- Graveyard: many decks make use of this recurrently and therefore, it is really important to run at least 2 pieces of GY hate (namely rest in peace) and the option is open for a third one (nihil spellbomb or surgical extraction for example).
3-Wraths: yeah. very clear. 2 Selfless spirit. Aaaaaand full-stop.
5- 1-card based decks: they are usually combo decks we fear facing because they don't really care about how many tokens can we develop as long as they get to cast their key card. Disruption is important here, but this spot is also brilliantly taken by some sort of stain the mind and/or runed halo. The latter, while not preventing the combo from happening, is also pseudo-stain the mind. However, ad nauseam can still win with their laboratory maniac, for example, so it is a little weaker.
5- super aggro decks: When they are creature-based our very efficient 7-8 removal package is awesome but these decks will still be able to drain a lot of life in the first 3 turns or so. Blessed alliance and ghostly prison are great here.
7- Blood Moon: the best cards against this strategy are simply basic lands. We can always bring some disenchants in (I think they are better than sundering growth because the W/W/).
7- Creatures activated abilities: there are a lot of messy creatures around that really affect our board. Mostly in eldrazi, reanimator and toolox decks. For that damping matrix and pithing needle are great. The former is a pseudo additional stony silence and affects all creatures, while the latter is incredibly cheap and efficient and also takes any kind of permanent down.
10- Big mana: Even if these decks usually are our worst matchups, they represent not a large number of deck types. ghost quarter is nice here (but they usually just find the way to infinite mana anyway).
When we weight this classification with the portion of the meta (in this case from mtgtop8.com, but anyone can just apply their own meta percentiles) they represent, the order ends up being:
1- Artifacts
2- Big Mana
3- Creature's activated abilities & Wraths
5- Big Buddies
6- Super Aggro decks
7- GY
8- PW
9- 1-card-based
10- Blood Moon (and enchantments in general)
Sorry for the long post but I think it needed a explicit explanation, as for me it was very difficult to figure out how our SB works. I would like you guys to criticise my criteria about good and bad MU's and any further feedback is appreciated. Also, if someone want the excel sheet where I did the evaluations, I can share it (eventhough is stupidly simple).
Sorry but you're a bit off on those matchups.
Zoo, Nahiri, and Sun and Moon are all favorable. Sun and Moon in particular is very good, they lose to Bitterblossom/Souls bad, and I've had multiple players of it tell me just that.
Ad Nauseum and Bogles are more neutral, both lose bad to discard and sideboard.
As for Hatebears it depends on the version of the deck, GW or Mono White are good, Eldrazi and Taxes is very bad.
Blessed Alliance is a card you should explore. It can come in against Bogles and the lifegain mode is relevant against Burn. Between this and Collective Brutality, Burn should be an easy win.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I also have troubles. I went to two timely reinforcements main but still haven't got the chance to try the match-up.
Opinions about secure the wastes?
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
I run (mainboard) 2x Timely Reinforcements, 2x Vault of the Archangel, and 3x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, and I essentially just do not lose rounds to Burn (Naya or Boros). Have you considered trying a mainboard setup like that?
BW BW Tokens
BUW Esper Shadow
BUR Grixis Shadow
Ditto. Stony Silence us just not that important of a sideboard card for us anymore IMO.
I cut mine for another selfless spirit (obvious reasons) and another pithing needle (more versatile).
BW BW Tokens
BUW Esper Shadow
BUR Grixis Shadow
I once tried that build, and even though it does make my match up against burn better, it's not so good against other deck. I might do this if almost all the people play burn (which is not that unusual in my city), but if not, then i might stick with what i have on board. Of course, minor replacement can be made on D-1
Running 2x Vault of the Archangel and 3x Sorin is pretty typical anyways. And Timely Reinforcements is a strong card against a variety of archetypes. Burn is in fact very prevalent in my meta, which is why I run it as a two-of.
