@treesgoark what ur saying might be true for modern. it does not apply in legacy. and counterbalance is for 1 cmc cards i.e. brainstorm. the deck does need some work though, still working out the kinks
Whew! Just finished doing a ton of work to the spreadsheet, updating it. I haven't finished, but I updated the gameplay result data from my MTGO matches, along with my list and a couple of tabs of archtypes. As it stands, I have a 69.71% win percentage in games, 70.95% win percentage in matches (I'm not counting "incomplete" matches, where opps quit out after or during game 1). That seems kind of insane to me I took the metagame data from MTGGoldfish and also calculated what my win percentage would be if my metagame matched exactly what MTGGoldfish sees for top placing decks. Those percentages would be 57.35% (games) and 58.91 (matches), which still seem outstanding
I also went -3 Duress and +3 Thoughtseize in my deck. I'm very much liking it so far, now have to try to trade for three Thoughtseize on paper And, my singleton Noxious Revival is still pulling off miracles for me
Thanks, it's helped me a lot in forming a list, along with suggestions and tournament reports here in the thread It also helps me sideboard well.
The ER stands for "Expected Relevance". It's a relative number that shows how relevant it is when compared to a card, and the totals at the bottom sum those up to give an expected relevance of that card for a matchup. I multiply the number of copies that a card an opponent will run by the percentage of opponents that run that many cards and then by the core value of my card that I'm comparing. So, the more cards that my card will neutralize, the higher the ER number. The higher the number, the more useful that card is. That's why, for example, Ensnaring Bridge tends to score high. It's often the most relevant card to us winning a matchup. In my decklist section, you'll see "Pre-ER" and "Post-ER". Those spots multiply the number of copies of that card I run by the total ER value of the card, and I tweak those numbers to help determine what my maindeck and sideboard cards should be in a matchup for the best results.
just won a mini with hulk combo, then turned around and won another with lantern control. really digging the one two punch of these two decks. they so different that if you can gauge what to expect at the tournaments, you have a pretty good shot of winning with either one. that salt though, nobody likes to lose to hulk and sure as hell don't want to lose to lanterns.
I personally like three Mox Opal over four. Opal is awesome, but I find it rare that four are necessary. I ran four at GP Pittsburgh (thanks to Zac letting me borrow one), but in hindsight, I think I would have preferred the Revival. It would have likely saved me in game three against UR Twin (my 3rd math loss of the tournament, when I drew 11 lands and all four Opals). It would have also likely helped immensely against my round one loss against Grixis Twin, getting me back my Spellskite to survive Keranos. I'm of the opinion that one Revival and one AEther Grid is correct.
@thnkr, your list on tapped out has 59 cards main.
I've been back and forth lately on Aether Grid or 2nd Spellbomb. Currently on 2nd Spellbomb for the 4th Opal. I want 4 Opals since I run Leyline as I feel it gives me the best odds of being able to cast one. If I ran Sun Droplets, I'd probably go with an 18th land (Ghost Quarter) over the 4th opal and a basic Swamp over the Tendo.
Thanks LordGrimpow, fixed it. I was missing the third Ghost Quarter that I run. Which, as it happens, played a key role tonight in a Bloom Titan matchup, which was one of the most rediculous matches I've ever played. I'll be posting the video here shortly, but I think it's definitely worth the watch, just to see how crazy that matchup is for us
EDIT: The video. If only I hadn't misplayed game 2. That would have been an insane win!
Leyline, according to tests from others, Leyline helps just as much or better against burn. So running those over sun droplet is not a bad idea. I do not want to run 4 Leyline because I feel three is fine. 4 can be clunky, i dont want to be drawing them. Sun Droplet also has its merits given we have jars and its colorless. Leyline are really good cause they can defend against scapeshift and other things.
Attended a Modern FNM was once again a good learning experience (can feel my mechanics/decisions gettin faster XD)
Round 1 (GWR anti GBx hatebears???)
g1 rushed down to fast / got blow out by an inquisition that had to hit a loxadon
g2 got the lock fast and eventually won
g3 torn apart slowly by multiple ancient grudges (think I should have mulled this hand)
=loss
Round 2 (BUG control)
g1 long game he eventually scooped when I milled his maelstrom pulse (last out)
g2 opened leyline but a pulse on it followed by hand disruption took me apart (should have conceded this faster could have saved 3-4 mins for game 3 as we were approaching time)
g3 had the lock and had kept him off blue mana allowing him to draw all blue cards but couldn't end before time.
=draw
Round 3 (Red Shred)
g1 burn out
g2 opened leyline into t3 bridge he scooped
g3 repeat of g2 he couldn't beat leyline bridge (had taken out artifact hate from side O_O)
=win
Round 4 (WhiteBlue Artifact Equipment combo???)
g1 had the lock stabilized at 1 life and stupidly (due i would like to assume tiredness) left thopters out the only thing that could atk under bridge against a deck ive never seen and greedly pyrite locked him down (and of course got comb'd out T_T)
g2 stabilized got the lock and won
g3 hit time with lock and loop set up and him at 4 but timed out T_T
=draw
end result 1-1-2
annoyed at some small misplays but glad to see more overall improvement
I've had a few people ask me about how I go about Sideboarding. Jere's a generally guide that will apply to any deck you pick up that has greatly helped me:
The reason why I say any sideboard guide is fine because you want to use those to just get a quick starting point for how/why to sideboard. After you are experienced with the deck (you can win a chunk of your matches), start to analyze the pieces that make up your deck. Typically I sideboard like this:
Quickly search through my SB for things I want to bring in and set them aside, this should take no more than 7-10 seconds. Then search through your deck for all of your non-core cards and bring them to the front of the stack of cards while you search. What I mean by this is to find the cards that don't HAVE to be in your deck. For example, as you search through your deck you leave Lanterns and Bridges and Ancient Stirrings and lands alone. You are sorting your deck, the good most-important pieces stay at the bottom and the not-so-good ones are brought to the top. With that quick list, we already left 4+4+4+17 (=29) cards at the bottom of our deck. That's a quick 30 cards we don't have to even think about while we sideboard.
Obviously, you'll leave more cards at the bottom like 3 mox opals, IoKs, 4 Shredders. Other cards like Spellskite may be real good and stay in the deck (infect) but somethings they are bad or too slow. The same is true of Abrupt Decay or Surgical. You can quickly identify these cards won't have that big of an impact against the deck you are sideboarding against. What I mean by this is to NOT identify "oh surgical is obviously bad against them, and same with Thoughtseize cause I lose life, so I should side those out." No, we are not sideboarding. We are finding cards that aren't the core and bringing them to the top. Once you've separated your deck into Core cards vs. Not-so-core cards, you can begin the actual sideboarding process.
The trick is to create a section of cards from your main deck that are situational, optional, not-core and set that chunk aside. You do the opposite with your actual sideboard (the first step we did that took 10sec), creating a chunk that are not-optional, must-have amazing sideboard cards. Then you swap in 1 card from your sideboard in exchange for the least effective card in your main deck. This process is a lot easier now that you see, as a whole chunk, the least effective cards in your deck. You can quickly/easily see which cards you don't want to be playing with for games 2 and 3, and toss them out.
If it is not obvious what sideboard cards you want to bring in, then don't bring them in. You dont have to side in cards at all. After you finish the match just review the cards you brought in from your 15 sideboard options against the ones you didn't bring in and see if some of those other ones would have helped. THIS is how you develop a sideboard plan overtime that fits your play style and overall game plan with your deck. For example, it may not have been obvious that you wanted Nature's Claim against Burn, and you didn't realize that the Thoughtseizes were actually bad to keep in for game 2/3. After the match you realize that Eidolon was a pain (and an enchantment), that claim could have gotten you four extra life, and that casting Thoughtseize sucked cause losing two life. Now you know for all future games against Burn how to better sideboard.
That list is really cool. I would think you want more boros charm to give your things indestructible. And I want ancient Stirrings, right? Let's you dig more quickly for the two most powerful cards in your deck, or lands for mana fixing.
I've been sold on the idea that lantern needs black for discard, otherwise your opponents can just have the answers in their hand. But with charm you can cheat that. With blood moon from the board you get a better matchup against jund and scapeshift and bloom titan for sure.
Edit: also wouldn't we want Slagstorm over anger. It's more likely we can use it to burn for 3 than exiling creatures becomes relevant, right?
Yes, why did you say you want to keep the Destructive Revelry? They aren't always useful. Yes they can be, but sometimes they are just dead cards.
While I haven't tested it, I'm excited about this new concept. I think whats great is we don't have to abide by our earlier goal of Lantern which is "Stop them from doing anything ever again; delete their turns." That hardlock doesn't have to happen. We just have to buy time by killing creatures (lots of modern decks rely on dudes) and/or straight burn them out with efficient burn spells. Most people already have this understanding that Lantern doesn't care about life total. This gives us a huge edge because they will fetch-shock more against us than other decks.
I don't think we need Spellskite anymore. We needed it before because if we lost bridge we die to creatures. However, now we have plenty of creature removal and charms to protect. Spellskite also helped against infect, bogles, burn somewhat, twin somewhat. Didn't make that big of an impact, but slowed down creatures in infect/bogles well. We can now more easily handle those.
Ghirapur Æther Grid might not be where we want to go, as the number of artifacts has dropped. I do really want to test it first as it is probably very important to stick one of this to have an ever-present source of 1-2 damage. This will close out games. Again, need to test.
It's also possible we can swap the manabase to use Bloodstained Mire, Arid Mesa, Sacred Foundry, and Blood Crypt... but I had to test to see how often that life loss matters. I assume when we have opening hands with fetches we will be fetch-shock often because we have lots of cards to play.
Analyze it against the current tier 1 and tier 2 decks:
Infect
Merfolk
Affinity
Elves
Zoo
Abzan Company
Bogles
Burn
Tron
Bloom
Scapeshift
Twin
Grixis Control
Jund / Abzan
Living End
That's a lot of creature decks. We get free wins with bridge obviously and are more likely to live longer with removal spells. The discard will help against the combo/control decks where we can simply lock them out with lantern. I'm expecting to close out games quick cause we have so much burn, so we don't have to worry about hard-lock against the bottom half of the decks. I expect we will be controlling our draw steps more than theirs in order to just burn burn burn. Again, this is a sweet concept, new angle of attack, and I'm extremely interested in testing it.
Just gotta say holy crap does this look exciting. So the basic plan is stall with burn spells until you can control your draws or keep them from swinging with bridge while you hit them in the face with spells? I'm gonna do some testing with both lists soon but finals week is coming up so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get in. Thanks Be_lakor for making my day
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What is treesgobark playing right now?
Modern
Esper Control
Emeria Titan
EDH
Child of Alara Lands.dec
Paradox Sisay
Legacy
LED Dredge
Dreadstill
It's also possible we can swap the manabase to use Bloodstained Mire, Arid Mesa, Sacred Foundry, and Blood Crypt... but I had to test to see how often that life loss matters. I assume when we have opening hands with fetches we will be fetch-shock often because we have lots of cards to play.
Maybe I'm crazy for suggesting it, but I think we might be able to forgo shocks in this deck, and just fetch for basics backed up with Glimmervoid and Mox Opal:
Only black source is for IoK/Thoughtseize, the double white in case you have to hardcast Leyline. Everything else is fine, even with Blood Moon in play.
@Be_lakor - Also if you are going that method, Shrapnel Blast is a large beating. It's a fun offshoot if your meta is full of decks that don't usually gain a ton of life and are bad matchups for Top Control. I haven't tried it for awhile, but I can tell you facing it also really hurts. Kinda reminded me of old standard Kuldotha Red.
My deck went all in on Red, with a maindeck of Bloodmoons.
Sideboard (Didn't have one finished though. Only really played around online with it.): 4 Pyroclasm 2 Blood Moon
When I used this, Soulsisters was starting to get a revival and made me real sad. Birthing Pod gaining tons of life also hurt a whole Bunch. In the current meta though? This could be a beating
I like be_Lakors idea! This could be a nice switch to have both types of decks in the field. It switches up how the deck is played, which then helps against metas that are very scary for top control. Boros Charm should be a 4 of in this type of build imo for the 4 damage + defense aspect of it. Bump in the Night might be useful too btw.
-----
This might be late, but my games at Pittsburgh weren't all that useful imo to help understand where the weaknesses are.
Match 1: Jund
Game 1: I'm on the play, Turn 1 I Inquisition his hand. 3 Lightning Bolts. I quickly choose that and Surgical the rest before I pass my turn. 2 Turns later I do the same to Liliana of the Veil. I have an active lock, kept him from drawing any creatures that I couldn't kill, and the only thing I'm missing is a bridge. All Bridges and Pithing Needles were in my bottom 12 cards. I died to a Turn 1 Raging Ravine.
Game 2: Pithing Needle on Liliana, Extirpate on Ancient Grudge. I Locked with Multiple Bridges, but no Lantern. Won by Recuring Extirpate with Codex and Academy Ruins.
Game 3: Back and Forth fights for creatures on the board, no bridge or Needles to be found. Died to Raging Ravine.
Match 2: Aura Bogles
Game 1: He had the game won, but misplayed. I had to tap out to play Bridge and hope that my on the board Spellskite, which was locked out from Suppression field, stopped him from going for the kill turn 4. If bridge didnt land, he had be dead just by swinging with the team. Luckily for me, he played defensively vs Spellskite, and I locked him out.
Game 2: I Played a Turn 1 Spellskite, and a Turn 2 Bridge, followed by drawing a bridge, and then drawing a Bridge. He conceded on my Pithing needle choosing Seal of Primordium
Match 3: Infect
Game 1: I quickly had a bridge lock, but he had 2 Spellskites. He also had the mana to pump up spellskite +10/+10, with my life at 14. It was closer than it looked, but I came out on top.
Game 2: He quickly got me to 3 Poison until I pithing needled his Inkmoth Nexus, after that I bridge locked him and Pyrite Spellbombed him down.
Match 4: Kiln Fiend All In
Game 1: I kept a sketchy hand. Spellskite, Ancient Stirrings, Mox Opal, Darksteel Citadel, Dispatch, Ensnaring Bridge, and Inquisition of Kozilek. I needed a land OR a 1 Mana artifact. Instead I drew a bridge, an Ancient Stirrings, and a Mox Opal. Meanwhile, my opponent mulliganed to 5, hit me with Kiln Fiend turn 3 at 18 damage, and promptly killed me the next turn. I still feel that hand is easily keepable, I just got hosed.
Game 2: Circle of Protection: Red kept every single creature in this Izzet deck from doing damage. It was a long game, but eventually I pyrite spellbombed him. I had 1 hiccup where I forgot to Recur Spellbomb, but it only took about 15 seconds off the clock.
Game 3: We started with 10 to 12 minutes to go, I had Bridge and Circle of Protection Red in hand. After turn 2, I have a 2 millrock lock on him. We both know he wasn't going to win, but I do feel he was correct in not conceding. With 3 minutes to go he was at 14 life, and I was pyrite spellbombing him. Doing every action that it takes to complete the recur draw damage pass, I knew this was going to be close. He Draws, looks, pass. Rinse and repeat. The timer sounds just as I pass to him and he draws, with his life being at 4 life. Whew.
(I also want to say this dude was a great sport about it, because he could have easily slow played in the legal grey area and had the game as a draw. Shook my hand afterwards too)
Match 5: Jund
Game 1: He blasts my Spellskite, Welding Jar, and Bridge defense, and Tarmogoyf rolls over me. I did have a 1 mill rock lock at the time.
Game 2: He missed his land drop turn 2. I mill the land on top. Turn 4 I Inquisition, see a hand of NOPE full of Abrupt Decay, Ancient Grudge, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana. I spend the rest of the game milling every land he could get. I Extirpate his Anciet Grudge when he discards it, though his 1 land only produces black red.
Game 3: He pretty much had the same hand, only no creatures. He uses Raging Ravine to beat me down. I did have a pithing needle on it, but multiple destruction spells are nasty.
Match 6: Ad Nauseum
Game 1: Obvious Ad Nauseum, so I'm digging hard for a Pithing Needle with my active lock. Last turn of when it will matter, as his Lotus Bloom will give him enough mana, I Ancient Stirrings to only see a Pyrite Spellbomb. I cast it, and with 2 mana up I pass the Turn. I then look at the top card I have revealed, and its Pithing Needle. He combos out. I lose.
Game 2: I have Leyline, which turns out is not good vs Ad Nauseum. He Combos out, casting Patrician's Scorn before hitting me in the face.
I dropped after that game.
So before Game 6 I tilted hard. I shouldn't have, and it lost me the match. To explain though, before the game gets started, this guy bumbles in 3 minutes late. Annoying, but not really an issue. Talking to him he's obviously one of the annoying PTQ Grinders, whatever these types are everywhere. Then we get deck checked. Turns out, the tournament lost my deck list, which delayed the game for 15 minutes, and allowed me to get to chat with this opponent. He spends most of it trying to figure out what my deck is, but I'm not budging.
However, he accidentally hit a pet peeve of mine. Looking at the game next to us, he notices a missed trigger. Player A is facing Player B. Player A, new guy who is a little unfamiliar with his deck, pays for Pact of Negation with the last counter of Gemstone Mine. Does not Sac it, looks at the top card of his deck and concedes. My opponent then calls a judge. He says that Player A missed the trigger, then leaves "because I need to make a phonecall while we are waiting". The judge then gives Player A his second warning. Player B states that the game is over though, he conceded, does he need the warning? Unfortunately yes it does says the judge. My opponent returns just after the judge leaves, says "Sorry man, rule are rules."
Now I understand on an Azorious level he's right, and what the Judge did was correct. But good lord that level of ignorance, of social ineptitude drives me bonkers, because here we have a new player, excited about the game, nearly gets DQed because the player next to him sees a misplay of a missed trigger. I was watching the same game, player A lost when he was forced to counter the spell in the first place, you don't need to kick the kid after he just lost the game with a warning. No Judge was needed for that. Now if he was winning? You call a judge. But this new player conceded, THEN got a judge called on him. I doubt I'll be seeing player A at one of these events again, though I hope I do.
That added to my later misplay, meant I knew I was not going to be productive for the rest of the day in magic, so I dropped and enjoyed the night with some old college buddies of mine.
It's also possible we can swap the manabase to use Bloodstained Mire, Arid Mesa, Sacred Foundry, and Blood Crypt... but I had to test to see how often that life loss matters. I assume when we have opening hands with fetches we will be fetch-shock often because we have lots of cards to play.
Maybe I'm crazy for suggesting it, but I think we might be able to forgo shocks in this deck, and just fetch for basics backed up with Glimmervoid and Mox Opal:
Only black source is for IoK/Thoughtseize, the double white in case you have to hardcast Leyline. Everything else is fine, even with Blood Moon in play.
Additionally, since we're going Buried Ruin over Academy Ruins, I'd like to give some consideration to playing some number of Crucible of Worlds. It'd make the fetches a bit better as well as making Buried Ruin better, plus it turns GQ into a house...
I'm worried about the lack of Ancient Stirrings to find lock pieces. Codex Shredder and Ghoulcaller's Bell milling your burn spells blindly because you haven't naturally drawn a Lantern yet seems bad. Also Ensnaring Bridge is still pretty critical against larger creatures like Wurmcoil Engine and Primeval Titan no? I almost think the deck should be Naya colors or you should have access to Path to Exile.
There are not that many decks that play Wurmcoil or Titan. The chance we face up against that deck and don't have bridge is unlikely. Even then, we still have outs for getting rid of those creatures (Ghost Quarter helps against both those decks).
I like the idea of fetches and basics. You'll want at least one r/w and one b/r dual to fetch up. The trick with fetchs is it's likely we only have 2 lands to work with, and one may be colorless. So the other land has to support an array of colors. Hence why painlands work out cause most of the time we want colorless but rarely do we need exact mana.
Also just realized we have a stronger sideboard plan that I originally though. We can play Young Pyromancer and Pack Rats, siding out our lantern combo, and just go aggro. Most decks, and I mean all decks, will plan to disrupt our lantern combo but can not possibly expect an aggro deck. It's pretty extreme, even shifting to complete burn deck with goblin guides. I'll need to test a lot obviously.
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Unfortunately, yes it did happen that way and this is why knowing everything about Modern cards you might face is important kiddos.
I also went -3 Duress and +3 Thoughtseize in my deck. I'm very much liking it so far, now have to try to trade for three Thoughtseize on paper And, my singleton Noxious Revival is still pulling off miracles for me
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
The ER stands for "Expected Relevance". It's a relative number that shows how relevant it is when compared to a card, and the totals at the bottom sum those up to give an expected relevance of that card for a matchup. I multiply the number of copies that a card an opponent will run by the percentage of opponents that run that many cards and then by the core value of my card that I'm comparing. So, the more cards that my card will neutralize, the higher the ER number. The higher the number, the more useful that card is. That's why, for example, Ensnaring Bridge tends to score high. It's often the most relevant card to us winning a matchup. In my decklist section, you'll see "Pre-ER" and "Post-ER". Those spots multiply the number of copies of that card I run by the total ER value of the card, and I tweak those numbers to help determine what my maindeck and sideboard cards should be in a matchup for the best results.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I've been back and forth lately on Aether Grid or 2nd Spellbomb. Currently on 2nd Spellbomb for the 4th Opal. I want 4 Opals since I run Leyline as I feel it gives me the best odds of being able to cast one. If I ran Sun Droplets, I'd probably go with an 18th land (Ghost Quarter) over the 4th opal and a basic Swamp over the Tendo.
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
EDIT: The video. If only I hadn't misplayed game 2. That would have been an insane win!
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Round 1 (GWR anti GBx hatebears???)
g1 rushed down to fast / got blow out by an inquisition that had to hit a loxadon
g2 got the lock fast and eventually won
g3 torn apart slowly by multiple ancient grudges (think I should have mulled this hand)
=loss
Round 2 (BUG control)
g1 long game he eventually scooped when I milled his maelstrom pulse (last out)
g2 opened leyline but a pulse on it followed by hand disruption took me apart (should have conceded this faster could have saved 3-4 mins for game 3 as we were approaching time)
g3 had the lock and had kept him off blue mana allowing him to draw all blue cards but couldn't end before time.
=draw
Round 3 (Red Shred)
g1 burn out
g2 opened leyline into t3 bridge he scooped
g3 repeat of g2 he couldn't beat leyline bridge (had taken out artifact hate from side O_O)
=win
Round 4 (WhiteBlue Artifact Equipment combo???)
g1 had the lock stabilized at 1 life and stupidly (due i would like to assume tiredness) left thopters out the only thing that could atk under bridge against a deck ive never seen and greedly pyrite locked him down (and of course got comb'd out T_T)
g2 stabilized got the lock and won
g3 hit time with lock and loop set up and him at 4 but timed out T_T
=draw
end result 1-1-2
annoyed at some small misplays but glad to see more overall improvement
The reason why I say any sideboard guide is fine because you want to use those to just get a quick starting point for how/why to sideboard. After you are experienced with the deck (you can win a chunk of your matches), start to analyze the pieces that make up your deck. Typically I sideboard like this:
Quickly search through my SB for things I want to bring in and set them aside, this should take no more than 7-10 seconds. Then search through your deck for all of your non-core cards and bring them to the front of the stack of cards while you search. What I mean by this is to find the cards that don't HAVE to be in your deck. For example, as you search through your deck you leave Lanterns and Bridges and Ancient Stirrings and lands alone. You are sorting your deck, the good most-important pieces stay at the bottom and the not-so-good ones are brought to the top. With that quick list, we already left 4+4+4+17 (=29) cards at the bottom of our deck. That's a quick 30 cards we don't have to even think about while we sideboard.
Obviously, you'll leave more cards at the bottom like 3 mox opals, IoKs, 4 Shredders. Other cards like Spellskite may be real good and stay in the deck (infect) but somethings they are bad or too slow. The same is true of Abrupt Decay or Surgical. You can quickly identify these cards won't have that big of an impact against the deck you are sideboarding against. What I mean by this is to NOT identify "oh surgical is obviously bad against them, and same with Thoughtseize cause I lose life, so I should side those out." No, we are not sideboarding. We are finding cards that aren't the core and bringing them to the top. Once you've separated your deck into Core cards vs. Not-so-core cards, you can begin the actual sideboarding process.
The trick is to create a section of cards from your main deck that are situational, optional, not-core and set that chunk aside. You do the opposite with your actual sideboard (the first step we did that took 10sec), creating a chunk that are not-optional, must-have amazing sideboard cards. Then you swap in 1 card from your sideboard in exchange for the least effective card in your main deck. This process is a lot easier now that you see, as a whole chunk, the least effective cards in your deck. You can quickly/easily see which cards you don't want to be playing with for games 2 and 3, and toss them out.
If it is not obvious what sideboard cards you want to bring in, then don't bring them in. You dont have to side in cards at all. After you finish the match just review the cards you brought in from your 15 sideboard options against the ones you didn't bring in and see if some of those other ones would have helped. THIS is how you develop a sideboard plan overtime that fits your play style and overall game plan with your deck. For example, it may not have been obvious that you wanted Nature's Claim against Burn, and you didn't realize that the Thoughtseizes were actually bad to keep in for game 2/3. After the match you realize that Eidolon was a pain (and an enchantment), that claim could have gotten you four extra life, and that casting Thoughtseize sucked cause losing two life. Now you know for all future games against Burn how to better sideboard.
I've been sold on the idea that lantern needs black for discard, otherwise your opponents can just have the answers in their hand. But with charm you can cheat that. With blood moon from the board you get a better matchup against jund and scapeshift and bloom titan for sure.
Edit: also wouldn't we want Slagstorm over anger. It's more likely we can use it to burn for 3 than exiling creatures becomes relevant, right?
While I haven't tested it, I'm excited about this new concept. I think whats great is we don't have to abide by our earlier goal of Lantern which is "Stop them from doing anything ever again; delete their turns." That hardlock doesn't have to happen. We just have to buy time by killing creatures (lots of modern decks rely on dudes) and/or straight burn them out with efficient burn spells. Most people already have this understanding that Lantern doesn't care about life total. This gives us a huge edge because they will fetch-shock more against us than other decks.
My take on the new list:
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Codex Shredder
3 Ghoulcaller's Bell
3 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
3 Boros Charm
3 Slagstorm
2 Ghirapur Æther Grid
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Sulfurous Springs
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Buried Ruin
4 Blood Moon
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Thoughtseize
2 Wear // Tear
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Welding Jar
I don't think we need Spellskite anymore. We needed it before because if we lost bridge we die to creatures. However, now we have plenty of creature removal and charms to protect. Spellskite also helped against infect, bogles, burn somewhat, twin somewhat. Didn't make that big of an impact, but slowed down creatures in infect/bogles well. We can now more easily handle those.
Ghirapur Æther Grid might not be where we want to go, as the number of artifacts has dropped. I do really want to test it first as it is probably very important to stick one of this to have an ever-present source of 1-2 damage. This will close out games. Again, need to test.
It's also possible we can swap the manabase to use Bloodstained Mire, Arid Mesa, Sacred Foundry, and Blood Crypt... but I had to test to see how often that life loss matters. I assume when we have opening hands with fetches we will be fetch-shock often because we have lots of cards to play.
Analyze it against the current tier 1 and tier 2 decks:
That's a lot of creature decks. We get free wins with bridge obviously and are more likely to live longer with removal spells. The discard will help against the combo/control decks where we can simply lock them out with lantern. I'm expecting to close out games quick cause we have so much burn, so we don't have to worry about hard-lock against the bottom half of the decks. I expect we will be controlling our draw steps more than theirs in order to just burn burn burn. Again, this is a sweet concept, new angle of attack, and I'm extremely interested in testing it.
Modern
Esper Control
Emeria Titan
EDH
Child of Alara Lands.dec
Paradox Sisay
Legacy
LED Dredge
Dreadstill
Maybe I'm crazy for suggesting it, but I think we might be able to forgo shocks in this deck, and just fetch for basics backed up with Glimmervoid and Mox Opal:
-4 Blackcleave Cliffs
-3 Battlefield Forge
-2 Sulfurous Springs
+2 Arid Mesa
+2 Bloolstained Mire
+1 Swamp
+2 Plains
+2 Mountain
Only black source is for IoK/Thoughtseize, the double white in case you have to hardcast Leyline. Everything else is fine, even with Blood Moon in play.
My deck went all in on Red, with a maindeck of Bloodmoons.
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Codex Shredder
4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
Dig:
4 Faithless Looting
Removal:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Galvanic Blast
2 Bloodmoon
Utility:
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Welding Jar
Lands:
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4 Darksteel Citadel
8 Mountain
4 Pyroclasm
2 Blood Moon
I like be_Lakors idea! This could be a nice switch to have both types of decks in the field. It switches up how the deck is played, which then helps against metas that are very scary for top control. Boros Charm should be a 4 of in this type of build imo for the 4 damage + defense aspect of it.
Bump in the Night might be useful too btw.
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This might be late, but my games at Pittsburgh weren't all that useful imo to help understand where the weaknesses are.
tl;dr: Jund hurts. Don't misplay.
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Codex Shredder
3 Ghoulcaller's Bell
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
Creature:
3 Spellskite
Dig:
4 Ancient Stirrings
1 Infernal Tutor
Removal:
1 Dispatch
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Abrupt Decay
Discard:
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
Utility:
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Noxious Revival
2 Pithing Needle
1 Welding Jar
2 Academy Ruins
4 Glimmervoid
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Darkslick Shore
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2 Darksteel Citadel
1 Ghirapur Aether Gate
1 Slaughter Games
1 Extirpate
1 Negate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Hide // Seek
2 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pyroclasm
1 Spellskite
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Pithing Needle
Match 1: Jund
Game 1: I'm on the play, Turn 1 I Inquisition his hand. 3 Lightning Bolts. I quickly choose that and Surgical the rest before I pass my turn. 2 Turns later I do the same to Liliana of the Veil. I have an active lock, kept him from drawing any creatures that I couldn't kill, and the only thing I'm missing is a bridge. All Bridges and Pithing Needles were in my bottom 12 cards. I died to a Turn 1 Raging Ravine.
Game 2: Pithing Needle on Liliana, Extirpate on Ancient Grudge. I Locked with Multiple Bridges, but no Lantern. Won by Recuring Extirpate with Codex and Academy Ruins.
Game 3: Back and Forth fights for creatures on the board, no bridge or Needles to be found. Died to Raging Ravine.
Match 2: Aura Bogles
Game 1: He had the game won, but misplayed. I had to tap out to play Bridge and hope that my on the board Spellskite, which was locked out from Suppression field, stopped him from going for the kill turn 4. If bridge didnt land, he had be dead just by swinging with the team. Luckily for me, he played defensively vs Spellskite, and I locked him out.
Game 2: I Played a Turn 1 Spellskite, and a Turn 2 Bridge, followed by drawing a bridge, and then drawing a Bridge. He conceded on my Pithing needle choosing Seal of Primordium
Match 3: Infect
Game 1: I quickly had a bridge lock, but he had 2 Spellskites. He also had the mana to pump up spellskite +10/+10, with my life at 14. It was closer than it looked, but I came out on top.
Game 2: He quickly got me to 3 Poison until I pithing needled his Inkmoth Nexus, after that I bridge locked him and Pyrite Spellbombed him down.
Match 4: Kiln Fiend All In
Game 1: I kept a sketchy hand. Spellskite, Ancient Stirrings, Mox Opal, Darksteel Citadel, Dispatch, Ensnaring Bridge, and Inquisition of Kozilek. I needed a land OR a 1 Mana artifact. Instead I drew a bridge, an Ancient Stirrings, and a Mox Opal. Meanwhile, my opponent mulliganed to 5, hit me with Kiln Fiend turn 3 at 18 damage, and promptly killed me the next turn. I still feel that hand is easily keepable, I just got hosed.
Game 2: Circle of Protection: Red kept every single creature in this Izzet deck from doing damage. It was a long game, but eventually I pyrite spellbombed him. I had 1 hiccup where I forgot to Recur Spellbomb, but it only took about 15 seconds off the clock.
Game 3: We started with 10 to 12 minutes to go, I had Bridge and Circle of Protection Red in hand. After turn 2, I have a 2 millrock lock on him. We both know he wasn't going to win, but I do feel he was correct in not conceding. With 3 minutes to go he was at 14 life, and I was pyrite spellbombing him. Doing every action that it takes to complete the recur draw damage pass, I knew this was going to be close. He Draws, looks, pass. Rinse and repeat. The timer sounds just as I pass to him and he draws, with his life being at 4 life. Whew.
(I also want to say this dude was a great sport about it, because he could have easily slow played in the legal grey area and had the game as a draw. Shook my hand afterwards too)
Match 5: Jund
Game 1: He blasts my Spellskite, Welding Jar, and Bridge defense, and Tarmogoyf rolls over me. I did have a 1 mill rock lock at the time.
Game 2: He missed his land drop turn 2. I mill the land on top. Turn 4 I Inquisition, see a hand of NOPE full of Abrupt Decay, Ancient Grudge, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana. I spend the rest of the game milling every land he could get. I Extirpate his Anciet Grudge when he discards it, though his 1 land only produces black red.
Game 3: He pretty much had the same hand, only no creatures. He uses Raging Ravine to beat me down. I did have a pithing needle on it, but multiple destruction spells are nasty.
Match 6: Ad Nauseum
Game 1: Obvious Ad Nauseum, so I'm digging hard for a Pithing Needle with my active lock. Last turn of when it will matter, as his Lotus Bloom will give him enough mana, I Ancient Stirrings to only see a Pyrite Spellbomb. I cast it, and with 2 mana up I pass the Turn. I then look at the top card I have revealed, and its Pithing Needle. He combos out. I lose.
Game 2: I have Leyline, which turns out is not good vs Ad Nauseum. He Combos out, casting Patrician's Scorn before hitting me in the face.
I dropped after that game.
So before Game 6 I tilted hard. I shouldn't have, and it lost me the match. To explain though, before the game gets started, this guy bumbles in 3 minutes late. Annoying, but not really an issue. Talking to him he's obviously one of the annoying PTQ Grinders, whatever these types are everywhere. Then we get deck checked. Turns out, the tournament lost my deck list, which delayed the game for 15 minutes, and allowed me to get to chat with this opponent. He spends most of it trying to figure out what my deck is, but I'm not budging.
However, he accidentally hit a pet peeve of mine. Looking at the game next to us, he notices a missed trigger. Player A is facing Player B. Player A, new guy who is a little unfamiliar with his deck, pays for Pact of Negation with the last counter of Gemstone Mine. Does not Sac it, looks at the top card of his deck and concedes. My opponent then calls a judge. He says that Player A missed the trigger, then leaves "because I need to make a phonecall while we are waiting". The judge then gives Player A his second warning. Player B states that the game is over though, he conceded, does he need the warning? Unfortunately yes it does says the judge. My opponent returns just after the judge leaves, says "Sorry man, rule are rules."
Now I understand on an Azorious level he's right, and what the Judge did was correct. But good lord that level of ignorance, of social ineptitude drives me bonkers, because here we have a new player, excited about the game, nearly gets DQed because the player next to him sees a misplay of a missed trigger. I was watching the same game, player A lost when he was forced to counter the spell in the first place, you don't need to kick the kid after he just lost the game with a warning. No Judge was needed for that. Now if he was winning? You call a judge. But this new player conceded, THEN got a judge called on him. I doubt I'll be seeing player A at one of these events again, though I hope I do.
That added to my later misplay, meant I knew I was not going to be productive for the rest of the day in magic, so I dropped and enjoyed the night with some old college buddies of mine.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage
Additionally, since we're going Buried Ruin over Academy Ruins, I'd like to give some consideration to playing some number of Crucible of Worlds. It'd make the fetches a bit better as well as making Buried Ruin better, plus it turns GQ into a house...
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
I like the idea of fetches and basics. You'll want at least one r/w and one b/r dual to fetch up. The trick with fetchs is it's likely we only have 2 lands to work with, and one may be colorless. So the other land has to support an array of colors. Hence why painlands work out cause most of the time we want colorless but rarely do we need exact mana.
Also just realized we have a stronger sideboard plan that I originally though. We can play Young Pyromancer and Pack Rats, siding out our lantern combo, and just go aggro. Most decks, and I mean all decks, will plan to disrupt our lantern combo but can not possibly expect an aggro deck. It's pretty extreme, even shifting to complete burn deck with goblin guides. I'll need to test a lot obviously.