I get the hint guys, I'll stop posting. Some people used my posts on the previous page but I guess this page, not so much.
For the record, everflowing chalice is still bad. Was bad in Pascal's videos, was horrible in testing, I regularly stop recurring 0 mana artifacts because I have too much mana when I'm going off, and dropping a turn 3 KCI to do what exactly? Hope you had trawler in your opening hand? Drew it off the one egg you dropped on turn 1? Get lucky with the eggs your drop post-KCI?
Good luck to everyone in testing. Is a fun deck. I recommend gold fishing to understand how to loop with trawler.
@Boogelawoof That'd be a shame. Though I might disagree with some buildchoices, your posts are clearly informative and thought out. I just don't agree with your way of dismissing cards, Chalice in this case, or saying things like your deck is close to optimal.
I definitely don't mind opposing views, in fact, they are more than welcome and can help further a discussion or promote new ideas. It's just that if you say things like this as if they're nothing else than facts, then what is the point in discussing them. Why come up with new ideas, or different builds, because that would only make it less optimal in your view. In fact, if the build is so close to optimal and still not getting the appropriate results, is it just bad and should we dismiss the deck? You see, there is nothing to gain from your way of putting forward your ideas and oppinions like this.
I really, really like the way you put effort into your posts, organize and format them and put forward what you think is right and try to explain your thoughtprocess. Leaving room for others might be more constructive to this thread and ultimately this deck though.
On the Everflowing Chalice.
Once the combo gets going I think most is just going through the motion anyway, and you're already winning. You are right that in this case the Chalice doesn't add anything but a (by then) useless 2 mana. The problem is getting to that point where you're going off. Certainly because Chromatic Sphere and Mind Stone can be quite mana-intensive when you're drawing cards off of them, the 2 mana every cycle can be the difference between going off and not going off. As 0-drops I play 4 Opals, 2 Engineered Explosives and 1 Everflowing Chalice. This has been an amount I'm happy with to consistently get a 0cmc when trying to go off.
On speeding your deck up.
I'm not sure how this is bad or useless. In practice the deck has proven time and again that it is very capable of going off turn 3, even through discard and removal. Being able to go off turn 3 means that in some percentage of the time you're actually winning games on the draw you normally wouldn't have, or you're just outracing any answers or clock they might have. And to be clear, though I havent counted over larger samplesize, the percentage of t3 wins is moderately high. (In my 15 rounds at GP Copenhagen I got 7 of them.)
I agree that 3 is way too many and 2 is probably too many. The one in my deck has felt right, alongside 3 Mind Stones.
Edit: I put more effort into explaining my point of view on Boogelawoof's posts.
I appreciate the time you took to respond. Point taken. To your points, not running hangarback reduces the amount of 0 drops in your deck and may be why chalice seems justified. I have not moved away from the hangarbacks (they are better 0 drops), and in fact added in a third as an extra 0 drop over a chalice. Hangarback is great and I'm not sure why anyone would drop them.
With hangarback, you don't need to run chalice as a 0 drop and can play the set of mind stone (which is a better mana rock if you don't need the 0 drop since a 2 drops are awesome). That being said, I don't value ramping as much so I only run 2 mind stone. Hangarback stores mana as well if you fizzle, which, while chalice obviously does as well and doesn't need KCI, hangarback can threaten to end the game , which chalice cannot do.
Curious, does the darkest of mages run more than 1 emrakul? While I have naturally drawn into her plenty of times, the probabilities aren't great if you only run 1. 33% to hit in the top 20, 50% to hit in the top 30 cards. Sure, ancient stirrings throws the math off, but is there any other way to dig for her? Or just running renaissance or something?
So for further reference, here is the list I played at Copenhagen. The main is an exact copy of an MJ build, the side mostly the same with some small tweaks.
On cutting Hangarback Walkers and Sanctums
I did start out with these, and they looked and felt great in playing. So these are the main functions of Hangarbacks: they fetch Emrakul off a Sanctum and ramp you in mana. Secondly they provide early means of survival and an alternate wincon.
Now here is the thing, the moment you are fetching Emrakul with Hangarbacks is almost always when you are steadily going off. Imagine not drawing into an Hangarback. In that case you just keep comboing until you find either it to fetch for Emrakul, or the Emrakul itself. Thing is, cutting the Hangarbacks just makes the combo take longer. But there is a definite upside to cutting them: you can actually run more pieces that ensure you can combo off to start with. Because I don't run them I have room to run more artifacts and carddraw and thus a higher chance to start going off earlier. (So in the case of just looking at manaramp Everflowing Chalice does ramp the same amount, with added benefit of being a manarock before you combo.)
I have never ever had problems getting the combo to run long enough to find Emrakul, even if it is on the bottom, once I got going.
So there are some secondary reasons to running Hangarbacks, being early defense and alternate wincon. The second part is the easiest to answer: I've never needed a second wincon. Recycling Engineered Explosives can take care of anything that could get in Emrakul's way, with her subsequent attack finishing off anything else that's problematic.
As for early defense, this is a part where Hangarback can certainly help. The only redeeming point about my build here is that it is faster, so defense is less important, though I'll certainly admit there are situations where an early Hangarback on def could win you a game which otherwise would've been lost.