The build I am running now (the first link in my signature) has been performing very strongly against most archetypes in my meta (Abzan, Jund, Death's Shadow, Grixis Delver, Affinity, etc.) and consistently places top-4 in the local 20+ person Modern events.
I'm not trying to sound defensive, but if my experience is anything to go by, your comments regarding the build are incorrect.
BW BW Tokens
BUW Esper Shadow
BUR Grixis Shadow
I run 8 fetches and 7 dual lands, so running two colorless lands rarely poses any problem. Vault of the Archangel is such a strong late-game card that having to wait an extra turn to play Spectral once in a blue moon (which is essentially its only disadvantage in practice) is a small price to pay. I have tried out all of the utility lands used in BW Tokens builds, and Vault is the strongest based on my experience. If you want to run more than one Ghost Quarter, though, then Shambling Vent is superior for mana fixing reasons.
BW BW Tokens
BUW Esper Shadow
BUR Grixis Shadow
I think the feeling is that Lili is really a board card for most BW tokens lists. If you can resolve it early, it's good against hard control lists that we might struggle against if they survive our initial onslaught. It can slow down scapeshift enough that we have a better chance of killing them as well as killing titan, and helps vs. other combo decks as well, since you've got a decent shot at stripping a key card from their hand with Turn 1 discard. Unfortunately, she's not really any good vs. most creature matchups, nor vs. burn.
Casting Liliana is not difficult with 4 concealed courtyard, 2-3 shambling vent, and fetches for godless shrines. I think you need to test this card before making any judgments because it is not an easy card to evaluate.
I've pulled off her ultimate many times. Heck I did it yesterday playing Death Shadow Jund against Eldrazi Tron. You only need to tick her up twice and if your opponent has no interactions - which is common if they are on the draw - it is backbreaking. But what makes her very good is her +1 Being able to pressure the hand every turn against decks that want to keep their hand full is fantastic.
There are many games where I felt having a Liliana would have been more useful than Gideon or Sorin. This is when you know she is worth playing. I didn't have the same feeling when I was testing Elspeth Tirel for instance.
The power of Liliana is that she is versatile. Even against mass aggro decks, I've made good use out of her edict. It's not something you'd expect to be good but in testing, you'll find many situations where she buys you a ton of time and card advantage. She isn't good against mirror, 8- rack, dredge, etc. but it is silly to evaluate how good a card is based on those particular match-ups which all demand specific answers. The problem with Modern is that there are so many goddamn linear strategies that demand specific sideboard answer. That's why it's totally reasonable to forgo the Tron match-up altogether.
But the question is whether or not she should be played in the main. I think she belongs somewhere in the 75 for sure. Lately I really wanted to put at least 3x Raise the Alarm in the main so I have something that is exceptionally good against combo and is semi-decent everywhere else. So this really limits my card choices and I believe Liliana might not make the cut.
I once tried 4 bitterblossom build and while it consistently drop on turn 2, i dont like them when i'm on top deck mode. It's different with RtA. I've been using 3 RTA/2Bitter for a pretty long time now, i'm pretty confident that this split is by far the best i've ever used.
On another note, my friend who is also playing Token tried a version with 4 knight of the white orchid, and saying that this version is super good. I might want to look deeper on this matter. For obvious reason he is leaning toward more heavy white build, while still splashing for black.
It's unfortunately not good enough for a card that turns on spot removal. I also (personally) wouldn't go down to 2 Bitterblossom. In my opinion, you play 3-4 or none at all. It's a card you don't want in multiples but it's a card you want in your opening hand against infect, affinity, midrange, and control. Playing 2 means you're much more likely to draw it mid-game where it'll probably be too slow when your hand is filled with more efficient token generators.
Nah it wouldn't see play even in BW. A 2/2 in Modern at least needs ridiculous card advantage like Voice of Resurgence or some evasion. Making one of our soldier tokens marginally better is not what we want to do for 2 mana.
- relatively easy to kill.
- if you draw him after the 4cmc gideon, it has to wait in your hand until the other dies (which is something we really dont want).
- 3 cmc = cmc of our tokens.
- No real synergy in our deck.
I could see him as a SB card against decks that don't care about opponent's board's state and just go for their thing, and even there, I think we have better answers. I might be wrong, though.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
4x Lingering souls
4x Bitterblossom
3x Spectral Procession
1x Timely reinforcements
Anthems (4)
4x Intangible Virtue
Spot Removal (8)
4x Fatal Push
4x Path to exile
Hand Hate (6)
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Thoughtseize
Swiss Knives (6)
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1x Zealous Persecution
5x Plains
2x Swamp
4x Marsh Flats
4x Windswept Heath
4x Concealed Courtyard
2x Godless Shrine
2x Shambling Vent
1x Vault of the Archangel
2x Pithing needle
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Rest in Peace
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Runed Halo
2x Selfless Spirit
1x Fragmentize
2x Disenchant
1x Sundering Growth
Went back to a more traditionnal approach. I also wanted to try the brand new Liliana of the veil I cracked open in a booster of MM17 last week. Up to now I can tell you I really like her, and I agree with jongsl5, she's really hard to evaluate, but up to now she fills a similar role to Collective brutality. I could see myself running two at some point.
Round 1 VS Living End (On the Play)(2-1)
Game 1: Lost to their usual shenanigans.
Game 2: An early Nihil Spellbomb was able to make him old off on his combo pieces for me to discard them with my hand hate.
Game 3: No anti-grave side showed their face, but I used Pithing needle on one of their cyclers after a hand-hate turn 2. This plus a couple unlucky draws slowed him down just enough for me to get game.
Overall: Was stressed the whole three game. My opponent got very unlucky with drawing their key cards. Even the game I lost was very close. One turn later and it would have been too late for him.
Side-in/out: Removed all of my Fatal Push alongside Liliana of the veil to get my Rest in peace, Nihil Spellbomb and Pithing Needle
Round 2 VS Abzan Good Stuff (On the Draw) (2-0)
Game 1: Usual Hand-hate+Spot removal kept him in check. Big misplay on his part though; he got a huge Tarmogoyf out, but did not keep a close eye on my lands. I was able to trade a single token for it with my Vault of the Archangel.
Game 2: He did not get his sides against me and mulliganed once or twice (can't remember, but he seemed to keep a meh hand on top of that). Game went pretty smooth overall.
Overall: Pretty sure he did not get what he wanted out of the deck that night, but first game was close and fun. Removal was always on time, except for one time where Deathtouch saved the day.
Side-in/out: Nothing. However I could have sided some grave hate. His tarmogoyf was very present through our games.
Round 3 VS Elf Coco (On the Play) (2-0)
Game 1: Used Fatal Push on a Heritage Druid, Slowed their play quite a bit. He also did not get a lot of value out of his Collected company and Lead the stampede. He got a Ezuri, Renegade leader that I immediately Pathed. Intangible Virtue allowed me to keep a respectable board to block and attack for game.
Game 2: A very well timed Zealous persecution pretty much gave me the game. Like, I killed six elves with it. I almost felt bad for the guy... Almost.
Overall: Like my first opponent. Got a lot of unlucky draws. Game two could have gone better for him if it wasn't for Zealous
Side-in/out: Pithing Needle for Ezuri and Runed Halo for Shaman. Did not take anything out.
Round 4 VS Jund (On the Draw) (0-2)
Game 1: I drew a kinda meh hand and He made me discard all of my removal. He then proceeded to curbstomp me with two Grim flayer and a Tarmogoyf. I still have the bruises. I'd also
Dislike to say that I did a wrong move by blocking one of his Flayers with only four tokens, as he proceeded to Terminate one and keep his flayer, while I lost four token for basically nothing when I could have just blocked with more token I were saving to attack/chump block tarmogoyf. I don't think it would have changed the outcome of the game this time, but I keep it in mind and won't do this mistake again.Game 2: Had to mulligan a hand with five lands. Ironically, I got stuck with a Sorin and a Gideon in hand with only three lands the whole game. And he made me discard my Intangible Virtue and blasted my Bitterblossom with Abrupt Decay. Iwas able to use Pithing Needle on Liliana, the last hope, but Game was pretty much on his favor already.
Overall: Same guy I fought and won against last time. He got his revenge. But War isn't over! also, why did you betray me landbase, I thought we had a serious relationship together (T^T) (In all seriousness, this is the first time I've been mana short in a very long while, landbase has a solid average)
Side-in/out: Pithing Needle, for I knew he ran Liliana, the last hope and Walking ballista in his Main/side. I also sided in my grave hate in hope of jamming his Tarmogoyf and Grim flayer, but alas, they did not show their face.
Still got second place, since the only guy who had three victories was the one I fought first round. Starting to have a lot of store credit, and I'm wondering if I should put it on a second Liliana of the veil.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
His +1 is meh protection, and is probably not the reason you'd run it. If it is, I'd strongly recommend running Oblivion Ring or Anguished Unmaking instead.
His first +0 is actually pretty nice. a 4/4 indestructible for 3 mana is good. But in our deck, a deck that focus on quantity over quality, I don't think it has its place.
His second +0 seem good at first glance, but after a little thinking, it does not seem like it stops a lot of decks we care about. Tron does not care at all, so does Titan-shift. Burn and aggro pretty much see it as a "Gain 3 life" effect. Only deck I could see it work against is infect and a few control decks, most of which we have no real problem playing against.
I may be missing something here, but even with the culmination of these effect, I would not run it. It does not help us do any of the things we want to do in this deck (Produce token, anthem, disrupt our opponent), and it does a pretty poor job at preventing us from losing ironically.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Also, Wouldn't the +1 discard be bad for burn? I can see that now that I've tried her. She's both easier to cast and perform way better than I initially tought she would.
Yeah, I know! That edict effect is actually pretty good. It looks Clunky as hell, but it saved my ass more than once Already.
I feel like I would run two copies of her. One in the main + one in the side. Three copies would eat up some of my discard/removal slots and I like those how they are already. I feel two is the most copies I would run unless I went for an completely different type of build. Something with smallpox and Flagstones of trokair in mind.
As for Raise the alarm, I tried it in various number, and I feel really 50/50 about the card. It's definitely the quickest token generator we have access to, but it's undervalued compared to our other generators. Still getting to swing with two 2/2 with vigilance on turn 3 is pretty sweet and it also make stain the mind and other convoke spell that much better. If speed is what you want, give it a try, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to Liliana tough. Cards have different roles altogether.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Depending on the match-up, I did like running 3 Liliana of the Veil but I usually run 2 because it's (usually) not a priority to play it on turn 3. Preferably, you play it with a board presence but just early enough to shred your opponent's hand.
The thing about Raise the Alarm is that it's never horrible. Even in midrange matches, I often got a lot of value from my soldier tokens and this is presumably where they are at their worst. It's a very good late game card, where with anthems you are getting a ton of value for instant speed; this is excellent since it is meant to be an early game card. Against control, instant speed matters a lot when you are on the draw and they are often just as good as Lingering Souls (if not better) for this reason.
Yeah sorry for the misunderstanding but I wasn't comparing Liliana with RtA, only that they occupy the same number of slots in my particular build.
-Favoured: DSJ, Junk, Affinity, Jund, Grixis, UW control, Storm, Infect, Bant, Sun&Moon, Nahiri.
-Neutral: Land Loss, Creatures Toolbox, Elves, Zoo, Merfolk, RDW, Hatebear, Hexproof, Ad Nauseam.
-Unfavoured: Eldrazi Aggro, Tron, Lantern Control, Valakut, Dredge, Reanimator, Living End.
From there, I tried to identify the largest threats that they represent, and I came up with these (ordered by how frequently they appear):
1- Artifacts: most of them are artifacts requiring an activated ability. However, the ones that require no activation are chalice of the void and ensnaring bridge, which are important enough (overall the latter) to consider something else than Stony Silence.
1- Graveyard: many decks make use of this recurrently and therefore, it is really important to run at least 2 pieces of GY hate (namely rest in peace) and the option is open for a third one (nihil spellbomb or surgical extraction for example).
3- Big buddies: with this I mainly refer to bogles and trampling creatures. Here both ghostly prison/ensnaring bridge or blessed alliance can be nice options. However, I also consider runed halo as a card able to deal with these problems. Also vault of the archangel is great here.
3-Wraths: yeah. very clear. 2 Selfless spirit. Aaaaaand full-stop.
5- 1-card based decks: they are usually combo decks we fear facing because they don't really care about how many tokens can we develop as long as they get to cast their key card. Disruption is important here, but this spot is also brilliantly taken by some sort of stain the mind and/or runed halo. The latter, while not preventing the combo from happening, is also pseudo-stain the mind. However, ad nauseam can still win with their laboratory maniac, for example, so it is a little weaker.
5- super aggro decks: When they are creature-based our very efficient 7-8 removal package is awesome but these decks will still be able to drain a lot of life in the first 3 turns or so. Blessed alliance and ghostly prison are great here.
7- Blood Moon: the best cards against this strategy are simply basic lands. We can always bring some disenchants in (I think they are better than sundering growth because the W/W/).
7- Creatures activated abilities: there are a lot of messy creatures around that really affect our board. Mostly in eldrazi, reanimator and toolox decks. For that damping matrix and pithing needle are great. The former is a pseudo additional stony silence and affects all creatures, while the latter is incredibly cheap and efficient and also takes any kind of permanent down.
9- PW: pithing needle, creatures, and disruption.
10- Big mana: Even if these decks usually are our worst matchups, they represent not a large number of deck types. ghost quarter is nice here (but they usually just find the way to infinite mana anyway).
When we weight this classification with the portion of the meta (in this case from mtgtop8.com, but anyone can just apply their own meta percentiles) they represent, the order ends up being:
1- Artifacts
2- Big Mana
3- Creature's activated abilities & Wraths
5- Big Buddies
6- Super Aggro decks
7- GY
8- PW
9- 1-card-based
10- Blood Moon (and enchantments in general)
Finally this is the SB figured for me:
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
2x Runed Halo
2x Selfless Spirit
2x Stain the Mind
2x Stony Silence
2x Disenchant
stony silence for artifacts that activate.
rest in peace for gy.
pithing needle for artifacts, PW, and creatures activated abilities.
runed halo against combo and annoying creatures.
Selfless spirit for wraths.
Stain the mind for combos and pesky cards.
Surgical extraction help both gy and combo (aside of being a silverbullet against tron lands with ghost quarter, but this is a very marginal functionality and I don't consider it is covered).
disenchant is obvious (might go to only 1 and 1 anguished unmaking).
My only doubt after all this evaluating is the two spots for stain the mind. I am not sure if they are worth it or I just change them for ghostly prison, blessed alliance, surgical extraction + something else.
Sorry for the long post but I think it needed a explicit explanation, as for me it was very difficult to figure out how our SB works. I would like you guys to criticise my criteria about good and bad MU's and any further feedback is appreciated. Also, if someone want the excel sheet where I did the evaluations, I can share it (eventhough is stupidly simple).
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
Zoo, Nahiri, and Sun and Moon are all favorable. Sun and Moon in particular is very good, they lose to Bitterblossom/Souls bad, and I've had multiple players of it tell me just that.
Ad Nauseum and Bogles are more neutral, both lose bad to discard and sideboard.
As for Hatebears it depends on the version of the deck, GW or Mono White are good, Eldrazi and Taxes is very bad.