You need a hypergeometric calculator.
Population size is the size of your library
Number of successes is how many Leylines are in your library
Sample size is how many cards you're drawing
Number of successes is how many Leylines you're wanting to draw
Example: a 4-of in a 60-card deck has a 39.95% chance of at least one copy appearing in your opening 7-card hand.
I know the math with regards to the starting hand, I was just wondering if 4 Leylines are really worth it because they increase our probability to fizzle, and that probability is harder to calculate as it depends nontrivially on the order and kinds of the other cards in the deck. The hypergeometric distribution assumes that the realizations of our drawing process are expressible as hits or misses, but we may or may not fizzle depending on whether that non-hit card we drew was an equipment, a land or a Retract, and what cards we drew already.
Well in that regard, I can only offer anecdotal evidence from playing modern Bogles for roughly three years; the typical list has 4 leylines in the SB as well. Three copies is the max that I'll run in any deck where it's a sideboard piece; four copies are usually overkill while two aren't consistent enough. It really comes down to your particular meta.
You need a hypergeometric calculator.
Population size is the size of your library
Number of successes is how many Leylines are in your library
Sample size is how many cards you're drawing
Number of successes is how many Leylines you're wanting to draw
Example: a 4-of in a 60-card deck has a 39.95% chance of at least one copy appearing in your opening 7-card hand.
I know the math with regards to the starting hand, I was just wondering if 4 Leylines are really worth it because they increase our probability to fizzle, and that probability is harder to calculate as it depends nontrivially on the order and kinds of the other cards in the deck. The hypergeometric distribution assumes that the realizations of our drawing process are expressible as hits or misses, but we may or may not fizzle depending on whether that non-hit card we drew was an equipment, a land or a Retract, and what cards we drew already.
I did the different hypergeometric distributions and although I don't remember the exact results, it's something like 14% to actually have Leyline in an otherwise functional hand. Not stellar odds. That said, I didn't calculate how many hands Leyline ruins when a non-Leyline card would have kept the hand functional. I also haven't dug deeper to see what the chances are of 3-4 Leylines ruining a combo chain over other slots. So I'm overall not sure if it's worth it but preliminary numbers aren't favorable. Then again, if you have enough BGx in your metagame, or you view that as a particularly problematic matchup, or you have other decks like Lantern running lots of targeted disruption, then maybe those numbers improve.
@shadowgripper: great to see some tourney results being posted, love detailed matchup reports and sideboard analysis, good work
My thoughts: I am surprised that a deck with only 3 serum visions 1 nox didn't brick after the first guy got removed: or get mulliganed to death. From a closer look I will say that it looks like you got a tad lucky in a few of those matches (not that luck is a bad thing, this deck will always have luck involved), with some good topdecks. I suspect/theorise that larger samples could reveal a bit of a consistency issue, it will be good to track how you go in future. It also appears that the matchups posted other than Jund are highly favourable (possible exception of lantern, sounds like your opponent misplayed? I'm not sure, not familiar enough with the interactions with our deck/boardstates) because we are too fast for opposing combo or the opponent's clock was too slow even if they have control/hate.
I have decided to splash black (cries of Ooooh, Ahhh & why?); the main reason is I've played this deck for 2.5 years now and until last week I had only encountered the Mirror once (which I won) However, last week I played the mirror 3 times. I'm naturally good vs. the mirror because I have experience playing the deck and haven't just taken it up recently. My concern arises over the wider Meta awareness. The more people who play vs. the deck, the better sideboard tech and player knowledge of how to beat the deck will be out there. Sooner than see this as a problem, I see it as a need to innovate. To that end my innovation will be splashing black.
I would be highly appreciative of any card advice (black or multi UB WB, not RB as red is slim in the deck already) that fits with the deck! Not after playing Spoils of the Vault as I don't like the variance and Sram means it is not a necessity.
After the Dispatch vs. Path to Exile conversation; I've decided neither are what I want so running 4 x Fatal Push which is bonkersly good! I've also added a Kambal, Consul of Allocation as part of my mirror breaker tech but as a wider sideboard tech component also.
Bit awkward on the mana since it requires Green, but has Time of Need been looked into? It effectively runs as copies 9-10 (I don't think I'd run more than 2) of the engine, though it does necessitate the extra turn (but that still leaves T3 combo open so I don't think it's too terrible).
Modern: WUR Eat a good breakfast, have some Cheeri0s! C I've got an Affinity for running you over with artifacts
EDH: G Ezuri W Kemba WUBRG Scion-spiracy (in progress)
Bit awkward on the mana since it requires Green, but has Time of Need been looked into? It effectively runs as copies 9-10 (I don't think I'd run more than 2) of the engine, though it does necessitate the extra turn (but that still leaves T3 combo open so I don't think it's too terrible).
I'm not sure if I've seen anyone's list testing this. I know myself and a few others tested commune with nature in previous builds. I personally found that splashing green diluted the mana base too much - unless I ran mana confluence, city of brass and gemstone mine/glimmervoid. But, I then found that I wasn't able to filter my deck as much, not running shocks/fetches.
Give it a go and see how the results pan out
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Bit awkward on the mana since it requires Green, but has Time of Need been looked into? It effectively runs as copies 9-10 (I don't think I'd run more than 2) of the engine, though it does necessitate the extra turn (but that still leaves T3 combo open so I don't think it's too terrible).
I'm not sure if I've seen anyone's list testing this. I know myself and a few others tested commune with nature in previous builds. I personally found that splashing green diluted the mana base too much - unless I ran mana confluence, city of brass and gemstone mine/glimmervoid. But, I then found that I wasn't able to filter my deck as much, not running shocks/fetches.
Give it a go and see how the results pan out
I'd stay away from splashing too heavily. It causes either life total problems or consistency problems, and the deck functions best as straight UW or UWx with something in the SB. I'm mostly doing UWr right now, and here's my manabase:
I'm also using 4 Serum Visions and alternating between +1 Sleight and +1 equipment. The +1 Sleight can also be +1 Plains/Island if you're uncomfortable on 14 lands. For the 0s, I'm running:
My flex equipment is +1 Saw. I prefer the Saws and Sigils to more Shields because Paladin beatdown is a great way to win against some decks. About 10%-15% of my Burn wins from Paladin beatdown, and Saw/Sigil makes that happen.
@slax01 @kirtash900 What do you mean my deck is less consistent than others? Could you explain what mine is lacking compared to others?
Is 15 lands really too few? I played 14 games total and got screwed on mana only once (against jund). I also thought 3 serum visions was above the norm, given I saw lists with none and more filler cards like noxious.
I'm also unsure what you mean by "didn't brick after the first guy got removed." How does your creature get removed? If you are playing him on turn 2, and jamming 3 equips, thats not correct imo. You should almost always wait until turn 3, as this provides you with an additional land drop (for swan/retract). Plus, I typically wanted to wait until they were tapped out before I chose to play my guy and combo. Why play your guy early when it's just gonna die?
Ad Nauseam was easy, sure, but Lantern and D&T x2 were not. I literally had to play against Thalia in every one of my D&T games. I wouldn't call that a fair or easy matchup. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't played this deck much, but having your entire combo gone for game 1 is hard.
Is 15 lands really too few? I played 14 games total and got screwed on mana only once (against jund). I also thought 3 serum visions was above the norm, given I saw lists with none and more filler cards like noxious.
15 lands is fine. I'm on 14 lands with +1 cantrip/+1 equipment in that slot and mostly haven't wanted the extra land. As for the SV count, I'm at 4 and would never drop lower. The lists running none, especially lists running none and then running no other dig in their place, have felt very sub-optimal and inconsistent in my testing. 4 dig spells seems like the baseline.
I'm also unsure what you mean by "didn't brick after the first guy got removed." How does your creature get removed? If you are playing him on turn 2, and jamming 3 equips, thats not correct imo. You should almost always wait until turn 3, as this provides you with an additional land drop (for swan/retract). Plus, I typically wanted to wait until they were tapped out before I chose to play my guy and combo. Why play your guy early when it's just gonna die?
I've really only tested Jund and Burn thoroughly, so take this with those matchups in mind. I've also assumed that my opponent knows what I'm playing and is playing optimally. As many of you will know, this is not a good assumption for many tournaments, but it is a good assumption to stress-test the deck's resilience.
In those instances, the opponent is generally not tapping out if they are holding removal. That said, they will play something proactive like Eidolon (which stops the combo) or a discard spell (which strips an engine). In those cases, I do prefer to jam the engine early and then draw into more gas. But again, this assumes a cautious opponent who also has the removal spell in hand and will always leave up mana to cast it. Some decks can't do this because they don't have removal at all or can't find it consistently. Other decks don't do this because their pilot doesn't know what you are playing. If an opponent is tapping out then yeah, I'm waiting for that. But if they aren't or I know they are playing cautiously, this deck isn't great at sandbagging threats like Ad Nauseam.
Thanks for the feedback ktkenshinx. Given my list from my report, what do you shave for the 4th visions? I have definitely considered adding the 4th one in but have not because I can't figure out what card I'd want to shave. I guess the 21st equipment?
So my friend brought it to my attention that this made t4 in an online tournament. What is everyone's thoughts on it? This looks like a throwback to the original lists that were played when Puresteel was first spoiled. Is 25 Cheerios a lot? Is 17 lands too many?
Now that fatal push has been spoiled I have a feeling jund/abzan is going to be on the rise. Could it be correct for the decks that play leyline to potentially md it? It may brick the combo, but the potential to steal games with a t0 leyline into t2 engine starter. Thoughts?
Thanks for the feedback ktkenshinx. Given my list from my report, what do you shave for the 4th visions? I have definitely considered adding the 4th one in but have not because I can't figure out what card I'd want to shave. I guess the 21st equipment?
Either the 21st equipment or the 15th land. I don't think any other slot is negotiable, especially if you're set on the 2 maindeck Songs (which are definitely spicy!). I'd lean towards the equipment over the land even though I'm tinkering with 14 lands instead of 15: cutting a land for SV also hurts your chance of drawing the land to play SV on T1.
So my friend brought it to my attention that this made t4 in an online tournament. What is everyone's thoughts on it? This looks like a throwback to the original lists that were played when Puresteel was first spoiled. Is 25 Cheerios a lot? Is 17 lands too many?
It's identical to most of the lists in this thread since Sram got spoiled. 25 equipment is definitely too many; 4-5 of those slots should be dig and/or protection. 17 lands is also too many in my experience. 15 is the safe number, 16 seems high, and I'm playing with 14 but the jury is still out.
Now that fatal push has been spoiled I have a feeling jund/abzan is going to be on the rise. Could it be correct for the decks that play leyline to potentially md it? It may brick the combo, but the potential to steal games with a t0 leyline into t2 engine starter. Thoughts?
It is basically never correct to maindeck Leyline in an open or large metagame. If you are worried about BGx, Burn, and Snapcaster/Push/Path decks, then you can maindeck counters or protection. Swan Song is nice because it stops discard and removal, while even getting the evil Eidolon against Burn.
When I first stared modern about a year ago, when the kahn's fetches rotated out of standard, it was either to play this deck or quest of the holy relic.Ended up on quest then building skred but, now with the printing of Sram this deck seems unbelievable and I can't wait to sleeve it up!
I've learned a ton on just reading over everything and seeing this grow 10+ pages in the last few days has been crazy. I've ordered most of my list based on the suggestion I've read and will be happy to provide feedback when I have something of value.
Something I have not seen discussed, though I may have just missed it, is running actual protection cards like apostle's blessing.
Is that something that could be useful in countering Abrupt Decay and the like cards or is that to narrow for this list?
Has anyone tried Enraged Giant?, I'm playing an aggro version and I've been missing a haste effect like Mass Hysteria. Think its good or should I just get the enchantment?
My initial reaction to this was that bastion inventor was better than enraged giant as removal is out main weakness. But on more testing, I'm hitting a stumbling block in liliana of the veil which means that non-evasive hexproof has some weaknesses. So I did some very brief testing with enraged giant, my thoughts were that it is OK, but not stellar. Then I went back and jammed in other haste creatures, in monastery swiftspear and storm entity. threw in glint hawk for extra storm and beats. Deck worked pretty well. Had a niggle of consistency issues since sequencing is very important, and it really wants to draw a mox, but it poured out massive damage when it worked.
Bit awkward on the mana since it requires Green, but has Time of Need been looked into? It effectively runs as copies 9-10 (I don't think I'd run more than 2) of the engine, though it does necessitate the extra turn (but that still leaves T3 combo open so I don't think it's too terrible).
This sounds like a good idea to me. I don't think a single green splash is too hard on the mana base (provided you ease up on the blue, I wouldn't run green and serum visions, for example), particularly since green has plenty of mana-fixing cards available.
@slax01 @kirtash900 What do you mean my deck is less consistent than others? Could you explain what mine is lacking compared to others?
Mostly covered already. The land count is fine, my main thought is that it seems like you'd have trouble drawing both the paladin, the lands and the protection all together in enough turns to win against something with a fast clock, like burn or jund. That said I don't have advice on how to change, as I don't think there is any settled lists yet to refer to, I'd leave it to your testing and personal preference. For example, ktkenshinx prefers more cantrips, while I prefer more threats. Depends on the gameplan and your willingness to take risks - note also that theoretical consistency against bad matchups like jund and burn isn't necessarily something to be afraid of, it might be better to take a gamble with those games and win for sure vs decks with slower clock, possibly while relying on the sideboard more heavily, than to try and optimise against specific bad matchup decks.
Something I have not seen discussed, though I may have just missed it, is running actual protection cards like apostle's blessing.
Is that something that could be useful in countering Abrupt Decay and the like cards or is that to narrow for this list?
EDIT: reply to this dropped off; adding in.
Protection is fine, some people prefer more flexible cards which can serve dual roles, like silence and swan song (I prefer silence) since they also interrupt the opponent's plan. That said, protection is a perfectly reasonable way to go, though I would recommend gods willing as the better choice.
When I first stared modern about a year ago, when the kahn's fetches rotated out of standard, it was either to play this deck or quest of the holy relic.Ended up on quest then building skred but, now with the printing of Sram this deck seems unbelievable and I can't wait to sleeve it up!
I've learned a ton on just reading over everything and seeing this grow 10+ pages in the last few days has been crazy. I've ordered most of my list based on the suggestion I've read and will be happy to provide feedback when I have something of value.
Something I have not seen discussed, though I may have just missed it, is running actual protection cards like apostle's blessing.
Is that something that could be useful in countering Abrupt Decay and the like cards or is that to narrow for this list?
In the end, there are few cases like that where Apostle's Blessing stops something that a counterspell can't, but a counter has so much more utility. In the end paying 1 life and getting set back a turn is a steep price to pay for a deck trying to win with the element of speed. (and hopefully surprise, but that's a luxery) With Swan Song able to go just as fast, and Pact of Negation available (in the right build and situation) while tapped out, you're ultimately better off because there are so many more situations you can handle, like discard spells.
When I started playing this deck in late 2015 I was in the wait until turn three to cast the Paladin camp, and being told by the more experienced players that it just gives them another turn to draw into removal when you might just win on turn 2. I've always been a school of hard knocks kind of learner in my life, and I took my lumps becoming a convert. If they don't have removal and you slam a second on turn 3 that's usually a blowout!! Things are so much better now with Sram because your odds of seeing another engine, or even having another in hand already, are much higher.
Having said all of this it isn't the worst choice and your mileage may vary, so feel free to give it a shot and let us know how it goes.
I have decided to splash black (cries of Ooooh, Ahhh & why?); the main reason is I've played this deck for 2.5 years now and until last week I had only encountered the Mirror once (which I won) However, last week I played the mirror 3 times. I'm naturally good vs. the mirror because I have experience playing the deck and haven't just taken it up recently. My concern arises over the wider Meta awareness. The more people who play vs. the deck, the better sideboard tech and player knowledge of how to beat the deck will be out there. Sooner than see this as a problem, I see it as a need to innovate. To that end my innovation will be splashing black.
I would be highly appreciative of any card advice (black or multi UB WB, not RB as red is slim in the deck already) that fits with the deck! Not after playing Spoils of the Vault as I don't like the variance and Sram means it is not a necessity.
After the Dispatch vs. Path to Exile conversation; I've decided neither are what I want so running 4 x Fatal Push which is bonkersly good! I've also added a Kambal, Consul of Allocation as part of my mirror breaker tech but as a wider sideboard tech component also.
More Card recommendations please.
Battle at the Bridge
As a form of protection I tested inquisition of Kozilek and surgical extraction. Worked pretty well against Jund, but I didn't like how the whole deck set up was performing.
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Hello everyone, this is my first time getting involved in a thread on MTG Salvation, but I have been reading for years now. When I saw Sram spoiled I came back to check this thread and it got me excited, so I have been following the conversation avidly for the last month or so. I have been gold-fishing a few different builds and decided to track a variety of stats that I think may be helpful in various play decisions. I gold-fished a few hundred games before tracking to become familiar with the method and create a consistent style of play. On the chart below you will see a build on the right and how the games progressed on the left. I did 100 total games with each build. Ultimately I would like to get closer to 300 or so, but 100 gives us something to work with, and I think we can get some good info from the data.
Along the top are the number of cards I kept in a particular hand. Generally, if I didn't have an engine, or couldn't cast one in the first 7 cards, I mulled. Exceptions are if the hand was otherwise perfect (had 2 land, a retract, 2-3 cheerios, 0-1 mox opals, and a Serum Vision),or (had SV an engine, bounce, cheerios, and only one land). Similar guidelines applied to following mulligans, with the exception that I would keep engine draws with 1 land at 5 cards or lower. Following these guidelines you can see how the table reads. For instance I had (5) turn 2 kills with this build, 4 with 7 card hands and 1 with 5 cards. The total for turn 3 or faster kills was 55 out of 100. Turn 4 or faster is 77% of the time.
Additional info I tracked were fizzles for each turn. I figured this would be useful in getting a grasp of how often a fizzle leads to a critical failure, as well as how long it may take to get traction going again. If you look at 7 card hands, in turn 2 you can see that there were 8 fizzles. Over-all there were only 2 scratch games however, where it went to turn 8 or more.
If 1 game fizzled on both turn 2 and turn 3, then killed on T5, I reported both. I figured this would help reflect how resilient a build might be to being stranded without cheeri0s or bounce.
For Scratch games that went past turn 7 I kept track of what ended up stranding the deck.
3 Windswept Heath
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Plains
1 Island
4 Mox Opal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Hallowed Fountain
This build felt very smooth, the bane of most non-interactive decks out there. With a 55% kill rate by turn 3, and only 23% of games going to T5 or more I think it will be solid. After about 300 gold-fishes I think the 5th bounce in Hurkyl's Recall really helps. In those 300 games the extra mana cost didn't come up as an issue, however the chance certainly exists and more run-throughs will show a rate of fizzle. One nice thing is that the next turn it can still bounce. As a one of though I think it will help much more than it hurts, and heck, it can be nice to see in those affinity/other arty heavy match-ups.
(2) of the 7 card hands came up with scratch's. Those hands were both no-engine hands with serum visions as a replacement. I didn't hit an engine the whole line down to turn 7, so you will have to balance that out against the 3ish hands that killed turn 2 with the same start.
A point of information, the computer simulation I am using doesn't pull the fetched lands out, so the fizzle rate will go down slightly. How much can be determined now that my Sram's 2-4 just arrived today and I can goldfish with a real deck. This data can simulate Gemstone Mines, Seachrome's, or whatever else, and give us comparison for later after we get data using fetch's and lands removed properly to see how much it helps us on fizzle rates.
If you have any questions about the stats or anything just holler, I will try to get a response out about anything that doesn't make sense, and let me know if there is anything else I should track.
Shaf
P.S. If anyone can help a Forum newb get a chart to arrange properly here from excel I would be most appreciative.
Here is a build that I mulled over to help with match-ups that seem tough for us like Burn, Junk, or Discard. The protection in swan song seems great for keeping our men alive, and the Kingpin serves many purposes. He lets us dig throughout the combo or to find a real engine, he passes the bolt test, he draws FP or PtE, he has lifelink and a big butt to fend off agro, and if needed he can be equipped to go kill and gain some life. Overall he performed really well. He was always a welcome turn 2 play into a turn 3 engine with back-up in Swan Song. He could have gotten horribly large by turn 3 many times and smacked for 7+ with guantlets and a big butt.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the stats that came from this build. It didn't skew too far from the cantrip build I did first. It did make me think a lot more about sequencing, when to stop mid-combo with cheeri0s in hand after getting another engine for a higher chance of success the following turn, and how valuable the protection of swan song would be. It still sports 77 out of 100 kills by turn 4, but with a little less speed.
I was playtesting this list against my friend's Jund Deck which he said has about 20% percent removals (without sideboard)
I only won 1 game out of 6.
With the starting hands that I drew, I noticed that I had way too many Equipments. I wish I had the Turn 1 Sigarda's Aid so that my T2 Puresteel Paladin/Sram, Senior Edificer can some how survive a Lightning Bolt if they don't, I could still draw some more cards in exchange for 1.
I wish Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned. It would be nice to see the opponent's hand. It works well with Monastery Mentor and a timely Noxious Revival for a crucial card in the yard.
With that being said, here is the list that I am currently playing...
Well in that regard, I can only offer anecdotal evidence from playing modern Bogles for roughly three years; the typical list has 4 leylines in the SB as well. Three copies is the max that I'll run in any deck where it's a sideboard piece; four copies are usually overkill while two aren't consistent enough. It really comes down to your particular meta.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
I did the different hypergeometric distributions and although I don't remember the exact results, it's something like 14% to actually have Leyline in an otherwise functional hand. Not stellar odds. That said, I didn't calculate how many hands Leyline ruins when a non-Leyline card would have kept the hand functional. I also haven't dug deeper to see what the chances are of 3-4 Leylines ruining a combo chain over other slots. So I'm overall not sure if it's worth it but preliminary numbers aren't favorable. Then again, if you have enough BGx in your metagame, or you view that as a particularly problematic matchup, or you have other decks like Lantern running lots of targeted disruption, then maybe those numbers improve.
My thoughts: I am surprised that a deck with only 3 serum visions 1 nox didn't brick after the first guy got removed: or get mulliganed to death. From a closer look I will say that it looks like you got a tad lucky in a few of those matches (not that luck is a bad thing, this deck will always have luck involved), with some good topdecks. I suspect/theorise that larger samples could reveal a bit of a consistency issue, it will be good to track how you go in future. It also appears that the matchups posted other than Jund are highly favourable (possible exception of lantern, sounds like your opponent misplayed? I'm not sure, not familiar enough with the interactions with our deck/boardstates) because we are too fast for opposing combo or the opponent's clock was too slow even if they have control/hate.
I have decided to splash black (cries of Ooooh, Ahhh & why?); the main reason is I've played this deck for 2.5 years now and until last week I had only encountered the Mirror once (which I won) However, last week I played the mirror 3 times. I'm naturally good vs. the mirror because I have experience playing the deck and haven't just taken it up recently. My concern arises over the wider Meta awareness. The more people who play vs. the deck, the better sideboard tech and player knowledge of how to beat the deck will be out there. Sooner than see this as a problem, I see it as a need to innovate. To that end my innovation will be splashing black.
I would be highly appreciative of any card advice (black or multi UB WB, not RB as red is slim in the deck already) that fits with the deck! Not after playing Spoils of the Vault as I don't like the variance and Sram means it is not a necessity.
Tried Contraband Kingpin and its OK but Meh and being able to Instant equip a Cranial Plating more reliably is effective.
But I need more!
After the Dispatch vs. Path to Exile conversation; I've decided neither are what I want so running 4 x Fatal Push which is bonkersly good! I've also added a Kambal, Consul of Allocation as part of my mirror breaker tech but as a wider sideboard tech component also.
More Card recommendations please.
Level 1 JudgeModern:
WUR Eat a good breakfast, have some Cheeri0s!
C I've got an Affinity for running you over with artifacts
EDH:
G Ezuri
W Kemba
WUBRG Scion-spiracy (in progress)
I'm not sure if I've seen anyone's list testing this. I know myself and a few others tested commune with nature in previous builds. I personally found that splashing green diluted the mana base too much - unless I ran mana confluence, city of brass and gemstone mine/glimmervoid. But, I then found that I wasn't able to filter my deck as much, not running shocks/fetches.
Give it a go and see how the results pan out
Everyone loves an angry mob RWG
Why so Bloo? RU
I'd stay away from splashing too heavily. It causes either life total problems or consistency problems, and the deck functions best as straight UW or UWx with something in the SB. I'm mostly doing UWr right now, and here's my manabase:
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Windswept Heath
I'm also using 4 Serum Visions and alternating between +1 Sleight and +1 equipment. The +1 Sleight can also be +1 Plains/Island if you're uncomfortable on 14 lands. For the 0s, I'm running:
3 Bone Saw
1 Sigil of Distinction
4 Cathar's Shield
4 Paradise Mantle
4 Spidersilk Net
My flex equipment is +1 Saw. I prefer the Saws and Sigils to more Shields because Paladin beatdown is a great way to win against some decks. About 10%-15% of my Burn wins from Paladin beatdown, and Saw/Sigil makes that happen.
Is 15 lands really too few? I played 14 games total and got screwed on mana only once (against jund). I also thought 3 serum visions was above the norm, given I saw lists with none and more filler cards like noxious.
I'm also unsure what you mean by "didn't brick after the first guy got removed." How does your creature get removed? If you are playing him on turn 2, and jamming 3 equips, thats not correct imo. You should almost always wait until turn 3, as this provides you with an additional land drop (for swan/retract). Plus, I typically wanted to wait until they were tapped out before I chose to play my guy and combo. Why play your guy early when it's just gonna die?
Ad Nauseam was easy, sure, but Lantern and D&T x2 were not. I literally had to play against Thalia in every one of my D&T games. I wouldn't call that a fair or easy matchup. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't played this deck much, but having your entire combo gone for game 1 is hard.
15 lands is fine. I'm on 14 lands with +1 cantrip/+1 equipment in that slot and mostly haven't wanted the extra land. As for the SV count, I'm at 4 and would never drop lower. The lists running none, especially lists running none and then running no other dig in their place, have felt very sub-optimal and inconsistent in my testing. 4 dig spells seems like the baseline.
I've really only tested Jund and Burn thoroughly, so take this with those matchups in mind. I've also assumed that my opponent knows what I'm playing and is playing optimally. As many of you will know, this is not a good assumption for many tournaments, but it is a good assumption to stress-test the deck's resilience.
In those instances, the opponent is generally not tapping out if they are holding removal. That said, they will play something proactive like Eidolon (which stops the combo) or a discard spell (which strips an engine). In those cases, I do prefer to jam the engine early and then draw into more gas. But again, this assumes a cautious opponent who also has the removal spell in hand and will always leave up mana to cast it. Some decks can't do this because they don't have removal at all or can't find it consistently. Other decks don't do this because their pilot doesn't know what you are playing. If an opponent is tapping out then yeah, I'm waiting for that. But if they aren't or I know they are playing cautiously, this deck isn't great at sandbagging threats like Ad Nauseam.
So my friend brought it to my attention that this made t4 in an online tournament. What is everyone's thoughts on it? This looks like a throwback to the original lists that were played when Puresteel was first spoiled. Is 25 Cheerios a lot? Is 17 lands too many?
Now that fatal push has been spoiled I have a feeling jund/abzan is going to be on the rise. Could it be correct for the decks that play leyline to potentially md it? It may brick the combo, but the potential to steal games with a t0 leyline into t2 engine starter. Thoughts?
Either the 21st equipment or the 15th land. I don't think any other slot is negotiable, especially if you're set on the 2 maindeck Songs (which are definitely spicy!). I'd lean towards the equipment over the land even though I'm tinkering with 14 lands instead of 15: cutting a land for SV also hurts your chance of drawing the land to play SV on T1.
It's identical to most of the lists in this thread since Sram got spoiled. 25 equipment is definitely too many; 4-5 of those slots should be dig and/or protection. 17 lands is also too many in my experience. 15 is the safe number, 16 seems high, and I'm playing with 14 but the jury is still out.
It is basically never correct to maindeck Leyline in an open or large metagame. If you are worried about BGx, Burn, and Snapcaster/Push/Path decks, then you can maindeck counters or protection. Swan Song is nice because it stops discard and removal, while even getting the evil Eidolon against Burn.
When I first stared modern about a year ago, when the kahn's fetches rotated out of standard, it was either to play this deck or quest of the holy relic.Ended up on quest then building skred but, now with the printing of Sram this deck seems unbelievable and I can't wait to sleeve it up!
I've learned a ton on just reading over everything and seeing this grow 10+ pages in the last few days has been crazy. I've ordered most of my list based on the suggestion I've read and will be happy to provide feedback when I have something of value.
Something I have not seen discussed, though I may have just missed it, is running actual protection cards like apostle's blessing.
Is that something that could be useful in countering Abrupt Decay and the like cards or is that to narrow for this list?
My initial reaction to this was that bastion inventor was better than enraged giant as removal is out main weakness. But on more testing, I'm hitting a stumbling block in liliana of the veil which means that non-evasive hexproof has some weaknesses. So I did some very brief testing with enraged giant, my thoughts were that it is OK, but not stellar. Then I went back and jammed in other haste creatures, in monastery swiftspear and storm entity. threw in glint hawk for extra storm and beats. Deck worked pretty well. Had a niggle of consistency issues since sequencing is very important, and it really wants to draw a mox, but it poured out massive damage when it worked.
This sounds like a good idea to me. I don't think a single green splash is too hard on the mana base (provided you ease up on the blue, I wouldn't run green and serum visions, for example), particularly since green has plenty of mana-fixing cards available.
Mostly covered already. The land count is fine, my main thought is that it seems like you'd have trouble drawing both the paladin, the lands and the protection all together in enough turns to win against something with a fast clock, like burn or jund. That said I don't have advice on how to change, as I don't think there is any settled lists yet to refer to, I'd leave it to your testing and personal preference. For example, ktkenshinx prefers more cantrips, while I prefer more threats. Depends on the gameplan and your willingness to take risks - note also that theoretical consistency against bad matchups like jund and burn isn't necessarily something to be afraid of, it might be better to take a gamble with those games and win for sure vs decks with slower clock, possibly while relying on the sideboard more heavily, than to try and optimise against specific bad matchup decks.
EDIT: reply to this dropped off; adding in.
Protection is fine, some people prefer more flexible cards which can serve dual roles, like silence and swan song (I prefer silence) since they also interrupt the opponent's plan. That said, protection is a perfectly reasonable way to go, though I would recommend gods willing as the better choice.
When I started playing this deck in late 2015 I was in the wait until turn three to cast the Paladin camp, and being told by the more experienced players that it just gives them another turn to draw into removal when you might just win on turn 2. I've always been a school of hard knocks kind of learner in my life, and I took my lumps becoming a convert. If they don't have removal and you slam a second on turn 3 that's usually a blowout!! Things are so much better now with Sram because your odds of seeing another engine, or even having another in hand already, are much higher.
Having said all of this it isn't the worst choice and your mileage may vary, so feel free to give it a shot and let us know how it goes.
As a form of protection I tested inquisition of Kozilek and surgical extraction. Worked pretty well against Jund, but I didn't like how the whole deck set up was performing.
Everyone loves an angry mob RWG
Why so Bloo? RU
Along the top are the number of cards I kept in a particular hand. Generally, if I didn't have an engine, or couldn't cast one in the first 7 cards, I mulled. Exceptions are if the hand was otherwise perfect (had 2 land, a retract, 2-3 cheerios, 0-1 mox opals, and a Serum Vision),or (had SV an engine, bounce, cheerios, and only one land). Similar guidelines applied to following mulligans, with the exception that I would keep engine draws with 1 land at 5 cards or lower. Following these guidelines you can see how the table reads. For instance I had (5) turn 2 kills with this build, 4 with 7 card hands and 1 with 5 cards. The total for turn 3 or faster kills was 55 out of 100. Turn 4 or faster is 77% of the time.
Additional info I tracked were fizzles for each turn. I figured this would be useful in getting a grasp of how often a fizzle leads to a critical failure, as well as how long it may take to get traction going again. If you look at 7 card hands, in turn 2 you can see that there were 8 fizzles. Over-all there were only 2 scratch games however, where it went to turn 8 or more.
If 1 game fizzled on both turn 2 and turn 3, then killed on T5, I reported both. I figured this would help reflect how resilient a build might be to being stranded without cheeri0s or bounce.
For Scratch games that went past turn 7 I kept track of what ended up stranding the deck.
.........7c.......6c......5c......4c......Total Kills
T1------0-------0-------0-------0----------0
Fizz----0-------0-------0-------0
T2------4-------0-------0-------1----------5
Fizz----8-------2-------0-------0
T3------37------9-------3-------1----------50
Fizz----6-------1-------1-------1
T4------10------7-------4-------1----------22
Fizz----4-------0-------1-------0
T5------4-------2-------0-------1----------7
Fizz----1-------0-------0-------0
T6------3-------0-------2-------2----------7
Fizz----0-------0-------0-------0
T7------1-------1-------0-------0----------2
Fizz----0-------1-------0-------0
Scratch-2-------1-------1-------3----------7
Scratch's due to:
Bad Mana: 2
No Engine: 3
No Bounce: 2
3 Accorder's Shield
4 Bone Saw
4 Cathar's Shield
4 Spidersilk Net
4 Paradise Mantle
1 Golem-Skin Gauntlets
4 Sram, Senior Arificer
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Serum Visions
1 Grape Shot
4 Retract
2 Repeal
1 Noxious Revival
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Windswept Heath
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Plains
1 Island
4 Mox Opal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Hallowed Fountain
This build felt very smooth, the bane of most non-interactive decks out there. With a 55% kill rate by turn 3, and only 23% of games going to T5 or more I think it will be solid. After about 300 gold-fishes I think the 5th bounce in Hurkyl's Recall really helps. In those 300 games the extra mana cost didn't come up as an issue, however the chance certainly exists and more run-throughs will show a rate of fizzle. One nice thing is that the next turn it can still bounce. As a one of though I think it will help much more than it hurts, and heck, it can be nice to see in those affinity/other arty heavy match-ups.
(2) of the 7 card hands came up with scratch's. Those hands were both no-engine hands with serum visions as a replacement. I didn't hit an engine the whole line down to turn 7, so you will have to balance that out against the 3ish hands that killed turn 2 with the same start.
A point of information, the computer simulation I am using doesn't pull the fetched lands out, so the fizzle rate will go down slightly. How much can be determined now that my Sram's 2-4 just arrived today and I can goldfish with a real deck. This data can simulate Gemstone Mines, Seachrome's, or whatever else, and give us comparison for later after we get data using fetch's and lands removed properly to see how much it helps us on fizzle rates.
If you have any questions about the stats or anything just holler, I will try to get a response out about anything that doesn't make sense, and let me know if there is anything else I should track.
Shaf
P.S. If anyone can help a Forum newb get a chart to arrange properly here from excel I would be most appreciative.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the stats that came from this build. It didn't skew too far from the cantrip build I did first. It did make me think a lot more about sequencing, when to stop mid-combo with cheeri0s in hand after getting another engine for a higher chance of success the following turn, and how valuable the protection of swan song would be. It still sports 77 out of 100 kills by turn 4, but with a little less speed.
.........7c.......6c......5c......4c......Total Kills
T1------0-------0-------0-------0----------0
Fizz----0-------0-------0-------0
T2------3-------0-------0-------0----------3
Fizz----7-------1-------1-------0
T3------29------18------3-------0----------50
Fizz----5-------0-------0-------0
T4------17------2-------3-------2----------24
Fizz----1-------1-------0-------2
T5------0-------3-------2-------3----------8
Fizz----0-------1-------0-------1
T6------1-------0-------0-------3----------4
Fizz----0-------0-------0-------0
T7------1-------1-------1-------3----------6
Fizz----0-------0-------0-------0
Scratch-0-------1-------1-------3----------5
Scratch's due to:
Bad Mana: 2
No Engine: 1
No Bounce: 2
3 Accorder's Shield
4 Bone Saw
4 Cathar's Shield
4 Spidersilk Net
4 Paradise Mantle
1 Golem-Skin Gauntlets
2 Contraband Kingpin
4 Sram, Senior Arificer
4 Puresteel Paladin
2 Swan Song
1 Grape Shot
4 Retract
2 Repeal
1 Noxious Revival
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Windswept Heath
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Plains
1 Island
4 Mox Opal
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
I was playtesting this list against my friend's Jund Deck which he said has about 20% percent removals (without sideboard)
I only won 1 game out of 6.
With the starting hands that I drew, I noticed that I had way too many Equipments. I wish I had the Turn 1 Sigarda's Aid so that my T2 Puresteel Paladin/Sram, Senior Edificer can some how survive a Lightning Bolt if they don't, I could still draw some more cards in exchange for 1.
I wish Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned. It would be nice to see the opponent's hand. It works well with Monastery Mentor and a timely Noxious Revival for a crucial card in the yard.
With that being said, here is the list that I am currently playing...
12 Creatures:
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Sram, Senior Edificer
4 Monastery Mentor
16 Equipments:
4 Spidersilk Net
4 Cathar's Shield
4 Accorder's Shield
4 Paradise Mantle
4 Artifact:
4 Mox Opal
4 Instant:
4 Retract
2 Noxious Revival
1 Sorcery:
1 Grapeshot
4 Enchantment:
4 Sigarda's Aid
17 Lands:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswepth Heath
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Plains
1 Island