I picked this deck up a few weeks ago and have been wondering if explore is absolutely essential to the deck, without an amulet in play its pretty lackluster. I have been boarding them out in almost every matchup as it seems like the worst card am I just 100% incorrect doing this?
My MTGO testing with a weaker version of the deck keeps getting beat by U/W control. Hate that deck. I have slaughter pact and Gaea’s revenge instead of EE and Ballista. Any tips? In paper I have those cards I just don’t want to shell out the cash online.
Hi all, I built this deck about a month ago and have been winning a lot at fnms with it. My list is pretty standard, just testing 1 Wayward Swordtooth instead of the 4th Azusa. I'd also like to get a Carnage Tyrant to board in vs. control but I don't feel like paying $20 for one atm.
Does anyone have a link to the discord? I'm interested in getting in there as well.
Nice thread!
I've played Amulet Bloom, and now having returned to M:tg, will check out @daviusminimus Twitch channel, and input my findings from my future games too.
After a few months away from the deck (lots of Eldrazi Tron players with turn 1 challice made me stop playing amulet for a while), I decided to play in a small 4-round event.
R1 - U/R Breach - 2x1
G1: I had turn 1 Scout, Turn 2 Double Amulet and a Titan in hand. But I was on the draw and he had blood moon on Turn 3 =(
G2: Turn 4 Titan with amulet on the table. He tapped out to play Jace and bounce Titan, and we all know that is not enough.
G3: I had 1 forest in play and 1 in hand, and my opponent played a blood moon with only island, field of ruin and steam vents. He died with 2 cryptic commands in hand and 2 islands in play.
R2 - Naya aggro - 2x0
I don´t even know if it's a real deck, but this guy plays it. Voice of Resurgence, Tarmogoyf, BBE, Qasali Pridemage, Hierarch, Rallier to return dead guys/seal of fire/lands. Whatever.
G1: He mulled to 5, but had hierarch into rallier returning a fetch. Next turn he had goyf + path on my azusa. I was at 10 life and played a titan without amulet, grabbing garden + fountain, and starring at double hierarch, qasali, goyf and rallier. On the following turn I attacked, got another plant token, gained extra life, played azusa and explosives on 2. He conceded.
G2: He spent turns 2 and 3 playing seal of primordium and qasali pridemage to blow 2 amulets. Then he played rallier to return qasali, and I played Ballista on 3, enough to kill both when he attacked. On the following turn I played Titan against a lonely voice of resurgence. GG.
R3 - UW Control - 2x0
G1: Titan into tolaria into titan into tolaria into titan into ballista, all backed up by a Turn 1 stirrings findind cavern of souls. GG.
G2: Turn 3 Titan, Turn 4 Tireless Tracker and attack with titan and playing azusa on the following turn and voilà: a billion clues. Blessed alliance took my tracker, and path took titan on the following turn. Ruric Thar on the table sealed the deal.
R4 - BR Hollow One - 2x1
G1: Turn 3 Titan, even on the draw, is usually good enough =)
G2: I had turn 2 azusa with forest and fountain in play and bounce in hand. He killed azusa and I never drew a fourth land, and two flameblade adepts + bloodghast + Gurmag angler were too much for me.
G3: I mulled to six with tolaria, gruul turf, stirrings, dismember, boros garrison and pact I think. Turn 1 tolaria, go. He felt my hand was slow, and thought about playing burning inquiry or not. He ended up playing adept. I drew amulet, played it, bounced tolaria back, stirrings for gemstone, tolaria, dismember. Then he played inquiry, which made me draw a baloth but not discard it =(, and also gave him a hollow one =( On my turn I played fountain, relic, popped it to prevent him from playing angler. Took a hit from hollow one, but had baloth on the next turn to trade, and Titan after that with a pact for another titan in hand. Bojuka bog and vesuva to copy fountain , and that was it. He showed me he had two 3 bloodghasts in hand when he played inquiry and none went to the graveyard =)
Deck felt great, I think I mulled to 6 just once or twice the whole night. I opted to play explosives + ghost quarter instead of firespout/kozilek's return because I was not expecting any fast aggro decks and some Tron and blood moon (3 of the 4 decks I played had moon). Also, not playing red sweepers allowed me to play 4 forests instead of 3, and I really like that.
Questions about sideboarding:
1) Is firespout or explosives any good against hollow one? I feel pretty scared everytime they goblin lore, but I'm not sure if we should try to prevent some of the damage or focus on chaining titans. Also, what do we take out against this deck? There were lots of cards I wanted (rec sage, dismember, relics, hornet queen, baloth)
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
@earthbound21 Honestly, not running the full 4 Gemstones has always felt like a mistake to me. I feel like it's the best non-bounceland land in the deck, and if I could I'd probably run 5 or even 6 to make our mana more smooth. I play a total or 8 red sources (4 Gemstones, 3 Turfs, 1 Garrison) and I haven't had much of an issue. Adding the Grove is nice, but I've just been super happy with 4 basics.
I would not play only 3 Gemstone Mines. It reduces the chances of having G on your first turn to play either Scout or Stirrings.
You understand that the replaceable lands in my list are Basic Forest and Grove of the Burnwillows right? You know both of them make Green on the first turn right?
@earthbound21 Honestly, not running the full 4 Gemstones has always felt like a mistake to me. I feel like it's the best non-bounceland land in the deck, and if I could I'd probably run 5 or even 6 to make our mana more smooth. I play a total or 8 red sources (4 Gemstones, 3 Turfs, 1 Garrison) and I haven't had much of an issue. Adding the Grove is nice, but I've just been super happy with 4 basics.
I have 8 Red sources - 1 Boros, 3 Gruul, 3 Gemstone, 1 Grove. The 4th Gemstone Mine would increase the number of Blue sources without changing the number of Green sources. My question was, "How many Red sources do I need to run 3 Firespouts", so if the answer is 8, then I'm covered. If the answer is 9, I would cut a Forest. If you don't know the answer, that is okay as well. How many Firespouts do you run?
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
@ Earthbound21 - I think people are just looking at your list and saying "why isn't the 4th gemstone there" more than anything. I dunno if you need Grove or the 4th basic, but the 4th gemstone seems like it'd be a good fit.
in terms of coloured sources, im the same as fpawlusz. I run 8 and dont struggle. I dont think you need an extra red or an extra green, but gemstone is pretty good, so perhaps you want to find room for the 4th (for help with t-wests).
Do you also run 3 Firespout? My local meta consists of midrange grind decks and creature aggro decks. If I become concerned with blue sources, I would sooner add Temple or Botanical or Vestige than Gemstone, I think.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
Why? Gemstone is tapping for R, G, U, and occasionally W. Maybe, even B if you are running Dismember in the sideboard. It's a clear upgrade over Grove in your list. It's one of the best lands in Amulet
The lists running multiple Firespouts are cheating on basics to have 9 red sources
I would not play only 3 Gemstone Mines. It reduces the chances of having G on your first turn to play either Scout or Stirrings.
You understand that the replaceable lands in my list are Basic Forest and Grove of the Burnwillows right? You know both of them make Green on the first turn right?
You understand that 4 Forest + 1 Grove + 4 Gemstone give you 9 G sources for first turn and 5 UNTAPPED R sources, which are somewhat important to casting firespout in time, right?
You may not like the 4th gemstone, but there's a reason everyone in here focused more on that than on whatever else you may ask: it is one of the most important lands in the deck. There were times when Amulet played 4 gemstone + city of brass/mana confluence/tendo ice bridge so we could have more 5-colored lands in order to play summer bloom (or explore/scout nowadays), firespout/pyroclasm and transmute tolaria.
BUT if you do not care about the 4th gemstone and really just want to know how many R sources you need to cast Firespout, we need to know: which turn do you want to cast firespout? If you would like to cast firespout reliably on turn 3, you would need a tapped R source on turn 2 or an untapped R source on turn 3. Let's assume you have 4 of each (assuming 3 Gruul Turf + Boros Garrison + 3 Gemstone Mines + 1 Grove of the Burnwillows).
With 4 answers in the deck, the odds of drawing a tapped mana source on turn 2 would be something like 44,5/48,7%, depending wether you are on the play or on the draw. But, in this case, you would have to have an untapped land on turn 3, and that would lower the odds a little more. On the other hand, Vesuva can be helpful on turn 2 if your opponent has red lands.
Also with 4 answers in the deck, the odds of drawing an untapped mana source on turn 3 would be something like 48,7/52,8%, depending wether you are on the play or on the draw.
Good day, I’ve been off the deck for a while and looking to get back into it. I was wondering if I could also get a link to the discord or be directed to where I can find it <3
I was also wondering why the deck has moved away from Serum Visions toward explore? Is it mostly to allow more basic lands to be played? Or is explore just better by helping to allow early primetimes more than serum visions?
What I believe to be the main reason for the departure from Serum Visions is that the deck used to run it in order to find Summer Bloom and rely on that to do all the ramping. Now there is not card that can replace Summer Bloom, so Explore is there to try to bridge the gap, and provide a little bit of ramp and a little bit of digging. Also, Summer Bloom was so good that it only took 4 slots and 2 Azusas and our ramp suite was amazing. Now we need the fully playset of Azusas, playset of Scouts AND Explore in order to make up for the job that a single card used to do before. That enabled more space for Serum, Hive Mind and 2 extra Pacts, and even some lists ran Sleight of Hand. Because of this the list used to run more blue sources, which made the cantrips an easy inclusion.
Still, with the meta as it is right now and all those Blood Moons and Fields of Ruins running around, I believe that running extra basics is where it's at, and that makes casting non-Explore cantrips A LOT harder.
@thefishy Sweet man, congrats! It's so awesome that you actually drew into top 8 against another guy on Amulet! Most represented deck in Top 8, I assume
The midrangy approach does seem nice, but I feel like not having Bog in the main loses you a ton of percentage points against Storm and Dredge (though Dredge is such a good matchup that we probably win anyway...) and not having GQ hinders your Tron matchup. Also, being slower overall I imagine makes all your Combo matchups much worse. I don't know if being more midrangy is where I want to be, since I feel favored in the midrange battles anyway (unless they're playing specifically Death's Shadow variants.)
I do agree that it seems like something to have into account if you have a read on the meta being extremely midrange, like you said, so it's nice that your bet paid off handsomely and now you're the proud owner of a Goyf and Lili. Time to start building Jund!
Another tuesday night with amulet, this time it did not go that well.
Edgar's list minus grove plus forest. Trying Elderscale wurm on my SB to have an edge on GR Eldrazi and BR hollow one.
R1: BR Hollow One - 1x2
G1: I was on the draw. He played Flameblade adept on T1, Turn 2 Faithless looting + hollow one, Turn 3 flashed looting back, and on turn 4 he had 3 phoenixes + hollow one + flameblade adept + bloodghast. I played turn 2 explore, turn 3 azusa and khalni garden, turn 4 titan ballista and had a Courser of Kruphix in hand. He played THREE burning inquiries on his turn and made me discard my Courser, and i had nothing else in hand and drew land for turn.
G2: Mulled to six with double amulet + forest + bounce + tolaria + scout, and drew titan for turn 3. GG.
G3: He played a hollow one for turn 1, discarding phoenix + bloodghast to faithless looting. I dismembered his hollow one and played a turn 3 or 4 titan, and he had terminate. Lost a turn paying for pact, and he killed my plant token and won on the following turn.
R2: GR Eldrazi - 2x0
G1: T1 Amulet, T2 Stirrings + Amulet, turn 3 I drew a Tolaria after having my Titan TKS'ed and that was it.
G2: We developed our boards until he had 2 reshapers, 1 TKS, 1 BBE and I had 2 titans + Elderscale Wurm + ballista with 1 counter. He played Eldrazi Obligator stealing my Wurm and bashed with everything. I dismembered the TKS, ballista went chump-and-kill mode on reshaper + obligator, Titans blocked wurm and BBE, and next turn I swang back for lethal.
R3: UR Breach - 0x2
G1: I mulled to 6 with forest, GQ, scout, scout, Azusa, and something else. He played Turn 2 bolt my scout and turn 3 blood moon. My draws were Azusa and Tolaria.
G2: I mulled to six again, having forest, stirrings, simic, gruul turf, titan, titan. Stirrings found me an amulet, and I drew a third titan and a forest on the following turns. Played turn 4 Titan, got remanded. Turn 5 titan got disdainful stroked. Then he played blood moon. I played a land, and on his turn he thought about playing a jace but gave up, confirming he had snapcaster in hand. I played another titan for him to spend the snap so I could maybe resolve my third Titan. It resolved, but he had Abrade + Lightning Bolt. After that, Jace found Breach and Emrakul.
This matchup seems terrible. We have to be really fast in order to kill them before they have Cryptic or Snap+Counter, and also have to play around blood moon, and sometimes that is not enough as they can simply play Breach on turn 5.
Losing to BR Hollow One is not the end of the world, he was lucky enough to have hollow one on the first turns on two games, and discarding a lot of phoenixes. But I was also lucky for not having to face blood moon on this match, so I'm not sure what to think hahaha
It's less taxing than blood moon. We can play around Sphere. We can't really play around Moon without drawing an answer.
For example, we can at least bounce lands for value with Sphere in play. No dice with moon.
Essentially it moderately nerfs 9 lands in the deck. Not a hoser by any means, but it will be annoying to deal with.
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URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
Does anyone have a link to the discord? I'm interested in getting in there as well.
Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
I've played Amulet Bloom, and now having returned to M:tg, will check out @daviusminimus Twitch channel, and input my findings from my future games too.
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
4 Azusa, Lost But Seeking
4 Primeval Titan
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Amulet of Vigor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Explore
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pact of Negation
4 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Simic Growth Chamber
3 Gruul Turf
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Boros Garrison
3 Tolaria West
1 Khalni Garden
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Sunhome, Fortress of The Legion
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Vesuva
2 Dismember
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Hornet Queen
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Ruric Thar, The Unbowed
R1 - U/R Breach - 2x1
G1: I had turn 1 Scout, Turn 2 Double Amulet and a Titan in hand. But I was on the draw and he had blood moon on Turn 3 =(
G2: Turn 4 Titan with amulet on the table. He tapped out to play Jace and bounce Titan, and we all know that is not enough.
G3: I had 1 forest in play and 1 in hand, and my opponent played a blood moon with only island, field of ruin and steam vents. He died with 2 cryptic commands in hand and 2 islands in play.
R2 - Naya aggro - 2x0
I don´t even know if it's a real deck, but this guy plays it. Voice of Resurgence, Tarmogoyf, BBE, Qasali Pridemage, Hierarch, Rallier to return dead guys/seal of fire/lands. Whatever.
G1: He mulled to 5, but had hierarch into rallier returning a fetch. Next turn he had goyf + path on my azusa. I was at 10 life and played a titan without amulet, grabbing garden + fountain, and starring at double hierarch, qasali, goyf and rallier. On the following turn I attacked, got another plant token, gained extra life, played azusa and explosives on 2. He conceded.
G2: He spent turns 2 and 3 playing seal of primordium and qasali pridemage to blow 2 amulets. Then he played rallier to return qasali, and I played Ballista on 3, enough to kill both when he attacked. On the following turn I played Titan against a lonely voice of resurgence. GG.
R3 - UW Control - 2x0
G1: Titan into tolaria into titan into tolaria into titan into ballista, all backed up by a Turn 1 stirrings findind cavern of souls. GG.
G2: Turn 3 Titan, Turn 4 Tireless Tracker and attack with titan and playing azusa on the following turn and voilà: a billion clues. Blessed alliance took my tracker, and path took titan on the following turn. Ruric Thar on the table sealed the deal.
R4 - BR Hollow One - 2x1
G1: Turn 3 Titan, even on the draw, is usually good enough =)
G2: I had turn 2 azusa with forest and fountain in play and bounce in hand. He killed azusa and I never drew a fourth land, and two flameblade adepts + bloodghast + Gurmag angler were too much for me.
G3: I mulled to six with tolaria, gruul turf, stirrings, dismember, boros garrison and pact I think. Turn 1 tolaria, go. He felt my hand was slow, and thought about playing burning inquiry or not. He ended up playing adept. I drew amulet, played it, bounced tolaria back, stirrings for gemstone, tolaria, dismember. Then he played inquiry, which made me draw a baloth but not discard it =(, and also gave him a hollow one =( On my turn I played fountain, relic, popped it to prevent him from playing angler. Took a hit from hollow one, but had baloth on the next turn to trade, and Titan after that with a pact for another titan in hand. Bojuka bog and vesuva to copy fountain , and that was it. He showed me he had two 3 bloodghasts in hand when he played inquiry and none went to the graveyard =)
Questions about sideboarding:
1) Is firespout or explosives any good against hollow one? I feel pretty scared everytime they goblin lore, but I'm not sure if we should try to prevent some of the damage or focus on chaining titans. Also, what do we take out against this deck? There were lots of cards I wanted (rec sage, dismember, relics, hornet queen, baloth)
2) Is ruric thar good enough against UW control?
Current Manabase:
4x Simic Growth Chamber
3x Gruul Turf
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
3x Gemstone Mine
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Radiant Fountain
1x Khalni Garden
1x Slayers' Stronghold
1x Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
3x Tolaria West
1x Vesuva
1x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Boros Garrison
You understand that the replaceable lands in my list are Basic Forest and Grove of the Burnwillows right? You know both of them make Green on the first turn right?
I have 8 Red sources - 1 Boros, 3 Gruul, 3 Gemstone, 1 Grove. The 4th Gemstone Mine would increase the number of Blue sources without changing the number of Green sources. My question was, "How many Red sources do I need to run 3 Firespouts", so if the answer is 8, then I'm covered. If the answer is 9, I would cut a Forest. If you don't know the answer, that is okay as well. How many Firespouts do you run?
Do you also run 3 Firespout? My local meta consists of midrange grind decks and creature aggro decks. If I become concerned with blue sources, I would sooner add Temple or Botanical or Vestige than Gemstone, I think.
The lists running multiple Firespouts are cheating on basics to have 9 red sources
You understand that 4 Forest + 1 Grove + 4 Gemstone give you 9 G sources for first turn and 5 UNTAPPED R sources, which are somewhat important to casting firespout in time, right?
You may not like the 4th gemstone, but there's a reason everyone in here focused more on that than on whatever else you may ask: it is one of the most important lands in the deck. There were times when Amulet played 4 gemstone + city of brass/mana confluence/tendo ice bridge so we could have more 5-colored lands in order to play summer bloom (or explore/scout nowadays), firespout/pyroclasm and transmute tolaria.
BUT if you do not care about the 4th gemstone and really just want to know how many R sources you need to cast Firespout, we need to know: which turn do you want to cast firespout? If you would like to cast firespout reliably on turn 3, you would need a tapped R source on turn 2 or an untapped R source on turn 3. Let's assume you have 4 of each (assuming 3 Gruul Turf + Boros Garrison + 3 Gemstone Mines + 1 Grove of the Burnwillows).
With 4 answers in the deck, the odds of drawing a tapped mana source on turn 2 would be something like 44,5/48,7%, depending wether you are on the play or on the draw. But, in this case, you would have to have an untapped land on turn 3, and that would lower the odds a little more. On the other hand, Vesuva can be helpful on turn 2 if your opponent has red lands.
Also with 4 answers in the deck, the odds of drawing an untapped mana source on turn 3 would be something like 48,7/52,8%, depending wether you are on the play or on the draw.
I was also wondering why the deck has moved away from Serum Visions toward explore? Is it mostly to allow more basic lands to be played? Or is explore just better by helping to allow early primetimes more than serum visions?
Still, with the meta as it is right now and all those Blood Moons and Fields of Ruins running around, I believe that running extra basics is where it's at, and that makes casting non-Explore cantrips A LOT harder.
The midrangy approach does seem nice, but I feel like not having Bog in the main loses you a ton of percentage points against Storm and Dredge (though Dredge is such a good matchup that we probably win anyway...) and not having GQ hinders your Tron matchup. Also, being slower overall I imagine makes all your Combo matchups much worse. I don't know if being more midrangy is where I want to be, since I feel favored in the midrange battles anyway (unless they're playing specifically Death's Shadow variants.)
I do agree that it seems like something to have into account if you have a read on the meta being extremely midrange, like you said, so it's nice that your bet paid off handsomely and now you're the proud owner of a Goyf and Lili. Time to start building Jund!
Edgar's list minus grove plus forest. Trying Elderscale wurm on my SB to have an edge on GR Eldrazi and BR hollow one.
R1: BR Hollow One - 1x2
G1: I was on the draw. He played Flameblade adept on T1, Turn 2 Faithless looting + hollow one, Turn 3 flashed looting back, and on turn 4 he had 3 phoenixes + hollow one + flameblade adept + bloodghast. I played turn 2 explore, turn 3 azusa and khalni garden, turn 4 titan ballista and had a Courser of Kruphix in hand. He played THREE burning inquiries on his turn and made me discard my Courser, and i had nothing else in hand and drew land for turn.
G2: Mulled to six with double amulet + forest + bounce + tolaria + scout, and drew titan for turn 3. GG.
G3: He played a hollow one for turn 1, discarding phoenix + bloodghast to faithless looting. I dismembered his hollow one and played a turn 3 or 4 titan, and he had terminate. Lost a turn paying for pact, and he killed my plant token and won on the following turn.
R2: GR Eldrazi - 2x0
G1: T1 Amulet, T2 Stirrings + Amulet, turn 3 I drew a Tolaria after having my Titan TKS'ed and that was it.
G2: We developed our boards until he had 2 reshapers, 1 TKS, 1 BBE and I had 2 titans + Elderscale Wurm + ballista with 1 counter. He played Eldrazi Obligator stealing my Wurm and bashed with everything. I dismembered the TKS, ballista went chump-and-kill mode on reshaper + obligator, Titans blocked wurm and BBE, and next turn I swang back for lethal.
R3: UR Breach - 0x2
G1: I mulled to 6 with forest, GQ, scout, scout, Azusa, and something else. He played Turn 2 bolt my scout and turn 3 blood moon. My draws were Azusa and Tolaria.
G2: I mulled to six again, having forest, stirrings, simic, gruul turf, titan, titan. Stirrings found me an amulet, and I drew a third titan and a forest on the following turns. Played turn 4 Titan, got remanded. Turn 5 titan got disdainful stroked. Then he played blood moon. I played a land, and on his turn he thought about playing a jace but gave up, confirming he had snapcaster in hand. I played another titan for him to spend the snap so I could maybe resolve my third Titan. It resolved, but he had Abrade + Lightning Bolt. After that, Jace found Breach and Emrakul.
This matchup seems terrible. We have to be really fast in order to kill them before they have Cryptic or Snap+Counter, and also have to play around blood moon, and sometimes that is not enough as they can simply play Breach on turn 5.
Losing to BR Hollow One is not the end of the world, he was lucky enough to have hollow one on the first turns on two games, and discarding a lot of phoenixes. But I was also lucky for not having to face blood moon on this match, so I'm not sure what to think hahaha
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URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza