Exalted can be relevant but I'd still board out 1-2 hierarchs at least. Exalted is less relevant against a deck that is going to clog the ground up with additional creatures post-SB.
True, we do board in all of our removal to level that though. My point is that with a gavony and a decent board or a steady stream of creatures we normally eventually power through, while hierarch is not a "dead" card in the absence of gavony.
Birds + gavony whilst hiding behind gavony'd creatures is a stellar win con if you get into that situation, you're mostly favored at that point though. It always depends and both have their applications imo.
I guess i've gotten stuck one too many times with birds/wall of roots/spellskites and no gavony vs jund, which is horrible ^^.
I played in a GPT last Saturday going 3-1-1 in the swiss landing me at 6th for the cut to top 8. I got to the finals and split the prizes with the guy before playing for the byes for GP Charlotte and the PWP's. The list I took was:
**Note all of the sideboarding stuff is what I vaguely remember doing, take it with lots of grains of salt**
Round 1 vs Kiki-Chord:
In: 1 Aven Mindcensor, 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence, 3 Path to Exile
Out: 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Viscera Seer, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Scavenging Ooze
Game 1 was a grind fest but I was able to develop a board much faster than him thanks to my turn 1 manadork which he lacked. I got the infinite life combo with Anafenza on about turn 4 or 5, and scried for a Melira to get infinite damage on the next turn, or remake the combo if he tried to remove a piece with a Path. In retrospect I probably should have got a Chord of Calling but whatever, it worked out all the same. Game 2 I had an opening had with Viscera Seer, Anafenza, and Kitchen Finks so I kept it and just tried to jam the combo. On turn 3 he responded to my Finks with a Path and the game then drew on for quite some time before he combo'd off after I ran out of gas. Game 3 we both had quick starts with developing or boards, but he landed a Scavenging Ooze and kept hitting me with Paths. Eventually I had no more creatures and in the last few turns I had topdecked 3 lands in a row so I just conceded. Looking at the top of my deck was 5 lands and then a Chord, gross. Even if I had sacrificed my board to a Seer to dig for an answer I wouldn't have had anything left to win with so I was in a pretty deep hole. 1-2 : 0-1 Overall
Round 2 vs Grixis Delver:
In: 1 Burrenton Forge-Tender, 1 Path to Exile, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Sin Collector
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer, 1 Chord of Calling
Game 1 he landed a turn 1 delver and flipped it turn 2. I was pretty scared but he didn't bolt my turn 1 Birds so I expanded my board pretty fast. A turn 3 Fiend Hunter backed up b a turn 2 Spellskite nabbed his only threat, and from there he was stuck on 3 lands for the rest of the game while I beat him down over the next few turns. He never got a black source and had 2 Inquisitions, 2 Thoughtseize, and a Kologan's Command in his hand. Tough luck. Game 2 he got his black sources but just never removed my stuff. We got to a boardstall with him having a Tasigur and Kalais and me having a while bunch of stuff and an active Gavony Township. I beat down over a few turns with two Birds of Paradise before constructing a exactly lethal swing by Abrupt Decaying one of his (Kailatas's) zombie tokens while he was hellbent. Man Kalatias is a tough card to play though for us. I feel almost like Wizards printed it to hate out the deck (not because of the interaction with processors in standard at all....). 2-0 : 1-1 Overall
Round 3 vs Naya Burn:
In: 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender, 1 Qasali Pridemage, 1 Sin Collector, 2 Path to Exile
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 1 Chord of Calling, 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer
I was pretty happy for this matchup since we have such a good burn matchup. Game 1 I clogged the board up and after a few companies hitting both a Finks and Witness he just conceded. Game 2 I never saw any of the sideboard cards and he eventually topdecked a Boros Charm to exactly kill me. Game 3 I stabalized at something like 4 life and then started chaining Companies together until he conceded again. 2-1 : 2-1 Overall
**Note that after this game three guys were sitting at the table, and they were talking about how the guy I just beat was "Probably one of the best Burn players around". He then gave another guy some sideboard advice to another guy playing burn at the GPT who I conveniently was then paired up with in round 4**
Round 4 vs Naya Burn:
In: 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender, 1 Qasali Pridemage, 1 Sin Collector, 2 Path to Exile
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 1 Chord of Calling, 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer
I'm going into this game feeling really good since I just found out he is a "worse player playing a worse deck". Game 1 I stomp him, game 2 he kills me for exactly lethal again, and game 3 I stomp by seeing my sideboard cards this time. There isn't much to talk about since it was the exact same matchup as before. Somethings that I've found are that I lose every single game where I get hit with a Searing Balze, that card is just amazing vs us. 2-1 : 3-1 Overall
Round 5 vs UR Control/Blood Moon:
I ordered 2 chipotle chicken snack wraps and a small drink. They were pretty tasty but I really hate when they are prepared with only putting the sauce at the bottom of the snackwrap. It makes it less enjoyable while you are eating it and you only get that great chipolte taste right at the end.
At this point I was in 4th place paired against my friend in 2nd place. The people in the top 6 all drew with one another and we went to MacDonalds. 0-0-3 : 3-1-1 Overall
Game 1 he was manascrewed and I was able to beat him with little contest by the time he got to three lands. He made some weird choices like allowing me to blatantly pick off his creatures with Murderous Redcap when he could have answered it and trying to get his geist into play (which did nothing) rather than removing all my stuff first. Game 2 I assumed he had a lot more removal than he actually did, and my turn 2 Sculler revealed his hand of Distainful Stroke, Wear // Tear, Path to Exile, and 3 lands. I baited all of his removal out until we were both topdecking and I had an active Township. Everything I drew put him in a tougher spot until he couldn't activate his Celestial Colonnade anymore for fear of me just killing him in one swing. It all came down to him Cliquing me on my drawstep and bottoming a creature, which I drew another allowing my Voice of Resurgence token to be pumped to exactly lethal. 2-0
There is a vod of this match starting around 3:50. Another great matchup due to the mainboard sac outlets! This was against a very good player so it was like a challenging puzzle to put together the whole time; one wrong play and I would have lost. Game 1 I was able to puss it out with a timely Chord of Calling negating his Living End. Game 2 I didn't want to play too much before I had an active Chord, so the game drew on until about turn 5 and then I was just too far behind at that point to get back into it. In retrospect I should have probably forced the first Living End then raced him to my combo from there. Game 3 was slightly faster for me and I was able to slip out the combo after a well timed Tidehollow Sculler at the last moment taking away his only removal before I went infinite. Watching this match on the Vod is definitely worth it. 2-1
Finals vs Kiki-Chord from round 1 There is a vod of this match starting around 4:50. In short he hit me with 6 Path to Exiles in game 1 and was playing 3 copies of Scavenging Ooze to combat my deck. I was pretty useless since the high toughness of both decks really prevented a beatdown game and he just went on to draw out the games before comboing me off. Man I got wrecked but it was still fun! 0-2
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Changes I'd make to the deck are +1 Gavony Township, probably 1-2 Horizon Canopies, and moving the Voices around to accommodate for mayyyybe 1 more Eternal Witness.
Thanks for reading and happy companying!
(Oh and sorry for any spelling/card tags/other tags not working. I did this all on Notepad and from memory so there is no spellcheck or anything.)
Personally I would not board in decay vs jund--reducing our collected company value is not worth the chance of decaying a scavenging ooze or whatever you expect to do with it. You don't want to be 1-for-1'ing in that matchup as a rule, just pathing the worst of the worst. Even if I had decays in my board which I don't, I don't want to be stuck trying to decay a raging ravine or having to burn it on a tarmogoyf I really don't care about to stay alive when I'd rather be advancing my gameplan.
Haven't been playing it heavily for a bit but it overlaps a bit with my angel-chord deck quite a bit conceptually. Here's the last board I was running:
Abolisher was mostly a test card and it was mostly a worse spellskite but was good in some matches. Specifically it's not bad vs. kiki chord as an additional way to discourage them from playing on your turn (with voice), and not bad vs. control if you're trying to force them to burn their wrath. If you play Finks and Abolisher, they must wrath or remove the abolisher immediately and have to do it on their turn, or risk getting combo'd out -- kind of different than spellskite, where they can just dispel your chord/cocos.
The big thing is abolisher is good if they are likely to board in extra countermagic, and pretty much just swapped in for spellskite in the control match for me. It was not amazing.
Spirit is good vs. storm and taking turns and not bad vs. non-red control decks. Generally if you think you can make them path to exile it, it's probably right to bring it in.
I think voice is just better than Abolisher.. It gives value when bolted, and still discourage counters and playing on your turn.. I've tested abolisher before and it just makes them use their removal on their own turn, just a minor speedbump..
So far no one has said that they board out wall of roots vs jund. -2 wall of roots is the first thing i would do vs jund. Walls don't attack, and since we're also shaving some chords, they have very little value.
I never shave walls vs. Jund because they're very good blockers that require terminates and abrupt decays to kill and the deck requires a critical mass of acceleration. Turn 2 wall into turn 3 collected company is a way you win that match.
Walls are also one of the ways you get township activations at a discount (by playing during their turn with wall counters that get counteracted by township).
Especially if you play 22 lands, boarding out both dorks and walls is super greedy.
Regarding decay vs jund, besides boardwipes their creatures are by far the most threatening thing, i don't know how you find decay bad when an early confidant sticking for a few turns is deadly, or even considering your point of not making your CoCos worse ; if they have an ooze out which is decay'able your CoCos lose alot of value, no e-wit and finks gets pretty poor. Furthermore your game plan is beatdown most of the time, in which case decay'ing a goyf can actually be excellent to clear the board if you notice he's low on creatures. Jund is also starting to pack grafdigger's cage and other nasty hate, another good decay target. Granted it doesn't hit the 4 drops or raging ravine but for those you have the paths and ravine gets blocked indefinitely by burrenton.
Redcap is another card which is high variance but can be very solid, it is a value card which can serve as removal for tokens/huntmaster/bob and the occasional ooze, so I wouldn't remove it. It can even force an ooze activation if your opponent is low on green mana and you can then try and sneak in the combo with a finks back up. Other games it'll be stuck in your hand vs 2 goyfs, a grown ooze or something similar, but in those games you're clearly on the backfoot already.
I do agree about the Wall of roots, he is a solid blocker, ramps when needed and with a few gavony activations gets turned into an insane blocker.
Good job! Kiki Chord is definitely a tough matchup. I think our best shot is to combo quickly off or go over the top with Township. I'm also wondering if Pontiff could be sided in against that deck? Kills their mana dorks and Thopter tokens and E-Witness.
My 75 is almost identical to yours, with a few minor sideboard changes. I think 3 Townships are needed because they are so good at what they do.
Yeah one of the biggest things was having to bottom a Township from a Collected Company when I really needed it. 3 will definitely solve that problem.
The meta here has been counterspell and jund heavy for a while. Grixis Delver, Blue Moon, Jund, U/W, Jeskai Kiki, Esper Gift.
I jammed 3 Loxodon Smiter into the board. Let me tell you they worked out pretty well. Voice is good but having these as well help for sure. My voices kept getting countered by Remand, Spell Snare, Manaleak. Then once they were out they still got managed someway or another while other actions are being stunted at the same time. The loxodon buddy helps because I was able to play him most of the time on the same curve with mana dork on turn 1. So if they obviously had counter mana I would play Smiter, then next turn if they remove smiter.. which they can't just bolt, say path or some other thing, the next turn it's clear to play voice. Or if they durdle the first turns with draw spells, get voice out first and save smiter for when they are done dealing with voice. It has good play against Kolagan in Grixis and all the discard in Jund. Control players have to path it, I was able to just smash with one man until they decided to deal with it. I know other things in our deck can do the same thing, it's just extremely helpful when you catch them watching to counter and they can't do anything except use a Path to Exile or Terminate most times which just clears the way.
Kolaghan is still the most fun bonus because I hate that card...
There are two sb cards that i don't see in many lists, that i think help our troublesome matchups :
1- Maelstrom Pulse
2- Thrun, the Last Troll
Maelstrom Pulse kills the cards that really hose us, Like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Leyline of the Void, Kalitas, traitor of Ghet, ect. All stuff that abrupt decay can't kill.
Also, against merfolk, it kills master of waves, and spreading seas (even better if they played multiple seas)
Thrun, the Last Troll is great against Tron. They literally cannot kill it any other way than Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Thrun survives sweepers and regenerates against o stone. Thrun is also excellent against control. Thrun survives anger of the Gods, which is a huge problem for Abzan Company, It forces them to have damnation or Wrath of God or they will just lose.
So please, someone tell me why these two cards are not heavily played in sideboards? The fact that they cannot be hit by Company is no excuse, because lists are running 2-3 Abrupt Decays.
For me, mmasi, Thrun is a solid creature, but he just doesn't bring anything I want from the side. Yes he regeneates, can be countered, and has hexproof, all good things, but I never find myself wanting/needing a 4 drop /2 activation regenerate 4/4 creature. You mark him great against wipes, and he is...partially. but against tron he is not bringing a solid clock or hate, nor against burn or jund. He doesn't aid/fuel/protect the combo, which is the heart of the deck. So for me he doesn't shine bright enough to fit in the 75.
As for pulse, it's up to the player, again I haven't had a need/desire for pulse or decay. I play angel/feeder to get around most hate player bring in. The one thing pulse is good at removing? Tokens...and I have pontiff for tokens. It is a removal, a strong removal. But after paths, decays, the sage/mage I already board, do I really want to clog another removal? I don't.
How would you deal with the new Eldrazi/Flicker decks that have been popping up? I have been play testing against that deck and can't seem to find a reliable way to stop it.
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UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Birds + gavony whilst hiding behind gavony'd creatures is a stellar win con if you get into that situation, you're mostly favored at that point though. It always depends and both have their applications imo.
I guess i've gotten stuck one too many times with birds/wall of roots/spellskites and no gavony vs jund, which is horrible ^^.
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Heirarch
3 Viscera Seer
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Wall of Roots
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Spellskite
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Murderous Redcap
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Lands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heats
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Gavony Township
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Kataki, Wars Wage
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Sin Collector
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
**Note all of the sideboarding stuff is what I vaguely remember doing, take it with lots of grains of salt**
Round 1 vs Kiki-Chord:
Out: 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Viscera Seer, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Scavenging Ooze
1-2 : 0-1 Overall
Round 2 vs Grixis Delver:
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer, 1 Chord of Calling
2-0 : 1-1 Overall
Round 3 vs Naya Burn:
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 1 Chord of Calling, 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer
2-1 : 2-1 Overall
**Note that after this game three guys were sitting at the table, and they were talking about how the guy I just beat was "Probably one of the best Burn players around". He then gave another guy some sideboard advice to another guy playing burn at the GPT who I conveniently was then paired up with in round 4**
Round 4 vs Naya Burn:
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 1 Chord of Calling, 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer
2-1 : 3-1 Overall
Round 5 vs UR Control/Blood Moon:
0-0-3 : 3-1-1 Overall
TOP 8!!
Quarterfinals vs UWR Geist:
Out: 1 Fiend Hunter, 1 Chord of Calling, 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast, 1 Viscera Seer, 1 Collected Company, 1 Kitchen Finks
2-0
Semifinals vs Living End:
Out: 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Eternal Witness, 1 Murderous Redcap, 1 Melira
2-1
Finals vs Kiki-Chord from round 1
There is a vod of this match starting around 4:50. In short he hit me with 6 Path to Exiles in game 1 and was playing 3 copies of Scavenging Ooze to combat my deck. I was pretty useless since the high toughness of both decks really prevented a beatdown game and he just went on to draw out the games before comboing me off. Man I got wrecked but it was still fun!
0-2
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Changes I'd make to the deck are +1 Gavony Township, probably 1-2 Horizon Canopies, and moving the Voices around to accommodate for mayyyybe 1 more Eternal Witness.
Thanks for reading and happy companying!
(Oh and sorry for any spelling/card tags/other tags not working. I did this all on Notepad and from memory so there is no spellcheck or anything.)
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Yes, remove redcap vs. jund.
Personally I would not board in decay vs jund--reducing our collected company value is not worth the chance of decaying a scavenging ooze or whatever you expect to do with it. You don't want to be 1-for-1'ing in that matchup as a rule, just pathing the worst of the worst. Even if I had decays in my board which I don't, I don't want to be stuck trying to decay a raging ravine or having to burn it on a tarmogoyf I really don't care about to stay alive when I'd rather be advancing my gameplan.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
GBR Jund Midrange
GWU Bant Eldrazi
UG UG Infect
Haven't been playing it heavily for a bit but it overlaps a bit with my angel-chord deck quite a bit conceptually. Here's the last board I was running:
My jund sideboard plan was
-2 chord
-1 melira
-1 seer
-1 hierarch
-1 spellskite
-1 pontiff
+1 linvala
+3 path
+3 voice
Or something pretty close to that, sometimes varying the number of combo pieces depending on the opponent/match/etc.
** Note the weird choice of spirit of the labyrinth--it's very good against taking turns and storm both of which are played at my store regularly
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
When do you bring Abolisher and Spirit in?
GBR Jund Midrange
GWU Bant Eldrazi
UG UG Infect
Abolisher was mostly a test card and it was mostly a worse spellskite but was good in some matches. Specifically it's not bad vs. kiki chord as an additional way to discourage them from playing on your turn (with voice), and not bad vs. control if you're trying to force them to burn their wrath. If you play Finks and Abolisher, they must wrath or remove the abolisher immediately and have to do it on their turn, or risk getting combo'd out -- kind of different than spellskite, where they can just dispel your chord/cocos.
The big thing is abolisher is good if they are likely to board in extra countermagic, and pretty much just swapped in for spellskite in the control match for me. It was not amazing.
Spirit is good vs. storm and taking turns and not bad vs. non-red control decks. Generally if you think you can make them path to exile it, it's probably right to bring it in.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Walls are also one of the ways you get township activations at a discount (by playing during their turn with wall counters that get counteracted by township).
Especially if you play 22 lands, boarding out both dorks and walls is super greedy.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Redcap is another card which is high variance but can be very solid, it is a value card which can serve as removal for tokens/huntmaster/bob and the occasional ooze, so I wouldn't remove it. It can even force an ooze activation if your opponent is low on green mana and you can then try and sneak in the combo with a finks back up. Other games it'll be stuck in your hand vs 2 goyfs, a grown ooze or something similar, but in those games you're clearly on the backfoot already.
I do agree about the Wall of roots, he is a solid blocker, ramps when needed and with a few gavony activations gets turned into an insane blocker.
Phyrexian Revoker it's good?
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
I jammed 3 Loxodon Smiter into the board. Let me tell you they worked out pretty well. Voice is good but having these as well help for sure. My voices kept getting countered by Remand, Spell Snare, Manaleak. Then once they were out they still got managed someway or another while other actions are being stunted at the same time. The loxodon buddy helps because I was able to play him most of the time on the same curve with mana dork on turn 1. So if they obviously had counter mana I would play Smiter, then next turn if they remove smiter.. which they can't just bolt, say path or some other thing, the next turn it's clear to play voice. Or if they durdle the first turns with draw spells, get voice out first and save smiter for when they are done dealing with voice. It has good play against Kolagan in Grixis and all the discard in Jund. Control players have to path it, I was able to just smash with one man until they decided to deal with it. I know other things in our deck can do the same thing, it's just extremely helpful when you catch them watching to counter and they can't do anything except use a Path to Exile or Terminate most times which just clears the way.
Kolaghan is still the most fun bonus because I hate that card...
Good point, decent surprise for next week.
1- Maelstrom Pulse
2- Thrun, the Last Troll
Maelstrom Pulse kills the cards that really hose us, Like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Leyline of the Void, Kalitas, traitor of Ghet, ect. All stuff that abrupt decay can't kill.
Also, against merfolk, it kills master of waves, and spreading seas (even better if they played multiple seas)
Thrun, the Last Troll is great against Tron. They literally cannot kill it any other way than Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Thrun survives sweepers and regenerates against o stone. Thrun is also excellent against control. Thrun survives anger of the Gods, which is a huge problem for Abzan Company, It forces them to have damnation or Wrath of God or they will just lose.
So please, someone tell me why these two cards are not heavily played in sideboards? The fact that they cannot be hit by Company is no excuse, because lists are running 2-3 Abrupt Decays.
As for pulse, it's up to the player, again I haven't had a need/desire for pulse or decay. I play angel/feeder to get around most hate player bring in. The one thing pulse is good at removing? Tokens...and I have pontiff for tokens. It is a removal, a strong removal. But after paths, decays, the sage/mage I already board, do I really want to clog another removal? I don't.