@Acissathar OMG u'r absolutely right. I could change our game play a lot I mean wear//tear is a powefull cards in our SB and now it does not get hit by cascade
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
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Boros/Naya/Mardu Burn Abzan Rhino non Noble Hierach not active Jund Tarmoless not active
DnT White
Living End Jund Restore Balance Non Borderpost/ Borderpost not active U/W Titan Control not active Mardu Nahiri/Control not active
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
The split card change is HUGE for this deck. Wear//Teat is the most obvious one, but there are other split cards that we can run now. At it's core what the change means is that we can actually interact before turn 3. Amonkhet is giving a big boost to fr8nge decks.
Biggest downside is that it's WAY harder to balance.
Might also maybe a discard outlet to make Balances stronger... like Nahiri's Wrath. I feel like this is less of an issue in this version of balance because the spells are much cheaper and easier to cast, and the actual Restore Balance card has to come from hand.
I threw this together in 15 minutes and it seems awful but these spoilers are tingling the jank within me.
quick edit: ancient stirrings is not as amazing as I thought it was.
I think Failure//Comply and the new split card rule will make a U list very viable as it allows a counter to Remand when attempting to Balance...May have to revisit the Black-less version but we are still getting some sweet cards spoiled for this deck.
I think it's nuts if you're playing standard versions of the deck because you're trying to get online at 3 mana as fast as possible (cascade spells, blood moon, etc).
In a cascadeless version though, I'm not convinced you need it. If the whole deck is cantrips/removal and you're not playing blood moon, it seems like overkill.
I changed that list I posted previously to have a Grixis manabase. The biggest issue is that you can't suspend Restore Balance, but I feel like you rarely want to be doing that with so much card-draw, on the offchance you draw one of the enabler cards (As Foretold, Yahenni's). I have no idea what I'm doing!
I have been away from this deck for a while now. It was my first Modern deck, and my one true love, I always do well at FNM (2-2 at least, mostly 3-1 and one time 4-0) but after playing it many times in bigger tournaments and not doing well, I got off of it. I always start off 2-0 or 3-0 and then stumble to a 4-5 finish (what happened at the last SCG regionals). But one thing I have been thinking about a lot recently is:
The thing that got me thinking about this is how Brain in a Jar was being used to exploit the Split cards, so I was like "Why don't we use Brain in a Jar to cast Balance?" Then I went and re-read the condition on Brain in a Jar, and realized why we couldn't. So I thought the dreams of cascade-less balance were lost. But then I saw As Foretold and hope was, I guess you could say, restored. People always have the idea that this deck must be a borderpost list, but then some guy played it at Pro Tour Born of the Gods as a Jeskai Control deck with very few posts, and then Ryan Cubit played it without any posts! So if they can have the same success removing the posts, perhaps we can have success without cascading too.
How to play balance without cascade: As Foretold to play from hand. This works no matter how many counters are on As Foretold. Also, you can do it immediately: T3 As foretold, then play balance from hand for 0. Or you can untap and balance on T4 to hold up counter magaic. Bring to Light to play it from the deck. This works for any converge cost. Goblin Dark-Dwellers to play it from the graveyard. Not the best since they get to keep a creature around (unless you sac the Goblins to a Gargadon in response to your own balance), but a 4/4 menacing body is an acceptable finisher.
Any of the expertises will play it from your hand, probably Yahenni's Expertise being the best, and also Baral's Expertise. Kari Zev's Expertise, Rishkar's Expertise and Sram's Expertise don't seem to fit well.
Things that are less exciting, more of a stretch, but still let us cast balance without cascade: Epic Experiment Too much mana and not guaranteed to hit. Panoptic Mirror totally forgot about this card until I did the gatherer search just now. Seems cluncky...but does allow for T5 Mirror, immediately exile Balance. Then T6 and after cast Balance every upkeep for free. Rashmi, Eternities Crafter...doesn't seems that great. Will allow you to draw a bunch of cards, but if you do get to balance from it, they get to keep a creature or you lose your card advantage engine. But imagine: cast borderpost by bouncing a land, reveal top card and it's balance, cast for free. Over all probably not good though. Treasure Keeper effectively a cascade where this guy has to die first. And now we can't play anything that costs less that 3 besides balance. Not good.
That's all I from a quick Gatherer search, I don't have time to dig deeper as I'm at work now. But As Foretold, Goblin Dark Dwellers, Bring to Light, and maybe an expertise are reasonable cards that will allow us to balance without cascade. And now we can play stuff on T1 and T2 and T3 to survive the early game (Fatal push, path, bolt, counters spells etc.) then we balance them out late game and play PWs to win.
You can decide for yourself if you want a borderpost heavy or light version. But now, the post heavy versions can play cheap answers to Stony Silence (other than Wispmare).
I might try to build something like this on Untap.in and see how it goes, but won't have time today or maybe even not this week...
Don't forget to include Ancestral Vision in a list like this so you can play it for free too!
EDIT: In the current list I have (16 borderpost, 11 cascade spell), I will replace a Demonic Dread or two with As Foretold to play test it. I think there's room in the deck for it, but no more than 2 (As someone said earlier).
The idea is solid, but now you need to have both Restore Balance and another card in hand to use it whereas the Cascade spells just find it within your deck. Not trying to shoot down your thoughts as I think it would be neat to have a cascade-less option for the deck.
I've brewed a blended list running seven Cascade effects and four "play from hand" effects (mix of expertise and As Foretold) that I plan to try when the new cards hit the shelves.
the problem is that As Foretold is kind of awful when almost all of your cards (minus the titular Restore Balance) are 3cmc+. Unless you have a balance in hand it's a 2U do nothing for a long time. In that sense it's completely at odds with the deck. Yahenni's Expertise is much better in that situation because it sweeps, and can cast most of the spells in our deck for free.
The biggest advantage of running a cascadeless balance is that you have access to cheap interaction which as foretold can cheat in (one spell on both player's turns), and you have 8 suspend cards (Ancestral Vision as well) so that as foretold doesn't whiff the turn it comes down as often.
However, after quite a bit of brewing, I think it might just be bad for us. If you're playing as foretold, then you're playing ancestral vision, which means you're going for card advantage. This tends more towards a control deck, where you want to durdle for as long as possible until you have an absurdly stacked hand and Celestial Collonades out the ********.
Balancing is all about having as few cards/lands as possible. In the decks I threw together, I kept thinking that they'd be better if I just took out the balance part... and then I'd just be running some boring Jeskai/Grixis list.
Additionally: if we try to go cascade-less, then we can use other mana rocks besides the Borderposts since we can play 1 and 2 CMC mana rocks now. Are there any that come to mind that are better than the borderposts? I was thinking Mindstone since it can cycle late game...but the problem is it produces colorless mana which is a big burden in a 3-5 color deck.
Here is a list that I was looking through of mana rocks: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/680767-mana-rocks-complete-list. Maybe the talismans are worth looking into? Pintad Prism (it helps ramp up to Bring to Light...)? All in all, the borderposts are probably still the best since they help keep our land count down for the balancing effect.
I quickly brewed up a Jeskai-Nahiri list. Basically, it uses Bolt, Path to survive early game, Serum Visions and Remand to dig, then mid-game it blances via As Foretold or Bring to Light off of a green splash. Then it wins via Nahiri Emrakul or Gargadon beats. I played it on untap against a very jank deck tron deck and easily won, via Bring to Light twice. Then I played against a GB Loam deck that was also doing a mana denial game plan by tec edge, Spreading Algae + Urborg. In the second match, I have to say...As Foretold was an MVP. Played it turn 3, then had to pass my turn 4 doing nothing, but was able to remand something and draw into balance. Balanced and sac'ed all lands to the Gargadon. So now no one has lands, but I can play spells via As Foretold. Got up to 4 counters and played Nahiri to draw into another free balance before Nahiri Ultimate was inevitable.
So, I'm 2-0 with it, but the competition has been...lackluster.
I love brewing up decks, so naturally when As Foretold was spoiled I was all over it. I've come to a place in the brewing where I'm fairly comfortable with the build - a Uw control deck using as foretold to get the most value possible out of both restore balance and ancestral vision. I was hoping that folks more familiar with restore balance as a card could critique what I'm doing here. I kinda want an extra way to cast restore balance from the hand, but baral's expertise/ sram's expertise seems like a really bad way to try. Any ideas, or other thoughts on the build?
The sideboard is in flux quite a bit, but the maindeck seems to be solidifying. So far the strategy that has been working (~10 matches played with positive record) has been to interact early against aggressive decks until you can land a restore balance, or against midrange/control/ramp to keep the land count in play down to 3-4 and just suspend all suspend cards as they come up since you won't always resolve As Foretold.
I realize this might not fit into the thread's purpose, so I can take it elsewhere if the contributors here feel the deck doesn't belong.
Scram's Expertise is fine if you have a sacrifice outlet for the tokens. Your build may also just work value from dropping the expertise for chump blockers into a Visions for card draw. I've been brewing a Jeskai list due to the slit card ruling and As Foretold. I still feel like it will need to splash Green because Violent Outburst is one of the most power plays this deck offer in my opinion.
Gonna be honest, just remove Restore Balance. You're trying to play a classic control deck which requires card advantage, where Restore Balance decks are all about removing resources from both players.
I can't think of a deck build that could run Balance and Visions with consistently positive results.
"Stop playing the deck" probably isn't really helpful, but thanks I guess?
edit: I guess this is best saved for its own thread.
edit2: there is a lot of upside to playing restore balance, one of the main incentives to play restore balance is that it keeps ramp, control and midrange decks all incheck by forcing a low land count. With as foretold, you don't need more than 3-4 in play. Many ramp deck or other control decks have major problems operating under this paradigm. Since this addresses a critical weakness of traditional control, I'm brewing in this direction. It might not work, but "don't try" is very unhelpful.
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Boros/Naya/Mardu Burn
Abzan Rhino non Noble Hierachnot activeJund Tarmolessnot activeDnT White
Living End Jund
Restore Balance Non Borderpost/ Borderpostnot activeU/W Titan Controlnot activeMardu Nahiri/Controlnot activehttp://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/amonkhet-split-card-rules-changes-2017-04-04
Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
Something like
16x lands (maybe including Tolaria West)
9x borderposts
4x Restore Balance
4x As Foretold
2x one of the expertises or Bring to Light idk
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Greater Gargadon
4x Serum Visions
2x Sleight of Hand
3x Path to Exile
4x Ancestral Vision
2x Remand
2x Blood Moon
Biggest downside is that it's WAY harder to balance.
Might also maybe a discard outlet to make Balances stronger... like Nahiri's Wrath. I feel like this is less of an issue in this version of balance because the spells are much cheaper and easier to cast, and the actual Restore Balance card has to come from hand.
I threw this together in 15 minutes and it seems awful but these spoilers are tingling the jank within me.
quick edit: ancient stirrings is not as amazing as I thought it was.
EDH: URW Goatmum Goes Epic!
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
In a cascadeless version though, I'm not convinced you need it. If the whole deck is cantrips/removal and you're not playing blood moon, it seems like overkill.
I changed that list I posted previously to have a Grixis manabase. The biggest issue is that you can't suspend Restore Balance, but I feel like you rarely want to be doing that with so much card-draw, on the offchance you draw one of the enabler cards (As Foretold, Yahenni's). I have no idea what I'm doing!
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cascadeless-balance/
EDH: URW Goatmum Goes Epic!
The thing that got me thinking about this is how Brain in a Jar was being used to exploit the Split cards, so I was like "Why don't we use Brain in a Jar to cast Balance?" Then I went and re-read the condition on Brain in a Jar, and realized why we couldn't. So I thought the dreams of cascade-less balance were lost. But then I saw As Foretold and hope was, I guess you could say, restored. People always have the idea that this deck must be a borderpost list, but then some guy played it at Pro Tour Born of the Gods as a Jeskai Control deck with very few posts, and then Ryan Cubit played it without any posts! So if they can have the same success removing the posts, perhaps we can have success without cascading too.
How to play balance without cascade:
As Foretold to play from hand. This works no matter how many counters are on As Foretold. Also, you can do it immediately: T3 As foretold, then play balance from hand for 0. Or you can untap and balance on T4 to hold up counter magaic.
Bring to Light to play it from the deck. This works for any converge cost.
Goblin Dark-Dwellers to play it from the graveyard. Not the best since they get to keep a creature around (unless you sac the Goblins to a Gargadon in response to your own balance), but a 4/4 menacing body is an acceptable finisher.
Any of the expertises will play it from your hand, probably Yahenni's Expertise being the best, and also Baral's Expertise. Kari Zev's Expertise, Rishkar's Expertise and Sram's Expertise don't seem to fit well.
Things that are less exciting, more of a stretch, but still let us cast balance without cascade:
Epic Experiment Too much mana and not guaranteed to hit.
Panoptic Mirror totally forgot about this card until I did the gatherer search just now. Seems cluncky...but does allow for T5 Mirror, immediately exile Balance. Then T6 and after cast Balance every upkeep for free.
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter...doesn't seems that great. Will allow you to draw a bunch of cards, but if you do get to balance from it, they get to keep a creature or you lose your card advantage engine. But imagine: cast borderpost by bouncing a land, reveal top card and it's balance, cast for free. Over all probably not good though.
Treasure Keeper effectively a cascade where this guy has to die first. And now we can't play anything that costs less that 3 besides balance. Not good.
That's all I from a quick Gatherer search, I don't have time to dig deeper as I'm at work now. But As Foretold, Goblin Dark Dwellers, Bring to Light, and maybe an expertise are reasonable cards that will allow us to balance without cascade. And now we can play stuff on T1 and T2 and T3 to survive the early game (Fatal push, path, bolt, counters spells etc.) then we balance them out late game and play PWs to win.
You can decide for yourself if you want a borderpost heavy or light version. But now, the post heavy versions can play cheap answers to Stony Silence (other than Wispmare).
I might try to build something like this on Untap.in and see how it goes, but won't have time today or maybe even not this week...
Don't forget to include Ancestral Vision in a list like this so you can play it for free too!
EDIT: In the current list I have (16 borderpost, 11 cascade spell), I will replace a Demonic Dread or two with As Foretold to play test it. I think there's room in the deck for it, but no more than 2 (As someone said earlier).
I've brewed a blended list running seven Cascade effects and four "play from hand" effects (mix of expertise and As Foretold) that I plan to try when the new cards hit the shelves.
The biggest advantage of running a cascadeless balance is that you have access to cheap interaction which as foretold can cheat in (one spell on both player's turns), and you have 8 suspend cards (Ancestral Vision as well) so that as foretold doesn't whiff the turn it comes down as often.
However, after quite a bit of brewing, I think it might just be bad for us. If you're playing as foretold, then you're playing ancestral vision, which means you're going for card advantage. This tends more towards a control deck, where you want to durdle for as long as possible until you have an absurdly stacked hand and Celestial Collonades out the ********.
Balancing is all about having as few cards/lands as possible. In the decks I threw together, I kept thinking that they'd be better if I just took out the balance part... and then I'd just be running some boring Jeskai/Grixis list.
EDH: URW Goatmum Goes Epic!
Here is a list that I was looking through of mana rocks: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/680767-mana-rocks-complete-list. Maybe the talismans are worth looking into? Pintad Prism (it helps ramp up to Bring to Light...)? All in all, the borderposts are probably still the best since they help keep our land count down for the balancing effect.
I quickly brewed up a Jeskai-Nahiri list. Basically, it uses Bolt, Path to survive early game, Serum Visions and Remand to dig, then mid-game it blances via As Foretold or Bring to Light off of a green splash. Then it wins via Nahiri Emrakul or Gargadon beats. I played it on untap against a very jank deck tron deck and easily won, via Bring to Light twice. Then I played against a GB Loam deck that was also doing a mana denial game plan by tec edge, Spreading Algae + Urborg. In the second match, I have to say...As Foretold was an MVP. Played it turn 3, then had to pass my turn 4 doing nothing, but was able to remand something and draw into balance. Balanced and sac'ed all lands to the Gargadon. So now no one has lands, but I can play spells via As Foretold. Got up to 4 counters and played Nahiri to draw into another free balance before Nahiri Ultimate was inevitable.
So, I'm 2-0 with it, but the competition has been...lackluster.
Rough // Tumble
Wear // Tear
These are real now.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Just run Blood Moon in your side to get an edge on them. You can rush it out with Simian Spirit Guide.
As Foretold works better in this deck than say Living End.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I love brewing up decks, so naturally when As Foretold was spoiled I was all over it. I've come to a place in the brewing where I'm fairly comfortable with the build - a Uw control deck using as foretold to get the most value possible out of both restore balance and ancestral vision. I was hoping that folks more familiar with restore balance as a card could critique what I'm doing here. I kinda want an extra way to cast restore balance from the hand, but baral's expertise/ sram's expertise seems like a really bad way to try. Any ideas, or other thoughts on the build?
Here's the deck:
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Horizon Canopy
4x Island
1x Plains
3x Polluted Delta
4x As Foretold
4x Fieldmist Borderpost
4x Path to Exile
4x Censor
2x Logic Knot
4x Cryptic Command
4x Restore Balance
4x Serum Visions
3x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1x Snapcaster Mage
3x Gideon of the Trials
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
I realize this might not fit into the thread's purpose, so I can take it elsewhere if the contributors here feel the deck doesn't belong.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Scram's Expertise is fine if you have a sacrifice outlet for the tokens. Your build may also just work value from dropping the expertise for chump blockers into a Visions for card draw. I've been brewing a Jeskai list due to the slit card ruling and As Foretold. I still feel like it will need to splash Green because Violent Outburst is one of the most power plays this deck offer in my opinion.
Here is what I'm looking forward to trying soon:
1 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Sacred Foundry
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Artifacts:
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
Enchantment:
3 Ardent Plea
3 As Foretold
Walkers:
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Other:
3 Failure / Comply
4 Restore Balance
3 Sweltering Suns
4 Violent Outburst
3 Disallow
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Ricochet Trap
3 Wear / Tear
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I can't think of a deck build that could run Balance and Visions with consistently positive results.
edit: I guess this is best saved for its own thread.
edit2: there is a lot of upside to playing restore balance, one of the main incentives to play restore balance is that it keeps ramp, control and midrange decks all incheck by forcing a low land count. With as foretold, you don't need more than 3-4 in play. Many ramp deck or other control decks have major problems operating under this paradigm. Since this addresses a critical weakness of traditional control, I'm brewing in this direction. It might not work, but "don't try" is very unhelpful.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG