I see.. even though i think it might help a lot, it is rly inconsistent and to be effective we need amulet on the board. plus as you said we need the cheap ramp
Contrary to popular belief, amulet is not most important to the deck.. Summer bloom and azusa is the real engine. You can do some crazy stuff with double and tripple amulet though.
This is why I like spirit guide in the deck, to power out theese 2 spells faster, or make bounceland + amulet + spirit guide hands keepable.
Hello there amulet players !
I lost the two matches I played against amulet bloom this week-end and in one of them, a situation came up in which I'm wondering if I made the right play. I have a very limited knowledge of the deck and its lines of play but maybe you guys have the answer
I was playing affinity and playing game 2. I keep a hand with not much early pressure but a thoughtseize and an ancient grudge on the play.
Nothing really happened T1 as far as I can remember but on T2, I thoughtseize seeing: Azusa, Amulet, Summer Bloom, WG bounceland, pact and 2 Vesuva.
He had (not sure caus' I lost the lifepad on which I took notes) a temple of mystery on board.
I ended up taking the summer bloom to avoid getting T2d but he proceeded to draw the second amulet and go bonkers. (I never hit the mana for grudge)
Not considering he would've drawn the second amulet, was taking bloom the right play here? What would've been more damaging ? Was there no right call?
Hello there amulet players !
I lost the two matches I played against amulet bloom this week-end and in one of them, a situation came up in which I'm wondering if I made the right play. I have a very limited knowledge of the deck and its lines of play but maybe you guys have the answer
I was playing affinity and playing game 2. I keep a hand with not much early pressure but a thoughtseize and an ancient grudge on the play.
Nothing really happened T1 as far as I can remember but on T2, I thoughtseize seeing: Azusa, Amulet, Summer Bloom, WG bounceland, pact and 2 Vesuva.
He had (not sure caus' I lost the lifepad on which I took notes) a temple of mystery on board.
I ended up taking the summer bloom to avoid getting T2d but he proceeded to draw the second amulet and go bonkers. (I never hit the mana for grudge)
Not considering he would've drawn the second amulet, was taking bloom the right play here? What would've been more damaging ? Was there no right call?
He got lucky, you made the right call. There's an argument for taking amulet, but summer bloom is actually the important piece, and you already had ancient grudge for the amulet anyway.
If you didnt take the summer bloom he's have a turn 2 hasty titan and you'd probably lose very quick..
Btw, unrelated to this, but I've added 2 swan songs again to the sideboard, removing another enchantment/artifact hate.
It really helps against the goryo deck, twin, and other popular decks. Holding up blue can be a bit tricky, but I guess not instantly losing is worth it.
Guess it's worse against affinity though, but other cards can cover that.
Hello there amulet players !
I lost the two matches I played against amulet bloom this week-end and in one of them, a situation came up in which I'm wondering if I made the right play. I have a very limited knowledge of the deck and its lines of play but maybe you guys have the answer
I was playing affinity and playing game 2. I keep a hand with not much early pressure but a thoughtseize and an ancient grudge on the play.
Nothing really happened T1 as far as I can remember but on T2, I thoughtseize seeing: Azusa, Amulet, Summer Bloom, WG bounceland, pact and 2 Vesuva.
He had (not sure caus' I lost the lifepad on which I took notes) a temple of mystery on board.
I ended up taking the summer bloom to avoid getting T2d but he proceeded to draw the second amulet and go bonkers. (I never hit the mana for grudge)
Not considering he would've drawn the second amulet, was taking bloom the right play here? What would've been more damaging ? Was there no right call?
I think the right play would be to take the Summoner's Pact. He would have a ton of mana, but no threats to play. Considering he has azusa, which acts as a 2nd bloom, just taking the bloom isn't going to slow him down too much.
I did a 56 people PPTQ last week-end. Finished 24th with a disappointing 3-3. Here is my quick report.
Collected Elf : 1-2
G1, I was too slow. I was on the draw. He killed me on his turn 4 I think. G2, hasty Titan on turn 3, grab another Titan, Explosives, game over. G3 was awful : mystic elf on his turn 1, then on his turn 2, cavern of souls on "human" to play Magus of the moon. Well... I conceded almost immediately. A Pyroclasm or Slaughter Pact could have saved me, but I just didn't draw any.
Collected Bant : 2-1
An aggro deck with a lot of big boys (Liege, Resurgence, Smitter, Geist of ST, etc.) G1, I won extra fast so I didn't see much of his deck. Which made me sideboard very poorly (thought he had counterspells and not that many creatures). G2, Qasali slowed me down destoying amulet, and Liege pumping a lot of collected creatures killed me. G3, I sided normally and kill him with Hivemind rather easily.
Black White Tokens : 2-0
Won both games at 1 life. So that was harsh. Maindeck Engineered Explosives is an all-star here. Radiant fountain too. Kozilek followed by Sculler is annoying, but I managed to get through.
Moon deck (or something) : 2-0
G1, turn 2 hasty Titan. Enough said. He only played R/G lands and a Scavenging Ooze. I don't really know what he plays. I hesitate to side in against Moon, I don't. G2, I keep a shaky hand, but he mulls to 5. I draw a second amulet on turn 1. No bloom, no azusa, so I go turn 1 Amulet, turn 2 Amulet, while he plays a Bird of Paradise and some green creature (Tarmo I think). He attacks me for 2 or 3 damages on his turn 3. I land a Simic Growth Chamber and attack him for 20 on my turn 3. My opponent is super angry (but he even looked angry before we began to play), and then he tells me he plays 4 Blood Moon and 4 Magus of the Moon maindeck and that I'm like his best matchup. The goal of his deck is turn 2 Moon. Which seems a good plan against us indeed.
Infect : 1-2
I was praying to avoid him. We were many players at 3-1. Well, too bad. G1, he won the toss and killed me on turn 3. G2, I draw a slow hand with Melira, keep it. Melira on turn 2, but I'm not doing great. He starts seriously beating me with regular damage (Become Immense is a thing). I finally ramp to 6 to play a Titan and then win. Lucky for me, he never got his white mana to cast Path on Melira. G3, he's on the play again, kills me on turn 3. That deck is awful (well, I guess our deck is not nice either, but still ^^).
Grixis : 0-2
I'm at 3-2, so there is no more hope for top 8. He plays well, I got mediocre hands. Titan never made it to the board. Also, Kolaghan's Command killing azusa and destroying Amulet is horrible.
I think I'm going to put down the deck for a minute. I'm starting to get bored and want something new. And I think there is way too many moons out here these days. I still think this is an awesome and very powerful deck (maybe the most powerful), but it is not the best moment to play it. The surprise effect is gone, people are playing Fulminators, Moons, Kolaghan's Command, Infect... I'll wait for a better time ^^
Instead of messing with the main board, I think this idea could go well as a transformed sideboard tech. The fact that it deals with Blood Moon better and Simian Spirit Guide's utility makes it easy in ramping a Breach. A Hideaway'd Emrakul with a Spinerock Knoll is such a game winning drop I want to happen for the lols.
Would Summer Bloom still work main board when you have Through the Breach and hideaways? I'm asking this because to benefit from bloom you either have an Amulet in play and just abuse a single Karoo land 3x to ramp, or at least 3-4 lands in hand to set up the next turn. Playing with Through the Breach and Emrakul forces you to keep hands that should have lesser lands because you're wanting to play a breach turns 3-5, right?
If I am to make this as a transform sideboard then:
Im going to have to look closer at those cards. Also guys what do we do against Infinite Obliteration? My Jund friend is saying its receiving some talk about being run in some sb's and also even some mb. Do we just try to combo faster/hope to get our other beater creature if we have one?
I wrote it so people can see how the deck looked like back when izzetmage and the other guys were discussing it in their previous thread. I don't have breach and emrakul on paper though. I hope someone do test it.
Please don't make crap up. This is such an obvious word vomit it's ridiculous. Something about the internet and people thinking they need to say something to fit in..
Im going to have to look closer at those cards. Also guys what do we do against Infinite Obliteration? My Jund friend is saying its receiving some talk about being run in some sb's and also even some mb. Do we just try to combo faster/hope to get our other beater creature if we have one?
Infinite Obliteration and cards like that (the worst Slaughter Games) is a killer to us. But Modern decks can't play a lot of cards like this , because these cards are only useful in solo-win-condition combo matchups, like Amulet Summer, which is not a big part of modern meta. If someone spends 2 slots for Infinite Obliteration, he will weaken his other MUs after sideboard.
Your friend will try it and you can play Affinity to crush his Jund deck.
Just a quick question, how bad is the Twin matchup? How much of a difference does extra Seal of Primordiums make in that matchup? I thought I'd ask because I'm looking to build the deck and my meta has a lot of Twin. If I can predict my meta, could we come up with an ideal sideboard? I have a very good idea of what my meta will look like on any given week from the stats I've been taking.
@ Darksteel88... The twin match-up isn't great, though I have had a fairly good record recently.
So - 2 cavern instead of 1 in the main makes a big difference.
Secondly - nature's claim, in my opinion, is massively better than seal in the twin match-up. Being able to hold G open isn't too hard. I talked about it earlier, but if you are on the draw and they go:
T1 anything the want
T1 we play land
T2 they play a land and pass
T2 we play a land and seal of primordium - it gets spell snare / remand / mana leak
T3 they jam moon
We just loose to that. Without drawing the single forest, you've no outs. For me, having a nature's claim almost wins you that match-up. An inexperienced twin player will just jam moon on turn 3, and you can either swan song or nature's claim it. If they try protect it with counter magic like dispel, then at least you're getting more time to assemble what you need, and perhaps can draw into 2 bits of interaction.
The fact that a lot of twin decks now splash for either tasigur or occasionally goyf does help. It lowers the amount of blood moons running around, and also gives them an opportunity to tap lands that they wouldn't tap in a straight UR list. All these things helps us.
It isn't a great match-up, and if I were expecting to play twin half of the time, I don't think I'd want to play amulet. However, there's a lot of flex slots in the board to help you... I currently have something like this:
1 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
2 Swan Song
1 Chalice of the Void (currently in flux, might not stay).
These all come in vs twin. Chalice is relevant on 2, 3 or 4.
Also, using sleight of hand over stirrings helps in this match-up (imo), as you can dig into the interaction you need a little easier.
Hope that helps!
It does seem strange at first that Nature's Claim is better. But I guess you're right that people will just drop it on turn 3 most of the time. As a concerned question, how big of a change does the matchup see if people actually properly hold Blood Moon and play around Nature's Claim? I don't really expect my meta players to do that, but I do have one testing partner that's a Twin player, and I'll be discussing with him to hold it up.
I don't expect to play against Twin half the time, but I expect to play it a decent amount of the time. It's about 25% of my meta, maybe a little less. I've done a surprisingly good job at dodging it, I've played the matchup far less than I should be playing it. Maybe since they're winning round 1s and I keep losing to the one RG Tron player with a deck that can't beat that deck. I'm not sure 25% Twin is enough to make Sleight of Hand better than Ancient Stirrings, but I'm no expert.
Out of curiosity, what land gets cut for the second Cavern?
I actually have a very good idea of my meta, maybe we can try and figure out something?
1 Affinity
0.5 Merfolk
1.25 Bogles
2.25 UR Twin
2 Grixis Twin
1 Burn
1 Bant Midrange
1.25 RG Tron
1 BW Tokens
0.5 GW CoCo
1 Living End
0.5 Amulet
1 Jund
1 Grixis Delver
1 Infect
0.75 Abzan
1.5 Not a deck
These numbers might look weird, it's me trying to predict the number of players combined with the odds of that player coming and playing that deck. Some people play multiple decks, some people don't come every week. I think these numbers look okay for the estimation of my meta. It's wide open for sure, but it has a clear tendency towards Twin.
