What do we think of sudden shock in the flex slots or sb? At worst it's uncounterable removal for a 2 toughness guy and at best it can dismantle an established melira combo and stop them from going off in response or kill an infect guy or nexus before it gets pumped.
@okoSheep
If you want to keep the cycling if relics without the potential nonbo to your dark-dwellers/demigods I've heard a split with Scrabbling Claws can work. No first hand experience but it seems good on paper
@Kurisock
I'm playing shock one main and one side and I love it. It's not just good for infect/Affinity but any deck with a small creature with activated abilities. That includes the Melira combo, Steve, Scooze, Lab Maniac, Baby Jace, wtv. Even when it's not great it helps put a little bit of uncounterable pressure on our opponent to help us close out a win. I play a Vanilla build so it works pretty well with my game plan but I highly recommend
perhaps i need help in sequencing how to play against Coco... I feel its like the worst matchup ever (after ad naus) but i keep reading and hearing ppl say, it s a good matchup for us.
Relic of Progenitus is important in the matchup. You can use your relic after you kill a persist creature to exile it before it comes back. Also you can exile stuff in response to Eternal Witness entering the battlefield. Have them choose the target for Witness, and then use relic while the trigger is still on the stack. The other timing trick is, if they are about to combo off, wait until the persist creature is on the stack, then kill Anafenza/Melira. If you try to kill something before they try to combo off, they can do the infinite loop while your removal spell is still on the stack.
My gameplan against CoCo is to save my removal for combo pieces unless my life total is real low. Let them have their Birds and Hierarchs and Voice of Resurgences, eventually you'll draw a sweeper and wipe them all out. Do not kill a Voice unless you have a plan for the token. My usual tatic is after I draw a sweeper, bolt the Voice at the end of their turn (this gives them two tokens), then cast the sweeper and both tokens will die too because they're only 2/2s or 3/3s when everything else goes away. Be careful tapping out for a threat if they can potentially combo off, but once you get something on the table they won't have a way to answer it. I think it's a favorable matchup but it's easy to make mistakes. Play carefully and patiently, focus on keeping them off the combo. Remember they can CoCo or Chord in response to anything you do. Their beatdown plan is very slow so it's a much lower priority for you to deal with.
What do we think of sudden shock in the flex slots or sb? At worst it's uncounterable removal for a 2 toughness guy and at best it can dismantle an established melira combo and stop them from going off in response or kill an infect guy or nexus before it gets pumped.
A regular bolt/skred is enough to dismantle the Meilra combo, just kill Melira when the persist trigger is on the stack and the creature is still in the graveyard. It's real good against infect though (you can wait for a pump spell if you want and get an easy 2-for-1), and against affinity it can take out an arcbound ravager before the ravager gets out of control.
I think it's worth considering for a flex removal slot in the main deck if you expect a lot of targets in your meta, but I don't really like it in the sideboard. We're already favored against any deck running lots of 2-toughness creatures, and I'd rather spend my sideboard slots focusing on more difficult matchups.
Well, Im buying the cards for my Skred deck since months and Im finally close to have my full deck My first "competitive" deck. While I have been playing MTG since 9-10 years, I always played with proxies. I only need the 3 Moons and a few cards for the SB. I do think that my build is fine and solid, but I have a few doubts, hope you can help me and give your thoughts about the build, its high $$$ cost for me.
As you can see, there are 59 cards on the main and 11 on the SB. So, about the main: I play mind stones over SSG since, in this build, the only good SSG would do over stones is T2 Blood Moon. Is powerful, but not enough to go over the mind stones (at least for my build, I repeat), because of: T4 Koth / P&KN, sacrifice for P&KN, casting batterskull soon, enough mana for return-cast batterskull... a lot of uses for this build. About the card that should be number 60, I have in mind Chandra, Flamecaller or the 4th Reckoner. Chandra can act as a finisher and as a sweeper, can end the games quick and I have 4 mind stones for the cast. But the 4th Boros reckoner would make the deck less CC intensive and more interactive with skred and volcanic fallout.
About the sideboard: there are left the cards for the combo/tron matchup. Im thinking about 3 Molten Rain 1 Crumble to dust; Rabblemaster can work too, but I think it would be better for SSG builds. Anyone has tested it on a non-SSG build? There has to be out there a 2CC red creature that can be fast enough to put a lot of pressure on the combo/tron matchup.
To be honest though I feel 2 batterskull is too many. I found it best as a 1 of main or side, but at 5cmc we honestly prefer one of the hasty dudes I showed above, but your list does seem pretty good.
Thanks for the help
I like a lot how this looks now. Thoughts?
