We need to stop looking at Adonis2k's list. It's good but at this point it might not be what we want since it's tuned very specifically for the pre Dredge meta (like when SCG Commentators last said Jund was the best deck in modern). The Eternal Scourge lists are still good, but in a Tron favored metagame the deck has almost no clock to it and will probably lose to a lot of decks because of it. It doesn't matter if it has a history of 5-0s in modern leagues on mtgo, it's just not that good anymore.
Also Adonis2k has said that ricochet trap is well. A trap. You don't need it for any blue matchup (including Utron) just go threat heavy and 9/10 if you play smart you'll win.
The reason Kevin Mackie played storm death dragon was to have a serious clock (wins in 3 turns if you can pay for monstrous at any point).
ok so a tron-favored meta will lean more towards the mackie list or something entirely different? Around 2-3 months ago when I asked which direction I should go I was pointed towards the adonis list. If that's not exactly the case anymore, what's the best reference as of now?
There's several of them in the primer.
and that's exactly my point. I'm very new not only to skred but to modern as a whole, with a very limited budget to spend for pieces. As fun as it sounds to cycle through all the decks in the primer, I unfortunately can't, hence my question.
But anyway, okoSheep mentioned a need for change so I guess that baseline list I'm looking for is still a work in progress and there's not really an answer for that now. So cksboy are you still using the last list you posted? With the 3 stormbreaths and 4 moons main? And are you experienceing the same decline from 3-1 average to 2-2 as okoSheep said?
Ah well I still am on relatively the same list. I haven't seen a decline at all since my local meta doesn't shift fairly quick impaired to others, my current list is always on my tapped out page here's a link for you.
My record with the current so as it stands is 33-7-1 in matches. Bear in mind my meta has a lot of smalltime GP grinders and I even got to play against Alex Bastecki (the SCG batterkill token, I got him 2-0 with his own token). So I tend to play vs a lot of favorable matches unless everyone besides to play Tron (I believe I mentioned before how I played Tron 4 rounds in a row, it's not an unusual occurrence).
I do plan on putting Skred down for a bit since I've grinded it pretty hard for the past couple months now (something something reddit primer) so I could use a smallish break.
We need to stop looking at Adonis2k's list. It's good but at this point it might not be what we want since it's tuned very specifically for the pre Dredge meta (like when SCG Commentators last said Jund was the best deck in modern). The Eternal Scourge lists are still good, but in a Tron favored metagame the deck has almost no clock to it and will probably lose to a lot of decks because of it. It doesn't matter if it has a history of 5-0s in modern leagues on mtgo, it's just not that good anymore.
Also Adonis2k has said that ricochet trap is well. A trap. You don't need it for any blue matchup (including Utron) just go threat heavy and 9/10 if you play smart you'll win.
The reason Kevin Mackie played storm death dragon was to have a serious clock (wins in 3 turns if you can pay for monstrous at any point).
ok so a tron-favored meta will lean more towards the mackie list or something entirely different? Around 2-3 months ago when I asked which direction I should go I was pointed towards the adonis list. If that's not exactly the case anymore, what's the best reference as of now?
There's several of them in the primer.
and that's exactly my point. I'm very new not only to skred but to modern as a whole, with a very limited budget to spend for pieces. As fun as it sounds to cycle through all the decks in the primer, I unfortunately can't, hence my question.
But anyway, okoSheep mentioned a need for change so I guess that baseline list I'm looking for is still a work in progress and there's not really an answer for that now. So cksboy are you still using the last list you posted? With the 3 stormbreaths and 4 moons main? And are you experienceing the same decline from 3-1 average to 2-2 as okoSheep said?
Ah well I still am on relatively the same list. I haven't seen a decline at all since my local meta doesn't shift fairly quick impaired to others, my current list is always on my tapped out page here's a link for you.
My record with the current so as it stands is 33-7-1 in matches. Bear in mind my meta has a lot of smalltime GP grinders and I even got to play against Alex Bastecki (the SCG batterkill token, I got him 2-0 with his own token). So I tend to play vs a lot of favorable matches unless everyone besides to play Tron (I believe I mentioned before how I played Tron 4 rounds in a row, it's not an unusual occurrence).
I do plan on putting Skred down for a bit since I've grinded it pretty hard for the past couple months now (something something reddit primer) so I could use a smallish break.
thanks man, this helps loads. I highly prefer curving into stormbreaths from the get go rather than pulling them from the side every time. How much milage do you get from commune with lava? And same question I asked evilford, how's 4 blood moons doin for you?
If you want a specific card to be drawn, you play 4 copies. Extra blood moons sucks for us, but it sucks a lot more for your opponent who got their manabase wrecked. Every other moon deck ever runs 4, even Blue Moon which got lots of cantrips.
Can try Tormenting Voice if you worry about redundancy, I've found 1-of to be a fair card to play either turn 2 or late game to obtain more gas. We run a lot of cards which are good to only a part of the meta, so it's basicly a 2-mana divination most of the time. It does come out against most of our goods matchups, but that's fine.
I've honestly played way too little lately, but had a 4-0 and 3-1 at the 2 last small local tourneys with this list:
As said it's small tourneys and I picked up lot of 2-1's, so results are insignificant. However I did beat both Tron and RG Breach with this setup (thanks Bridge!). U-tron would probably still be horrendous, so let's cross fingers that it won't suddenly burst in popularity due to Planar Bridge. There's a bigger tournament coming up 5.feb or so, hope to get some good results and streams from there!
ok so a tron-favored meta will lean more towards the mackie list or something entirely different? Around 2-3 months ago when I asked which direction I should go I was pointed towards the adonis list. If that's not exactly the case anymore, what's the best reference as of now?
There's several of them in the primer.
and that's exactly my point. I'm very new not only to skred but to modern as a whole, with a very limited budget to spend for pieces. As fun as it sounds to cycle through all the decks in the primer, I unfortunately can't, hence my question.
But anyway, okoSheep mentioned a need for change so I guess that baseline list I'm looking for is still a work in progress and there's not really an answer for that now. So cksboy are you still using the last list you posted? With the 3 stormbreaths and 4 moons main? And are you experienceing the same decline from 3-1 average to 2-2 as okoSheep said?
Ah well I still am on relatively the same list. I haven't seen a decline at all since my local meta doesn't shift fairly quick impaired to others, my current list is always on my tapped out page here's a link for you.
My record with the current so as it stands is 33-7-1 in matches. Bear in mind my meta has a lot of smalltime GP grinders and I even got to play against Alex Bastecki (the SCG batterkill token, I got him 2-0 with his own token). So I tend to play vs a lot of favorable matches unless everyone besides to play Tron (I believe I mentioned before how I played Tron 4 rounds in a row, it's not an unusual occurrence).
I do plan on putting Skred down for a bit since I've grinded it pretty hard for the past couple months now (something something reddit primer) so I could use a smallish break.
thanks man, this helps loads. I highly prefer curving into stormbreaths from the get go rather than pulling them from the side every time. How much milage do you get from commune with lava? And same question I asked evilford, how's 4 blood moons doin for you?
Commune does everything I want it to do. It's not super amazing, butnits never really that read ofnandraw either.
4 moons are ran because my meta calls for it with me facing Tron or RG valakut basically every round. You'll never beat those decks without blood moon, so you need it that bad.
@yuji ill come up with a budget section that will include a list of budget replacements, and a list of things to buy in order of importance. Maybe ill be motivated enough to update the rest of the primer while im at it
Morcrux, i like your list. I'd give it a try, but sadly i dont have bridges. How are the hangarbacks performing without the bridges?? I wouldn't worry about planar bridge, I don't think it would be good in U tron anyway.
Let's be honest here, the list mackie was using IS adonis's list. There is like a 3 card difference, and that's entirely because the list was a few months out of date. (eg. theres no reason for adonis to have pyromaster or volcanic when ToD and anger are nearly strictly better)
If you REALLY want to beat tron, I'd all-in with simians + rabblemasters on the side, or even the main.
My standard for this deck used to be 3-1 (in the prize pool) every fnm, but lately I've been going 2-2. I'm also using adonis varient list, but I think it's time to change it up. Maybe start over from scratch, because things aren't working anymore. I think its time to bring back Reckoners. Volcanic fallout + reckoner is underrated, maybe we can go back to it since dredge got hit pretty hard.
I'll also be trying doubled dragons again with Dragon Tempest. I think we need to shove harder in this meta instead of being grindy. We did well because we had a sweetspot between being aggressive/grindy, if we can readjust we will probably be fine again.
I've been thinking the same thing. If there wasn't so much UW Control in my meta, I would play Reckoner. I'm definitely going to try Double Dragon, probably tonight. However, let's not forget we still have another week before the bans go into effect. It would be wise to playtest with the recent bans, but I would try to figure out what's going to be popular.
What do we drop for Thunderbreaks? P&K?
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Yeah. I want to go x4 thunderbreaks, x4 stormbreaths and 2-3 reckoners. I kind of want the reckoners to eat a path so that I can ramp. I'm not sure if I'm going to run mindstones, simians, or just more removal yet. I'm probably going to throw an Earthquake in there.
I think once you remove Skred from the deck it stops being what this primer is about. However, it looks like a lot of fun. I might slot in my snow-covered mountains and give it a whirl. With a little bit of tuning, it could be considered a small off branch of Skred.
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Morcrux, i like your list. I'd give it a try, but sadly i dont have bridges. How are the hangarbacks performing without the bridges?? I wouldn't worry about planar bridge, I don't think it would be good in U tron anyway.
Hangarbacks are included mostly to increase the number of good turn 2 play I'll have, but I wouldn't mind a better 2-drop coming up at some point. It offers amazing value if opponents consider it a threat, but if not it will sometimes end up lying around since I need mana to cast moons or Koth the following turns. It is of course amazing later in the game, especially combined with P&K which is why I consider it worthy here. Worst case it chumps a couple turns or ramp into more lands eating a Path (which is perfecly fine for a 2-drop).
I'm wondering how effected dredge will be with the banning, if they're going off meta I'm considering swapping Anger with Slagstorm to offer more reach and thopter-spawn from Hangarback without reducing the sweep damage. There's still CoCo decks but they're few and manageable without Anger.
After seen many tests with the new dredge it's still a deck but just a little more clunky. If this does make dredge fall out of favor I can definitely see going down to 2 relics main to add more threats to fight tron with.
We played 4 relics before dredge was a threat in modern. There are still snapcasters, tarmogoyfs, tasigurs, and plenty of other things relic can do for us. If dredge does lose popularity, the change we should be looking towards is our choice of sweepers. We wouldn't be tied down to Anger of the Gods anymore.
I have a pretty radical build in mind, but will require a lot of patience and testing to make it work.
We played 4 relics before dredge was a threat in modern. There are still snapcasters, tarmogoyfs, tasigurs, and plenty of other things relic can do for us. If dredge does lose popularity, the change we should be looking towards is our choice of sweepers. We wouldn't be tied down to Anger of the Gods anymore.
I have a pretty radical build in mind, but will require a lot of patience and testing to make it work.
Honestly unless your on a hangarback build I'd still play some number of Angers innthat main. Dredge isn't dead, but inntesting it's still a decent choice.
@yuji ill come up with a budget section that will include a list of budget replacements, and a list of things to buy in order of importance. Maybe ill be motivated enough to update the rest of the primer while im at it
That's awesome!! As far as staples go I'm very near its completion. I do have only 2 scrying sheets and 3 blood moons. How important is it to move up to 3 sheets and 4 moons?
Not very. I run 2 Sheets and 3 Moons and get by just fine. I sometimes wish I would draw Moon more often, but the card isn't amazing in the current format.
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I'm starting to get a hang of skred's deckbuilding rationale thanks to the discussions here. =) I have a question about SSG's though. I feel like the potential for a t2 blood moon or basically getting any threat to drop a turn earlier seems too good to pass up. Why did a good number of skred players decide to drop it?
This gets brought up a lot (so much so that I think adding a comparison of the two to the primer might be a good idea). It's a simple question with a very complicated answer. It's really a matter of an explosive early game vs. a formidable late game.
SSG is what you want if you value explosive early play. Turn 2 Blood Moon (or turn 1 if you're lucky) is very powerful against most decks. Additionally, it makes red mana, which is relevant if you play Boros Reckoner. You also get some fun tricks like tapping for a threat when you hace SSG and Skred/Bolt in hand. Plus, you can charge out an early Goblin Rabblemaster, possibly the best chance we have against all-in combo decks. However, it is a one-time effect: you cannot use mana from an SSG repeatedly like you can with Mindstone and you cannot cycle it late game. In other words, after the first few turns it is a 2/2 for 3. TLDR, SSG opens up busted early game plays at the cost of clunky hands and draws.
Mindstone is where you want to be if you want late game power. Mind Stone is a mana source that we can use whenever we need it, and thus it smooths out our bad draws. Plus, it isn't quite dead in the late game because it can cycle, albeit for three mana. Mind Stone is also an artifact, so it synergizes with P&K. The downside to Stone is that it takes up our turn two slot, but we generally aren't doing too much on turn two anyways except for holding up removal. It can be awkward if we have a hand that has two lands and a Reckoner. Mind Stone is also a permanent that can be destroyed, and if our opponent knows what's in our hand (by way of a discard effect, for example), he/she can punish us by destroying a man source (this happens very rarely, and is an edge case scenario). TLDR, Mind Stone smooths out our bad hands and draws at the cost of giving our deck much more fair hands.
In my case, I chose Mind Stone because I play P&K and SSG requires the right hand to be amazing, which is what you want with SSG. Otherwise, I found SSG to be very mediocre and ultimately not what I wanted to be doing. Our deck can fight on a fair axis much better than it can at an unfair axis. I think we're better off trying to use our deck's natural strengths than give it a shot at performing both fair and unfair plays on a mediocre level. Even with SSG in the deck, I still found I was better off fighting fair. Early Blood Moon is very good. If you are seeking to jam Blood Moon as early as possible and playing 4, SSG is a good choice if you want to take that route. If you find yourself needing to jam Goblin Rabblemaster out of the sideboard as soon as you possibly can, SSG is a great choice. Otherwise, I would stick with Mind Stone to start with, and then maybe try SSG.
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We run Relic and have for years because we are a mono red deck in modern and for starters what else of high impact are we going to run? Relic is much higher impact than little creatures or bad burn. It interacts with almost every deck in the format.
I'm starting to get a hang of skred's deckbuilding rationale thanks to the discussions here. =) I have a question about SSG's though. I feel like the potential for a t2 blood moon or basically getting any threat to drop a turn earlier seems too good to pass up. Why did a good number of skred players decide to drop it?
Mostly because adonis2k's list ran 4, and eveybody jumped onto the bandwagon because his list was the one putting up the most/best result. This became especially true after the GP win with the same list. The 4 P&Ks (and to an extent, the 1-of batterskull) also followed a similar trend.
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Ah well I still am on relatively the same list. I haven't seen a decline at all since my local meta doesn't shift fairly quick impaired to others, my current list is always on my tapped out page here's a link for you.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/15-03-16-SQN-skred-red/
My record with the current so as it stands is 33-7-1 in matches. Bear in mind my meta has a lot of smalltime GP grinders and I even got to play against Alex Bastecki (the SCG batterkill token, I got him 2-0 with his own token). So I tend to play vs a lot of favorable matches unless everyone besides to play Tron (I believe I mentioned before how I played Tron 4 rounds in a row, it's not an unusual occurrence).
I do plan on putting Skred down for a bit since I've grinded it pretty hard for the past couple months now (something something reddit primer) so I could use a smallish break.
the moons are pretty invaluable in my meta. I have thought about going down to 2 chandras tho
(Modern)
RG RG Titanshift RG
WUBR Affinity WUBR
x Eldrazi Tron x
UG Tropical Merfolk UG
(Pauper)
G Elves G
WURG Affinity WURG
thanks man, this helps loads. I highly prefer curving into stormbreaths from the get go rather than pulling them from the side every time. How much milage do you get from commune with lava? And same question I asked evilford, how's 4 blood moons doin for you?
Can try Tormenting Voice if you worry about redundancy, I've found 1-of to be a fair card to play either turn 2 or late game to obtain more gas. We run a lot of cards which are good to only a part of the meta, so it's basicly a 2-mana divination most of the time. It does come out against most of our goods matchups, but that's fine.
I've honestly played way too little lately, but had a 4-0 and 3-1 at the 2 last small local tourneys with this list:
3x Anger of the Gods
4x Skred
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Roast
Threats
3x Hangarback Walker
4x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4x Koth of the Hammer|Scars of Mirrodin
2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Blood Moon
Utility
4x Relic of Progenitus
1x Tormenting Voice
Lands
20x Snow-Covered Mountain
2x Scrying Sheets
4x Dragon's Claw
4x Molten Rain
3x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
2x Shattering Spree
Legacy: Death'n'Taxes
Commune does everything I want it to do. It's not super amazing, butnits never really that read ofnandraw either.
4 moons are ran because my meta calls for it with me facing Tron or RG valakut basically every round. You'll never beat those decks without blood moon, so you need it that bad.
Morcrux, i like your list. I'd give it a try, but sadly i dont have bridges. How are the hangarbacks performing without the bridges?? I wouldn't worry about planar bridge, I don't think it would be good in U tron anyway.
What do we drop for Thunderbreaks? P&K?
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-wildfire-modern/
It's not exactly "Skred Red" but plays many of the deck's cards and Wildfire was mentioned as a fringe option for the deck before.
I'm wondering how effected dredge will be with the banning, if they're going off meta I'm considering swapping Anger with Slagstorm to offer more reach and thopter-spawn from Hangarback without reducing the sweep damage. There's still CoCo decks but they're few and manageable without Anger.
Legacy: Death'n'Taxes
I have a pretty radical build in mind, but will require a lot of patience and testing to make it work.
Honestly unless your on a hangarback build I'd still play some number of Angers innthat main. Dredge isn't dead, but inntesting it's still a decent choice.
That's awesome!! As far as staples go I'm very near its completion. I do have only 2 scrying sheets and 3 blood moons. How important is it to move up to 3 sheets and 4 moons?
SSG is what you want if you value explosive early play. Turn 2 Blood Moon (or turn 1 if you're lucky) is very powerful against most decks. Additionally, it makes red mana, which is relevant if you play Boros Reckoner. You also get some fun tricks like tapping for a threat when you hace SSG and Skred/Bolt in hand. Plus, you can charge out an early Goblin Rabblemaster, possibly the best chance we have against all-in combo decks. However, it is a one-time effect: you cannot use mana from an SSG repeatedly like you can with Mindstone and you cannot cycle it late game. In other words, after the first few turns it is a 2/2 for 3. TLDR, SSG opens up busted early game plays at the cost of clunky hands and draws.
Mindstone is where you want to be if you want late game power. Mind Stone is a mana source that we can use whenever we need it, and thus it smooths out our bad draws. Plus, it isn't quite dead in the late game because it can cycle, albeit for three mana. Mind Stone is also an artifact, so it synergizes with P&K. The downside to Stone is that it takes up our turn two slot, but we generally aren't doing too much on turn two anyways except for holding up removal. It can be awkward if we have a hand that has two lands and a Reckoner. Mind Stone is also a permanent that can be destroyed, and if our opponent knows what's in our hand (by way of a discard effect, for example), he/she can punish us by destroying a man source (this happens very rarely, and is an edge case scenario). TLDR, Mind Stone smooths out our bad hands and draws at the cost of giving our deck much more fair hands.
In my case, I chose Mind Stone because I play P&K and SSG requires the right hand to be amazing, which is what you want with SSG. Otherwise, I found SSG to be very mediocre and ultimately not what I wanted to be doing. Our deck can fight on a fair axis much better than it can at an unfair axis. I think we're better off trying to use our deck's natural strengths than give it a shot at performing both fair and unfair plays on a mediocre level. Even with SSG in the deck, I still found I was better off fighting fair. Early Blood Moon is very good. If you are seeking to jam Blood Moon as early as possible and playing 4, SSG is a good choice if you want to take that route. If you find yourself needing to jam Goblin Rabblemaster out of the sideboard as soon as you possibly can, SSG is a great choice. Otherwise, I would stick with Mind Stone to start with, and then maybe try SSG.
Mostly because adonis2k's list ran 4, and eveybody jumped onto the bandwagon because his list was the one putting up the most/best result. This became especially true after the GP win with the same list. The 4 P&Ks (and to an extent, the 1-of batterskull) also followed a similar trend.