Well, there was no ban this banlist update, so congrats to Amulet for living to see another day. I just bought most of the deck, I'll have to wait for someone to stock Gemstone Mines and Sunhome but I can deal with that. Excited to play the deck in the coming weeks.
i did try this decklist with 4 Search for Tommorow. the manabase basically cut the lands in the flex slots like a 2nd Cavern, mana confluence, tendo ice bridge... so you end up with a mana base with more basic lands. its very good against decks that play ghost quarter atm against us. we are not that much better against blood moon. and not at all better against Fulminator Mage, we have may be 5% more chance to win against a blood moon in play but 10-90 is not much better than 5-95. i ended up cutting the Search one by one... we don't really need more ramp spell imo. but i'm still playing without Black Pact, 3 basic lands(2 forest 1 island) and 4 grull turf help to cast those pyroclasm/firespout.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Kakwann, Lvl 39 Sorcerer
Currently Playing
Standard:GWRU 4C Collected Company Modern:GUWRB Bloom Titan Legacy:BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH : GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
Hey everyone! First time on this thread, but been running the deck on the side in small local tourneys since i am a Twin player. What kept me from really focusing on this deck was the fear of the ban hammer... but when there was no ban I realized its time to put all of my focus on this deck! It's very resilient, consistent and fun. I put Twin to the side and will focus on this on modo and upcoming PPTQs. I'm glad we got a lot of good info on here as well as SB guides which helps alot. Glad to be part of TEAM AMULET BLOOM!
i did try this decklist with 4 Search for Tommorow. the manabase basically cut the lands in the flex slots like a 2nd Cavern, mana confluence, tendo ice bridge... so you end up with a mana base with more basic lands. its very good against decks that play ghost quarter atm against us. we are not that much better against blood moon. and not at all better against Fulminator Mage, we have may be 5% more chance to win against a blood moon in play but 10-90 is not much better than 5-95. i ended up cutting the Search one by one... we don't really need more ramp spell imo. but i'm still playing without Black Pact, 3 basic lands(2 forest 1 island) and 4 grull turf help to cast those pyroclasm/firespout.
I aggree with removing Slaughter Pact. That is too random.
I play this deck.
I actually play 4 Tarmo in my sideboard. They are so impactful in Ground combat and clocking blue decks.
I play some painlands, because I just don`t have any Gemstone Mines. But Yavimaya Coast serves me well.
Contrary to popular belief, amulet is not most important to the deck.. Summer bloom and azusa is the real engine. You can do some crazy stuff with double and tripple amulet though.
This is why I like spirit guide in the deck, to power out theese 2 spells faster, or make bounceland + amulet + spirit guide hands keepable.
I lost the two matches I played against amulet bloom this week-end and in one of them, a situation came up in which I'm wondering if I made the right play. I have a very limited knowledge of the deck and its lines of play but maybe you guys have the answer
I was playing affinity and playing game 2. I keep a hand with not much early pressure but a thoughtseize and an ancient grudge on the play.
Nothing really happened T1 as far as I can remember but on T2, I thoughtseize seeing: Azusa, Amulet, Summer Bloom, WG bounceland, pact and 2 Vesuva.
He had (not sure caus' I lost the lifepad on which I took notes) a temple of mystery on board.
I ended up taking the summer bloom to avoid getting T2d but he proceeded to draw the second amulet and go bonkers. (I never hit the mana for grudge)
Not considering he would've drawn the second amulet, was taking bloom the right play here? What would've been more damaging ? Was there no right call?
WGB Traverse
He got lucky, you made the right call. There's an argument for taking amulet, but summer bloom is actually the important piece, and you already had ancient grudge for the amulet anyway.
If you didnt take the summer bloom he's have a turn 2 hasty titan and you'd probably lose very quick..
Btw, unrelated to this, but I've added 2 swan songs again to the sideboard, removing another enchantment/artifact hate.
It really helps against the goryo deck, twin, and other popular decks. Holding up blue can be a bit tricky, but I guess not instantly losing is worth it.
Guess it's worse against affinity though, but other cards can cover that.
I think the right play would be to take the Summoner's Pact. He would have a ton of mana, but no threats to play. Considering he has azusa, which acts as a 2nd bloom, just taking the bloom isn't going to slow him down too much.
Simian spirit guide is really needed for the deck ?
When it is used normaly?
Late, but thanks for this!
Collected Elf : 1-2
G1, I was too slow. I was on the draw. He killed me on his turn 4 I think. G2, hasty Titan on turn 3, grab another Titan, Explosives, game over. G3 was awful : mystic elf on his turn 1, then on his turn 2, cavern of souls on "human" to play Magus of the moon. Well... I conceded almost immediately. A Pyroclasm or Slaughter Pact could have saved me, but I just didn't draw any.
Collected Bant : 2-1
An aggro deck with a lot of big boys (Liege, Resurgence, Smitter, Geist of ST, etc.) G1, I won extra fast so I didn't see much of his deck. Which made me sideboard very poorly (thought he had counterspells and not that many creatures). G2, Qasali slowed me down destoying amulet, and Liege pumping a lot of collected creatures killed me. G3, I sided normally and kill him with Hivemind rather easily.
Black White Tokens : 2-0
Won both games at 1 life. So that was harsh. Maindeck Engineered Explosives is an all-star here. Radiant fountain too. Kozilek followed by Sculler is annoying, but I managed to get through.
Moon deck (or something) : 2-0
G1, turn 2 hasty Titan. Enough said. He only played R/G lands and a Scavenging Ooze. I don't really know what he plays. I hesitate to side in against Moon, I don't. G2, I keep a shaky hand, but he mulls to 5. I draw a second amulet on turn 1. No bloom, no azusa, so I go turn 1 Amulet, turn 2 Amulet, while he plays a Bird of Paradise and some green creature (Tarmo I think). He attacks me for 2 or 3 damages on his turn 3. I land a Simic Growth Chamber and attack him for 20 on my turn 3. My opponent is super angry (but he even looked angry before we began to play), and then he tells me he plays 4 Blood Moon and 4 Magus of the Moon maindeck and that I'm like his best matchup. The goal of his deck is turn 2 Moon. Which seems a good plan against us indeed.
Infect : 1-2
I was praying to avoid him. We were many players at 3-1. Well, too bad. G1, he won the toss and killed me on turn 3. G2, I draw a slow hand with Melira, keep it. Melira on turn 2, but I'm not doing great. He starts seriously beating me with regular damage (Become Immense is a thing). I finally ramp to 6 to play a Titan and then win. Lucky for me, he never got his white mana to cast Path on Melira. G3, he's on the play again, kills me on turn 3. That deck is awful (well, I guess our deck is not nice either, but still ^^).
Grixis : 0-2
I'm at 3-2, so there is no more hope for top 8. He plays well, I got mediocre hands. Titan never made it to the board. Also, Kolaghan's Command killing azusa and destroying Amulet is horrible.
I think I'm going to put down the deck for a minute. I'm starting to get bored and want something new. And I think there is way too many moons out here these days. I still think this is an awesome and very powerful deck (maybe the most powerful), but it is not the best moment to play it. The surprise effect is gone, people are playing Fulminators, Moons, Kolaghan's Command, Infect... I'll wait for a better time ^^
Have you tried this at all? I'm actually really curious. Looks super zesty.
Oh and regarding the Infinite Obliteration, Leyline of Sanctity works against it. The only hard board state vs Jund is when they do get to drop a consistent Fulminator Mage. My friend even played a singleton Sowing Salt just to "make sure" vs Amulet.
Infinite Obliteration and cards like that (the worst Slaughter Games) is a killer to us. But Modern decks can't play a lot of cards like this , because these cards are only useful in solo-win-condition combo matchups, like Amulet Summer, which is not a big part of modern meta. If someone spends 2 slots for Infinite Obliteration, he will weaken his other MUs after sideboard.
Your friend will try it and you can play Affinity to crush his Jund deck.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
BRU Grixis Control/delver URB
standard:
BWUEsper controlUWB
legacy:
UWRMiraclesRWU
It does seem strange at first that Nature's Claim is better. But I guess you're right that people will just drop it on turn 3 most of the time. As a concerned question, how big of a change does the matchup see if people actually properly hold Blood Moon and play around Nature's Claim? I don't really expect my meta players to do that, but I do have one testing partner that's a Twin player, and I'll be discussing with him to hold it up.
I don't expect to play against Twin half the time, but I expect to play it a decent amount of the time. It's about 25% of my meta, maybe a little less. I've done a surprisingly good job at dodging it, I've played the matchup far less than I should be playing it. Maybe since they're winning round 1s and I keep losing to the one RG Tron player with a deck that can't beat that deck. I'm not sure 25% Twin is enough to make Sleight of Hand better than Ancient Stirrings, but I'm no expert.
Out of curiosity, what land gets cut for the second Cavern?
I actually have a very good idea of my meta, maybe we can try and figure out something?
0.5 Merfolk
1.25 Bogles
2.25 UR Twin
2 Grixis Twin
1 Burn
1 Bant Midrange
1.25 RG Tron
1 BW Tokens
0.5 GW CoCo
1 Living End
0.5 Amulet
1 Jund
1 Grixis Delver
1 Infect
0.75 Abzan
1.5 Not a deck
These numbers might look weird, it's me trying to predict the number of players combined with the odds of that player coming and playing that deck. Some people play multiple decks, some people don't come every week. I think these numbers look okay for the estimation of my meta. It's wide open for sure, but it has a clear tendency towards Twin.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Standard: GWRU 4C Collected Company
Modern: GUWRB Bloom Titan
Legacy: BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH :
GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED
GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA
UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED
UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY
B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE
R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
(26) Lands
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 Gruul Turf
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Khalni Garden
1 vesuva
1 Boros Garrison
1 tendo ice bridge
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Forest
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Golgari Rot Farm
(18) Creatures
2 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 oracle of mul daya
2 sigarda host of herones
3 siege rhino
3 thragtusk
4 Primeval Titan
1 wurmcoil engine
2 dragonlord dromoka
(16) Spells
4 Summer Bloom
3 ancient stirrings
4 Amulet of Vigor
3 Summoner's Pact
2 explore
SB
1 cavern of souls
2 chromatic lantern
3 pyroclasm
2 phantasmal image
2 abrupt decay
2 seal of primordium
3 leyline of sanctity
I aggree with removing Slaughter Pact. That is too random.
I play this deck.
Land (27)
1x Boros Garrison
1x Cavern of Souls
3x City of Brass
1x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Gruul Turf
1x Khalni Garden
1x Radiant Fountain
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
4x Simic Growth Chamber
1x Slayers' Stronghold
1x Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
3x Tolaria West
1x Vesuva
3x Yavimaya Coast
1x Journey of Discovery
4x Serum Visions
4x Summer Bloom
1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4x Primeval Titan
1x Spellskite
1x Thragtusk
2x Hive Mind
4x Amulet of Vigor
2x Pact of Negation
2x Sleight of Mind
4x Summoner's Pact
1x Hornet Queen
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Pyroclasm
1x Sagu Mauler
3x Seal of Primordium
4x Tarmogoyf
I actually play 4 Tarmo in my sideboard. They are so impactful in Ground combat and clocking blue decks.
I play some painlands, because I just don`t have any Gemstone Mines. But Yavimaya Coast serves me well.