Before anyone says Blood Moon… budget. Molten Rain has been excellent, anyway.
This is a change back from my Double-Dragon build that my sig (at the time of this writing) towards a more classic build. I love Reckoners, Jets, and Fallout; all three have done great work. Pyromaster seems good in my local meta (lots of juicy 1-toughness targets). I don’t think anything else requires explanation.
As for the SB, I’m less certain. I think most of the cards are self-explanatory in what they’re there for. I’ve faced more Nahiri lately, which has encouraged me towards Boil and Banefire (though I’m less sure that Boil > Ricochet Trap). I consider the Tron matchup mostly lost before it starts, but Crumble to Dust is a nod to it (and has uses elsewhere). The card that really looks great that I haven’t been able to fit yet is Goblin Rabblemaster (or Hanweir Garrison, which looks to be a drop slower but a bit more resilient). The more I look at it, the more it seems like the perfect complement to let us fight creature-less/light decks.
Before anyone says Blood Moon… budget. Molten Rain has been excellent, anyway.
This is a change back from my Double-Dragon build that my sig (at the time of this writing) towards a more classic build. I love Reckoners, Jets, and Fallout; all three have done great work. Pyromaster seems good in my local meta (lots of juicy 1-toughness targets). I don’t think anything else requires explanation.
As for the SB, I’m less certain. I think most of the cards are self-explanatory in what they’re there for. I’ve faced more Nahiri lately, which has encouraged me towards Boil and Banefire (though I’m less sure that Boil > Ricochet Trap). I consider the Tron matchup mostly lost before it starts, but Crumble to Dust is a nod to it (and has uses elsewhere). The card that really looks great that I haven’t been able to fit yet is Goblin Rabblemaster (or Hanweir Garrison, which looks to be a drop slower but a bit more resilient). The more I look at it, the more it seems like the perfect complement to let us fight creature-less/light decks.
Any thoughts, especially on the SB?
Boil and Banefire are too Redundant imo. Blue control isn't even a hard matchup so four cards for control matchups seems like a lot. Pithing Needle is better against Nahiri and is useful in a lot of other matchups as well. I like to have versatile sideboard cards so when my removal isn't useful I always have a lot to bring in instead.
Goblin Rabblemaster is good against combo decks that can't get it off the table, but I think you need to be playing Simian Spirit guides to make them fast enough.
Boil and Banefire are too Redundant imo. Blue control isn't even a hard matchup so four cards for control matchups seems like a lot. Pithing Needle is better against Nahiri and is useful in a lot of other matchups as well. I like to have versatile sideboard cards so when my removal isn't useful I always have a lot to bring in instead.
Goblin Rabblemaster is good against combo decks that can't get it off the table, but I think you need to be playing Simian Spirit guides to make them fast enough.
You know, you're probably right about Banefire and Boil. Odds are any time I can cast a big Banefire I have Koth, and I'm already beating blue control if I have Koth. Boil on the other hand is flexible and an instant, and also is great versus Scapeshift and the like. So that's two slots.
Pithing Needle is possible. Not sure what its good against that I don't already have a good game versus.
As for Rabblemaster, well, yeah if you cast him on turn 2, you can win on turn 4. But I'm not sure 5 is that bad. Sure, it's not going to race Tron, that's probably still enough to make a lot of decks sweat.
Gotta think about it some more. I have no idea what else would actually work against those decks. Against most of them, Pithing Needle doesn't have great targets either.
This thing overpowered for protecting Koth and Nahiri. I expect to see them in Nahiri, even though their list tight as it is. And Blue Tron as well.
Think of the number of times we've had 3 mana to spare to scrying sheets or hardcast SSG... And don't forget they synergize really well with our relics
Its weak enough that not every deck wants to run it, but amazing for us because we're not actually going out of our way to maximize the value of this card... Sort of like how Prized Amalgam gave dredge a huge boost in power, but only that deck
So I got to spit-balling a list and I think I;'m gonna try this list for the modern classic at SCG Columbus (July 30th), maybe trading the batterskull for a 2nd darkdweller might be best, but I have a month to test.
Explaining a couple choices here:
I'm opting for pyroclasm over fallout simply because it's a turn faster and nothing more
1 Batterskull because I like the card in the deck and it opens up 1 slot in the sideboard (normally for a 4th Dragon's Claw)
2 Reverberate side because I love the card vs Blue decks and burn
2 pithig needle to help vs weaker matchups (tron and ad nauseum specifically)
1 outpost siege side for GBx and Lantern Control matchups
1 Roast because I can;t really decide what should be there (maybe that should be a dragon's claw anyway)
The list seems good in my head, but I dunno. It either this or I keep jamming hangarbacks.
I doubt that's reason enough. We play Stormbreath, which is way better against PtE. I think this card is a good solid thing that does what it does reliably (block, and occasionally attack). But that's something that's either MD functionality or out: it's not the sort of blowout card that's really desirable for the SB.
Compared to other cards we already play? none really. Pia and Kiran is fantastis as a 3 for 1, reckoner dominates ground combat, stormbreath is a clock and is a hasty flyer, so he just a better wincon.
Maybe hangarback? But I doubt it.
Card is good no doubt, but realistically there's no place for it in our deck.
Ok guys, you were right, Monastery Swiftspear isn't very good in this deck. At least not in a classical control shell. In MU where we need a clock, Rabblemaster seems like a better card (with SSGs, especially)
Swiftspears aside I'm gonna test this build for tomorrow local modern tournament
I want to try Return instead of Fallout, so I wouldn't get destroyed by pro-red sideboard plan and have some main deck answer to Etched Champion (I don't have pyrite spellbombs, sadly). To get some additional value I added a couple of Endless Ones and trimmed a couple of Relics. Maybe it's too cute, but we'll see.
Now when I have Endless One which I'm planning (keep hope alive) to cast for 7 at least once, I'm gonna try a 24x lands + 3x SSG + 3x Mind Stone configuration.
If you want to keep the cycling if relics without the potential nonbo to your dark-dwellers/demigods I've heard a split with Scrabbling Claws can work. No first hand experience but it seems good on paper
@Kurisock
I'm playing shock one main and one side and I love it. It's not just good for infect/Affinity but any deck with a small creature with activated abilities. That includes the Melira combo, Steve, Scooze, Lab Maniac, Baby Jace, wtv. Even when it's not great it helps put a little bit of uncounterable pressure on our opponent to help us close out a win. I play a Vanilla build so it works pretty well with my game plan but I highly recommend
Relic of Progenitus is important in the matchup. You can use your relic after you kill a persist creature to exile it before it comes back. Also you can exile stuff in response to Eternal Witness entering the battlefield. Have them choose the target for Witness, and then use relic while the trigger is still on the stack. The other timing trick is, if they are about to combo off, wait until the persist creature is on the stack, then kill Anafenza/Melira. If you try to kill something before they try to combo off, they can do the infinite loop while your removal spell is still on the stack.
My gameplan against CoCo is to save my removal for combo pieces unless my life total is real low. Let them have their Birds and Hierarchs and Voice of Resurgences, eventually you'll draw a sweeper and wipe them all out. Do not kill a Voice unless you have a plan for the token. My usual tatic is after I draw a sweeper, bolt the Voice at the end of their turn (this gives them two tokens), then cast the sweeper and both tokens will die too because they're only 2/2s or 3/3s when everything else goes away. Be careful tapping out for a threat if they can potentially combo off, but once you get something on the table they won't have a way to answer it. I think it's a favorable matchup but it's easy to make mistakes. Play carefully and patiently, focus on keeping them off the combo. Remember they can CoCo or Chord in response to anything you do. Their beatdown plan is very slow so it's a much lower priority for you to deal with.
A regular bolt/skred is enough to dismantle the Meilra combo, just kill Melira when the persist trigger is on the stack and the creature is still in the graveyard. It's real good against infect though (you can wait for a pump spell if you want and get an easy 2-for-1), and against affinity it can take out an arcbound ravager before the ravager gets out of control.
I think it's worth considering for a flex removal slot in the main deck if you expect a lot of targets in your meta, but I don't really like it in the sideboard. We're already favored against any deck running lots of 2-toughness creatures, and I'd rather spend my sideboard slots focusing on more difficult matchups.
Thanks for the help
I like a lot how this looks now. Thoughts?
21 Snow-covered Mountain
2 Scrying Sheets
Creatures
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Stormbreath Dragon
Artifacts
4 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
2 Volcanic Fallout
1 Anger of the Gods
3 Blood Moon
Planeswalkers
4 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Dragon's Claw
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Boil
1 Dismember
2 Shattering Spree
3 Molten Rain
1 Crumble to Dust
My only doubt now is: 4 Reckoner 3 P&KN or 3 Reckoner 4 P&KN?
PSD: Ordered my first Blood Moon today
21 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Scrying Sheets
Creatures (10)
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Stormbreath Dragon
Planeswalkers (5)
4 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
4 Magma Jet
4 Molten Rain
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Shattering Spree
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Boil
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Banefire
4 Dragon’s Claw
1 Relic of Progenitus
Before anyone says Blood Moon… budget. Molten Rain has been excellent, anyway.
This is a change back from my Double-Dragon build that my sig (at the time of this writing) towards a more classic build. I love Reckoners, Jets, and Fallout; all three have done great work. Pyromaster seems good in my local meta (lots of juicy 1-toughness targets). I don’t think anything else requires explanation.
As for the SB, I’m less certain. I think most of the cards are self-explanatory in what they’re there for. I’ve faced more Nahiri lately, which has encouraged me towards Boil and Banefire (though I’m less sure that Boil > Ricochet Trap). I consider the Tron matchup mostly lost before it starts, but Crumble to Dust is a nod to it (and has uses elsewhere). The card that really looks great that I haven’t been able to fit yet is Goblin Rabblemaster (or Hanweir Garrison, which looks to be a drop slower but a bit more resilient). The more I look at it, the more it seems like the perfect complement to let us fight creature-less/light decks.
Any thoughts, especially on the SB?
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Boil and Banefire are too Redundant imo. Blue control isn't even a hard matchup so four cards for control matchups seems like a lot. Pithing Needle is better against Nahiri and is useful in a lot of other matchups as well. I like to have versatile sideboard cards so when my removal isn't useful I always have a lot to bring in instead.
Goblin Rabblemaster is good against combo decks that can't get it off the table, but I think you need to be playing Simian Spirit guides to make them fast enough.
You know, you're probably right about Banefire and Boil. Odds are any time I can cast a big Banefire I have Koth, and I'm already beating blue control if I have Koth. Boil on the other hand is flexible and an instant, and also is great versus Scapeshift and the like. So that's two slots.
Pithing Needle is possible. Not sure what its good against that I don't already have a good game versus.
As for Rabblemaster, well, yeah if you cast him on turn 2, you can win on turn 4. But I'm not sure 5 is that bad. Sure, it's not going to race Tron, that's probably still enough to make a lot of decks sweat.
Gotta think about it some more. I have no idea what else would actually work against those decks. Against most of them, Pithing Needle doesn't have great targets either.
Ummm... why? It's a 3-mana 3/3 that can be recast after removal. It's still not a great threat or blocker.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Think of the number of times we've had 3 mana to spare to scrying sheets or hardcast SSG... And don't forget they synergize really well with our relics
1x Goblin Dark-Dwellers
2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
3x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Batterskull
2x Molten Rain
4x Pyroclasm
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
3x Relic of Progenitus
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Skred
3x Blood Moon
4x Koth of the Hammer
2x Scrying Sheets
21x Snow-Covered Mountain
2x Anger of the Gods
3x Dragon's Claw
1x Outpost Siege
2x Pithing Needle
2x Pyrite Spellbomb
2x Reverberate
1x Roast
2x Shattering Spree
Explaining a couple choices here:
I'm opting for pyroclasm over fallout simply because it's a turn faster and nothing more
1 Batterskull because I like the card in the deck and it opens up 1 slot in the sideboard (normally for a 4th Dragon's Claw)
2 Reverberate side because I love the card vs Blue decks and burn
2 pithig needle to help vs weaker matchups (tron and ad nauseum specifically)
1 outpost siege side for GBx and Lantern Control matchups
1 Roast because I can;t really decide what should be there (maybe that should be a dragon's claw anyway)
The list seems good in my head, but I dunno. It either this or I keep jamming hangarbacks.
It's artwork is better than most Eldrazi artwork, but I'm still annoyed that annoying C-grade Lovecraft fanfic vomited all over my high-fantasy game.
I guess it is resilient and useful for dealing with pro-red creatures. Recurring from Anger or by using Relic is a plus.
Still, what does this replace for us? Hangarback and/or PK&N? It's definitely not as good as Reckoner or Stormbreath.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Maybe hangarback? But I doubt it.
Card is good no doubt, but realistically there's no place for it in our deck.
Swiftspears aside I'm gonna test this build for tomorrow local modern tournament
3x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2x Stormbreath Dragon
2x Endless One
Planeswalkers(5)
4x Koth of the Hammer
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Skred
3x Blood Moon
3x Mind Stone
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Kozilek's Return
2x Anger of the Gods
22x Snow-Covered Mountain
2x Scrying Sheets
I want to try Return instead of Fallout, so I wouldn't get destroyed by pro-red sideboard plan and have some main deck answer to Etched Champion (I don't have pyrite spellbombs, sadly). To get some additional value I added a couple of Endless Ones and trimmed a couple of Relics. Maybe it's too cute, but we'll see.
Now when I have Endless One which I'm planning (keep hope alive) to cast for 7 at least once, I'm gonna try a 24x lands + 3x SSG + 3x Mind Stone configuration.
What do you guys think of this silly build?:)
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB