Against Halo or Layline you can still beat them to death with Titan and use the valakut triggers to keep their blockers away. For that matchup I also bring in additional, preferably uncounterable, threats like Thrun. This is happening mostly because titanshift is very popular at the moment so hopefully will die down in a couple of months.
As for adding black, it is certainly a possibility but how much are you going to hamstring yourself by taking away from the core focus of the deck? Why not try it and let us know?
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Against Halo or Layline you can still beat them to death with Titan and use the valakut triggers to keep their blockers away. For that matchup I also bring in additional, preferably uncounterable, threats like Thrun. This is happening mostly because titanshift is very popular at the moment so hopefully will die down in a couple of months.
Getting there with Titan is so unlikely it's pretty much nill, they have nothing to use their Path/Verdict/Detention Sphere/Elspeth -3/Cryptic on besides our Titans. If by some miracle they don't draw any of that the entire game plus the 4 turns it takes Titan to kill them, you should buy a lottery ticket on your way back.
You are right about the metagame being hostile to us. It seems like we are public enemy #1 as of late, and people find it justifiable to have mainboard hate just for us.
Another part of the problem is that I mained RUG Scapeshift for years before it died. Guess I miss the feeling of having actual answers and cantrips to dig for said answers.
As for adding black, it is certainly a possibility but how much are you going to hamstring yourself by taking away from the core focus of the deck? Why not try it and let us know?
Weakening the main plan is why I was hesitant to do it before, but now that running Prismatic Omens has become the norm, I figured that the negative effect would be minimized. In addition to offering color fixing, Prismatic Omen also allows us to drop a mountain or two and not worry about running out of Valakut resources.
I'll try it out this FNM. Increase Prismatic Omen to 3, have abrupt decays replace 2xSweltering Suns and flex spots, find some room for some combination of Pulse/Discard/Slaughter. The switch over is cheap enough.
If you are thinking of splashing Black I highly recommend 4 Push 2 decay. I've been doing it for months and it's fantastic. I played the exact maindeck list for the splash that's in the Primer for a little while. I found that farseek was so good for perfect mana that I dropped the two explores to max out farseek. I recently replaced Courser of kruphix with Hour of Promise. The removal is so much better than what Red offers and having maindeck answers to Blood Moon, Cranial Plating, and random other things is amazing. With 3ish sweepers in the side, you don't really lose much on the Aggro matchups. The 6 maindeck removal spells is often enough to still get game 1. And the additional sweepers seals it for games 2 and 3
If you are thinking of splashing Black I highly recommend 4 Push 2 decay. I've been doing it for months and it's fantastic. I played the exact maindeck list for the splash that's in the Primer for a little while. I found that farseek was so good for perfect mana that I dropped the two explores to max out farseek. I recently replaced Courser of kruphix with Hour of Promise. The removal is so much better than what Red offers and having maindeck answers to Blood Moon, Cranial Plating, and random other things is amazing. With 3ish sweepers in the side, you don't really lose much on the Aggro matchups. The 6 maindeck removal spells is often enough to still get game 1. And the additional sweepers seals it for games 2 and 3
I've been interested in the Black splash for a while, and as you're kind of experienced with the splash I wanted to ask you a few questions I've been wondering about.
1) In the primer decklist, 3 Misty Rainforests are played, why? If you're splashing Black you should definitely play Verdant Catacombs, right?
2) I see that Prismatic Omen is a better card in the splash version as it fixes your mana but are 3 really needed? At 3 copies the risk of drawing 2 copies a game rises and that is something you really don't want to see happen.
3) How often do you bring in your discard (like Collective Brutality)? It is an auto include and wincard against Burn of course but do you bring it in against UW Control to discard their counterspells? Do you bring it in against combo strategies?
4) I see you have no SB plan against the Titanshift mirror? Aren't you seeing it more frequently?
I would be glad to hear your answers and I'm thinking about trying the list out. The black splash really doesn't look like it hurts the mana base too much.
The list in the Primer comes from an SCG modern classic in Worcester. I believe it either won the event or came second. But yes, Verdant catacombs is strictly better and what I run. Omen isn't even needed. I played 2 KHE for a while with 0 Omen and it was great. I play 3 Omen currently because I was trying them out and haven't felt the need to back down to 2. Sometimes you draw a second, but that's not awful because it gives you redundancy against any removal other than Echoing Truth and Maelstrom Pulse. Collective brutality is an interesting card. I mentioned that I play a very similar maindeck, but my sideboard is vastly different. But I can see bringing it in against matchups like delver where it can turn a random spare card into killing a delver and taking a spell from them. And I have not updated my sideboard for the mirror yet. I have been busy and unable to play modern competitively for about 5 weeks. So I haven't played the mirror near as much as you would expect to see now. There was discussion recently on this thread about the mirror. I suggest finding and reading it. It should be in the last few pages.
I'm thinking the just-spoiled Ranging Raptors has potential in our sideboard as a way to shore up the aggro matchups AND ramp at the same time. Am I the only one excited by this card? At 3 cmc, it has some inbuilt push resistance and cannot be killed by Collective Brutality, which was a problem I found with Hornet's Nest.
Or they could attack into it and give you a land...
I don't have a Titanshift, but I'm a big time green player. Its nice to see lands doing work. I started from the first page and read every word, and it seems to me land-hate is the big enemy, obviously.
I have seen not even a word about Life from the Loam. I understand that this isn't necessarily a dredge deck. So it probably wouldn't be more than a 1-of... but that is card is a house against land hate and has positive effects for scapeshift decks. I don't have a single Titan or Scapeshift and they're very expensive but I'm rooting for this deck and I think it could at least be tested.
This deck shouldn't have a problem against Grixis Shadow... AT ALL. In fact Grixis Shadow isn't even that good of a deck. It relies on combat damage so it gets beat by bigger threats, protection, and chumpers, or an excessive amount of removal. This deck has 3 of the 4. Still, because it is prevalent my vote is for the elk over the chameleon-thing. It can't get countered, is 1 cheaper, and u don't necessarily have to do more than chump anglers with it.
Be forwarned: Someone is going to make a GQ Ramunap ExcavatorSummer Bloom deck with or without fetches and its going to be a house. It's probably sideboard material... but you should sideboard it. It hoses any deck that doesn't use a lot of basics... which includes pretty much every Tier 1 deck.
I don't have a Titanshift, but I'm a big time green player. Its nice to see lands doing work. I started from the first page and read every word, and it seems to me land-hate is the big enemy, obviously.
I have seen not even a word about Life from the Loam. I understand that this isn't necessarily a dredge deck. So it probably wouldn't be more than a 1-of... but that is card is a house against land hate and has positive effects for scapeshift decks. I don't have a single Titan or Scapeshift and they're very expensive but I'm rooting for this deck and I think it could at least be tested.
This deck shouldn't have a problem against Grixis Shadow... AT ALL. In fact Grixis Shadow isn't even that good of a deck. It relies on combat damage so it gets beat by bigger threats, protection, and chumpers, or an excessive amount of removal. This deck has 3 of the 4. Still, because it is prevalent my vote is for the elk over the chameleon-thing. It can't get countered, is 1 cheaper, and u don't necessarily have to do more than chump anglers with it.
Be forwarned: Someone is going to make a GQ Ramunap ExcavatorSummer Bloom deck with or without fetches and its going to be a house. It's probably sideboard material... but you should sideboard it. It hoses any deck that doesn't use a lot of basics... which includes pretty much every Tier 1 deck.
Land hate is annoying but it only slows us down (except for Surgical Extraction shenanigans). The big enemy are Aggro and Combo decks that goldfish faster than us. Decks like Burn, Affinity, Ad Nauseam and like u said Storm have always been tough ones. Out of the three cards you mentioned Aven (unanswered) is definitely the scariest for me, the other 2 can be played around / beaten (especially easy with Scapeshift). Life from the Loam could be a fine card against UW Control, to repeatedly play your Valakuts but otherwise I don't see that much use in them. I agree that GDS isn't as bad as a matchup for us as people think sometimes. They need a fast clock (preferably on turn 2) to race us as we're very discard redundant. It is definitely beatable, especially after Sideboard. I think Chameleon is still better than the Stable as the Chameleon comes down, blocks and wins the game the next turn. (As they're mostly below 10 life.) On Turn 3 we always have 4 mana so the 4CMC isn't really a problem.
And I don't fear Summer Bloom in Modern, at least for now, as it is banned;)
You may have been thinking about Azusa, Lost but Seeking. It is played in the GW Value Town deck that has the other cards that you said - Ramunap Excavator, Ghost Quarter, Knight of the Reliquary. I haven't faced the deck before, but it seems like a potential nightmare for us.
@Heenock - yep, the hate is pretty high. I hear it all the time, "Valakut takes no skill to play." The funny thing is this. Deck choice has always been a "skill" in Magic. You could have the best player in the world playing a terrible deck and 9 times out of 10, they'll fail. I take some of these comments to heart, but when I do, I always think about several things. I have more "skill" in choosing a deck than many. And number 2, I'd rather win 1st place with a "non skilled" deck than get 2nd place with the hardest deck to play in the history of Magic. For some, it's different. But that's my take. (And I will be the first to admit that I don't always do this right either.)
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)
My sideboard is pretty Jank looking because it's pretty tuned to what my meta was a few months ago during the height of GDS when people were saying it's the strongest deck in modern and needs to be banned. So I won't share it. But, if you look at the list for the black splash in the Primer I run basically the same list. I run Verdant Catacombs instead of misty rainforest, a full 4 farseek instead of the 2 explore, and replaced the coursers with Hour of Promise. I will try to post a list on saturday if I have a chance. But I'm working 1030am-midnight or later. And Sunday I'm celebrating my anniversary. So it may be a few days before I can give you a nice clean list.
I'm thinking the just-spoiled Ranging Raptors has potential in our sideboard as a way to shore up the aggro matchups AND ramp at the same time. Am I the only one excited by this card? At 3 cmc, it has some inbuilt push resistance and cannot be killed by Collective Brutality, which was a problem I found with Hornet's Nest.
Or they could attack into it and give you a land...
The Value Town deck sounds like a pain in the ass for us to play against. Overall, Azusa does the job there even better than Summer Bloom I think.
On Magic Online you can basically choose another deck to play for the next weeks/months. I don't know if it's just me or my timezone but you cannot play Titanshift anymore. If played against 2 Main Board Blood Moon deck the last 4 leagues. The hate is real ^^! I've won 2 out of those 8 matches, they are not unwinnable but definitely not good. If you have some linear Aggro strategy deck like Affinity on MTGO, this is the time to play it, I think I haven't played against a single bad matchup of it.
The Value Town deck sounds like a pain in the ass for us to play against. Overall, Azusa does the job there even better than Summer Bloom I think.
On Magic Online you can basically choose another deck to play for the next weeks/months. I don't know if it's just me or my timezone but you cannot play Titanshift anymore. If played against 2 Main Board Blood Moon deck the last 4 leagues. The hate is real ^^! I've won 2 out of those 8 matches, they are not unwinnable but definitely not good. If you have some linear Aggro strategy deck like Affinity on MTGO, this is the time to play it, I think I haven't played against a single bad matchup of it.
Azusa is no doubt better in the deck. But Summer Bloom being banned is a HUGE plus for us. Bloom Titan absolutely demolishes this deck. I know. I've owned Bloom Titan since Mathias Hunt brought it to the spotlight and played Bloom Titan for 2 months only because I wanted to also do other decks and I didn't realize that it would get banned. Even the neutered version nowadays without Summer Bloom is a poor matchup for us; just not as bad. It's kind of akin to how Infect even nowadays, despite being much, much worse in the meta, still beats us handily. I don't think I've played a deck for more than 3-4 times in the past 2 years that beats Infect (over 50%).
And yes, I do think Affinity is in a good spot. I was thinking yesterday about Affinity. It beats Valakut, although close. It demolishes E Tron. I believe it barely beats GDS, although I've heard differently. It beats Burn by a tiny bit too. What does it lose to? It loses to decks that, for the most part, are not that good in this meta. I am even considering running Affinity. I've been pretty close recently, but still scared of what DOES beat Affinity - HATE.
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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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As for adding black, it is certainly a possibility but how much are you going to hamstring yourself by taking away from the core focus of the deck? Why not try it and let us know?
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Getting there with Titan is so unlikely it's pretty much nill, they have nothing to use their Path/Verdict/Detention Sphere/Elspeth -3/Cryptic on besides our Titans. If by some miracle they don't draw any of that the entire game plus the 4 turns it takes Titan to kill them, you should buy a lottery ticket on your way back.
You are right about the metagame being hostile to us. It seems like we are public enemy #1 as of late, and people find it justifiable to have mainboard hate just for us.
Another part of the problem is that I mained RUG Scapeshift for years before it died. Guess I miss the feeling of having actual answers and cantrips to dig for said answers.
Weakening the main plan is why I was hesitant to do it before, but now that running Prismatic Omens has become the norm, I figured that the negative effect would be minimized. In addition to offering color fixing, Prismatic Omen also allows us to drop a mountain or two and not worry about running out of Valakut resources.
I'll try it out this FNM. Increase Prismatic Omen to 3, have abrupt decays replace 2xSweltering Suns and flex spots, find some room for some combination of Pulse/Discard/Slaughter. The switch over is cheap enough.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
I've been interested in the Black splash for a while, and as you're kind of experienced with the splash I wanted to ask you a few questions I've been wondering about.
1) In the primer decklist, 3 Misty Rainforests are played, why? If you're splashing Black you should definitely play Verdant Catacombs, right?
2) I see that Prismatic Omen is a better card in the splash version as it fixes your mana but are 3 really needed? At 3 copies the risk of drawing 2 copies a game rises and that is something you really don't want to see happen.
3) How often do you bring in your discard (like Collective Brutality)? It is an auto include and wincard against Burn of course but do you bring it in against UW Control to discard their counterspells? Do you bring it in against combo strategies?
4) I see you have no SB plan against the Titanshift mirror? Aren't you seeing it more frequently?
I would be glad to hear your answers and I'm thinking about trying the list out. The black splash really doesn't look like it hurts the mana base too much.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
Or they could attack into it and give you a land...
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
Cards like
Aven Mindcensor
Ghost Quarter
Spreading Seas
and storm decks
I have seen not even a word about Life from the Loam. I understand that this isn't necessarily a dredge deck. So it probably wouldn't be more than a 1-of... but that is card is a house against land hate and has positive effects for scapeshift decks. I don't have a single Titan or Scapeshift and they're very expensive but I'm rooting for this deck and I think it could at least be tested.
This deck shouldn't have a problem against Grixis Shadow... AT ALL. In fact Grixis Shadow isn't even that good of a deck. It relies on combat damage so it gets beat by bigger threats, protection, and chumpers, or an excessive amount of removal. This deck has 3 of the 4. Still, because it is prevalent my vote is for the elk over the chameleon-thing. It can't get countered, is 1 cheaper, and u don't necessarily have to do more than chump anglers with it.
Be forwarned: Someone is going to make a GQ Ramunap Excavator Summer Bloom deck with or without fetches and its going to be a house. It's probably sideboard material... but you should sideboard it. It hoses any deck that doesn't use a lot of basics... which includes pretty much every Tier 1 deck.
And I don't fear Summer Bloom in Modern, at least for now, as it is banned;)
You may have been thinking about Azusa, Lost but Seeking. It is played in the GW Value Town deck that has the other cards that you said - Ramunap Excavator, Ghost Quarter, Knight of the Reliquary. I haven't faced the deck before, but it seems like a potential nightmare for us.
@Heenock - yep, the hate is pretty high. I hear it all the time, "Valakut takes no skill to play." The funny thing is this. Deck choice has always been a "skill" in Magic. You could have the best player in the world playing a terrible deck and 9 times out of 10, they'll fail. I take some of these comments to heart, but when I do, I always think about several things. I have more "skill" in choosing a deck than many. And number 2, I'd rather win 1st place with a "non skilled" deck than get 2nd place with the hardest deck to play in the history of Magic. For some, it's different. But that's my take. (And I will be the first to admit that I don't always do this right either.)
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)@Spike: This sounds really interesting, would you mind sharing a deck list?
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
i know i will try him instead of wood elves
the card is great with walking ballista though
top 5 anime of all time (tv, not books because dragon ball would be first)
1. Sword art online 2. Fairy tail 3. Naruto(shipuden) 4. Bleach 5. Claymore
Well, valakut is kind of an aggro deck. They're just hating because lands entering the battlefield is fundamentally sound.
On Magic Online you can basically choose another deck to play for the next weeks/months. I don't know if it's just me or my timezone but you cannot play Titanshift anymore. If played against 2 Main Board Blood Moon deck the last 4 leagues. The hate is real ^^! I've won 2 out of those 8 matches, they are not unwinnable but definitely not good. If you have some linear Aggro strategy deck like Affinity on MTGO, this is the time to play it, I think I haven't played against a single bad matchup of it.
Azusa is no doubt better in the deck. But Summer Bloom being banned is a HUGE plus for us. Bloom Titan absolutely demolishes this deck. I know. I've owned Bloom Titan since Mathias Hunt brought it to the spotlight and played Bloom Titan for 2 months only because I wanted to also do other decks and I didn't realize that it would get banned. Even the neutered version nowadays without Summer Bloom is a poor matchup for us; just not as bad. It's kind of akin to how Infect even nowadays, despite being much, much worse in the meta, still beats us handily. I don't think I've played a deck for more than 3-4 times in the past 2 years that beats Infect (over 50%).
And yes, I do think Affinity is in a good spot. I was thinking yesterday about Affinity. It beats Valakut, although close. It demolishes E Tron. I believe it barely beats GDS, although I've heard differently. It beats Burn by a tiny bit too. What does it lose to? It loses to decks that, for the most part, are not that good in this meta. I am even considering running Affinity. I've been pretty close recently, but still scared of what DOES beat Affinity - HATE.
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)