I'm new to Amulet Titan, wanting to try it out for the first time Online. I have a few questions:
1) Are all the utility lands that useful? Looking at a stock list like the 5-0 deck from last week (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/977205#online), there are quite a few utility lands:
Bojuka Bog
Cavern of Souls
Ghost Quarter
Khalni Garden
Radiant Fountain
I know all of these have uses. My question is how often do we actually use each of these compared to, for example, having more basic Forests to get around Blood Moon? Cavern is a pretty easy inclusion, but the others seem like corner cases of usefulness (especially Bog, Garden, Fountain). Again, not that they are bad, just wondering about Forests instead.
2) Why Selesnya Sanctuary? Is there some corner case where you need the white mana to go with Stronghold/Sunhome? A 4th Gruul looks better to cast your sideboard cards.
3) How do you play this deck on Magic Online? I noticed that it doesn't let me decide how to stack multiple Amulet triggers but rather stacks them automatically. For example, if I Titan for Garrison and Stronghold, it will pop up 3 triggers: Garrison bounce, Amulet untap for Garrison, Amulet untap for Stronghold. I want to stack these Garrison bounce, Stronghold untap, Garrison untap. This allows me to get mana from Garrison, use it for Stronghold, then bounce Stronghold if needed. However, if I click the Garrison bounce trigger, then Magic Online puts both of the Amulet triggers on the stack in a seemingly random order... Is there a way around this?
Thanks!
1) Yes. Titan is often just a 6/6 trample without the right utility lands. In more than 50% of your titan triggers, you will want to search for a combination of these utility lands depending on the MU.
2) Selesnya Sanctuary is indeed there so you can get it for white mana when Boris garrison or Vesuva are not options. This is a situation that will come up regularly enough for Selesnya to be considered a stock land for the mana base. We don't run much white in the Board but when you do it helps.
Thanks for the fast replies, @0oSunnYo0 & @daviusminimus!
1) I guess my impression of Amulet Titan is a fast combo deck where you get Titan, then Garrison+Stronghold, then Sunhome+Vesuva and win, but you guys are describing it as Titan doesn't equal auto-win. In that case, the utility lands would be much better. Although I do worry about the lack of Forests making you completely dead to Blood Moon. For Ghost Quarter or Bog, it seems key to finding these turn 2 or 3 at the very latest in order to really do anything against Dredge and Tron. With only 1 in the deck, and your tutor costing 3 mana IF you have Simic Growth Chamber and Gemstone Mine (in other words, very few lands you can tap for blue), it seems unlikely that you'll be able to consistently find these in time for them to be useful. Exiling Dredge's graveyard after they have 6 creatures in play, Storm's graveyard turn 4 after you died turn 3, or killing Tron's land after they played turn 3 Karn doesn't seem very helpful... Is the deck actually consistent at finding these lands in time?
2) Sanctuary makes sense as another source of white mana, but I don't understand the game state where all of the conditions are met such that it's actually good. You need to not have access to Garrison or Vesuva. You also need to have another source of red mana to go along with Sanctuary's white in order to activate your Stronghold/Sunhome. If you are looking for a land to combo with Sunhome on the turn you played Titan and found Garrison/Stronghold, finding Sanctuary + Sunhome only helps if you have Gemstone Mine available. If you are trying to active Sunhome on any turn later than when you played Titan, you will have Garrison's mana to do that. If you are worried about Garrison being destroyed, why not just run a 2nd? It doesn't combo with Amulet to make green for Titan, but Sanctuary often doesn't produce useful mana either, especially for all your red sideboard cards.
2B) It sounds like some of the issues come from struggling to fix your mana. That's why we run a bad bounceland in Sanctuary rather than a 4th Gruul Turf. And we are pretty short on sources of blue to transmute Tolaria West. Has Manamorphose been tested as a means to generate the mana we need? It shrinks your deck, gets us GG for Titans (even through Blood Moon), UU for Tolaria, RW for Stronghold/Sunhome, and R for sideboard cards. Sounds perfect! That, and I just generally love the card.
3) Yeah I meant the double-Amulet times. I looked back 2 pages and didn't see any discussion about that. Can you point me to the discussion you are referring to? Either tell me the page or a keyword I can CTRL+F for?
Quick reply before lunch just to say that I did watch part of your Twitch link last night, including the epic game against Bant with Worship. Very cool! Then my internet crapped out and I couldn't finish the video, but that's on the list of things to do tonight
[Edit] I decided to read the entire reply. That's good info, especially about Magic Online! I'm definitely going to get some reps in with the deck before changing anything. Just waiting for A25 to release so Pacts and Azusa drop. I already have the rest (except Ballista and Cavern, trying to stay on a budget for now).
I just bought the deck irl (many of the expansive cards being reprinted in m25) and am goldifshing with it/testing on cockatrice since a few days, waiting for the last cards to arrive. I had a pretty awesome surprise realizing academy ruins x1 is a great possible main deck slot in the deck, bringing back infinitely Engineered explosives or Ballista (clearly convinced me to keep it main deck!). As many of you understood, Amulet titan can also develop as a big ramp control kinda deck (while being able to combo really fast) and i think having access to repetable generic answers like those is amazing on the modern field : just see how BONKERS explosives is against bogles or zoo. EE every turn is really annoying for midrange decks cause it obliges them to play 2 differents CCM costing threats per turn to keep pressure.
If you have access to either EE or ballista in the early game, ruins becomes a great target from titan just to guarantee a recursive answer/threat for the late game. Also helpful, it brings back amulet and post-board relic of progenitus .
Just wanting to share the info with you, wandering if any of you had already tested it? Any tips or other interesting artifacts 1 ofs?
The issue with Academy Ruins is that it's really REALLY slow, and it's only good in the late game... and OUR WHOLE DECK is really good in the late game In my experience I don't think I have ever wanted more than 2 Explosives, since when it's good, just the first one is really good and the 2nd one seals the deal. There are cases in which is nuts, but the real cost of Academy Ruins is the land you're not playing. I just don't believe that Ruins is better than any other land we could be playing, unless we're in a very specific metagame (which is not the one we're currently in.) Also, if you want to recur Ballista, I'd recommend Mortuary Mire, which is easier on the mana, and it can also recur Titans/Thragtusks, which is a big deal.
I'd run basic Forest before Academy Ruins. The sheer number of Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter and Path's make basics more useful not to mention Blood Moon. The case where you want to recur Explosives just seems far fewer than the times you would want another basic against Blood Moon.
Academy Ruins is a card I've been behind for a while. It depends on your meta. If you see GBx and lantern all day, or any prison deck really, then Ruins is amazing.
I haven't been playing the deck that much over the past 3 months so I don't know what it's like now, but people used to bring grave hate in against me just for Academy Ruins, which I indicates what a problem it is for some decks.
As an aside - you won't be able to Ruins for your Relic, since relic exiles itself.
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Modern Decks
------------ URW Jeskai Control GUWRB Amulet Titan GR Ponza
Hey Guys,
Quick update for those who haven't seen my stream lately. My 75 has been pretty kind to me lately, and I've just gone 9-1 across the last 2 leagues (and arguably should have won the last vs esper control).
I just wanted to mention the fun-of Wayward Swordtooth. Ive been running it in place of a single Azusa and its been good. Ive naturally drawn it in longer games and thought "this is significantly better than azusa". I've drawn it and it's eaten removal, and I've even had to tutor it up with a pact to get a couple of blockers down (it was a niche scenario and dont see it coming up toooo often though). It's cost me a game once so far, but been better than azusa on about 5-6 occasions, and actively won me the game twice where azusa wouldn't. So its winning 2-1 on my small sample size, but has FELT good so I feel like it's worth a single slot. I dont want to run more copies just yet though. It is surprisingly easy to Ascend though, which i've found interesting.
Check my stream out if you get chance guys (twitch.tv/daviusminimus). I'm playing an hour or so most days, though weekends are USUALLY harder for me!
Congrats on some great results, mate!
It would be interesting to record which turn, on average, this deck ascends / gains City's Blessing.
Let's say we cast a titan turn 3 with a Scout, an Amulet, and 3 lands in play. First trigger gives +1 permanent (since you mostly fetch a Karoo here, the net gain on the battlefield is +1 land) and the attack trigger would net us +1 land so that puts us with 8 permanents - 1 Scout, 1 Amulet, 1 titan, 5 lands. Given we have lines that are faster than this and contain more lands in play than this, most of our good starts seem to let give us City's Blessing online within reason!
I hope he continues to impress... please give me a good reason to play dinosaurs!
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Modern Decks
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i notice ppl are picking up spell pierce over swan song, any particular reason for this?
also, 2 azusa + 1 swordtooth feels weird to me, i would assume swordtooth would act as the 4th azusa to play around the legend rule.
I haven't had any time to test yet, but there is an article on SCG Premium today from a guy that top 16'd with Amulet Titan. I don't have Premium, so I don't know if the article is any good or not, but I wanted to share.
The article just goes over the basics. The best Amulet article is written by Bobby Fortanely a long time ago. Things have changed since then but overall more detailed and has tips/tricks. How does everyone feel about ballista main over baloth with tons of jund and burn?
I did some trades on MTGO and got most of this deck last night just to see if I can pilot it. It’s tough, but very fun. I still need to get EE, 2 mines, and a ballista. Sideboard will need tuned a bit also. Since I don’t have a ballista online, I put a mistcutter hydra or two in the board, has that been tried before? Seems okay.
There is quite a bit of burn and 8 rack in my meta so I don’t run ballista. I run a 1 of baloth main with another in the board and a thragtusk. At least 1 copy of cavern is a must for this deck and if you are expecting control then 2 is where you want to be.
Thanks a lot. Online I have a cavern and two mines but I can get on board with the slaughter pacts. Again, in paper I’m using the optimal cards, I am just more comfortable owning physical cards than digital ones.
My LGS is doing a Team Unified Modern tournament tomorrow. My teammates are on Hollow One and Affinity, so not too much possible overlap. This is the list I plan to run. Any suggestions?
Hey there everyone. Skred player here who had decided to drop the blood moons and pick up some titans. This deck always looked like a blast. I'm more of a mid-range/control player, so playing a deck like this is new territory for me. A friend shot me Edgar's list this morning and I just got back from LGS with it. I was able to nab the entire deck sans the grove.
Any tips for a new player to the deck. Any must watch videos or guides someone can link me to? I've heard it's hard to pilot, but very rewarding to those who can pilot it well. This is honestly one fo the biggest draws for me. Love a good challenge and am ready to learn!
Hi guys. I haven't played this deck much since the banning of Summer Bloom. I recently saw a video by Pascal Maynard on CFB that got me a bit hyped up right now. I have a few questions regarding the deck, specifically the decklist that he used (Edgar Magalhaes' list).
1. (Now I'm sure I asked this before, but I'm going to ask more in depth now because I also forgot what the answer was.) Why are 0 Hive Minds in the MB? I used to really like the card and even ran 3 of them when most players ran 2. What matchups is it good against and what matchups is it bad against? I mean the obvious are decks that can pay the Pact of course.
2. I understand the 4 Forest MB, probably a concession to Field of Ruins. But is Bojuka Bog more important MB than Ghost Quarter?
3. What are some of the toughest matchups for you personally? What has been universally accepted as a poor matchup? (I can also probably guess some of these based on the past, but there are some new decks in the meta - looking at you Humans.)
4. Side question - Is THIS the best Tireless Tracker deck? I love that card ever since Standard and am on the quest to find the best Tireless Tracker deck. At first I thought it was Knightfall, which led me to play the deck for over 2 months. Recently I've been doing 2 in the SB of Titanshift and it seems even better there. But, maybe, just maybe, a true "Lands" deck (comparable to Legacy lands) will be the best Tireless Tracker deck. Sorry about this question in advance, but I can sometimes be a bit of a Timmy.
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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)
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1) Yes. Titan is often just a 6/6 trample without the right utility lands. In more than 50% of your titan triggers, you will want to search for a combination of these utility lands depending on the MU.
2) Selesnya Sanctuary is indeed there so you can get it for white mana when Boris garrison or Vesuva are not options. This is a situation that will come up regularly enough for Selesnya to be considered a stock land for the mana base. We don't run much white in the Board but when you do it helps.
3) no idea as I do not play MTGO (I'm on xmage).
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
1) I guess my impression of Amulet Titan is a fast combo deck where you get Titan, then Garrison+Stronghold, then Sunhome+Vesuva and win, but you guys are describing it as Titan doesn't equal auto-win. In that case, the utility lands would be much better. Although I do worry about the lack of Forests making you completely dead to Blood Moon. For Ghost Quarter or Bog, it seems key to finding these turn 2 or 3 at the very latest in order to really do anything against Dredge and Tron. With only 1 in the deck, and your tutor costing 3 mana IF you have Simic Growth Chamber and Gemstone Mine (in other words, very few lands you can tap for blue), it seems unlikely that you'll be able to consistently find these in time for them to be useful. Exiling Dredge's graveyard after they have 6 creatures in play, Storm's graveyard turn 4 after you died turn 3, or killing Tron's land after they played turn 3 Karn doesn't seem very helpful... Is the deck actually consistent at finding these lands in time?
2) Sanctuary makes sense as another source of white mana, but I don't understand the game state where all of the conditions are met such that it's actually good. You need to not have access to Garrison or Vesuva. You also need to have another source of red mana to go along with Sanctuary's white in order to activate your Stronghold/Sunhome. If you are looking for a land to combo with Sunhome on the turn you played Titan and found Garrison/Stronghold, finding Sanctuary + Sunhome only helps if you have Gemstone Mine available. If you are trying to active Sunhome on any turn later than when you played Titan, you will have Garrison's mana to do that. If you are worried about Garrison being destroyed, why not just run a 2nd? It doesn't combo with Amulet to make green for Titan, but Sanctuary often doesn't produce useful mana either, especially for all your red sideboard cards.
2B) It sounds like some of the issues come from struggling to fix your mana. That's why we run a bad bounceland in Sanctuary rather than a 4th Gruul Turf. And we are pretty short on sources of blue to transmute Tolaria West. Has Manamorphose been tested as a means to generate the mana we need? It shrinks your deck, gets us GG for Titans (even through Blood Moon), UU for Tolaria, RW for Stronghold/Sunhome, and R for sideboard cards. Sounds perfect! That, and I just generally love the card.
3) Yeah I meant the double-Amulet times. I looked back 2 pages and didn't see any discussion about that. Can you point me to the discussion you are referring to? Either tell me the page or a keyword I can CTRL+F for?
Thanks!
[Edit] I decided to read the entire reply. That's good info, especially about Magic Online! I'm definitely going to get some reps in with the deck before changing anything. Just waiting for A25 to release so Pacts and Azusa drop. I already have the rest (except Ballista and Cavern, trying to stay on a budget for now).
I just bought the deck irl (many of the expansive cards being reprinted in m25) and am goldifshing with it/testing on cockatrice since a few days, waiting for the last cards to arrive. I had a pretty awesome surprise realizing academy ruins x1 is a great possible main deck slot in the deck, bringing back infinitely Engineered explosives or Ballista (clearly convinced me to keep it main deck!). As many of you understood, Amulet titan can also develop as a big ramp control kinda deck (while being able to combo really fast) and i think having access to repetable generic answers like those is amazing on the modern field : just see how BONKERS explosives is against bogles or zoo. EE every turn is really annoying for midrange decks cause it obliges them to play 2 differents CCM costing threats per turn to keep pressure.
If you have access to either EE or ballista in the early game, ruins becomes a great target from titan just to guarantee a recursive answer/threat for the late game. Also helpful, it brings back amulet and post-board relic of progenitus .
Just wanting to share the info with you, wandering if any of you had already tested it? Any tips or other interesting artifacts 1 ofs?
Thanks for your great comments and views on it!
I haven't been playing the deck that much over the past 3 months so I don't know what it's like now, but people used to bring grave hate in against me just for Academy Ruins, which I indicates what a problem it is for some decks.
As an aside - you won't be able to Ruins for your Relic, since relic exiles itself.
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
Congrats on some great results, mate!
It would be interesting to record which turn, on average, this deck ascends / gains City's Blessing.
Let's say we cast a titan turn 3 with a Scout, an Amulet, and 3 lands in play. First trigger gives +1 permanent (since you mostly fetch a Karoo here, the net gain on the battlefield is +1 land) and the attack trigger would net us +1 land so that puts us with 8 permanents - 1 Scout, 1 Amulet, 1 titan, 5 lands. Given we have lines that are faster than this and contain more lands in play than this, most of our good starts seem to let give us City's Blessing online within reason!
I hope he continues to impress... please give me a good reason to play dinosaurs!
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
also, 2 azusa + 1 swordtooth feels weird to me, i would assume swordtooth would act as the 4th azusa to play around the legend rule.
Seems like a card that will be in a lot of sideboards that hurts pretty bad, how does this deck win against it?
U Mono U Tron
WR Boros Burn with one Stomping Ground
UR Storm
C Eldrazi Powder
G Mono Green Tron
4 Primeval Titan
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Explore
4 Amulet of Vigor
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Thragtusk
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Walking Ballista
1 Pact of Negation
4 Simic Growth Chamber
3 Gruul Turf
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Forest
3 Tolaria West
1 Boros Garrison
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Khalni Garden
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 Slayer's Stronghold
1 Vesuva
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Dismember
2 Swan Song
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nature's Claim
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Hornet Queen
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Any tips for a new player to the deck. Any must watch videos or guides someone can link me to? I've heard it's hard to pilot, but very rewarding to those who can pilot it well. This is honestly one fo the biggest draws for me. Love a good challenge and am ready to learn!
1. (Now I'm sure I asked this before, but I'm going to ask more in depth now because I also forgot what the answer was.) Why are 0 Hive Minds in the MB? I used to really like the card and even ran 3 of them when most players ran 2. What matchups is it good against and what matchups is it bad against? I mean the obvious are decks that can pay the Pact of course.
2. I understand the 4 Forest MB, probably a concession to Field of Ruins. But is Bojuka Bog more important MB than Ghost Quarter?
3. What are some of the toughest matchups for you personally? What has been universally accepted as a poor matchup? (I can also probably guess some of these based on the past, but there are some new decks in the meta - looking at you Humans.)
4. Side question - Is THIS the best Tireless Tracker deck? I love that card ever since Standard and am on the quest to find the best Tireless Tracker deck. At first I thought it was Knightfall, which led me to play the deck for over 2 months. Recently I've been doing 2 in the SB of Titanshift and it seems even better there. But, maybe, just maybe, a true "Lands" deck (comparable to Legacy lands) will be the best Tireless Tracker deck. Sorry about this question in advance, but I can sometimes be a bit of a Timmy.
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)