I've been fiddling around with a cascade-less version of Restore Balance with the newly spoiled Electrodominance. At first I thought this card would be a huge deal for us but now I'm not so sure... I think it is much better suited to Izzet decks running Ancestral Vision or Wheel of Fate.
I tried brewing with a mono-red prison shell using Kari Zev's Expertise as another enabler but the card was just way too bad. I settled upon Rakdos.
I've always struggled against Chalice of the Void on 0 in cascade-based versions of this deck, and it feels really good being able to flip the script. We can cast it on 1 now, which is especially useful with Simian Spirit Guide. We can also cast it on 0 ourselves to block an opponent's chalice on 0, and then sac ours to a Greater Gargadon or use By Force when we want to balance later.
I’ve been debating either a grixis or America list, myself, as strict U/R doesn’t hold any synergistic finishers. I still think we’re just shy a card or two for a cascadeless list, but I’ll try to prepare a shell in case those cards show up.
I am tooling around with some lists, I have lands for a Naya base (I have a Kiki deck currently and would like to shift back and forth) so I’m looking into that and gruul, but black could be a smart inclusion, for discard mostly.
I am currently looking towards traverse shadow for inspiration, lots of free and cheap cantrips and search effects to help get gargadon at least
Gonna play 4 borderposts or bouncelands to help make sure we are behind on lands
Yahenni's Expertise is a pretty restrictive card in that you really need to be playing a base-black version to deal with the casting cost... As Foretold is also cheaper and you can drop it down whenever you want and start building counters on it. It's definitely more versatile and arguably way stronger.
I just found that playing blue puts you completely at odds with the whole resource denial Restore Balance game-plan, and you'd almost always wish you were just playing Ancestral Vision. Having no cards in hand and no lands in play in preparation for a juicy balance sounds like a nightmare for any blue deck, but it's the bread and butter for decks with Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality and Ensnaring Bridge. The other thing is that there are no border-posts in Izzet colours so you really have to go Grixis (for more borderposts) or lean on things like Desperate Ritual to keep your land count low, which makes playing blue cards way harder.
Hello, I was drawn here by the release of Electrodominance , I did play this way back in the day. I don't think these new lists fully abuse Electrodominance/As Foretold yet. Is Nahiri really the best possible win condition? Maybe something enabled by all the artifacts instead? (one of the Tezzeret planeswalkers? Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas?)
I like the Liliana plan (my wallet doesn't!). Are other Suspend creatures better than Gargadon? (or maybe in addition to Gargadon?). Take a page off the 8Rack decks for the win condition? (The Rack or Bitterblossom?) Waste Not also sounds interesting.
The reason Nahiri, the Harbinger is good, is because everyone of her abilites help our game plan in some way.
Her +2 cycling dead cards from our hand, to drawing cards, her -2 giving us useful ways to remove pesky permeants off the field (looking at you Stony Silence) and her -8 gives us a 1 hit ko/mini balance since Emrakul makes them sac 6 things anyways. And if she sticks around, say we used her -8 when she had 10 counters, we can on the next turn cycle emrakul and shuffle our deck back together.
I've actually started running 2 Gideon of the Trials since he can bubble something to prevent damage, if we manage to clear the board with a Restore Balance and he's out we can us his 0 ability to have our own beater which can cause trouble for the opponent, and lastly his second 0 ability helps us secure some turns since, like his first 0, he can help us not die and stabilize should we fall behind. In testing he did all of this for me. I saw multiple opponents delay a turn of either damage, spells, or a combination of the two to get rid of him when I had his emblem out or even concede if I wiped their board and he remained with his emblem since they didn't have enough stuff to get rid of him
I personally don't like Black in RB. I run WRGU since B doesn't really give us anything useful. We can't run any of the important cards like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and even Fatal Push. These are all cards we'd like to run but can't due to the decks limitations. We're often times forced to chose big clunky bad mono black cards.
Those are my two cents.
EDIT:
About Tezz, while part of my black card selection still holds, Tezz helps finds our post. I know of most decks that don't run any artifacts outside of the posts. And if we're really hurting for a color, we also have basics to grab as well. So his +1 is kinda limited, his -1 makes our posts into armies, but that makes our Restore Balances weaker since now without a Greater Gargadon we don't have a reliable sac outite and can't make reliable board wipes. His -4, while super super strong at killing the oppenent, I don't like his first 2 abiltes to warrent running him just for that.
Hello everyone,
I've been lurking and reading as much as possible over the past few months, and I am currently working 5-6 days a week on a competitive cascade and post version and am quite serious about getting results. Do we currently have a discord? I plan to post on this more often going forward, but I'm looking for a more convenient communication for fellow balancers
Has anyone done testing with reason//believe? I'm currently leaning towards a base non white list with 4x reason. Allows us to trim slightly, gain library manipulation without replenishment of our hand for balance, and at a low cmc for early turns. Imo has been one of the strongest performing cards in my current list, and allows me to play demonic dread & beast within consistently. For the record, I prefer plea because it's strictly better as a cascader but our Mana base warps very well as a non white base that splashes for wear//tear post board so it's been tough. Please is better but the Mana in order to play it requires shocks and good fetches which don't play well with posts, or basically tanks the consistency because uw and rg don't line up. If living end can play dread and beast within, so can we. We don't draw as much as they do, but with library manipulation like reason, we can find the pieces to make these cards better. Im no pro and surely haven't as many reps with RB as most people who will read this, but I do have an out of the box approach to situations and believe I'm approaching something powerful and consistent.
Has anyone done testing with reason//believe? I'm currently leaning towards a base non white list with 4x reason. Allows us to trim slightly, gain library manipulation without replenishment of our hand for balance, and at a low cmc for early turns. Imo has been one of the strongest performing cards in my current list, and allows me to play demonic dread & beast within consistently. For the record, I prefer plea because it's strictly better as a cascader but our Mana base warps very well as a non white base that splashes for wear//tear post board so it's been tough. Please is better but the Mana in order to play it requires shocks and good fetches which don't play well with posts, or basically tanks the consistency because uw and rg don't line up. If living end can play dread and beast within, so can we. We don't draw as much as they do, but with library manipulation like reason, we can find the pieces to make these cards better. Im no pro and surely haven't as many reps with RB as most people who will read this, but I do have an out of the box approach to situations and believe I'm approaching something powerful and consistent.
Have you considered Discovery // Dispersal in that slot instead? The fact that we can play a cantrip without cascade hitting it seems much more relevant in most matchups.
We don't hit reason off of Cascade since it's a split and has cmc 6. Reason digs deeper than discovery does and we don't want our cards in the bin. I don't want my balances in the yard, I'd rather throw them to the bottom. Reason sees 3 cards at once where DD sees 2 and then you randomly accept the 3rd. Reason keeps our hand size dropping where DD keeps us at the same. I have tested both and DD lead me to researching the other split cards. Reason is very powerful and allows us to set up draws, get rid of balances, and finds missing pieces very well. I'd give ita shot if you haven't.
Supreme will was originally a card I was testing, but found the 3 drop slot to be clogged up already and we need "real" cards early to be able to actually play a game and not just wait for turn 3 and being able to fit it in when we are casting posts and suspending has felt very smooth. I also have the same issue with replacing the card in our hand over the general ability to sculpt and select more cards, but I like that it digs deeper than DD amd doesn't use the graveyard. I definitely like supreme will's versatility and maybe I'll try a split at my next fnm.
i'm glad to see im not the only alone in finding Gideon of the Trials a solid addition, im almost tempted to add a third as he been doing so well.
i currently agonising over the cantrip slot, i've ended up going for 2 hieroglyphic illumination and one cast down, i've been unimpressed with Supreme will.
