No change in decklist again, and for 3rd week in a row, he get's 1st. Well, I blame WoTC for having their software match us 16 times in 21 modern LGS matches this year alone, so as a father I do the needful.
He was never on the play the entire night. Lost all 3 dice roll. I don't have much of a game report as it's hard writing my own (see the burn forum) while trying to go into details his end as a 13yo who don't take notes for LGS games. So I'll just post highlights.
M1: Matched up with me. I push him up 2-1 and we go for dinner
1-0
M2: WR nahiri prison emrakul
G1: T3 karn. Somewhere there's a warping wail countering a board wipe sorcery.
G2: 2x Blood moons on the board but his boarded in ratchet bomb ticked up to 3 and blew everything up before he spat out all his top end threats (opponents didn't have much to play).
2-0
M3: Counters company.
G1: T3 karn T4 ugin. Yeah, disruption and board wipe later it's hard for opponent to catch up.
G2: Close game. T1 temple map, T2 temple TKS, T3 temple (dunno what) T4 endbringer. Anyway sometime later all is dust. Basically boarded in 7 cards: everything to kill creatures + 1 All is Dust +2 Oblivion Stone +2 Ratchet Bomb +2 Dismember -4 reality smasher -1 ulamog -2 oblivion sower.
3-0
M4: Grixis DS.
G1: T2 thoughtsiezed but top decked a chalice for 1 (lock out)
G2: Somehow he got an oblivion sower out to face a 5/5 angler (lol!) and got a fetch out of it (1 pain source denied).
4-0
3 matches, 6 games. Tier 3, Tier 1, Tier 1
After game comments: hangerback walkers currently the least useful among all the cards out there versus all known T1 or T2/3 decks. He's aware of previous vegas 2017 era advice from SCG premium about them versus mirrors and other decks but disagrees with how oversold it is. Top end threats remain high, and next consideration is bringing down either a ghost quarter or waste (he insists on 3 wastes all year long) to bring in an urborg to work with the sowers
Thoughts on Simian Spirit Guide? I've been running 4 in the main ever since I picked up this deck, on the idea that this deck is basically about cheating out bombs with fast mana sources. Cheating out turn 1 chalices and more turn 2 Thought Knots win games.
Thoughts on Simian Spirit Guide? I've been running 4 in the main ever since I picked up this deck, on the idea that this deck is basically about cheating out bombs with fast mana sources. Cheating out turn 1 chalices and more turn 2 Thought Knots win games.
Ran them for a while with 3 Gemstone Caverns as well. It was definitely quicker and fun to power out a turn one TKS on occasion. With the decline of Chalice recently, it might not make as much impact.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
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I've still been doing quite well in paper and mtgo with my Sanctum + Ulamog list, it continues to feel not clunky and pretty powerful to slam T5 Ulamog into concession as I just did against storm to finish 4-1 in a competitive league.
Warping Wail was the MVP in both storm matchups, as was the plethora of removal to remove their T2 and T3 creature drops (4x wail, 2x contortion, 2x dismember post-board). There was a situation in game 2 of the first storm match where I had 12 mana and 2 karns in hand, but the opponent had a remand and pyretic ritual and 1 unknown, so instead of letting them remand a karn and dig deeper for the combo, I beat down with a TKS I played earlier over several turns. Eventually they had to remand their own ritual on my end step to try to dig, which they failed to do and allowed me to resolve Karn on my next turn and seal the game.
In paper over the last 4 events, I've gone 3-1 all four times. Two of those 4 losses (at least) were 1x affinity and 1x Ponza, so I feel pretty good about my current list/build if it's pretty much only losing to our most unfavored matchups and cleaning house against the rest of the field.
I do agree with what another said that Hangarback seems to be a weak SB card atm, it's such a silver bullet against shadow so I can't justify removing both copies but perhaps going down to 1 copy is correct. With the potential free SB slot, it could be another relic/1x surg/some from of GY hate, or a third copy of dismember, which appeals to me for the mirror and a few other creature decks.
Edit: One thing I just remembered on Hangarback, it is one of our better cards against breach/emrakul decks because we can sac the hangabrack to the emmy trigger and then chump block with a thopter. I've won more than 1 game against an emrakul deck after losing 6 permanents, and being near 20 life after that happens increases those odds drastically.
Edit 2: Just did another competitive league this morning, getting some practice in for paper magic tonight and tomorrow
Humans was brutal, they had two vials and drew no more than 2 or 3 lands both games, went wide insanely fast and even though I had 7 eldrazi mana both games I never saw a Dust, which would have been a blowout because they named Ulamog with meddling mage for some reason. I feel like this matchup is near impossible when they draw like that, but if they durdle for even a little bit we can compete. In the mirror the opponent won game 1 with really good topdecks in the early turns of the game, and game 2 I turn 3 karn'd and turn 4 TKS and they conceded, game 3 they mulled to 6 and had a non-explosive opener, I cast T3 TKS, T4 TKS, and they were way short on the 5 mana needed for their two smashers in hand.
Both matches against mardu felt good(they were different players). I never saw a blood moon and I don't know if that was lucky by me or they just weren't running it. Early reshapers and TKS's made it so they couldn't swing in with any non-souls tokens, and late game a dust or huge ballista seals it every time as their hand will be empty by then. I made sure to keep hands that were resilient to T1 discard spells.
When talking about the deck's hardest matchups, the default decks I think of are Titanshift, Gx Tron, and Ad Nauseam. I don't see how bolt or kozilek's return will help us against those decks. I haven't really had too much trouble with creature-based beatdown decks, which I'm assuming is what you meant. So, I don't think a red splash is necessary atm.
When talking about the deck's hardest matchups, the default decks I think of are Titanshift, Gx Tron, and Ad Nauseam. I don't see how bolt or kozilek's return will help us against those decks. I haven't really had too much trouble with creature-based beatdown decks, which I'm assuming is what you meant. So, I don't think a red splash is necessary atm.
I think I would include affinity. If you are not on the play and chalice (this sometimes doesn't even help), or have a quick ballista to interact on the first turns you are most likely dead. Red can help with that matchup, but I don't think the splash is worth for Blood Sun exclusively.
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Mostly Modern Player RBridgevineB RGR/G EldraziX UBlue MoonR UU/W TronW
I really like his list. I've never been a big fan of Ulamog, and have had Karns stuck in my hand too often. Maximising the benefit of Eldrazi Temple seems like a good idea.
He talks about his thought process on cutting the cards that are just not viable without tron online (i.e. karns, ulamog, wurmcoil) in his dec 19 video. I also typed it out in my words here a couple of posts back. But yeah, it's basically because we shouldn't be playing around getting tron online. I see it more like a "bonus" situation we can get ourselves in. Like it's cool if we draw 2/3 of them at a time, then sure go fetch that third one with your map. Otherwise, going by his logic, I find myself fetching for the temples and a cavern (vs blue obv) most of the time. The deck has started to feel more consistent for me since.
He talks about his thought process on cutting the cards that are just not viable without tron online (i.e. karns, ulamog, wurmcoil) in his dec 19 video. I also typed it out in my words here a couple of posts back. But yeah, it's basically because we shouldn't be playing around getting tron online. I see it more like a "bonus" situation we can get ourselves in. Like it's cool if we draw 2/3 of them at a time, then sure go fetch that third one with your map. Otherwise, going by his logic, I find myself fetching for the temples and a cavern (vs blue obv) most of the time. The deck has started to feel more consistent for me since.
I was just looking at this last night, it seems against many of the most popular decks at the moment Karn is just not very good even game 1.
Grixis Shadow has Stubborn Denial and Snapcaster to flash it back, Storm has Remand to totally blow us out, it's terrible against affinity and humans because we are hardly casting it on turn 3, a turn 5, 6, or 7 Karn is much too late against wide aggressive decks. Jeskai Control and pretty much any other blue deck in modern is using Stubborn Denial, Ceremonious Rejection, and Disdainful Stroke which are all big tempo losses. It feels like smashing uncounterable Eldrazi is going to be a better pre-sideboard plan than casting Karn and hoping to resolve it (early enough). Really outside of the mana decks (E-Tron, GX Tron, and Titanshift), and Ensnaring Bridge, Karn really isn't a card that we need to see to win by any stretch of the imagination. Even against a deck like Smallpox which runs Bridge, they won't let us get to 7 mana easily for a Karn to remove it and we might be more likely to get there through Endbringer and Ballista. Anyone have any thoughts on Karn, am i missing some of the cards utility/necessity in the deck?
My list w/o Karn looks like this, which feels pretty great to fit both 2x Mind Stone and 2x Warping Wail in the maindeck, to help smoothe out the deck game 1 against all the Blood Moon and GQ/Field of Ruin running around at the moment.
4 GQ plan might seem awkward but its the best choice for the land flex slot as the deck doesn't need Sanctum of Ugin without something to trigger it. Maybe another Cavern but that's more a meta call. What I would like to always have is a payoff to assemble tron. I would like to try Conduit of Ruin with Newlamog or Newmrakul. 2 Endbringers, one Conduit and one Titan. Conduit can ramp ballistas or other creatures we have, and present a finisher in a titan as we tutor it up for the next turn. Anyone tried this before?
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Mostly Modern Player RBridgevineB RGR/G EldraziX UBlue MoonR UU/W TronW
I think as the meta slows down (more Jeskai, less Storm) playing the top end threats could be more viable. But I think sticking to the eldrazi Midrange plan just outclasses that plan most of the time, in consistency terms.
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I don't think this deck was ever meant to play Ulamogs and wurms. Todd Stevens wrote about this, Nelson says this, and Pardee shows it.
Dan Musser popularalized a crappy version of E-Tron and the deck performed like garbage after everyone adopted it.
Wurms I agree. A single copy of new Ulamog (in the 75) is viable and won't brick up hands too badly in the main. Stevens quit us on his list. Haven't seen him on E-Tron for a long time now. I know he has a strong following here but all I see is someone that tried us out and threw us away.
Anyone tried this before?
Yes, check elsewhere in the thread. Its fringe and "your results may vary". Don't go too heavy on top end threats and Conduit can smooth out casting your creatures. Give it a shot and see what you find.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I have all the cards for this deck except the 4 Chalice. I currently only have 1 and no plans to get the others anytime soon. Can those 3 missing pieces be substituted with Trinisphere? I appreciate any insight and feedback. Seems like a decent replacement. Thanks in advance
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4 matter reshaper
4 thought-knot seer
4 reality smasher
2 endbringer
1 ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
1 Ugin, the spirit dragon
2 Karn liberated
2 oblivion sower
4 chalice of the void
4 expedition map
1 crucible of worlds
2 warping wail
1 all is dust
4 urza's tower
4 urza's power plant
4 eldrazi temple
2 field of ruin
2 ghost quarter
1 sea gate wreckage
3 wastes
2 Hangerback Walker
2 Warping Wail
2 Smuggler's Copter
1 All is Dust
2 Oblivion Stone
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Dismember
2 Relic of Progenitus
No change in decklist again, and for 3rd week in a row, he get's 1st. Well, I blame WoTC for having their software match us 16 times in 21 modern LGS matches this year alone, so as a father I do the needful.
He was never on the play the entire night. Lost all 3 dice roll. I don't have much of a game report as it's hard writing my own (see the burn forum) while trying to go into details his end as a 13yo who don't take notes for LGS games. So I'll just post highlights.
M1: Matched up with me. I push him up 2-1 and we go for dinner
1-0
M2: WR nahiri prison emrakul
G1: T3 karn. Somewhere there's a warping wail countering a board wipe sorcery.
G2: 2x Blood moons on the board but his boarded in ratchet bomb ticked up to 3 and blew everything up before he spat out all his top end threats (opponents didn't have much to play).
2-0
M3: Counters company.
G1: T3 karn T4 ugin. Yeah, disruption and board wipe later it's hard for opponent to catch up.
G2: Close game. T1 temple map, T2 temple TKS, T3 temple (dunno what) T4 endbringer. Anyway sometime later all is dust. Basically boarded in 7 cards: everything to kill creatures + 1 All is Dust +2 Oblivion Stone +2 Ratchet Bomb +2 Dismember -4 reality smasher -1 ulamog -2 oblivion sower.
3-0
M4: Grixis DS.
G1: T2 thoughtsiezed but top decked a chalice for 1 (lock out)
G2: Somehow he got an oblivion sower out to face a 5/5 angler (lol!) and got a fetch out of it (1 pain source denied).
4-0
3 matches, 6 games. Tier 3, Tier 1, Tier 1
After game comments: hangerback walkers currently the least useful among all the cards out there versus all known T1 or T2/3 decks. He's aware of previous vegas 2017 era advice from SCG premium about them versus mirrors and other decks but disagrees with how oversold it is. Top end threats remain high, and next consideration is bringing down either a ghost quarter or waste (he insists on 3 wastes all year long) to bring in an urborg to work with the sowers
Ran them for a while with 3 Gemstone Caverns as well. It was definitely quicker and fun to power out a turn one TKS on occasion. With the decline of Chalice recently, it might not make as much impact.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
2-1 Bogles
0-2 Titanshift
2-0 Burn
2-0 Storm
2-0 Storm
Warping Wail was the MVP in both storm matchups, as was the plethora of removal to remove their T2 and T3 creature drops (4x wail, 2x contortion, 2x dismember post-board). There was a situation in game 2 of the first storm match where I had 12 mana and 2 karns in hand, but the opponent had a remand and pyretic ritual and 1 unknown, so instead of letting them remand a karn and dig deeper for the combo, I beat down with a TKS I played earlier over several turns. Eventually they had to remand their own ritual on my end step to try to dig, which they failed to do and allowed me to resolve Karn on my next turn and seal the game.
In paper over the last 4 events, I've gone 3-1 all four times. Two of those 4 losses (at least) were 1x affinity and 1x Ponza, so I feel pretty good about my current list/build if it's pretty much only losing to our most unfavored matchups and cleaning house against the rest of the field.
I do agree with what another said that Hangarback seems to be a weak SB card atm, it's such a silver bullet against shadow so I can't justify removing both copies but perhaps going down to 1 copy is correct. With the potential free SB slot, it could be another relic/1x surg/some from of GY hate, or a third copy of dismember, which appeals to me for the mirror and a few other creature decks.
Edit: One thing I just remembered on Hangarback, it is one of our better cards against breach/emrakul decks because we can sac the hangabrack to the emmy trigger and then chump block with a thopter. I've won more than 1 game against an emrakul deck after losing 6 permanents, and being near 20 life after that happens increases those odds drastically.
Edit 2: Just did another competitive league this morning, getting some practice in for paper magic tonight and tomorrow
Storm 2-0
Humans 0-2
Eldrazi Tron 2-1
Mardu Tokens/Mancer 2-1
Mardu Tokens/Mancer 2-0
Total: 4-1
Humans was brutal, they had two vials and drew no more than 2 or 3 lands both games, went wide insanely fast and even though I had 7 eldrazi mana both games I never saw a Dust, which would have been a blowout because they named Ulamog with meddling mage for some reason. I feel like this matchup is near impossible when they draw like that, but if they durdle for even a little bit we can compete. In the mirror the opponent won game 1 with really good topdecks in the early turns of the game, and game 2 I turn 3 karn'd and turn 4 TKS and they conceded, game 3 they mulled to 6 and had a non-explosive opener, I cast T3 TKS, T4 TKS, and they were way short on the 5 mana needed for their two smashers in hand.
Both matches against mardu felt good(they were different players). I never saw a blood moon and I don't know if that was lucky by me or they just weren't running it. Early reshapers and TKS's made it so they couldn't swing in with any non-souls tokens, and late game a dust or huge ballista seals it every time as their hand will be empty by then. I made sure to keep hands that were resilient to T1 discard spells.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
4 matter reshaper
4 thought-knot seer
4 reality smasher
4 endbringer
4 chalice of the void
4 expedition map
2 mind stone
2 warping wail
2 dismember
2 all is dust
4 urza's power plant
4 urza's mine
4 eldrazi temple
3 ghost quarter
2 cavern of souls
1 sea gate wreckage
2 waste
3 relic of progenitus
2 grafdigger's cage
2 pithing needle
1 basilisk collar
2 ratchet bomb
1 warping wail
1 spatial contortion
3 hangarback walker
2-0 vs vizier coco. (-4 chalice, -2 mind stone, -3 smasher, +2 needle, +2 cage, +1 collar, +2 ratchet, +1 wail, +1 spatial)
2-1 vs 5c humans. (-4 chalice, -2 wail, -1 smasher, +1 collar, +2 ratchet, +1 spatial, +3 hangarback)
2-0 vs abzan. (-4 chalice, -2 wail, +3 hangarback, +2 relic, +1 ratchet)
2-1 vs grixis shadow. (-4 ballista, -2 wail, -1 endbringer, +3 relic, +3 hangarback, +1 ratchet)
still don't miss the karns/other biggies that pretty much require tron online to be viable. had tron online 4/10 games.
TBH, I'd give it a try if our regional meta wasn't so burn-heavy.
I think I would include affinity. If you are not on the play and chalice (this sometimes doesn't even help), or have a quick ballista to interact on the first turns you are most likely dead. Red can help with that matchup, but I don't think the splash is worth for Blood Sun exclusively.
RBridgevineB
RGR/G EldraziX
UBlue MoonR
UU/W TronW
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-eldrazi-tron-26966#paper
He also did a CFB video on this deck (same mainboard, slightly tweaked sideboard) a few weeks ago.
https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-pardee-time-modern-eldrazi-tron-2/
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I was just looking at this last night, it seems against many of the most popular decks at the moment Karn is just not very good even game 1.
Grixis Shadow has Stubborn Denial and Snapcaster to flash it back, Storm has Remand to totally blow us out, it's terrible against affinity and humans because we are hardly casting it on turn 3, a turn 5, 6, or 7 Karn is much too late against wide aggressive decks. Jeskai Control and pretty much any other blue deck in modern is using Stubborn Denial, Ceremonious Rejection, and Disdainful Stroke which are all big tempo losses. It feels like smashing uncounterable Eldrazi is going to be a better pre-sideboard plan than casting Karn and hoping to resolve it (early enough). Really outside of the mana decks (E-Tron, GX Tron, and Titanshift), and Ensnaring Bridge, Karn really isn't a card that we need to see to win by any stretch of the imagination. Even against a deck like Smallpox which runs Bridge, they won't let us get to 7 mana easily for a Karn to remove it and we might be more likely to get there through Endbringer and Ballista. Anyone have any thoughts on Karn, am i missing some of the cards utility/necessity in the deck?
My list w/o Karn looks like this, which feels pretty great to fit both 2x Mind Stone and 2x Warping Wail in the maindeck, to help smoothe out the deck game 1 against all the Blood Moon and GQ/Field of Ruin running around at the moment.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
RBridgevineB
RGR/G EldraziX
UBlue MoonR
UU/W TronW
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
Dan Musser popularalized a crappy version of E-Tron and the deck performed like garbage after everyone adopted it.
Wurms I agree. A single copy of new Ulamog (in the 75) is viable and won't brick up hands too badly in the main. Stevens quit us on his list. Haven't seen him on E-Tron for a long time now. I know he has a strong following here but all I see is someone that tried us out and threw us away.
Yes, check elsewhere in the thread. Its fringe and "your results may vary". Don't go too heavy on top end threats and Conduit can smooth out casting your creatures. Give it a shot and see what you find.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."