There is even an added benefit of cutting Hangarbacks and Sanctums: you can actually run more lands in the deck that produce colored mana. Before, I had definitely run into times where I couldn't cast an Abrupt Decay on a Stony Silence, because my eggs couldn't convert my colorless into the needed black or green. I've been able to run 3 more Llanowar Wastes and the fourth Spire of Industry over the Sanctums and I've only run into this problem one time since. Being able to consistently cast your sideboard cards has been the last straw that convinced me to drop the Hangarbacks.
All in all, when I changed from a Hangarback build to one without, my winpercentage certainly went up, following from being able to more consistently combo off at earlier turns. Hence, I disagree strongly that they are 'the better 0-drop' over Everflowing Chalice.
On my build and changes I'm testing next
I am really happy with my main except for one thing. I talked about focus in this deck before, but there is definitely one card standing out here: Tezzeret. And to be honest, it has been less than good for me. I have too few ways to protect it. The minus into creature mostly meets removal the opponent doesn't have other targets for, and the plus mostly feels like a really expensive Ancient Stirrings. When trying to get the combo going in the early stages, drawing a Tezzeret is often as bad as excess lands you have no use for. Once you are going it's fine, but by that stage it doesn't really add that much either.
So from earlier in this thread, I got the idea of testing out Myr Retriever. It is a card that actually helps in the early stages of comboing and makes discard matches that much better. At least that's what I'm thinking, still have to test these. The second Retriever has such a huge upside in combination with the first that I want to find a second spot in the deck. I'm probably starting out cutting the Tezzeret and the third Thoughtcast.
On the sideboard
I'm honestly not too sure about this. The ratio of Abrupt Decay/Nature's Claim/Golgari Charm feels good. The way of fighting other hate has had it's ups and downs.
Defense Grid against counters has worked wonders in some games, and has been awful in others. I actually think counters are by far the worst enemy of this deck and I'm going to try and find better ways to deal with this.
Ensnaring Bridge has been fine. It's one of those cards that can buy you enough time. Downside here is that this deck doesn't empty it's hand as fast as other Bridge decks.
Collective Brutality is really diverse and comes in both against Burn and counterdecks. These I'm actually happy with.
Grafdigger's Cage I'm mostly trying out against the new Devoted Druid decks, but haven't actually drawn yet.
Wurmcoil Engine I've brought in against both the attrition decks and the burn matches. Against burn it's been fantastic for me each time. Against attrition not so much. They constantly had ways to grind through them, though this deck grinds with the best of them.
For some of these options their usefulness might chance once I test the Myr Retrievers in the main, so I'll leave them mostly the same for now. Tezzeret might become a third Retriever probably.
Anyway, that's the build I've been having great succes with and my plans with it.
Any questions about particular choices or something else, let me know.
Edit: Added the part about cutting Sanctums for colored lands. Forgot about that one.
As I said before, I feel really confident about my list for (specifically) a hangarback build, but I also love seeing other versions pop up and a hangar-less build does have a lot of benefits. I've always been impressed with how hangarback played, but retriever is actually the thing pushing me to seriously test a hangar-less version. I also have just experienced many games where I have looped hangarback to effectively win when I haven't drawn sanctum/already played a land/fizzled. It's not so much an alternate wincon, as it is more wincons to draw that aren't dead in an opener.
Anyway, few things I saw:
First, as I said in my previous post, in a hangar-less build, I can definitely see chalice as a necessity, and I know this is ironic, but possibly 2/2 split with mind stone. I just want to point out that this especially highlights why I think chalice is so bad in hangarback builds.
I'm not surprised you are not finding success with tezz in the main and it's one of the first things I caught. I like tezz out of the board a lot, though, against stony silence and I like the idea of protecting him with some of the things I will point out below.
Tendo bridge over glimmervoid? 2 seems nice to avoid feelbads in openers, small thing, but jw if you tried it.
4 sphere over 4 terrarion? terrarion is so much better during combo, and only slightly worse because it etb tapped. Might even go 2 sphere/2 spellbomb. It's so nice to open with it in game 1. You feel so confident against dredge and shadow and not really upset otherwise, especially with more colored lands.
Thoughtcast is almost certainly better in this build since you aren't finding as many moving parts and it's better as you're going off, but glint-nest adds some nice early consistency and the defense that is also nice.
Which brings me to my last point, if you aren't playing hangarbacks/sanctums, it seems my retriever is a must, as it can provide the deck with the consistency in finding emrakul that is lost, as they draw your deck. Not convinced it is better than tezz out of the board. Tezz is just so nice in that it fights in a totally opposite axis that sideboard hate attacks you on.
I would suggest trying hope of ghirapur, but honestly I have had great experiences with dispel, and it's great against burn too, which is always nice. Hope is nice along with discard, though, as both invest mana the turns before you combo, while dispel asks you to wait longer. The main advantage with dispel (as with all countermagic) is that they actually spend mana, so it can beat redundancy.
If you notice, there is a way to construct the deck with a fairly high number of creatures if you go with glint nest, retriever, trawler, and hope in the board. Could make up for the defense lost from hangarback and protect tezz if that's really a thing. I'm gonna try this and a more streamlined version. We'll see if I miss the hangarbacks.
Lost to:
Burn (it was really close! Went to game 3 & had all the pieces needed to win but couldn't find the land in time, despite stirrings and several draws)
First things first; running 2 myr retrievers and they were excellent at all stages. I'm unsure if i'd run more? Brilliant inclusion though.
Lantern was interesting. Game 2 got locked behind bridges, needle on explosives, emrakul exiled and was milled out.
Game 3 my opponent assembled 3 bridges (was playing around multiple nature's claims) and a needle on explosives & had exiled a chunk of my deck face down with pixis (so it was possible emrakul was exiled, although my opponent didn't know I'd drawn it).
I drew abrupt decay with chromatic sphere (I knew there was a reason to run it!), blew up the needle and went off, using explosives as a poor-man's opal. When I was sure I could make 20 mana (with 3+ colours of mana) I dropped EE on 3, blew up the bridges and cast emmy. It was kind of a weird turnaround because on the face of it, it looked exactly the same as game 2, but abrupt decay made all the difference.
Other fun stuff I did last night:
- Cast explosives for 0 with 7 colourless mana, to fetch emrakul.
- Win a match by switching into a wurmcoil engine plan post-board and pretending to be tron.
- get wrecked by Eidolon of the great revel. 0_0.
So I don't think burn can beat us, if not for Eidolon. Card is stone cold nuts against this deck. I've only beaten a resolved turn 2 Eidolon once. Even the fact that nature's claim can kill it is no real consolation, because ideally you want to use the claim to gain you some life & draw a card (or blow up stony silence).
It's a tough one.
I'm looking at swapping my 3 nature's claims for seal of primordiums as an experiment. If i can slam one turn 2 it offers a lot of protection against all the significant hate cards against us without eating mana or triggering an Eidolon. 2 mana is worse obviously, and not being able to gain life for yourself seems dubious. I expect nature's claim is the better card for us (despite getting switched off by chalice of the void) but I need to give primordium a go, at least.
Pyrite spellbomb is great for eidolon's and devoted druid combo as well as many other 2 toughness nuisances.It also isn't a dead card since it can replaces itself and with trawler brings back opals, chalice and whatever other zero drops.Can also be recurring with continuously sacking two drops.
I'm not using emmy though, I'm using storm count with grapeshots,a bitter ordeal and an altar of the brood for win cons.
I like it,I can drop it turn one or two and let it sit until I need it or an extra draw which is handy with all the hand disruption.
honestly that looks like super solid list to start trying out. The deck is definitely real. It's much more consistent than something like Cheeri0s. As long as you have a plan for stony (basically always bring in tezz against white decks) then you should be fine.
Battle doesn't look bad or anything, it's just that it doesn't actually address matchups that are bad. Karn is interesting, but possibly better out of the board to surprise opponents. Nothing glaringly missing in the board, so ya, great looking list if you wanna start jamming games. You'll find tweaks to make as you go.
Edit: My suggestion to anyone picking up the deck is to play a solitaire game or two to get used to looping with trawler so you don't waste time in real games. You want to get a process down for completing trawler chains so you don't spew value. Remember engineered explosives and hangarback are both 0 drops you can loop.
Edit: Also, where is this other thread? I keep searching the forum for trawler/KCI etc. It's how I found this thread, which was also the most up to date one.
So I'd just like to share the (obvious-but-hidden) knowledge for those just trying the deck that hangarback, everflowing chalice and engineered explosives all net you 2 mana and can be chained back as a 0-cost artifact.
Hangarback has to be played with at least one counter, and always nets you 2 mana because you sac it and then any tokens.
Just remember this, because even if you are missing opal, you can still generate an additional 2 mana for every sac of a 1 mana artifact when going off.
Like I said, it's "obvious" but I've seen people miss hangarback particularly, and some people miss engineered explosives as a mana generating rock.
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There have definitely been times where I have a hangarback and wish it were a ballista for the reason you mention. Then I combo off or use the engineered explosives to clear what I need to. I would encourage you to keep testing, but I don't think it's necessary. Also it doesn't actually generate mana during the combo so it doesn't truly count as a zero, unless you cast it for 40 as a wincon.
Purklefluff, have you ever found yourself wishing it was a duress instead of an iok? The most relevant things we need to discard are sub 3 CMC, but curious. Either way, discard out of the board is really strong in this deck. Have you ever wished that TKS was a 1 CMC discard? It's just so dirty to open with discard your hate into combo t3.
The TKS has also got me thinking about testing a play set of TKS in the board of a non-hangarback build that runs 4 eldrazi temple main. Like you could swap out sanctum for temple and probably not skip a beat.
I just played a 3 round and a 4 round fnm last night going 2-1 and 4-0 respectively with shaheen soorani's updated main deck and his sideboard minus the groves in the main because i dont own them and -4 leyline of sanctity as +1 padeem + 1 defense grid and + 2 ensnaring bridges
deck over preformed. Matchups that were really difficult were vizier elves (played twice and ee recursion was key) but the current board is so cold to creature combo that I was thinking of changing 2 claims into abrupt decays.
I would be strongly against cutting the sanctums.
a) I won at least 2 games either sacrificing sanctum to find myr retreiver to present a loop to my opponent to draw my deck to win,
b) If you're not running my retriever there is no loop. The deck has a fizzle rate. Running sanctums means that going off on a couple of eggs (a wellspring and a star) leads you to having an extra tool to continue the combo when starved for resources.
I've been thinking about testing ballista. On paper, it seems like it would be a better card than hangerback, vs the the vizier combo and mono red match ups but does it out weigh the amount of time it buys blocking in the shadow / mid range match ups? I feel that they're closer than I would think.
If you play ballista do you still run emrakul? Is there a time where you have ballista for lethal, but could still continue digging and find emrakul?
I usually just lurk on mtg forums and never post content so I'm not sure how to link decklists (instructions would be appreciated) but i'm excited to actually continue to work on this archetype.
took trawler KCI to a large unified modern team event on saturday.
did well with the deck (losing one match). My team missed out on top8 on the slimmest of breakers which was frustrating but I'm happy with how the deck performed individually. Even rattled off a convincing turn 2 win (much to my opponent's bemusement).
things I found out yesterday from the large tournament - thought-knot, batterskull and wurmcoil make for an amazing "transformative" sideboard. Opponents don't expect a creature package to come in, and thought-knot saved my bacon on a few occasions by getting rid of a critical combo piece or threat. Wurmcoil was insane alongside myr retriver, forming an infinite grindy blockade of lifelinking creatures. Moreover, it allows the deck to seriously grind against anything disruptive. In one game (which I won), my opponent cast three discard spells, reducing me to no cards in hand, and played goyf + grim flayer. normally that would be death, but with a couple of mana-rocks on the field, nearly my whole deck was live. I ended up drawing an inventor's fair which let me EoT get KCI to win by drawing a bunch of cards (no trawler, just raw draw from the eggs) and dump two wurmcoils and some thopter tokens on the field. my opponent was incredulous. The following turn I chained through a couple of ichor wellsprings until I found Trawler and then of course I had a secured win no matter what. Played Trawler (just in case of removal), attacked with the wurmcoils, then post-combat cycled away a wurmcoil to start a trawler-egg chain and draw my deck.
this deck can grind. it's highly resilient to discard, and with powerful creatures at the 4 and 6 mana slots (as well as trawler and hangarback) there's a very strong backup plan even in the case of surgical extraction targeting KCI.
couple of things of note: myr retriver was better than I had imagined it to be. on a few occasions, I inventor's fair-ed it up in my opponent's end step and won on my turn.
not only that, but with trawler, 2 retrievers nets you infinite mana and lets you draw your deck as long as you've got a single chromatic star or terrarion somewhere in your hand/graveyard/battlefield. I actually missed that interaction in the middle of the tournament, although it didn't matter because I had the win in hand. regardless, drawing one of these guys mid-combo was the absolute nut every single time, and I wish i'd played more of them in the deck. I'm thinking of bumping up from 2 to 3 in order to draw them more often. they really are the glue that holds the deck together mid-combo to ensure that you never fizzle, but I recognise that they are a poor turn-2 play, so it's possible that perhaps they should remain at 2 copies..... regardless i'm going to test more of them and see what happens.
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I've also been really impressed with the two Myr Retrievers I've been testing. It felt like the deck is even more consistent and more resilient to discard. I'm keeping them in too. I've got a third one in the sideboard that I bring in for the grindy matchups.
Obvious, but good to keep in mind: the Retriever is also handy to protect yourself midcombo from Surgical Extractions.
I've been playing one Walking Ballista in the sideboard, and bring them in against any deck with lots of small creatures. It's a beating against decks like Affinity, Elves and Counter Company.. I don't want more, but the one-off has been good for me. I've also occasionaly brought it in against Death Shadow decks, where they think they're safe to drop really low against us. Not sure if that's correct though.
TKS does sound interesting, and like it has use against a wide variety of MU's. I think I'll be testing those too.
Some of you have been talking about Ballista and that it is gold in certain match ups. Would one copy be good in the sideboard, against non interactive creature combo decks, like counters company?
Against this deck, maybe even deaths shadow, machine gunning them down from like 7 life seems reasonable. An early Ballista could deal with the majority of creatures from counters company, but I think main board it is a little to wonky. If we are not playing against DS player we probably have to have 36+ mana to kill him in one go. I'd rather have a 7/7 hangarback Walker, because getting to 14 mana is easier to accomplish than 36+.
@purklefluff:
Against which decks are you siding in the TKS? Burn could be a decent deck for a big body to block and 2 for oneing in terms of burn Spells or creature + burn spell.
The Wurmcoils are coming in against GBx decks most likely, trading with every creature (goyf, shadow), are there other decks you are siding it in against?
Or are you just in general transforming your deck to a more tron like deck after sideboarding?
Good questions:
Thought-knot seer came in against every single blue deck, grindy deck and burn deck. My reasoning was that against anything disruptive, I would need a strong plan B and bringing in powerful disruptive threats of my own proved to be fantastic. Saved my bacon on a few occasions by snagging a combo piece or a strong grindy card.
Wurmcoil similarly came in against every control deck, every grindy deck and anything packing lots of discard. It worked as a way to avoid sideboarded hate and also take over games easily once I hit 6 mana pr started looping them with retrievers. Won't be dropping them any time soon they worked a charm & won a lot of games.
I'm still tweaking. Abrupt decay has been the card I sided in the most, so far.
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Went 7-2 on Day One of GP Vegas. There were at least two other people that made Day Two with me, where I played terribly and went 1-5. However, one thing I found is that you can often beat Grixis Death Shadow with just creatures, given how low they tend to go on life. I added a third Hangarback Walker to the board and would side in Walker and 3 Defense Grids, taking out 1 KCI and a couple of spheres. I found you want to build up your mana base so you can spend 6 on a Walker. It's possible that if they know you're on the creature plan they'll play more conservatively, but they tend to live in fear of the combo.
Congratulations on day one!
Dropping to 8-7 day to is a bummer but this shows that the deck can really go the distance, despite being crippled by 2 of the most common sideboard cards in stony silence and rest in piece.
If they know what you are up to, which should be the case after 1-2 turns they know what the deck is capable of doing, so the fear of getting comboed is justified.
If they figure out the your plan off going more beat down in the second game they still have to fear the combo as it is still a possibility. Going more on the creatureplan is a sweet plan. Are you just siding in a third hangarback or are you running other creatures as well in the board?
Has anyone tried Etched Champion yet? This one could also be a solid inclusion against DS, blocking every threat forever most of the time.
I am really torn on the SB, between a more tron like approach, a grindy build like the one I posted earlier, or something completely different with etched champions, Kozilek's return, TKS, leyline of sanctity and so on..
I guess there isn't any streamlined SB right now, or rather the board can just be built in so many different ways, so the best way is to build one on your own, even though some cards are necessary, like defense grid.
Is defense grid so necessary? I found I usually win game 1 anyway vs blue decks (they have no real clock) and games 2 or 3 you can just side in thought-knots and wurmcoils to grind them out. I haven't lost a game to a blue deck yet with kci, but maybe that's just me? I'm used to sequencing properly around counterspells so maybe it's just a familiarity thing?
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For the record, everflowing chalice is still bad. Was bad in Pascal's videos, was horrible in testing, I regularly stop recurring 0 mana artifacts because I have too much mana when I'm going off, and dropping a turn 3 KCI to do what exactly? Hope you had trawler in your opening hand? Drew it off the one egg you dropped on turn 1? Get lucky with the eggs your drop post-KCI?
Good luck to everyone in testing. Is a fun deck. I recommend gold fishing to understand how to loop with trawler.
I definitely don't mind opposing views, in fact, they are more than welcome and can help further a discussion or promote new ideas. It's just that if you say things like this as if they're nothing else than facts, then what is the point in discussing them. Why come up with new ideas, or different builds, because that would only make it less optimal in your view. In fact, if the build is so close to optimal and still not getting the appropriate results, is it just bad and should we dismiss the deck? You see, there is nothing to gain from your way of putting forward your ideas and oppinions like this.
I really, really like the way you put effort into your posts, organize and format them and put forward what you think is right and try to explain your thoughtprocess. Leaving room for others might be more constructive to this thread and ultimately this deck though.
On the Everflowing Chalice.
Once the combo gets going I think most is just going through the motion anyway, and you're already winning. You are right that in this case the Chalice doesn't add anything but a (by then) useless 2 mana. The problem is getting to that point where you're going off. Certainly because Chromatic Sphere and Mind Stone can be quite mana-intensive when you're drawing cards off of them, the 2 mana every cycle can be the difference between going off and not going off. As 0-drops I play 4 Opals, 2 Engineered Explosives and 1 Everflowing Chalice. This has been an amount I'm happy with to consistently get a 0cmc when trying to go off.
On speeding your deck up.
I'm not sure how this is bad or useless. In practice the deck has proven time and again that it is very capable of going off turn 3, even through discard and removal. Being able to go off turn 3 means that in some percentage of the time you're actually winning games on the draw you normally wouldn't have, or you're just outracing any answers or clock they might have. And to be clear, though I havent counted over larger samplesize, the percentage of t3 wins is moderately high. (In my 15 rounds at GP Copenhagen I got 7 of them.)
I agree that 3 is way too many and 2 is probably too many. The one in my deck has felt right, alongside 3 Mind Stones.
Edit: I put more effort into explaining my point of view on Boogelawoof's posts.
With hangarback, you don't need to run chalice as a 0 drop and can play the set of mind stone (which is a better mana rock if you don't need the 0 drop since a 2 drops are awesome). That being said, I don't value ramping as much so I only run 2 mind stone. Hangarback stores mana as well if you fizzle, which, while chalice obviously does as well and doesn't need KCI, hangarback can threaten to end the game , which chalice cannot do.
Curious, does the darkest of mages run more than 1 emrakul? While I have naturally drawn into her plenty of times, the probabilities aren't great if you only run 1. 33% to hit in the top 20, 50% to hit in the top 30 cards. Sure, ancient stirrings throws the math off, but is there any other way to dig for her? Or just running renaissance or something?
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Spire of Industry
3 Llanowar Wastes
2 Glimmervoid
1 Forest
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Academy Ruins
Creatures
4 Scrap Trawler
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Artifacts
4 Mox Opal
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Everflowing Chalice
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
3 Terrarion
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Ichor Wellspring
3 Mind Stone
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Thoughtcast
Planeswalkers
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Walking Ballista
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Nature's Claim
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm
2 Collective Brutality
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
On cutting Hangarback Walkers and Sanctums
I did start out with these, and they looked and felt great in playing. So these are the main functions of Hangarbacks: they fetch Emrakul off a Sanctum and ramp you in mana. Secondly they provide early means of survival and an alternate wincon.
Now here is the thing, the moment you are fetching Emrakul with Hangarbacks is almost always when you are steadily going off. Imagine not drawing into an Hangarback. In that case you just keep comboing until you find either it to fetch for Emrakul, or the Emrakul itself. Thing is, cutting the Hangarbacks just makes the combo take longer. But there is a definite upside to cutting them: you can actually run more pieces that ensure you can combo off to start with. Because I don't run them I have room to run more artifacts and carddraw and thus a higher chance to start going off earlier. (So in the case of just looking at manaramp Everflowing Chalice does ramp the same amount, with added benefit of being a manarock before you combo.)
I have never ever had problems getting the combo to run long enough to find Emrakul, even if it is on the bottom, once I got going.
So there are some secondary reasons to running Hangarbacks, being early defense and alternate wincon. The second part is the easiest to answer: I've never needed a second wincon. Recycling Engineered Explosives can take care of anything that could get in Emrakul's way, with her subsequent attack finishing off anything else that's problematic.
As for early defense, this is a part where Hangarback can certainly help. The only redeeming point about my build here is that it is faster, so defense is less important, though I'll certainly admit there are situations where an early Hangarback on def could win you a game which otherwise would've been lost.
There is even an added benefit of cutting Hangarbacks and Sanctums: you can actually run more lands in the deck that produce colored mana. Before, I had definitely run into times where I couldn't cast an Abrupt Decay on a Stony Silence, because my eggs couldn't convert my colorless into the needed black or green. I've been able to run 3 more Llanowar Wastes and the fourth Spire of Industry over the Sanctums and I've only run into this problem one time since. Being able to consistently cast your sideboard cards has been the last straw that convinced me to drop the Hangarbacks.
All in all, when I changed from a Hangarback build to one without, my winpercentage certainly went up, following from being able to more consistently combo off at earlier turns. Hence, I disagree strongly that they are 'the better 0-drop' over Everflowing Chalice.
On my build and changes I'm testing next
I am really happy with my main except for one thing. I talked about focus in this deck before, but there is definitely one card standing out here: Tezzeret. And to be honest, it has been less than good for me. I have too few ways to protect it. The minus into creature mostly meets removal the opponent doesn't have other targets for, and the plus mostly feels like a really expensive Ancient Stirrings. When trying to get the combo going in the early stages, drawing a Tezzeret is often as bad as excess lands you have no use for. Once you are going it's fine, but by that stage it doesn't really add that much either.
So from earlier in this thread, I got the idea of testing out Myr Retriever. It is a card that actually helps in the early stages of comboing and makes discard matches that much better. At least that's what I'm thinking, still have to test these. The second Retriever has such a huge upside in combination with the first that I want to find a second spot in the deck. I'm probably starting out cutting the Tezzeret and the third Thoughtcast.
On the sideboard
I'm honestly not too sure about this. The ratio of Abrupt Decay/Nature's Claim/Golgari Charm feels good. The way of fighting other hate has had it's ups and downs.
Defense Grid against counters has worked wonders in some games, and has been awful in others. I actually think counters are by far the worst enemy of this deck and I'm going to try and find better ways to deal with this.
Ensnaring Bridge has been fine. It's one of those cards that can buy you enough time. Downside here is that this deck doesn't empty it's hand as fast as other Bridge decks.
Collective Brutality is really diverse and comes in both against Burn and counterdecks. These I'm actually happy with.
Grafdigger's Cage I'm mostly trying out against the new Devoted Druid decks, but haven't actually drawn yet.
Wurmcoil Engine I've brought in against both the attrition decks and the burn matches. Against burn it's been fantastic for me each time. Against attrition not so much. They constantly had ways to grind through them, though this deck grinds with the best of them.
For some of these options their usefulness might chance once I test the Myr Retrievers in the main, so I'll leave them mostly the same for now. Tezzeret might become a third Retriever probably.
Anyway, that's the build I've been having great succes with and my plans with it.
Any questions about particular choices or something else, let me know.
Edit: Added the part about cutting Sanctums for colored lands. Forgot about that one.
Anyway, few things I saw:
First, as I said in my previous post, in a hangar-less build, I can definitely see chalice as a necessity, and I know this is ironic, but possibly 2/2 split with mind stone. I just want to point out that this especially highlights why I think chalice is so bad in hangarback builds.
I'm not surprised you are not finding success with tezz in the main and it's one of the first things I caught. I like tezz out of the board a lot, though, against stony silence and I like the idea of protecting him with some of the things I will point out below.
Tendo bridge over glimmervoid? 2 seems nice to avoid feelbads in openers, small thing, but jw if you tried it.
4 sphere over 4 terrarion? terrarion is so much better during combo, and only slightly worse because it etb tapped. Might even go 2 sphere/2 spellbomb. It's so nice to open with it in game 1. You feel so confident against dredge and shadow and not really upset otherwise, especially with more colored lands.
Thoughtcast is almost certainly better in this build since you aren't finding as many moving parts and it's better as you're going off, but glint-nest adds some nice early consistency and the defense that is also nice.
Which brings me to my last point, if you aren't playing hangarbacks/sanctums, it seems my retriever is a must, as it can provide the deck with the consistency in finding emrakul that is lost, as they draw your deck. Not convinced it is better than tezz out of the board. Tezz is just so nice in that it fights in a totally opposite axis that sideboard hate attacks you on.
I would suggest trying hope of ghirapur, but honestly I have had great experiences with dispel, and it's great against burn too, which is always nice. Hope is nice along with discard, though, as both invest mana the turns before you combo, while dispel asks you to wait longer. The main advantage with dispel (as with all countermagic) is that they actually spend mana, so it can beat redundancy.
If you notice, there is a way to construct the deck with a fairly high number of creatures if you go with glint nest, retriever, trawler, and hope in the board. Could make up for the defense lost from hangarback and protect tezz if that's really a thing. I'm gonna try this and a more streamlined version. We'll see if I miss the hangarbacks.
beating:
Soul sisters
UB faeries
Lantern control
Lost to:
Burn (it was really close! Went to game 3 & had all the pieces needed to win but couldn't find the land in time, despite stirrings and several draws)
First things first; running 2 myr retrievers and they were excellent at all stages. I'm unsure if i'd run more? Brilliant inclusion though.
Lantern was interesting. Game 2 got locked behind bridges, needle on explosives, emrakul exiled and was milled out.
Game 3 my opponent assembled 3 bridges (was playing around multiple nature's claims) and a needle on explosives & had exiled a chunk of my deck face down with pixis (so it was possible emrakul was exiled, although my opponent didn't know I'd drawn it).
I drew abrupt decay with chromatic sphere (I knew there was a reason to run it!), blew up the needle and went off, using explosives as a poor-man's opal. When I was sure I could make 20 mana (with 3+ colours of mana) I dropped EE on 3, blew up the bridges and cast emmy. It was kind of a weird turnaround because on the face of it, it looked exactly the same as game 2, but abrupt decay made all the difference.
Other fun stuff I did last night:
- Cast explosives for 0 with 7 colourless mana, to fetch emrakul.
- Win a match by switching into a wurmcoil engine plan post-board and pretending to be tron.
- get wrecked by Eidolon of the great revel. 0_0.
So I don't think burn can beat us, if not for Eidolon. Card is stone cold nuts against this deck. I've only beaten a resolved turn 2 Eidolon once. Even the fact that nature's claim can kill it is no real consolation, because ideally you want to use the claim to gain you some life & draw a card (or blow up stony silence).
It's a tough one.
I'm looking at swapping my 3 nature's claims for seal of primordiums as an experiment. If i can slam one turn 2 it offers a lot of protection against all the significant hate cards against us without eating mana or triggering an Eidolon. 2 mana is worse obviously, and not being able to gain life for yourself seems dubious. I expect nature's claim is the better card for us (despite getting switched off by chalice of the void) but I need to give primordium a go, at least.
I'm not using emmy though, I'm using storm count with grapeshots,a bitter ordeal and an altar of the brood for win cons.
I like it,I can drop it turn one or two and let it sit until I need it or an extra draw which is handy with all the hand disruption.
Happy Trawling.lol
Battle doesn't look bad or anything, it's just that it doesn't actually address matchups that are bad. Karn is interesting, but possibly better out of the board to surprise opponents. Nothing glaringly missing in the board, so ya, great looking list if you wanna start jamming games. You'll find tweaks to make as you go.
Edit: My suggestion to anyone picking up the deck is to play a solitaire game or two to get used to looping with trawler so you don't waste time in real games. You want to get a process down for completing trawler chains so you don't spew value. Remember engineered explosives and hangarback are both 0 drops you can loop.
Edit: Also, where is this other thread? I keep searching the forum for trawler/KCI etc. It's how I found this thread, which was also the most up to date one.
Edit: Found it. Izzetmage speaks truth in that thread. Like the third to last post. worth a read for anyone interested.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/774891-krark-clan-ironworks-scrap-trawler-combo?page=2
Probably want to keep the conversation here though, since it's a primer?
Hangarback has to be played with at least one counter, and always nets you 2 mana because you sac it and then any tokens.
Just remember this, because even if you are missing opal, you can still generate an additional 2 mana for every sac of a 1 mana artifact when going off.
Like I said, it's "obvious" but I've seen people miss hangarback particularly, and some people miss engineered explosives as a mana generating rock.
Anyone else try ballista yet?
i've been running batterskull and 2x thought-knot seer in the side for burn, as well as 1x koz's return and 2x nature's claim.
I tried running seal of primordium & it didn't seem as good? tricky =S
Purklefluff, have you ever found yourself wishing it was a duress instead of an iok? The most relevant things we need to discard are sub 3 CMC, but curious. Either way, discard out of the board is really strong in this deck. Have you ever wished that TKS was a 1 CMC discard? It's just so dirty to open with discard your hate into combo t3.
The TKS has also got me thinking about testing a play set of TKS in the board of a non-hangarback build that runs 4 eldrazi temple main. Like you could swap out sanctum for temple and probably not skip a beat.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/35219_My-Modern-Combo-Vacation.html (his list)
deck over preformed. Matchups that were really difficult were vizier elves (played twice and ee recursion was key) but the current board is so cold to creature combo that I was thinking of changing 2 claims into abrupt decays.
I would be strongly against cutting the sanctums.
a) I won at least 2 games either sacrificing sanctum to find myr retreiver to present a loop to my opponent to draw my deck to win,
b) If you're not running my retriever there is no loop. The deck has a fizzle rate. Running sanctums means that going off on a couple of eggs (a wellspring and a star) leads you to having an extra tool to continue the combo when starved for resources.
I've been thinking about testing ballista. On paper, it seems like it would be a better card than hangerback, vs the the vizier combo and mono red match ups but does it out weigh the amount of time it buys blocking in the shadow / mid range match ups? I feel that they're closer than I would think.
If you play ballista do you still run emrakul? Is there a time where you have ballista for lethal, but could still continue digging and find emrakul?
I usually just lurk on mtg forums and never post content so I'm not sure how to link decklists (instructions would be appreciated) but i'm excited to actually continue to work on this archetype.
did well with the deck (losing one match). My team missed out on top8 on the slimmest of breakers which was frustrating but I'm happy with how the deck performed individually. Even rattled off a convincing turn 2 win (much to my opponent's bemusement).
here's my list:
4x scrap trawler
4x krark-clan ironworks
2x myr retriever
3x hangarback walker
the accelerants:
4x mox opal
1x everflowing chalice
3x mind stone
the utility:
4x ancient stirrings
4x terrarion
4x chromatic star
3x chromatic sphere
4x ichor wellspring
2x engineered explosives
1x emrakul, the aeons torn
the mana:
4x sanctum of ugin
4x darksteel citadel
3x grove of the burnwillows
2x inventor's fair
2x tendo ice bridge
1x forest
1x academy ruins
2x thought-knot seer
2x wurmcoil engine
2x nature's claim
3x abrupt decay
2x nihil spellbomb
1x kozilek's return
2x timely reinforcements
1x batterskull
things I found out yesterday from the large tournament - thought-knot, batterskull and wurmcoil make for an amazing "transformative" sideboard. Opponents don't expect a creature package to come in, and thought-knot saved my bacon on a few occasions by getting rid of a critical combo piece or threat. Wurmcoil was insane alongside myr retriver, forming an infinite grindy blockade of lifelinking creatures. Moreover, it allows the deck to seriously grind against anything disruptive. In one game (which I won), my opponent cast three discard spells, reducing me to no cards in hand, and played goyf + grim flayer. normally that would be death, but with a couple of mana-rocks on the field, nearly my whole deck was live. I ended up drawing an inventor's fair which let me EoT get KCI to win by drawing a bunch of cards (no trawler, just raw draw from the eggs) and dump two wurmcoils and some thopter tokens on the field. my opponent was incredulous. The following turn I chained through a couple of ichor wellsprings until I found Trawler and then of course I had a secured win no matter what. Played Trawler (just in case of removal), attacked with the wurmcoils, then post-combat cycled away a wurmcoil to start a trawler-egg chain and draw my deck.
this deck can grind. it's highly resilient to discard, and with powerful creatures at the 4 and 6 mana slots (as well as trawler and hangarback) there's a very strong backup plan even in the case of surgical extraction targeting KCI.
couple of things of note:
myr retriver was better than I had imagined it to be. on a few occasions, I inventor's fair-ed it up in my opponent's end step and won on my turn.
not only that, but with trawler, 2 retrievers nets you infinite mana and lets you draw your deck as long as you've got a single chromatic star or terrarion somewhere in your hand/graveyard/battlefield. I actually missed that interaction in the middle of the tournament, although it didn't matter because I had the win in hand. regardless, drawing one of these guys mid-combo was the absolute nut every single time, and I wish i'd played more of them in the deck. I'm thinking of bumping up from 2 to 3 in order to draw them more often. they really are the glue that holds the deck together mid-combo to ensure that you never fizzle, but I recognise that they are a poor turn-2 play, so it's possible that perhaps they should remain at 2 copies..... regardless i'm going to test more of them and see what happens.
Also like the sideboard xform. R
Obvious, but good to keep in mind: the Retriever is also handy to protect yourself midcombo from Surgical Extractions.
I've been playing one Walking Ballista in the sideboard, and bring them in against any deck with lots of small creatures. It's a beating against decks like Affinity, Elves and Counter Company.. I don't want more, but the one-off has been good for me. I've also occasionaly brought it in against Death Shadow decks, where they think they're safe to drop really low against us. Not sure if that's correct though.
TKS does sound interesting, and like it has use against a wide variety of MU's. I think I'll be testing those too.
Good questions:
Thought-knot seer came in against every single blue deck, grindy deck and burn deck. My reasoning was that against anything disruptive, I would need a strong plan B and bringing in powerful disruptive threats of my own proved to be fantastic. Saved my bacon on a few occasions by snagging a combo piece or a strong grindy card.
Wurmcoil similarly came in against every control deck, every grindy deck and anything packing lots of discard. It worked as a way to avoid sideboarded hate and also take over games easily once I hit 6 mana pr started looping them with retrievers. Won't be dropping them any time soon they worked a charm & won a lot of games.
I'm still tweaking. Abrupt decay has been the card I sided in the most, so far.
Is defense grid so necessary? I found I usually win game 1 anyway vs blue decks (they have no real clock) and games 2 or 3 you can just side in thought-knots and wurmcoils to grind them out. I haven't lost a game to a blue deck yet with kci, but maybe that's just me? I'm used to sequencing properly around counterspells so maybe it's just a familiarity thing?