i've found 1-2 copies of response//resurgence in the sb to be a solid addition as they deal with gurmag anglers and hollow ones in early game.
my findings in the recent meta for cascade, post based restore balance, i've only included decks of particular note or one that have changed a lot recently
coco spirits: almost always lose game one. but if you sb in lots of removal and have gideons also in the board this becomes somewhat more viable, but it does need 3-4 dead/gones, and oblivion rings/detention sphere/dismembers and wears and tears for edilon and stony and some perfect timing and a little luck, but it becomes slightly in our favour.
phoenix:, is a solid matchup with dead and trap, just beware the spell peairces and abrades game 2 and 3
kci, i think if the decks played well no one has much of a chance against it. but this is much more of a matchup where you need to take care with the hate and try and out play your opponent rather than the deck.
ponza: this has become a surprisingly hard matchup with the addition of knights of autumn mb with the stone rains means its almost impossible for us to reach the third land drop.
Supreme will was originally a card I was testing, but found the 3 drop slot to be clogged up already and we need "real" cards early to be able to actually play a game and not just wait for turn 3 and being able to fit it in when we are casting posts and suspending has felt very smooth. I also have the same issue with replacing the card in our hand over the general ability to sculpt and select more cards, but I like that it digs deeper than DD amd doesn't use the graveyard. I definitely like supreme will's versatility and maybe I'll try a split at my next fnm.
Hi Doctor, I've been playing restore balance since old Extended. In Modern I tried black replacing blue (Ari Lax's list https://mtgdecktechs.com/the-rogue-report-restoring-balance-in-modern/), but I came back to Ardent Plea version. Black has a lot of good cards (lingering souls, mardu charm, anguished unmaking, or pick the brain), but when as foretold saw the Sun light, I have experimented a huge success with it (in addition to vendilion clique).
Could you give us your list to have a better idea of your building?. For me it is very interesting because Lax's list has more than 2 years and nobody is now playing black restore version. I`m also trying Gideon of the Trials with no success. A 3 mana planeswalker has a lot of potential, but after testing, it doesn't do nothing better that ajani or elspeth to my eyes. Anyway, Humans, Spirits and KCI seems so bad pairings. I tuned my list with 2 dead//gone to deal with Thalia, kitdesire, and meddling mage but it is not enough. Dismember could be another option because it also kills Queller, but spending 4 points of life versus these decks is very painful.
The thing is, 4 drops are sorta slow, and we can "cheat" out 3 drops with a SSG. And in my research, I've found that if we want higher costed cards we sacrifice their adaptability. In my deck at least since we're so limited in card costs, every card we add has to do more than 1 thing since we can't add cards. Supreme Will is one of those adaptable cards. It's a counter when I want it, or a search card if I need. Yes, we could add scry cards, but those are often 1 drop like Serum Visions, we can't run.
I'm sure there are probably better options, but that's kinda my reasoning behind running Supreme Will.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
Fun fact, Krark-Clan Ironworks was banned recently. So our matchup is even better.
And I've never had a problem with Ponza since our "lands" aka our posts aren't affected by most of their G1 land hates and we can keep their board constantly clean.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
Currently the removal slots are fluctuating depending on the type of event/meta. With my suite of lower cost effects/cards I'm able to do things while I play posts and actually participate in the game, which has felt really smooth in testing.
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I tried brewing with a mono-red prison shell using Kari Zev's Expertise as another enabler but the card was just way too bad. I settled upon Rakdos.
4 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Gemstone Caverns
1 Mountain
6 Swamp
Creature
3 Greater Gargadon
2 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Collective Brutality
4 Restore Balance
3 Yahenni's Expertise
Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Veinfire Borderpost
Enchantment
4 Blood Moon
Instant
4 Electrodominance
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Anger of the Gods
2 By Force
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ricochet Trap
I've always struggled against Chalice of the Void on 0 in cascade-based versions of this deck, and it feels really good being able to flip the script. We can cast it on 1 now, which is especially useful with Simian Spirit Guide. We can also cast it on 0 ourselves to block an opponent's chalice on 0, and then sac ours to a Greater Gargadon or use By Force when we want to balance later.
Yahenni's Expertise is another way to balance and can also work as a pseudo-wipe in the absence of Restore Balance that lets you drop a Liliana of the Veil, Ensaring Bridge, or Blood Moon as Ari Lax mentioned in his article.
Collective Brutality is nice interaction and a great way of emptying your hand for a balance or to enable Hazoret the Fervent (which can ping your opponents over an Ensnaring Bridge).
It's very different from the classic balance lists but I look forward to testing this bad boi.
Also, does anyone know how to merge old forum accounts with twitch? I can't figure it out.
I’ve been debating either a grixis or America list, myself, as strict U/R doesn’t hold any synergistic finishers. I still think we’re just shy a card or two for a cascadeless list, but I’ll try to prepare a shell in case those cards show up.
I am currently looking towards traverse shadow for inspiration, lots of free and cheap cantrips and search effects to help get gargadon at least
Gonna play 4 borderposts or bouncelands to help make sure we are behind on lands
I just found that playing blue puts you completely at odds with the whole resource denial Restore Balance game-plan, and you'd almost always wish you were just playing Ancestral Vision. Having no cards in hand and no lands in play in preparation for a juicy balance sounds like a nightmare for any blue deck, but it's the bread and butter for decks with Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality and Ensnaring Bridge. The other thing is that there are no border-posts in Izzet colours so you really have to go Grixis (for more borderposts) or lean on things like Desperate Ritual to keep your land count low, which makes playing blue cards way harder.
EDH: URW Goatmum Goes Epic!
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/is-electrodominance-strong-enough-for-modern/?_ga=2.172365155.1778209492.1547014956-115143462.1486662930
I like the Liliana plan (my wallet doesn't!). Are other Suspend creatures better than Gargadon? (or maybe in addition to Gargadon?). Take a page off the 8Rack decks for the win condition? (The Rack or Bitterblossom?) Waste Not also sounds interesting.
Her +2 cycling dead cards from our hand, to drawing cards, her -2 giving us useful ways to remove pesky permeants off the field (looking at you Stony Silence) and her -8 gives us a 1 hit ko/mini balance since Emrakul makes them sac 6 things anyways. And if she sticks around, say we used her -8 when she had 10 counters, we can on the next turn cycle emrakul and shuffle our deck back together.
I've actually started running 2 Gideon of the Trials since he can bubble something to prevent damage, if we manage to clear the board with a Restore Balance and he's out we can us his 0 ability to have our own beater which can cause trouble for the opponent, and lastly his second 0 ability helps us secure some turns since, like his first 0, he can help us not die and stabilize should we fall behind. In testing he did all of this for me. I saw multiple opponents delay a turn of either damage, spells, or a combination of the two to get rid of him when I had his emblem out or even concede if I wiped their board and he remained with his emblem since they didn't have enough stuff to get rid of him
I personally don't like Black in RB. I run WRGU since B doesn't really give us anything useful. We can't run any of the important cards like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and even Fatal Push. These are all cards we'd like to run but can't due to the decks limitations. We're often times forced to chose big clunky bad mono black cards.
Those are my two cents.
EDIT:
About Tezz, while part of my black card selection still holds, Tezz helps finds our post. I know of most decks that don't run any artifacts outside of the posts. And if we're really hurting for a color, we also have basics to grab as well. So his +1 is kinda limited, his -1 makes our posts into armies, but that makes our Restore Balances weaker since now without a Greater Gargadon we don't have a reliable sac outite and can't make reliable board wipes. His -4, while super super strong at killing the oppenent, I don't like his first 2 abiltes to warrent running him just for that.
I've been lurking and reading as much as possible over the past few months, and I am currently working 5-6 days a week on a competitive cascade and post version and am quite serious about getting results. Do we currently have a discord? I plan to post on this more often going forward, but I'm looking for a more convenient communication for fellow balancers
Have you considered Discovery // Dispersal in that slot instead? The fact that we can play a cantrip without cascade hitting it seems much more relevant in most matchups.
i currently agonising over the cantrip slot, i've ended up going for 2 hieroglyphic illumination and one cast down, i've been unimpressed with Supreme will.
i've found 1-2 copies of response//resurgence in the sb to be a solid addition as they deal with gurmag anglers and hollow ones in early game.
my findings in the recent meta for cascade, post based restore balance, i've only included decks of particular note or one that have changed a lot recently
coco spirits: almost always lose game one. but if you sb in lots of removal and have gideons also in the board this becomes somewhat more viable, but it does need 3-4 dead/gones, and oblivion rings/detention sphere/dismembers and wears and tears for edilon and stony and some perfect timing and a little luck, but it becomes slightly in our favour.
phoenix:, is a solid matchup with dead and trap, just beware the spell peairces and abrades game 2 and 3
kci, i think if the decks played well no one has much of a chance against it. but this is much more of a matchup where you need to take care with the hate and try and out play your opponent rather than the deck.
ponza: this has become a surprisingly hard matchup with the addition of knights of autumn mb with the stone rains means its almost impossible for us to reach the third land drop.
Competitive Decks
Devotion to the Lash B ----
Monkey Conservation WUGR ---- Dragon WorshipR
Hi Doctor, I've been playing restore balance since old Extended. In Modern I tried black replacing blue (Ari Lax's list https://mtgdecktechs.com/the-rogue-report-restoring-balance-in-modern/), but I came back to Ardent Plea version. Black has a lot of good cards (lingering souls, mardu charm, anguished unmaking, or pick the brain), but when as foretold saw the Sun light, I have experimented a huge success with it (in addition to vendilion clique).
Could you give us your list to have a better idea of your building?. For me it is very interesting because Lax's list has more than 2 years and nobody is now playing black restore version. I`m also trying Gideon of the Trials with no success. A 3 mana planeswalker has a lot of potential, but after testing, it doesn't do nothing better that ajani or elspeth to my eyes. Anyway, Humans, Spirits and KCI seems so bad pairings. I tuned my list with 2 dead//gone to deal with Thalia, kitdesire, and meddling mage but it is not enough. Dismember could be another option because it also kills Queller, but spending 4 points of life versus these decks is very painful.
I'm sure there are probably better options, but that's kinda my reasoning behind running Supreme Will.
And I've never had a problem with Ponza since our "lands" aka our posts aren't affected by most of their G1 land hates and we can keep their board constantly clean.
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
Spells: 22
4 Restore Balance
4 Violent Outburst
4 Ardent Plea
4 Supreme Will
2 Detention Sphere
2 Monastery Siege
2 As Foretold
2 Bow of Nylea
4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Wildfield Borderpost
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
Planeswalkers: 5
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Gideon of the Trials
Creatures: 8
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Greater Gargadon
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Ricohet Trap
2 Blood Moon
2 Imprison in the Moon
3 Wear // Tear
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Ravenous Trap
Any questions ask! I'll be happy to answer any card choices, mulligan options, etc
4x simian spirit guide
4x reason//believe
4x violent outburst
4x demonic dread
3x restore balance
1x consign//Oblivion
3x beast within
2x dead//gone
1x fieldmist borderpost
4x veinfire borderpost
4x wildfire borderpost
4x mistveil borderpost
2x wildfield borderpost
3x tezzeret, agent of bolas
1x Chandra, torch of defiance
6x evolving Wilds
2x mountain
1x island
1x forest
1x swamp
1x plains
Currently the removal slots are fluctuating depending on the type of event/meta. With my suite of lower cost effects/cards I'm able to do things while I play posts and actually participate in the game, which has felt really smooth in testing.