Agreed, they are great cards but expensive. I still need to buy my last two Caverns instead of borrowing them. Hierarch is just a great card unfortunately, Pilgrim is a necessary in the lists but not nearly as good.
Now some questions:
In some situations I don't know if it is better to play Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or a 3-Drop (mostly Anafenza, the Foremost). What do you recommend? I am aware that it's always situationally but maybe there is a norm.
Depends on the matchup and if you have a Collected Company you are hoping to cast turn 3. If you have a hand of creatures then an early Thalia, especially game 1 if you don't know what are playing is probably better to try and trip them up. If they are playing red then Anafenza is great as they will find her hard to remove. Turn 2 Reflector Mage on their mana creature is a very strong play.
What do you think about Meddling Mage? I am not sure with this card. In wich match-ups is it good and what cards i want to name?
I name combo pieces - Living End, Ad Nauseum, Ironworks. It's a narrow card that is great for some metas, and poor in others.
Sin Collector? If yes, how many in the main? Or in the board? In my testing it was one of the worst cards...
Yes for me, but 2 in the sideboard currently. I had it in my main board over Eternal Witness for GP Birmingham, mainly to try and get extra information about my opponents game 1. Some matches it is worth the mainboard inclusion, especially the 'unfair' combo type decks, but versus creature decks you might miss.
Is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that good? Don't get me wrong... I love this card! Sometime she hits super hard but sometimes she does nothing.
She is not a guaranteed include on the lists here, but I run 2. She can mess up your small amount of spells, but tends to restrict our opponents more I find. Again, maybe dependent on the decks you run into - the more non-creature spells played the better she is. Definitely Bant Black's weakness is a lack of a good 2 drop and evasion compared to Kari Zev, Harsh Mentor, Mantis Rider etc.
What is your opinion on the Mana Dorks? I saw lists running 6 other 8. Would you run 4x Avacyn's Pilgrim and 2x Birds of Paradise in favor of two more 3-Drops? If so, wich 3-Drops? Please let me know.
I run 7 - 4 Hierarch and 3 Pilgrim. I'm currently trying 11 1CMC creatures, 10 2CMC and 10 3CMC creatures to have a smoother curve, as I find sometimes that having fewer 2 drops can make your curve out awkward if they remove your mana dork.
What do you think on "Naya"? I saw this girl playing Naya at the GP in Birmingham. She played Magus of the Moon over Reflector Mage to mess with the opponents manabase. Also another sideboard plan. Is an aggro build like the Blitz version viable in the current meta (with some major tweaks of course)?
I don't run red in my list, other people here do and the lists look interesting. Reflector Mage is very strong right now though, so I wouldn't want to cut that unless I had good reason.
Great discussion over the past few weeks in here. It's been a pleasure to read.
I finally got a glance to play this deck in paper for the first time last week. It wasn't my greatest showing, but I'll go over the highlights in case they're helpful for others.
Round 1 vs Dredge: Opponent had the nuts in G1, to the point where my one-of Echoing Truth sending four attacking Prized Amalgams back to his hand was only a speed bump. G2 I kept a strong hand without grave hate, and it proved to be enough: T1 Champ into T2 Champ and Hierarch into T3 Champ and Big Thalia followed up by a pair of Reflector Mages was aggro/tempo city. Didn't find any grave hate G3 either, but a T2 Meddling Mage naming Conflagarate followed by my opponent dredging 5 and turning over two Conflagarates and three lands about summed things up. 1-0
Round 2 vs Blue Steel: I'd never seen this deck before, and didn't have much of an idea what I was up against. All three games were close races. The decisive moment came in G3 when my opponent tapped out to put me at 2, with two Lodestone Golems on board to tax my plays. I was sitting on 5 land with a CoCo in hand. I untapped, and topdecked a shock land--GG dead. For fun, we flipped the top six to see what I would have found if it had been a land I could've played. Double Lieutenant and lethal. FML. 1-1
Round 3 vs Esper Goryo's: G1 I mulled to 5 on the draw. Put him to two life before he found Emrakul to finish me. G2 I mulled to 6, kept a hand of three lands plus Champ, Path, and CoCo, scryed a land to the bottom, then topdecked three straight lands. Needless to say, that was a loss. Pretty frustrating draws in light of the fact that Bant Blsck has so many great tools against Goryo's: both Thalias are huge hosers, and an early Sin Collector, Kambal, or Rest In Peace can cripple them. Oh well. 1-2
Round 4 vs. Mono-Green Stompy: This poor guy was on the recieving end of my rebound in luck. G1 on the play my progression was Champ into Lieutenant into Mirran Crusader. G2 was even worse for him: T1 Hierarch, T2 Crusader, T3 CoCo into Crusader and Reflector Mage, bouncing his Baloth. This match was over before it began. 2-2
Not bad for the first run out in paper. I feel aggrieved by the Goryo's loss, but that's MtG (and life). I think I made the right decisions; luck just wasn't with me at the time. There's nothing in this list with which I was displeased. Really looking forward to playing Humans more and improving my proficiency with them.
So I've been testing Voltaic Brawler in my Bant Red list for the past week or two on MTGO. To put it simply, it's proving to be quite easily the best standalone Human 2 drop available right now in Modern (for this archetype), imo. It wins games largely by itself, it makes hands with no T1 play a lot less "gross" due to how much pressure it creates by itself, and it generally does everything the deck wants - get the opponent dead while being difficult to block. I have been impressed with this card every time it hits the battlefield and would consider it alongside Mantis Rider as the best reasons to play red. I also love having Brawler with Kari Zev, Skyship Raider because of how awkward the combat math is for the opponent. They put a lot of pressure on blocking.
I'm considering finding room for a 4th copy of Brawler, but I'm quite happy with my all around numbers right now and don't know what to cut.
The other contention I'm having is whether to run Tireless Tracker or Thalia, Heretic Cathar in the "auxillary" 3 drop slot. In my testing, these two seem to be the best cards for this slot, but it seems to be pretty 50/50 when it comes to me wanting one over the other. There have been games where I needed Tracker to close the game out with a few extra draws, but there have been other times where I needed Thalia to choke mana or negate the ability for the opponent to play blockers. Thoughts?
I would cut your last 2 Pilgrims if you're going to keep going in that direction. Pilgrim -> Mantis Rider is already an awkward and painful sequence, and Pilgrim -> Brawler makes Pilgrim awkward even more frequently.
Those two Pilgrims can become your 4th Brawler and 22nd land / Channeler Mage / Some other 2-drop. Cutting the Pilgrims means I personally wouldn't run Thalia HC.
Tireless Tracker is OK here, and if you find yourself routinely needing her card advantage she can stick around. With that said, the rest of your list is pushing in the aggro-tempo direction and Tracker is pushing back in the grind direction. I think these 2 slot might best be served as Mirran Crusader since he's super relevant and awesome right now, but it could also be something like Lyev Skyknight, Sunscourge Champion, or perhaps Renegade Rallier.
I would cut your last 2 Pilgrims if you're going to keep going in that direction. Pilgrim -> Mantis Rider is already an awkward and painful sequence, and Pilgrim -> Brawler makes Pilgrim awkward even more frequently.
Those two Pilgrims can become your 4th Brawler and 22nd land / Channeler Mage / Some other 2-drop. Cutting the Pilgrims means I personally wouldn't run Thalia HC.
I agree that, on paper, Pilgrim seems awkward, but I honestly cannot recall a game where I wasn't able to cast a T2 Mantis Rider off of Pilgrim. As long as I have a Cavern of Souls, Breeding Pool or Stomping Ground on T1 to cast Pilgrim (I have 15 total sources to produce such mana), casting Mantis T2 isn't an issue. I think that between the very high odds of having one one those 15 sources vs the much lower odds of having to go T1 Pilgrim/T2 Mantis, it's just something that doesn't often come up. With that said, one of the reasons I've hesitated on the 4th Voltaic Brawler is because of its color intensity. But the mana base I've been running pretty much since I started running this deck has been very good, especially considering the color requirements. Aside from occasional fetch punts on my end, it's been as smooth as I could hope for.
Also, having a T1 dork is very crucial for the deck, so I'd be very hesitant to make a cut there.
Tireless Tracker is OK here, and if you find yourself routinely needing her card advantage she can stick around. With that said, the rest of your list is pushing in the aggro-tempo direction and Tracker is pushing back in the grind direction. I think these 2 slot might best be served as Mirran Crusader since he's super relevant and awesome right now, but it could also be something like Lyev Skyknight, Sunscourge Champion, or perhaps Renegade Rallier.
I agree with your assessment here. I was trying out Tracker as a way to make up for the loss of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and help the deck retain some resilience in grindy matchups. But with the aggressive slant of the deck, Thalia may be better suited generally speaking. Here are my current thoughts on the main contenders for this slot:
Thalia, Heretic Cathar - This is one of those cards that is either a total house or does absolutely nothing. Though in most matchups, she is very good. She is great against fetches, tron lands, hasty creatures and opposing mid-combat Collected Companys. She is good against planeswalkers that attempt to protect themselves with tokens and slows down the recurring Ghost Quarter gameplan that some decks have been adopting using cards like Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator. There are other nice side effects like stopping the Nahiri/Emrakul combo, Through the Breach etc. Hmm...maybe I just talked myself back into this card.
Tireless Tracker - A great source of card advantage in a deck with 9 fetches, and gradually gets bigger too. The downsides being that it doesn't interact with the opponent nor put a lot of immediate pressure on them.
Lyev Skyknight - I actually tried Lyev Skyknight in this slot for a little bit, but it wasn't making the impact I had expected; it's a card I've gone back to multiple times because I say to myself "maybe I just never hit the right scenarios for it to be good" and I continue to not find scenarios where it's very good. Maybe it's just dumb luck, idk, but the card just has not done much for me. It's a very medicore hit on an EOT Collected Company, is super awkward in situations where we need to push through damage, especially against stuff like Lingering Souls, gets easily pinged by all sorts of burn spells, Walking Ballista etc. One thing you may notice about my list is that I have slimmed way down on the amount of x/1s in the list (and 8 of the 10 non-dork x/1s in the main regularly grow large), because of how bad they tend to be in anything other than blitz aggro decks. At 3 mana, it's just rough to put out a 3/1.
Renegade Rallier - Also something I tried, as it has even more revolt triggers than usual with Kari Zev, Skyship Raider in the deck. However, its ability was overly situational (needed a juicy hit in the graveyard plus a revolt trigger) and didn't have nearly as much upside as Tireless Tracker (which goes NUTS in a deck with 9 fetches), so sadly he didn't make the cut either.
Mirran Crusader - This is a card I haven't yet tried, so it's a possibility. Though it seems pretty bad in any non-BG matchup, of which there are lots of on MTGO. Hard to say, but I'll give it a shot.
I think it's pretty cool that Knightfall and Human Company were merged to make a successful top 8 Grand Prix deck. I have been testing Knightfall and Human Company quite a bit in the past 2 months, especially the head to head, which is pretty fun (Human Company has a slight advantage).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Have you considered using a split of Renegade Rallier and Eternal Witness ?
I have tried Renegade Rallier before in a shell with Knight of the Reliquary. I actually think the two-drops are the weakest part of the humans deck, to be honest. I found I was happier returning a fetchland in the early game for ramp than anything else, which was definitely good, but I always thought it wasn't making the best use of the revolt ability. I do like Rallier, quite a bit, but I think it is best suited in decks that have better targets (Voice of Resurgence, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze come to mind). Eternal Witness is not as explosive, but I value being able to recur Path to Exile, Collected Company, or one of our sideboard instants more than the explosiveness. Additionally, our best creatures are at three mana, and Rallier can't recur those. After sideboarding, things can slow down a bit after people dilute their decks with what are often reactive cards. Eternal Witness can be fantastic in these situations. With that said, I could feel differently next week. It is a powerful card that can do some fairly unique things. - I do want to do something with Saffi Eriksdotter and Renegade Rallier at some point, though. Blasting Station and Falkenrath Aristocrat could be fun.
In terms of your list, how has running 8 mana dorks and fewer two drops felt?
Thoughts on Eternal Witness?
It's also probably difficult to quantify, but have you noticed anything moving from 21 to 22 lands?
-So far, I like it. After Thalia's Lieutenant, I'm really not excited about any of our two-drops. I could definitely see cutting one Avacyn's Pilgrim, but I'm not sure what I would replace it with. Probably a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or move the second copy of Retreat to Coralhelm to the main deck.
-Most of the time I cast Collected Company, Eternal Witness is the card I want to see. I don't want too many clogging my hand, which is why I choose to run three. I just noticed that rhymed... my bad. It stays. While the 2/1 body is lacking, the ability to recur lands, creatures, or spells is simply more powerful than most of the other things we could be doing.
-Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a card I have been largely unimpressed with. I want my three drops to either be relatively hard to deal with (Knight of the Reliquary, Mirran Crusader) or provide immediate value (Eternal Witness, Reflector Mage). Thalia, Heretic Cathar does neither, unfortunately. While I do like the synergies three-drop Thalia has with cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Reflector Mage, I don't think it does enough unless you get to cast it turn two on the play. The other three drops have a better chance at stabilizing when we are behind, as well. If the Goryo's Vengeance/Through the Breach style decks pick up, Thalia, Heretic Cathar becomes better.
-The move to 22 lands was because I really wanted a copy of Gavony Township in the list and felt like none of the other lands should be removed due to Retreat to Coralhelm. This also goes back to having the eight mana dorks - they are less of a liability if we have a way to buff them. The utility lands and Eternal Witness also make flooding out less of a liability in general. You are right about it being difficult to quantify, as 21 vs 22 lands is a pretty minimal thing statistically.
---As an aside, I do have a bias when it comes to Eternal Witness. It was a buddy of mine's favorite card. He was a great Magic player that had seen success at the higher levels of competition. He committed suicide a few years ago and now his parents host a memorial tournament every spring that benefits suicide prevention organizations. The Hunter Burton Memorial Tournament is a great event for a great cause. If anyone wants information about this outstanding event that takes place in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, let me know and I will provide it.
Hmm now that I think about it a bit more a 5 color version doesn't seem to add that much, a blackless build already does almost everything we want.
Anyway really excited about the new land.
This is the conclusion I also came to after trying multiple 5 color, redless and blackless builds. The blackless Mantis Rider build has 99% of the stuff I want, with Anafenza, the Foremost being the main exception.
I think the new land is going to vastly improve 3+ color aggro (non-CoCo) human builds where you want to run stuff like Kytheon, Hero of Akros, Bloodsoaked Champion, Warden of the First Tree, Burning-Tree Emissary etc in the first couple of turns. I definitely plan to start jammin an Abzan aggro build with the new land. The 4C CoCo variants will probably want to stick to fetch/shocks.
This seems like it has a good possibility of making the cut in at least some 4/5 colour decks.
I think the biggest advantage that Unclaimed Territory brings is that it allows Bant-Red builds to more comfortably and consistently run the Avacyn's Pilgrim plan (More stellar 3-drops, fewer OK 2-drops, better compatibility with both Thalias) if they choose to do so.
I think a single gemstone mine might be OK in conjunction with 7 dorks and a fast clock. While the manabase absolutely folds to Blood Moon it seems less painful on average than the fetch lists.
I was actually testing unexisting cards lately to figure out what could help the archetype. I first thought of a reprint of Murmuring Bosk, with a cycle involving a Jeskai version (Plains type).
This will do. I'm very impatient for this card, it's a gift that will improve our Burn MU, very important in the format !
My only concern there is that, at that point, we're not just soft to blood moon, we just straight up lose to it on the spot. Maybe it's like that already, but I like being able to fetch out early basics in those matchups. And having basics to fetch from Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter is often relevant. I'd be more than happy to make such concessions in a blitz aggro build, but not as much in a Company build.
I would start to go down to 6 fetchlands and run Plains + 4 Ravlands. Territory #6-7 cut 2 fetches and #7-8 cut the Thickets.
Moon, Fulmi and Seas are cards we have to be prepared for out of FNMs.
Besides, a full-fetch manabase isn't better than 8 rainbow lands anyway.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
My only concern there is that, at that point, we're not just soft to blood moon, we just straight up lose to it on the spot. Maybe it's like that already, but I like being able to fetch out early basics in those matchups. And having basics to fetch from Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter is often relevant. I'd be more than happy to make such concessions in a blitz aggro build, but not as much in a Company build.
It's really not /that/ bad. Turn 1 mana generating creature is a pretty common turn 1 play. While Avacyn's pilgrim only generates white, Noble Hierarch produces the three colours common to pretty much every company build. I'd hardly call it losing to blood moon on the spot.
I think Kingcars is right. I tested Moon MUs hard and it's a very good plan against a 4C deck. How wouldn't it be ? delver, Prison, U Moon, etc... these decks run spot removal and even wrath effects. Very easy for them to lock us.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
My only concern there is that, at that point, we're not just soft to blood moon, we just straight up lose to it on the spot. Maybe it's like that already, but I like being able to fetch out early basics in those matchups. And having basics to fetch from Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter is often relevant. I'd be more than happy to make such concessions in a blitz aggro build, but not as much in a Company build.
With or with Noble or Avacyn's we're gonna be soft to Blood Moon luckily only a few decks main deck it and side it in my meta. Heck I sometimes run Moon so we'll see. Yes it can get land destroyed and most the time now its Cavern that gets blown up so we'll at least have another option.
As for concessions in builds it maybe early so Im gonna proxy and play test, you maybe right about that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Main problems:
Yeah, the lack of Noble Hierarch and Cavern of Souls. I know the cards are crazy good but i am to stingy to pay so much for 7 cards. I convinced myself to buy a Cavern of Souls each month. Maybe I will do the same with the Noble Hierarch. I replace them for now with Birds of Paradise. I like the colorfixing a lot wich allows to play either Reflector Mage or Anafenza, the Foremost. What else should I change in the Main?
Agreed, they are great cards but expensive. I still need to buy my last two Caverns instead of borrowing them. Hierarch is just a great card unfortunately, Pilgrim is a necessary in the lists but not nearly as good.
Now some questions:
In some situations I don't know if it is better to play Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or a 3-Drop (mostly Anafenza, the Foremost). What do you recommend? I am aware that it's always situationally but maybe there is a norm.
Depends on the matchup and if you have a Collected Company you are hoping to cast turn 3. If you have a hand of creatures then an early Thalia, especially game 1 if you don't know what are playing is probably better to try and trip them up. If they are playing red then Anafenza is great as they will find her hard to remove. Turn 2 Reflector Mage on their mana creature is a very strong play.
What do you think about Meddling Mage? I am not sure with this card. In wich match-ups is it good and what cards i want to name?
I name combo pieces - Living End, Ad Nauseum, Ironworks. It's a narrow card that is great for some metas, and poor in others.
Sin Collector? If yes, how many in the main? Or in the board? In my testing it was one of the worst cards...
Yes for me, but 2 in the sideboard currently. I had it in my main board over Eternal Witness for GP Birmingham, mainly to try and get extra information about my opponents game 1. Some matches it is worth the mainboard inclusion, especially the 'unfair' combo type decks, but versus creature decks you might miss.
Is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that good? Don't get me wrong... I love this card! Sometime she hits super hard but sometimes she does nothing.
She is not a guaranteed include on the lists here, but I run 2. She can mess up your small amount of spells, but tends to restrict our opponents more I find. Again, maybe dependent on the decks you run into - the more non-creature spells played the better she is. Definitely Bant Black's weakness is a lack of a good 2 drop and evasion compared to Kari Zev, Harsh Mentor, Mantis Rider etc.
What is your opinion on the Mana Dorks? I saw lists running 6 other 8. Would you run 4x Avacyn's Pilgrim and 2x Birds of Paradise in favor of two more 3-Drops? If so, wich 3-Drops? Please let me know.
I run 7 - 4 Hierarch and 3 Pilgrim. I'm currently trying 11 1CMC creatures, 10 2CMC and 10 3CMC creatures to have a smoother curve, as I find sometimes that having fewer 2 drops can make your curve out awkward if they remove your mana dork.
What do you think on "Naya"? I saw this girl playing Naya at the GP in Birmingham. She played Magus of the Moon over Reflector Mage to mess with the opponents manabase. Also another sideboard plan. Is an aggro build like the Blitz version viable in the current meta (with some major tweaks of course)?
I don't run red in my list, other people here do and the lists look interesting. Reflector Mage is very strong right now though, so I wouldn't want to cut that unless I had good reason.
I finally got a glance to play this deck in paper for the first time last week. It wasn't my greatest showing, but I'll go over the highlights in case they're helpful for others.
Round 1 vs Dredge: Opponent had the nuts in G1, to the point where my one-of Echoing Truth sending four attacking Prized Amalgams back to his hand was only a speed bump. G2 I kept a strong hand without grave hate, and it proved to be enough: T1 Champ into T2 Champ and Hierarch into T3 Champ and Big Thalia followed up by a pair of Reflector Mages was aggro/tempo city. Didn't find any grave hate G3 either, but a T2 Meddling Mage naming Conflagarate followed by my opponent dredging 5 and turning over two Conflagarates and three lands about summed things up. 1-0
Round 2 vs Blue Steel: I'd never seen this deck before, and didn't have much of an idea what I was up against. All three games were close races. The decisive moment came in G3 when my opponent tapped out to put me at 2, with two Lodestone Golems on board to tax my plays. I was sitting on 5 land with a CoCo in hand. I untapped, and topdecked a shock land--GG dead. For fun, we flipped the top six to see what I would have found if it had been a land I could've played. Double Lieutenant and lethal. FML. 1-1
Round 3 vs Esper Goryo's: G1 I mulled to 5 on the draw. Put him to two life before he found Emrakul to finish me. G2 I mulled to 6, kept a hand of three lands plus Champ, Path, and CoCo, scryed a land to the bottom, then topdecked three straight lands. Needless to say, that was a loss. Pretty frustrating draws in light of the fact that Bant Blsck has so many great tools against Goryo's: both Thalias are huge hosers, and an early Sin Collector, Kambal, or Rest In Peace can cripple them. Oh well. 1-2
Round 4 vs. Mono-Green Stompy: This poor guy was on the recieving end of my rebound in luck. G1 on the play my progression was Champ into Lieutenant into Mirran Crusader. G2 was even worse for him: T1 Hierarch, T2 Crusader, T3 CoCo into Crusader and Reflector Mage, bouncing his Baloth. This match was over before it began. 2-2
Not bad for the first run out in paper. I feel aggrieved by the Goryo's loss, but that's MtG (and life). I think I made the right decisions; luck just wasn't with me at the time. There's nothing in this list with which I was displeased. Really looking forward to playing Humans more and improving my proficiency with them.
My current list:
2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
3 Voltaic Brawler
2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
2 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Tireless Tracker
4 Reflector Mage
4 Mantis Rider
Spells (8)
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
1 Breeding Pool
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Arashin Cleric
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Negate
2 Rest in Peace
2 Vithian Renegades
2 War Priest of Thune
I'm considering finding room for a 4th copy of Brawler, but I'm quite happy with my all around numbers right now and don't know what to cut.
The other contention I'm having is whether to run Tireless Tracker or Thalia, Heretic Cathar in the "auxillary" 3 drop slot. In my testing, these two seem to be the best cards for this slot, but it seems to be pretty 50/50 when it comes to me wanting one over the other. There have been games where I needed Tracker to close the game out with a few extra draws, but there have been other times where I needed Thalia to choke mana or negate the ability for the opponent to play blockers. Thoughts?
Those two Pilgrims can become your 4th Brawler and 22nd land / Channeler Mage / Some other 2-drop. Cutting the Pilgrims means I personally wouldn't run Thalia HC.
Tireless Tracker is OK here, and if you find yourself routinely needing her card advantage she can stick around. With that said, the rest of your list is pushing in the aggro-tempo direction and Tracker is pushing back in the grind direction. I think these 2 slot might best be served as Mirran Crusader since he's super relevant and awesome right now, but it could also be something like Lyev Skyknight, Sunscourge Champion, or perhaps Renegade Rallier.
I agree that, on paper, Pilgrim seems awkward, but I honestly cannot recall a game where I wasn't able to cast a T2 Mantis Rider off of Pilgrim. As long as I have a Cavern of Souls, Breeding Pool or Stomping Ground on T1 to cast Pilgrim (I have 15 total sources to produce such mana), casting Mantis T2 isn't an issue. I think that between the very high odds of having one one those 15 sources vs the much lower odds of having to go T1 Pilgrim/T2 Mantis, it's just something that doesn't often come up. With that said, one of the reasons I've hesitated on the 4th Voltaic Brawler is because of its color intensity. But the mana base I've been running pretty much since I started running this deck has been very good, especially considering the color requirements. Aside from occasional fetch punts on my end, it's been as smooth as I could hope for.
Also, having a T1 dork is very crucial for the deck, so I'd be very hesitant to make a cut there.
I agree with your assessment here. I was trying out Tracker as a way to make up for the loss of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and help the deck retain some resilience in grindy matchups. But with the aggressive slant of the deck, Thalia may be better suited generally speaking. Here are my current thoughts on the main contenders for this slot:
Thalia, Heretic Cathar - This is one of those cards that is either a total house or does absolutely nothing. Though in most matchups, she is very good. She is great against fetches, tron lands, hasty creatures and opposing mid-combat Collected Companys. She is good against planeswalkers that attempt to protect themselves with tokens and slows down the recurring Ghost Quarter gameplan that some decks have been adopting using cards like Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator. There are other nice side effects like stopping the Nahiri/Emrakul combo, Through the Breach etc. Hmm...maybe I just talked myself back into this card.
Tireless Tracker - A great source of card advantage in a deck with 9 fetches, and gradually gets bigger too. The downsides being that it doesn't interact with the opponent nor put a lot of immediate pressure on them.
Lyev Skyknight - I actually tried Lyev Skyknight in this slot for a little bit, but it wasn't making the impact I had expected; it's a card I've gone back to multiple times because I say to myself "maybe I just never hit the right scenarios for it to be good" and I continue to not find scenarios where it's very good. Maybe it's just dumb luck, idk, but the card just has not done much for me. It's a very medicore hit on an EOT Collected Company, is super awkward in situations where we need to push through damage, especially against stuff like Lingering Souls, gets easily pinged by all sorts of burn spells, Walking Ballista etc. One thing you may notice about my list is that I have slimmed way down on the amount of x/1s in the list (and 8 of the 10 non-dork x/1s in the main regularly grow large), because of how bad they tend to be in anything other than blitz aggro decks. At 3 mana, it's just rough to put out a 3/1.
Renegade Rallier - Also something I tried, as it has even more revolt triggers than usual with Kari Zev, Skyship Raider in the deck. However, its ability was overly situational (needed a juicy hit in the graveyard plus a revolt trigger) and didn't have nearly as much upside as Tireless Tracker (which goes NUTS in a deck with 9 fetches), so sadly he didn't make the cut either.
Mirran Crusader - This is a card I haven't yet tried, so it's a possibility. Though it seems pretty bad in any non-BG matchup, of which there are lots of on MTGO. Hard to say, but I'll give it a shot.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I have tried Renegade Rallier before in a shell with Knight of the Reliquary. I actually think the two-drops are the weakest part of the humans deck, to be honest. I found I was happier returning a fetchland in the early game for ramp than anything else, which was definitely good, but I always thought it wasn't making the best use of the revolt ability. I do like Rallier, quite a bit, but I think it is best suited in decks that have better targets (Voice of Resurgence, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze come to mind). Eternal Witness is not as explosive, but I value being able to recur Path to Exile, Collected Company, or one of our sideboard instants more than the explosiveness. Additionally, our best creatures are at three mana, and Rallier can't recur those. After sideboarding, things can slow down a bit after people dilute their decks with what are often reactive cards. Eternal Witness can be fantastic in these situations. With that said, I could feel differently next week. It is a powerful card that can do some fairly unique things. - I do want to do something with Saffi Eriksdotter and Renegade Rallier at some point, though. Blasting Station and Falkenrath Aristocrat could be fun.
-So far, I like it. After Thalia's Lieutenant, I'm really not excited about any of our two-drops. I could definitely see cutting one Avacyn's Pilgrim, but I'm not sure what I would replace it with. Probably a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or move the second copy of Retreat to Coralhelm to the main deck.
-Most of the time I cast Collected Company, Eternal Witness is the card I want to see. I don't want too many clogging my hand, which is why I choose to run three. I just noticed that rhymed... my bad. It stays. While the 2/1 body is lacking, the ability to recur lands, creatures, or spells is simply more powerful than most of the other things we could be doing.
-Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a card I have been largely unimpressed with. I want my three drops to either be relatively hard to deal with (Knight of the Reliquary, Mirran Crusader) or provide immediate value (Eternal Witness, Reflector Mage). Thalia, Heretic Cathar does neither, unfortunately. While I do like the synergies three-drop Thalia has with cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Reflector Mage, I don't think it does enough unless you get to cast it turn two on the play. The other three drops have a better chance at stabilizing when we are behind, as well. If the Goryo's Vengeance/Through the Breach style decks pick up, Thalia, Heretic Cathar becomes better.
-The move to 22 lands was because I really wanted a copy of Gavony Township in the list and felt like none of the other lands should be removed due to Retreat to Coralhelm. This also goes back to having the eight mana dorks - they are less of a liability if we have a way to buff them. The utility lands and Eternal Witness also make flooding out less of a liability in general. You are right about it being difficult to quantify, as 21 vs 22 lands is a pretty minimal thing statistically.
---As an aside, I do have a bias when it comes to Eternal Witness. It was a buddy of mine's favorite card. He was a great Magic player that had seen success at the higher levels of competition. He committed suicide a few years ago and now his parents host a memorial tournament every spring that benefits suicide prevention organizations. The Hunter Burton Memorial Tournament is a great event for a great cause. If anyone wants information about this outstanding event that takes place in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, let me know and I will provide it.
This seems like it has a good possibility of making the cut in at least some 4/5 colour decks.
That is a potential game changer. Very interesting.
This is the conclusion I also came to after trying multiple 5 color, redless and blackless builds. The blackless Mantis Rider build has 99% of the stuff I want, with Anafenza, the Foremost being the main exception.
I think the new land is going to vastly improve 3+ color aggro (non-CoCo) human builds where you want to run stuff like Kytheon, Hero of Akros, Bloodsoaked Champion, Warden of the First Tree, Burning-Tree Emissary etc in the first couple of turns. I definitely plan to start jammin an Abzan aggro build with the new land. The 4C CoCo variants will probably want to stick to fetch/shocks.
3x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Voltaic Brawler
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Mantis Rider
4x Reflector Mage
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2x Anafenza, the Foremost
4x Unclaimed Territory
4x Cavern of Souls
4x City of Brass
1x Gemstone Mine
3x Reflecting Pool
2x Copperline Gorge
1x Botanical Sanctum
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Plains
4x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
This will do. I'm very impatient for this card, it's a gift that will improve our Burn MU, very important in the format !
Take less shock damage, check
Open up more colors, check
Expensive, I hope not but Im guessing $10 each maybe up to $20.
Moon, Fulmi and Seas are cards we have to be prepared for out of FNMs.
Besides, a full-fetch manabase isn't better than 8 rainbow lands anyway.
It's really not /that/ bad. Turn 1 mana generating creature is a pretty common turn 1 play. While Avacyn's pilgrim only generates white, Noble Hierarch produces the three colours common to pretty much every company build. I'd hardly call it losing to blood moon on the spot.
With or with Noble or Avacyn's we're gonna be soft to Blood Moon luckily only a few decks main deck it and side it in my meta. Heck I sometimes run Moon so we'll see. Yes it can get land destroyed and most the time now its Cavern that gets blown up so we'll at least have another option.
As for concessions in builds it maybe early so Im gonna proxy and play test, you maybe right about that.