Your choices make sense. I'd personnally not play 4 Inquisitions because the card doesn't hit what I often want to hit when I play control decks (UB Tezz, Grixis, Jund). I like a 3-3 split with TS better. Especially here since you're supposed to care less about your life total. But in this list you have 4 Confidants, I get it.
The Crusaders are a good meta call, 4 copies looks impressive on paper, but if you always want to see one, go for it. It's probably better than Ana right now in the abzan colors. I wish you had something to pump it more !
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
Surprised the forum isn't more active considering the attention the deck has been getting via the deck tech and streamed comp leagues. Kind of feels like a hybrid affinity/ death and taxes and is really fun imo.
I think you're diluting your creature count for a useless synergy. Elves are already stronger without using Curio, which is kind of an obsolete card in the format. Humans find their strength in their dozens of playable (but not unanimous) creatures, and impactful Cocos.
I do believe a Coco Human list wants ~ 20 pay-off creatures, considering mana dorks and Champions are bad hits. That's one reason I can't get behind lists with 4 Pilgrims since the card is super bad outside of ramping for Coco. It's a bad Coco hit and is not aggro on its own. 12 creatures that are good mostly when they're played in the 2 first turns and then become mediocre is too awkward imho.
It's worth playing 8 mana dorks (or more) when we have Coco + Chord, not when we run only Coco though. In Humans, If I were to play more than the 4 Nobles, it would be up to 2 slots and they would be Channeler Initiate, because as midgame Coco hits, they can put their counters on a crappy Champ, or weaken a huge Lieut/Champ. Moreover, in the early game, we mostly don't attack with dorks but Channeler naturally become a 3/4 over time, and he fixes our mana, while Pilgrim doesn't even provide green...
Surprised the forum isn't more active considering the attention the deck has been getting via the deck tech and streamed comp leagues. Kind of feels like a hybrid affinity/ death and taxes and is really fun imo.
Some players here aren't into Coco versions, I guess it's because of budget reasons. And players who work on Coco versions don't specifically play the lists that have been popular over the last week or so. The lack of reaction is due to everyone cooking in his own fort, so to speak.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
I feel part of the reason for the lack of discussion here is that the deck is so modular. Scrolling through the forum there's like 5 different decks that all just happen to play Champion and Lieutenant.
It's easier to have a discussion when someone has 4 cards different from you. You can ask why they chose x over y. It's a lot harder when you're on Bant Humans and a bunch of the posts are mono white lists.
I do believe a Coco Human list wants ~ 20 pay-off creatures, considering mana dorks and Champions are bad hits. That's one reason I can't get behind lists with 4 Pilgrims since the card is super bad outside of ramping for Coco. It's a bad Coco hit and is not aggro on its own. 12 creatures that are good mostly when they're played in the 2 first turns and then become mediocre is too awkward imho.
It's worth playing 8 mana dorks (or more) when we have Coco + Chord, not when we run only Coco though. In Humans, If I were to play more than the 4 Nobles, it would be up to 2 slots and they would be Channeler Initiate, because as midgame Coco hits, they can put their counters on a crappy Champ, or weaken a huge Lieut/Champ. Moreover, in the early game, we mostly don't attack with dorks but Channeler naturally become a 3/4 over time, and he fixes our mana, while Pilgrim doesn't even provide green...
Surprised the forum isn't more active considering the attention the deck has been getting via the deck tech and streamed comp leagues. Kind of feels like a hybrid affinity/ death and taxes and is really fun imo.
Some players here aren't into Coco versions, I guess it's because of budget reasons. And players who work on Coco versions don't specifically play the lists that have been popular over the last week or so. The lack of reaction is due to everyone cooking in his own fort, so to speak.
I've been studying the 4-color list. I watched Craig Wescoe's matches against Naya Blitz, UW Control, RG Titanshift, BW Eldrazi & Taxes; Pascal Maynard's matches against Jund Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Tron, Grixis Death's Shadow, Gifts Storm (1 & 2); and lastly I've played a few friendly matches with the list against Grixis Shadow and an Abzan Mentor brew. Obviously I'm no expert but I feel like I'm coming to understand the 4-color list's choices better, and it's better constructed than I gave it credit for.
The Pilgrims do more work than I expected:
Enabling Turn 2 interaction via Sin Collector / Reflector / Big Thalia can give you a foot in the door for match-ups that otherwise outpace and ignore Humans, and this is something that you can't quite recreate with Channeler Initiate (though I don't disagree that she's worth trying)
Being able to cast Champion plus a 2-drop hate piece like lil Thalia / Meddling Mage / RIP / Stony Silence on Turn 2 was also solid.
Hitting 5 mana helps resolve conflicts between lil Thalia and CoCo.
They help to turn on Gavony Township earlier, and between Gavony, Lieutenant, and Mayor it wasn't uncommon to see Pilgrims chipping in for an extra 2+ damage here and there.
They're definitely poor topdecks, that's undeniable. And I completely agree that the high number of poor topdecks gives the deck inconsistent performance in the late game. You can remedy this somewhat by siding some or all of them out in match-ups where you need higher threat density. But the mainboard is built around accelerated 3-drops achieving different angles of interaction combined with early CoCos. I think the core deckbuilding idea here might be "Who cares if you have great topdecks in the late game if you fail to stop and effectively lose against Tier 1 (especially unfair) decks by the mid game?"
In summary I think the Pilgrims are bad cards that help this particular maindeck execute its plan more explosively, or at least fast enough to put up a fight. Pilgrims been a part of nearly every successfully placing Human CoCo list to date according to MTGTop8, so I'm trying to keep an open mind about them. With all of that said, I would be interested in experimenting with Hierarchs, 2-3 Pilgrims, and 1-2 Channelers. EDIT: The difference in tempo gain between a 1 and 2 mana dork is pretty big. I might go for a singleton Channeler, but starting hands with Channeler aren't that amazing and if you cut the Pilgrims to make room for Channelers you're also removing the best target for the -1/-1 counters..
I still think that Sin Collector should be a SB card though.
I can see where you're coming from -- it does seem a little narrow at first. But in practice it worked pretty well for the current meta, and having Collector in the main (and playable as soon as T2) helps against a lot of tough match-ups. At worst you get a 2/1 human and peek at the opponent's hand, which is still fairly valuable and far from a dead card. At best you exile an opponent's wincon or key response and essentially steal the game. The peek effect combines well with Meddling Mage for post-board games. I think you could make a case for swapping the positions of Sin Collector and Mirran Crusader, but I wouldn't want to reduce the number of silver-bullet humans in this particular 75 to add in more generic beaters like KotR.
Some other unrelated notes:
Reflector Mage did a lot of work. The synergy between Reflector Mage; Thalia, Heretic Cather; and Meddling Mage was powerful and neat to watch.
The manabase is still a problem. It really needs another 2+ black sources, and everyone that's played the list commented on this as well. I'll play around with this. A few people have cut Staticaster / Red and I think this is probably the correct choice.
Mayor is.. OK here. Probably the least impressive card in the list but occasionally clutch. In this list Mayor helps Pilgrims chip in for extra damage, and buffing Mirran Crusader presents a fast clock. The fact that he doesn't help the team against Anger of the Gods is slightly offset by Sin Collector in the main. However, he is soft against ping effects, which are somewhat common at the moment between Walking Ballista, Electrolyze, Liliana, The Last Hope and so forth. One idea I was toying with was going back to trying Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in the Mayor slots. Jace has been largely ignored since last fall. Adding him over Mayor might hurt our clock a little bit, but filtering our bad topdecks and recasting game-changing Paths and CoCos might offer a strong enough upside to offset that. Another option is to cut the Mayors to bring 2x Crusader into the main and free up another 2 sideboard slots.
Overall it's too early for me to hazard any guess on whether the 4-color list is the de facto optimal build for our current meta, but it does do several things that I like. Namely, its higher density of interactive or taxing cards gives it some interesting lines of play against decks that Humans just couldn't handle well before, and I find these lines of play to be not only potentially more powerful, but also more fun than digging in on the straight beatdown plan.
Well, I decided to do what a lot of people seem to be hesitant to do just to see what happened - I cut both of the legendary Thalia's from my 75; removed some weak creatures for what are just stronger cards in the format right now, in my opinion; decided to run a fairly minimal amount of creatures for a CoCo list; added more interaction. Results so far? Higher winning percentage. I'll go over my decisions for certain cards after the list. I still haven't found a consistent way to beat Tron variants without bending over backwards, but I'm fine having a bad matchup or two across a format as diverse as modern. I'd rather shut the door on decks we can actually beat consistently. My current Abzan list:
I can definitely get behind your reasoning here, and I'm eager to hear about your results. The only thing I'll note is that I've never been happy with Bob in Human CoCo lists. I agree that in a vacuum he's much stronger than the rest of our turn 2 plays, but between Collected Company & Eternal Witness IMO you have access to all of the (instantaneous, painless) card advantage you need for the majority of your matchups. CoCo is the best card in the deck, so getting one back from the graveyard guaranteed via Witness is a lot better than drawing a random card off the top. In most metas in fact I think you'd be OK with just 2 Witnesses MB and 1-2 Witnesses SB, cutting Bob and filling in the extra 5 MB slots with humans that are interactive or speed up your clock in some way. Maybe Channeler Initiate as discussed above, or some combination of Thalias. Tireless Tracker has also been really popular as a beater / card engine. I could be way off, though, and Bob might over-perform for you.
I've been thinking about Gavony Township vs Vault of the Archangel, too. If there were enough black sources in the 4-color list I'd love to run Vault, as deathtouch is great with the first strike on Crusader and both Thalias. If you ever switch back to more Thalias in your Abzan list I think Vault might become more attractive there.
Hitting 5 mana helps resolve conflicts between lil Thalia and CoCo.
They help to turn on Gavony Township earlier, and between Gavony, Lieutenant, and Mayor it wasn't uncommon to see Pilgrims chipping in for an extra 2+ damage here and there.
What I see here is that Pilgrim fixes a problem the builder inflicts to himself, and I highly doubt Gavony is worth it in a Human list. Pascal Maynard seconded that by saying the Townships were the worst lands in the list he streamed.
There comes a time where you realize a 2/1 Human, even pumped by Township twice/thrice, will eventually be smaller than Tarmo, DS, Angler, Tas, will race slower than Infect, Affi, undercosted Nacatls and Smiters...
I've been thinking about Gavony Township vs Vault of the Archangel, too
...That's why I would advise Vault of the Archangel in such a slot. I personnally run Kessig Wolf's Run in my Bant Red versions, so in Bant black Vault looks like the closest we can get.
It's been a while I have been playing 4 Lyev + 4 Riders to fight the format, and I keep winning a ton because flying is such an unfair vanilla ability.
Another option is to cut the Mayors to bring 2x Crusader into the main and free up another 2 sideboard slots.
Overall it's too early for me to hazard any guess on whether the 4-color list is the de facto optimal build for our current meta, but it does do several things that I like
I feel you. I abandoned explosiveness for more interaction and I'm currently playing 4 Meddling Mages MD. I guess I can share the thing :
Main Deck wise, from the first tournament result, it looks like they cut a Sin Collector, an Avacyn's Pilgrim and a Mayor for Anafenza, an Abzan Falconer, and a 4th copy of GoT Thalia.
The Xathrid Necromancers, Meddling Mages and Orzhov Pontifs in the side are pretty cool.
I've been testing Abzan Falconer on MTGO as a 2 of. In friendly leagues, I've been putting up a lot of 4-1 results. It is a fantastic card against decks that go wide faster or larger than us. Merfolk actually feels winnable with this card. I think I'm going to run one MD and one SB going forward.
Is there compelling evidence to suggest that such a manabase is more effective for a 4c list than a manabase wherein most sources produce whatever you need? I'm thinking some combination of these:
Cavern of Souls
Mana Confluence
City of Brass
Gemstone Mine
Ancient Ziggurat
Reflecting Pool
Fastlands
Most of the 4c lists are like 50-60% white, with Noble Hierarch helping to cover WGU. In this case just fetching your needed splash color can be less painful than getting dinged for each land tap. Additionally, running fetches makes sure you can fetch Forest, so that you're at least able to cast CoCo through a Blood Moon.
With that said the coverage of the splash colors (especially Black) for the popular 4c list is lower than it needs to be, and going full rainbow might be the best way to fix that. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes. Only thing I'll note is that you don't want Ziggurat in a CoCo list.
Most of the 4c lists are like 50-60% white, with Noble Hierarch helping to cover WGU. In this case just fetching your needed splash color can be less painful than getting dinged for each land tap. Additionally, running fetches makes sure you can fetch Forest, so that you're at least able to cast CoCo through a Blood Moon.
With that said the coverage of the splash colors (especially Black) for the popular 4c list is lower than it needs to be, and going full rainbow might be the best way to fix that. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes. Only thing I'll note is that you don't want Ziggurat in a CoCo list.
Thanks. You pretty much nailed my perception of each approach (and I also share your thoughts on the Ziggurat/CoCo fail).
I've been online testing the fetch-based setup for my own 4c brew (excluding black in favor of red), and it's been surprisingly common to miss out on a vital aspect of mana production--the deck is straight fire otherwise.
I'll swap over to the 5c manabase for a while and report back.
Fetchland-based manabases are the best in all formats where it's available when you want to run 3+ colors. If you miss a color, it won't be because of playing fetchlands. The only issue in Modern is that Burn is Tier 1 and that ravlands are a liability in this MU and a few others.
In a 4C deck, it's crucial to know when to mulligan. For example you can consider utility lands as non-land cards in your opener. Township or Wolf Run can't let you curve correctly if you wanna cast Mantis Rider or Voltaic Brawler. Basics are the worst colored-mana producing lands but we need them, both against Blood Moon and against Burn (+ fast aggros).
Mana Confluence or Horizon Canopy are problematic in the aggro MUs and their inclusion is on the edge. A straight fetchland manabase pings much but at least you can choose to let a land etb untapped and save 2 life when it doesn't cause you a tempo loss.
No serious Modern deck plays more than 3 fastlands in 3-4 color decks (4 is for 2 colored decks like BW tokens, GW Hexproof, etc...), so I'm not sure where you got your "4-5" in "most 4c lists".
Reflecting Pool only works consistently along with Ancient Ziggurat (or a full set of Confluences), so none of them can be played in a Coco list. It's basically a trap, a land you never see in any competitive deck. It doesn't let you play basics and utility lands safely.
It's important to have a functional opening hand for an aggro deck, and it seems fetchlands are still the best way to achieve that goal.
Edit : Food for thought : https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/humans-coco-in-modern/
His cuts from black, Mayor and Thalias don't surprise me at all, he slowly goes though what a part of this thread went already.
Crusader is a meta call, I'm pretty certain Mantis is at least as good if not better in a slightly wider meta, and better pre-board overall.
No serious Modern deck plays more than 3 fastlands in 3-4 color decks (4 is for 2 colored decks like BW tokens, GW Hexproof, etc...), so I'm not sure where you got your "4-5" in "most 4c lists".
So I did a search on mtgtop8 for Modern decks running Champion of the Parish. If we start in March of this year and toss out the decks running three colors or fewer, we get these:
Everything else is a variant of the Black Bant list with 3 of each Thalia in the main, whose pilots ran either 3 or 4 fastlands. It would have been more accurate for me to say 3-5 instead of 4-5, but I don't think it was horribly misleading. However, it is worth noting that the two lists linked above eschew CoCo, making fastlands a little more appealing.
I'm in agreement with your analysis of the other options for a non-fetch based setup, especially after some testing last night. Cards like Mana Confluence and City of Brass feel very bad over the course of a grindy game. Another point in favor of fetches is that they make cards like Knight of the Reliquary and Tireless Tracker a bit better, for people interesting in running those.
Speaking of Mantis Rider--and to bring the discussion full circle--a couple Inspiring Vantage in the main provides one of the cleanest ways to play him T2, at the risk of missing natural T4 CoCo with only fastlands as your 4th land drop, or having to mull due to an opening hand with mana dorks + Vantage and Plains, or similar.
Main problem with the Mantis Rider is it hard to play him on turn 2. Avacyn's Pilgrim gives only white mana so you have to fetch for Breeding Pool/Stomping Ground
Same problem with Voltaic Brawler or Meddling Mage. From the time we play spells in curve with no generic mana in the mana cost, there's a risk of being color-screwed or be forced to pay life. Now Mantis has the advantage to not waste tempo if it's played on T3, since it has Haste. We don't need to cast Mantis on T2, it's actually the 3-drop we often slowroll if we have other things to play instead.
Other point, Pilgrim is the problematic card here, not Mantis. The fact Pilgrim doesn't even provide green can be a problem soemtimes.
Last point, yes Mantis asks for agressive fetching, but we're playing an aggro deck, and Haste allows to hit for 3, which negates the life loss we made in order to cast it, so to speak.
Maybe 2 Auriok Champion and Gideon (Ally) would be better?
Kambal is the best reason to run black for now, since it's good against Burn AND Combo, our worst G1s. Auriok Champ is good against Burn, Tribes and aggros, which covers the same kind of MUs. So I would suggest to run 3x counterspell cards, like Stubborn Denial, Spell Pierce, Mana Leak, or Meddling Mage. Gideon seems useless in the current meta, it's more of a pet card, but it's good at what it does.
I don't think it was horribly misleading. However, it is worth noting that the two lists linked above eschew CoCo
^this. If we're talking about Coco Humans, you don't run more than 3 fastlands. The lists you quote are "blitz" aggros, it makes more sense to adapt the manabase in consequence.
a couple Inspiring Vantage in the main provides one of the cleanest ways to play him T2, at the risk of missing natural T4 CoCo with only fastlands as your 4th land drop, or having to mull due to an opening hand with mana dorks + Vantage and Plains, or similar.
I tried running 2 Thickets + 1 Vantage, then the other way around, and I wasn't super thrilled about it, but it certainly works fine. From the moment all your fetches can search for a green source, it's ok. Once again, Mantis is completely fine in a Bant R list, as Crusader is great in a Bant list.
So I went 2-2 at FNM with the list below. Thought I would try something funky and see how it worked out.... ignore the sideboard because this was thrown together with cards I had in my trade folder - note to self: don't decide to build a deck 10 minutes before FNM starts!
I wanted to try and go for an aggressive build that had the potential to combo off at any point.
Round 1 vs KiKi 0-2
Game 1 - started with an iffy hand but got a few creatures out. Opponent played an Orzhov Pontiff in my end step clearing my board, then double Fulminator Mage to stall me. Never recovered.
Game 2 - Started pretty aggressively and beat the opponent down to 7 before he found KiKi combo.
Round 2 vs Eldrazi Tron 2-1
Game 1 - Had an epic hand of Champions and Hierarchs and won turn 4.
Game 2 - Managed to gather a pretty good board state and start beating my opponents face, when he got a Tron lands up and running. Stuck a planar bridge followed by Ugin. End of the game for me.
Game 3 - Mulled to six, keeping hand with Devoted Druid, CoCo, Chord, 2 land and Heirarch. Managed to find infinite mana combo on turn 3, flooded the board, played Samut and swung with everything. Very satisfying
Round 3 vs Merfolk 1-2
Game 1 - Started very aggressively, but misplayed as I swung with lots of weenies and didn't clock my opponent had an untapped Aether Vial. Flashed in Master of the Tides, opted not to block, went to 2 health and swung for lethal following turn.
Game 2 - Managed to destroy 2 vials after getting Qasali Pridemage back from the graveyard with Eternal Witness and found the infinite mana combo following turn.
Game 3 - This game ended up being long and resulted in lots of 1-for-1 trades. Opponent started getting better board state with lords and had to use my guys for chump blockers. Mutavault eventually killed me.
Round 4 vs Mono White Prison(?) 2-0
Game 1 - Had pretty much god hand. Stuck a Champion early followed by two Hierarchs, then two CoCos hitting 4 Thalia Lieutenant!!! Opponent cursed a lot and scooped.
Game 2 - Opponent used 3 journey to nowhere to shut down aggro early on, but got infinite combo and proceeded to win.
Thoughts
- I had wanted Wild Cantor instead of Channeller Initiate but couldn't find one. Reason being that if I got the combo I could easily fetch back from graveyard. But situational maybe....
- Really wish I had time to put a decent sideboard together that contained spot removal (Path/Bolt) and maybe more hate (Magus of the moon). anyone got any other suggestions?
- Felt really good being very aggressive and always having the ability to threaten the combo. However, as with the Abzan version of the combo - felt very susceptible to removal. Maybe a Spellskite main? Or other silver bullets?
- think that Comabt Celebrant and Samut, voice of dissent were too situational and would possible change for a mirror entity (prevents board wipe and can be finisher with combo) and something else.... Renegade Rallier/Tireless Tracker/Hanweir Garrison etc.
Appreciate that this is a curveball deck and may not have any legs whatsoever.... but was fun testing and would be keen to hear some constructive feedback.
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If you usually encounter the same decks, you have a clear meta to fight. If you tell us, we can advise you better.
felt very susceptible to removal. Maybe a Spellskite main? Or other silver bullets?
You have a better beatdown plan than the other Vizier Coco decks, so either you make it even stronger, or you use the same bullets they use. One thing they dislike is that their beatdown plan is bad, all their creatures die easily, so they bet on a super resiliency for the combo. You could run KotR + Sejiri Steppe + Kessig WR, that would strengthen your beatdown plan, give another mana sink and protect your combo. Lightning Mauler will love to give haste to both the combo and Knight.
-1 Samut
-1 Celebrant
-1 Thalia v2
-1 Lavamancer (>> SB)
-1 plains
+4 KotR
+1 Steppe
If you usually encounter the same decks, you have a clear meta to fight. If you tell us, we can advise you better.
felt very susceptible to removal. Maybe a Spellskite main? Or other silver bullets?
You have a better beatdown plan than the other Vizier Coco decks, so either you make it even stronger, or you use the same bullets they use. One thing they dislike is that their beatdown plan is bad, all their creatures die easily, so they bet on a super resiliency for the combo. You could run KotR + Sejiri Steppe + Kessig WR, that would strengthen your beatdown plan, give another mana sink and protect your combo. Lightning Mauler will love to give haste to both the combo and Knight.
-1 Samut
-1 Celebrant
-1 Thalia v2
-1 Lavamancer (>> SB)
-1 plains
+4 KotR
+1 Steppe
Thanks for the quick response.
In regards to the meta it is unbelievably varied. For example, one chap who normally plays Death Shadow Grixis was playing R/W Burn, just as a single example. Plus we often have people visiting from nearby FNMs that aren't as reliable as ours... so need to prepare for not only a lot of top tier decks, but also some janky madness (I lent my Cheerios deck to someone last month). I kind of want a sideboard that fits with the tribal gameplan, but contains a world of hate.... but that's very hard when trying to prepare for every deck under the sun. My thinking is to keep playing the deck and finding out my worst match ups and then build sideboard to combat it.
Another shortcoming of that strategy is there are very few green humans that are worthy of sideboard slots - unless someone else can enlighten me. Also think it is too risk to splash blue and relying on Hierarch, otherwise would consider reflector Mage and/or meddling Mage. I could get around it by playing more cavern of souls or gemstone mines....
After I wrote the last post I sorted a few card and found a KotR.... think that is an excellent suggestion. Will test it out and feedback results. Could I fit in a gavony township? But, what do I cut? Loath to reduce basic land count if my creatures are prone to Path.
I'm not sure if this deck has legs yet, but I did find that as soon as I dropped either vizier or Druid my opponent was more likely to use removal on them rather than Champion or Lieutenant.... This meant that my beat down plan was a lot more achievable and the flip side, when my opponents didn't remove either Druid or vizier I often combo pretty much guaranteeing me the win.
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The Crusaders are a good meta call, 4 copies looks impressive on paper, but if you always want to see one, go for it. It's probably better than Ana right now in the abzan colors. I wish you had something to pump it more !
(same decklist as here - http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13982)
And a straight G/W version - https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-modern-gw-hoomans/
I do believe a Coco Human list wants ~ 20 pay-off creatures, considering mana dorks and Champions are bad hits. That's one reason I can't get behind lists with 4 Pilgrims since the card is super bad outside of ramping for Coco. It's a bad Coco hit and is not aggro on its own. 12 creatures that are good mostly when they're played in the 2 first turns and then become mediocre is too awkward imho.
It's worth playing 8 mana dorks (or more) when we have Coco + Chord, not when we run only Coco though. In Humans, If I were to play more than the 4 Nobles, it would be up to 2 slots and they would be Channeler Initiate, because as midgame Coco hits, they can put their counters on a crappy Champ, or weaken a huge Lieut/Champ. Moreover, in the early game, we mostly don't attack with dorks but Channeler naturally become a 3/4 over time, and he fixes our mana, while Pilgrim doesn't even provide green...
Some players here aren't into Coco versions, I guess it's because of budget reasons. And players who work on Coco versions don't specifically play the lists that have been popular over the last week or so. The lack of reaction is due to everyone cooking in his own fort, so to speak.
It's easier to have a discussion when someone has 4 cards different from you. You can ask why they chose x over y. It's a lot harder when you're on Bant Humans and a bunch of the posts are mono white lists.
I've been studying the 4-color list. I watched Craig Wescoe's matches against Naya Blitz, UW Control, RG Titanshift, BW Eldrazi & Taxes; Pascal Maynard's matches against Jund Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Tron, Grixis Death's Shadow, Gifts Storm (1 & 2); and lastly I've played a few friendly matches with the list against Grixis Shadow and an Abzan Mentor brew. Obviously I'm no expert but I feel like I'm coming to understand the 4-color list's choices better, and it's better constructed than I gave it credit for.
The Pilgrims do more work than I expected:
In summary I think the Pilgrims are bad cards that help this particular maindeck execute its plan more explosively, or at least fast enough to put up a fight. Pilgrims been a part of nearly every successfully placing Human CoCo list to date according to MTGTop8, so I'm trying to keep an open mind about them. With all of that said, I would be interested in experimenting with Hierarchs, 2-3 Pilgrims, and 1-2 Channelers. EDIT: The difference in tempo gain between a 1 and 2 mana dork is pretty big. I might go for a singleton Channeler, but starting hands with Channeler aren't that amazing and if you cut the Pilgrims to make room for Channelers you're also removing the best target for the -1/-1 counters.. I can see where you're coming from -- it does seem a little narrow at first. But in practice it worked pretty well for the current meta, and having Collector in the main (and playable as soon as T2) helps against a lot of tough match-ups. At worst you get a 2/1 human and peek at the opponent's hand, which is still fairly valuable and far from a dead card. At best you exile an opponent's wincon or key response and essentially steal the game. The peek effect combines well with Meddling Mage for post-board games. I think you could make a case for swapping the positions of Sin Collector and Mirran Crusader, but I wouldn't want to reduce the number of silver-bullet humans in this particular 75 to add in more generic beaters like KotR.
Some other unrelated notes:
Reflector Mage did a lot of work. The synergy between Reflector Mage; Thalia, Heretic Cather; and Meddling Mage was powerful and neat to watch.
The manabase is still a problem. It really needs another 2+ black sources, and everyone that's played the list commented on this as well. I'll play around with this. A few people have cut Staticaster / Red and I think this is probably the correct choice.
Mayor is.. OK here. Probably the least impressive card in the list but occasionally clutch. In this list Mayor helps Pilgrims chip in for extra damage, and buffing Mirran Crusader presents a fast clock. The fact that he doesn't help the team against Anger of the Gods is slightly offset by Sin Collector in the main. However, he is soft against ping effects, which are somewhat common at the moment between Walking Ballista, Electrolyze, Liliana, The Last Hope and so forth. One idea I was toying with was going back to trying Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in the Mayor slots. Jace has been largely ignored since last fall. Adding him over Mayor might hurt our clock a little bit, but filtering our bad topdecks and recasting game-changing Paths and CoCos might offer a strong enough upside to offset that. Another option is to cut the Mayors to bring 2x Crusader into the main and free up another 2 sideboard slots.
Overall it's too early for me to hazard any guess on whether the 4-color list is the de facto optimal build for our current meta, but it does do several things that I like. Namely, its higher density of interactive or taxing cards gives it some interesting lines of play against decks that Humans just couldn't handle well before, and I find these lines of play to be not only potentially more powerful, but also more fun than digging in on the straight beatdown plan.
Here's the list I experiment with:
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
3x Mana Confluence
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Avacyn's Pilgrim
1x Channeler Initiate
2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4x Reflector Mage
3x Sin Collector
Instant (8)
4x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
2x Meddling Mage
3x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
3x Mirran Crusader
2x Orzhov Pontiff
1x Reclamation Sage
-------------------------------------------------------
I can definitely get behind your reasoning here, and I'm eager to hear about your results. The only thing I'll note is that I've never been happy with Bob in Human CoCo lists. I agree that in a vacuum he's much stronger than the rest of our turn 2 plays, but between Collected Company & Eternal Witness IMO you have access to all of the (instantaneous, painless) card advantage you need for the majority of your matchups. CoCo is the best card in the deck, so getting one back from the graveyard guaranteed via Witness is a lot better than drawing a random card off the top. In most metas in fact I think you'd be OK with just 2 Witnesses MB and 1-2 Witnesses SB, cutting Bob and filling in the extra 5 MB slots with humans that are interactive or speed up your clock in some way. Maybe Channeler Initiate as discussed above, or some combination of Thalias. Tireless Tracker has also been really popular as a beater / card engine. I could be way off, though, and Bob might over-perform for you.
I've been thinking about Gavony Township vs Vault of the Archangel, too. If there were enough black sources in the 4-color list I'd love to run Vault, as deathtouch is great with the first strike on Crusader and both Thalias. If you ever switch back to more Thalias in your Abzan list I think Vault might become more attractive there.
What I see here is that Pilgrim fixes a problem the builder inflicts to himself, and I highly doubt Gavony is worth it in a Human list. Pascal Maynard seconded that by saying the Townships were the worst lands in the list he streamed.
There comes a time where you realize a 2/1 Human, even pumped by Township twice/thrice, will eventually be smaller than Tarmo, DS, Angler, Tas, will race slower than Infect, Affi, undercosted Nacatls and Smiters...
...That's why I would advise Vault of the Archangel in such a slot. I personnally run Kessig Wolf's Run in my Bant Red versions, so in Bant black Vault looks like the closest we can get.
It's been a while I have been playing 4 Lyev + 4 Riders to fight the format, and I keep winning a ton because flying is such an unfair vanilla ability.
I have the same debate by my side, between Reflector Mage, Silverblade Paladin, Mirran Crusader, Channeler Initiate, etc... Those 2 MD slots man...
I feel you. I abandoned explosiveness for more interaction and I'm currently playing 4 Meddling Mages MD. I guess I can share the thing :
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Meddling Mage
2 Channeler Initiate
4 Mantis Rider
4 Lyev Skyknight
2 Reflector Mage
3 Path to Exile
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Razorverge Thicket
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Hurkyll's Recall
Wow, I just noticed that you're not running Thalia's Lieutenant! What optimizations lead you there?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gplv17/9-32-decklists-2017-06-18
A WGUB variant managed to get to 19th place.
Main Deck wise, from the first tournament result, it looks like they cut a Sin Collector, an Avacyn's Pilgrim and a Mayor for Anafenza, an Abzan Falconer, and a 4th copy of GoT Thalia.
The Xathrid Necromancers, Meddling Mages and Orzhov Pontifs in the side are pretty cool.
- 6 any-color lands (usually 4 Cavern and 2 Confluence)
- 4-5 fastlands
- 4 fetchlands
- 3-4 shocklands
- 2 basics
Is there compelling evidence to suggest that such a manabase is more effective for a 4c list than a manabase wherein most sources produce whatever you need? I'm thinking some combination of these:
Cavern of Souls
Mana Confluence
City of Brass
Gemstone Mine
Ancient Ziggurat
Reflecting Pool
Fastlands
With that said the coverage of the splash colors (especially Black) for the popular 4c list is lower than it needs to be, and going full rainbow might be the best way to fix that. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes. Only thing I'll note is that you don't want Ziggurat in a CoCo list.
Thanks. You pretty much nailed my perception of each approach (and I also share your thoughts on the Ziggurat/CoCo fail).
I've been online testing the fetch-based setup for my own 4c brew (excluding black in favor of red), and it's been surprisingly common to miss out on a vital aspect of mana production--the deck is straight fire otherwise.
I'll swap over to the 5c manabase for a while and report back.
In a 4C deck, it's crucial to know when to mulligan. For example you can consider utility lands as non-land cards in your opener. Township or Wolf Run can't let you curve correctly if you wanna cast Mantis Rider or Voltaic Brawler. Basics are the worst colored-mana producing lands but we need them, both against Blood Moon and against Burn (+ fast aggros).
Mana Confluence or Horizon Canopy are problematic in the aggro MUs and their inclusion is on the edge. A straight fetchland manabase pings much but at least you can choose to let a land etb untapped and save 2 life when it doesn't cause you a tempo loss.
No serious Modern deck plays more than 3 fastlands in 3-4 color decks (4 is for 2 colored decks like BW tokens, GW Hexproof, etc...), so I'm not sure where you got your "4-5" in "most 4c lists".
Reflecting Pool only works consistently along with Ancient Ziggurat (or a full set of Confluences), so none of them can be played in a Coco list. It's basically a trap, a land you never see in any competitive deck. It doesn't let you play basics and utility lands safely.
It's important to have a functional opening hand for an aggro deck, and it seems fetchlands are still the best way to achieve that goal.
Edit : Food for thought :
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/humans-coco-in-modern/
His cuts from black, Mayor and Thalias don't surprise me at all, he slowly goes though what a part of this thread went already.
Crusader is a meta call, I'm pretty certain Mantis is at least as good if not better in a slightly wider meta, and better pre-board overall.
So I did a search on mtgtop8 for Modern decks running Champion of the Parish. If we start in March of this year and toss out the decks running three colors or fewer, we get these:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15256&d=292678&f=MO : 5c list running 5 fastlands.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=14903&d=289935&f=MO : 4c list running 4 fastlands.
Everything else is a variant of the Black Bant list with 3 of each Thalia in the main, whose pilots ran either 3 or 4 fastlands. It would have been more accurate for me to say 3-5 instead of 4-5, but I don't think it was horribly misleading. However, it is worth noting that the two lists linked above eschew CoCo, making fastlands a little more appealing.
I'm in agreement with your analysis of the other options for a non-fetch based setup, especially after some testing last night. Cards like Mana Confluence and City of Brass feel very bad over the course of a grindy game. Another point in favor of fetches is that they make cards like Knight of the Reliquary and Tireless Tracker a bit better, for people interesting in running those.
Speaking of Mantis Rider--and to bring the discussion full circle--a couple Inspiring Vantage in the main provides one of the cleanest ways to play him T2, at the risk of missing natural T4 CoCo with only fastlands as your 4th land drop, or having to mull due to an opening hand with mana dorks + Vantage and Plains, or similar.
Same problem with Voltaic Brawler or Meddling Mage. From the time we play spells in curve with no generic mana in the mana cost, there's a risk of being color-screwed or be forced to pay life. Now Mantis has the advantage to not waste tempo if it's played on T3, since it has Haste. We don't need to cast Mantis on T2, it's actually the 3-drop we often slowroll if we have other things to play instead.
Other point, Pilgrim is the problematic card here, not Mantis. The fact Pilgrim doesn't even provide green can be a problem soemtimes.
Last point, yes Mantis asks for agressive fetching, but we're playing an aggro deck, and Haste allows to hit for 3, which negates the life loss we made in order to cast it, so to speak.
Kambal is the best reason to run black for now, since it's good against Burn AND Combo, our worst G1s. Auriok Champ is good against Burn, Tribes and aggros, which covers the same kind of MUs. So I would suggest to run 3x counterspell cards, like Stubborn Denial, Spell Pierce, Mana Leak, or Meddling Mage. Gideon seems useless in the current meta, it's more of a pet card, but it's good at what it does.
^this. If we're talking about Coco Humans, you don't run more than 3 fastlands. The lists you quote are "blitz" aggros, it makes more sense to adapt the manabase in consequence.
I tried running 2 Thickets + 1 Vantage, then the other way around, and I wasn't super thrilled about it, but it certainly works fine. From the moment all your fetches can search for a green source, it's ok. Once again, Mantis is completely fine in a Bant R list, as Crusader is great in a Bant list.
I wanted to try and go for an aggressive build that had the potential to combo off at any point.
4 champion of the parish
3 noble hierarch
1 grim lavamancer
1 channeler initiate
1 duskwatch recruiter
4 devoted Druid
3 vizier of remedies
4 Thalia's lieutenant
4 lightning mauler
1 combat celebrant
1 Thalia, heretic cathar
1 Samut, voice of dissent
3 eternal witness
1 selfless spirit
4 collected company
3 chord of calling
Land
4 windswept Heath
2 wooded foothills
2 stomping ground
2 sacred foundry
2 temple garden
3 horizon canopy
1 kessig wolf run
2 forest
2 plains
1 mountain
1 cavern of souls
1 ash zealot
2 dromoka's command
1 qasali pridemage
2 harsh mentor
2 mirran crusader
2 fiendslayer paladin
1 alesha, who smiles at death
1 Saffi eriksdotter
1 Thalia, guardian of thraben
1 aegis of the gods
1 Thalia, heretic cathar
Round 1 vs KiKi 0-2
Game 1 - started with an iffy hand but got a few creatures out. Opponent played an Orzhov Pontiff in my end step clearing my board, then double Fulminator Mage to stall me. Never recovered.
Game 2 - Started pretty aggressively and beat the opponent down to 7 before he found KiKi combo.
Round 2 vs Eldrazi Tron 2-1
Game 1 - Had an epic hand of Champions and Hierarchs and won turn 4.
Game 2 - Managed to gather a pretty good board state and start beating my opponents face, when he got a Tron lands up and running. Stuck a planar bridge followed by Ugin. End of the game for me.
Game 3 - Mulled to six, keeping hand with Devoted Druid, CoCo, Chord, 2 land and Heirarch. Managed to find infinite mana combo on turn 3, flooded the board, played Samut and swung with everything. Very satisfying
Round 3 vs Merfolk 1-2
Game 1 - Started very aggressively, but misplayed as I swung with lots of weenies and didn't clock my opponent had an untapped Aether Vial. Flashed in Master of the Tides, opted not to block, went to 2 health and swung for lethal following turn.
Game 2 - Managed to destroy 2 vials after getting Qasali Pridemage back from the graveyard with Eternal Witness and found the infinite mana combo following turn.
Game 3 - This game ended up being long and resulted in lots of 1-for-1 trades. Opponent started getting better board state with lords and had to use my guys for chump blockers. Mutavault eventually killed me.
Round 4 vs Mono White Prison(?) 2-0
Game 1 - Had pretty much god hand. Stuck a Champion early followed by two Hierarchs, then two CoCos hitting 4 Thalia Lieutenant!!! Opponent cursed a lot and scooped.
Game 2 - Opponent used 3 journey to nowhere to shut down aggro early on, but got infinite combo and proceeded to win.
Thoughts
- I had wanted Wild Cantor instead of Channeller Initiate but couldn't find one. Reason being that if I got the combo I could easily fetch back from graveyard. But situational maybe....
- Really wish I had time to put a decent sideboard together that contained spot removal (Path/Bolt) and maybe more hate (Magus of the moon). anyone got any other suggestions?
- Felt really good being very aggressive and always having the ability to threaten the combo. However, as with the Abzan version of the combo - felt very susceptible to removal. Maybe a Spellskite main? Or other silver bullets?
- think that Comabt Celebrant and Samut, voice of dissent were too situational and would possible change for a mirror entity (prevents board wipe and can be finisher with combo) and something else.... Renegade Rallier/Tireless Tracker/Hanweir Garrison etc.
Appreciate that this is a curveball deck and may not have any legs whatsoever.... but was fun testing and would be keen to hear some constructive feedback.
Everyone loves an angry mob RWG
Why so Bloo? RU
If you usually encounter the same decks, you have a clear meta to fight. If you tell us, we can advise you better.
You have a better beatdown plan than the other Vizier Coco decks, so either you make it even stronger, or you use the same bullets they use. One thing they dislike is that their beatdown plan is bad, all their creatures die easily, so they bet on a super resiliency for the combo. You could run KotR + Sejiri Steppe + Kessig WR, that would strengthen your beatdown plan, give another mana sink and protect your combo. Lightning Mauler will love to give haste to both the combo and Knight.
-1 Samut
-1 Celebrant
-1 Thalia v2
-1 Lavamancer (>> SB)
-1 plains
+4 KotR
+1 Steppe
Thanks for the quick response.
In regards to the meta it is unbelievably varied. For example, one chap who normally plays Death Shadow Grixis was playing R/W Burn, just as a single example. Plus we often have people visiting from nearby FNMs that aren't as reliable as ours... so need to prepare for not only a lot of top tier decks, but also some janky madness (I lent my Cheerios deck to someone last month). I kind of want a sideboard that fits with the tribal gameplan, but contains a world of hate.... but that's very hard when trying to prepare for every deck under the sun. My thinking is to keep playing the deck and finding out my worst match ups and then build sideboard to combat it.
Another shortcoming of that strategy is there are very few green humans that are worthy of sideboard slots - unless someone else can enlighten me. Also think it is too risk to splash blue and relying on Hierarch, otherwise would consider reflector Mage and/or meddling Mage. I could get around it by playing more cavern of souls or gemstone mines....
After I wrote the last post I sorted a few card and found a KotR.... think that is an excellent suggestion. Will test it out and feedback results. Could I fit in a gavony township? But, what do I cut? Loath to reduce basic land count if my creatures are prone to Path.
I'm not sure if this deck has legs yet, but I did find that as soon as I dropped either vizier or Druid my opponent was more likely to use removal on them rather than Champion or Lieutenant.... This meant that my beat down plan was a lot more achievable and the flip side, when my opponents didn't remove either Druid or vizier I often combo pretty much guaranteeing me the win.
Everyone loves an angry mob RWG
Why so Bloo? RU