Boil is great in that it can be cast EOT. A t4 double stone rain will normally fish out a counter because its not wise to let it resolve early because loss of mana makes Snappy worse. This countering allows something more damaging to resolve on our next turn if we have it and the Boil in hand. If you want to leave them manaless and crying it is not the boy for us, but the UR-X decks get remarkably choked up if you interfere a bit with their mana and graveyard. The turns that win them games are the cryptic/remand turns that lead into snapcaster/cryptic. Big turns that can be stopped by a bit of landkill. Choke their mana a little, hit the graveyard with cards like RIP, and suddenly their value engines are gone. In short playing Boils won't hose them, but it can catch them out and will sometimes do enough to help other stuff get through.
If you actually want a "sod you I win card" and you are enchantment heavy, preferably running suppression field or planeswalkers then Obliterate is disgusting. Uncounterable, leaves nothing but PWs and Enchantments. Its not stellar in most RW Prisons unless you are close to Pillow Fort using Sphere of Safety. I have used it a lot in RW Pillowfort, and it just ends games against UR-x. Sadly its rare even an enchantment heavy lockdown deck can justify more than a single copy, as its very narrow and those types of decks need a lot of cards against certain other strategies. But it is worth baring in mind- 90% of UR-X players know that if the game goes on they win, they also know that getting ahead on mana gets the value train going. Typically those decks run 14 "real and coloured" lands and a bunch of fetches and utility lands. The pilotss will throw land down and if you get to a late game the card can just come down and leave them totally knackered.
There are no real "hosers" for the UR-X decks other than those options, matches get won when we draw cards and keep up and lay a wincon that lasts more than a couple of turns. You could try a cheeky Banefire type card, but often it is not enough.
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
2 Lightning Helix
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Stormbreath Dragon
I would definately recommend people trying this deck-archetype out, cuz it's both fun and really good in the actual meta.
First match was against Coco-Company, they had no chance as they both run a greedy mana base, and anger of the gods take care of pretty much every dude they play...
Second was vs a Mardu-control brew. They had me with a few discard spells, but played too many dead cards (removal) and their tokens from lingering souls did pretty much nothing against Magus and Ghostly prison. One time they had a Liliana at 6, and I had 2 suppression fields out, so they couldn't both play a spell and activate her... I just waited a few turns, playing nothing (to keep my hand intact with her going +1 each turn) until I got a Goblind Dark-Dweller and turned the fight (had 2 Boom/Bust in the grave so...). With no mana on board, they couldn't activate her, or do anything about my goblin, so it was just a few turns before they were dead.
Third up was Burn. Straight, ordinary naya burn. They were on the play but I held a hand with Chalice, so I got a few spells from them before turning the tide of battle with lots of land destruction and a lightning helix played twice (one from hand, one from graveyard). Match 2 they had a great start, killing me on turn 3. Match 3 I got both Leyline and Chalice on hand, so it was pretty much game at that point, and they never drew their enchantment-removal.
Fourth I met the Death & Taxes deck in modern. Pretty much a heatbear-deck with some eldrazi elements going. This was a hard matchup, both because of Thalia (making pretty much every card in my deck worthless) but also because how much discard and card-steal they had... At last matchm in time I turned the tide with Bust, with them having a Bitterblossom in game (I guess from sideboard vs control?) ticking them at 1 each turn. With two ghostly in play, they could just sit there wait for 4 new lands to attack with one of their tokens each turn... but forntunately for me, that took too long for them.
Last, fifth match me and my opponent never played, we just drawed into the top 8.
And in the quarterfinals I met Elves! I hate that deck as they rarely care about their lands except for the few first turns, as they have lots of mana-givers. Unfortunately for them, I play Anger and pretty much kill everything they play. Tabernacle did do some stuff, but their Druid-lord that taps for 1 green for each elf did the trick, so they rarely had any problems with keeping their dudes on board. That is, until I killed that sucker. Therefrom i turned the tide in my favour, beating them slowly to death with my magus and destroying their lands.
Semifinals... Dredge. The new modern-beast back again, with new engines... I knew it was played, but I couldn't play RiP because of my Flagstones and Goblins, so I had to make a call... I made the wrong choice, as I picked Tormod's, which pretty much does nothing except buying you a turn against dredge. So I got owned by a few large Trolls, and a flashbacked Conflagrate on 11. Though, I learned a lesson... I'm now changing my 2 Tormod's to 2 Sun och Wheel and Moon (just need to buy 2) as they shut down all my opponents stuff, and I get to play Goblins and Flagstones as usual. Also looking for another Linvala, as it completely shuts down lots of good creatures in the meta, and It's another wincon in my not so win-con heavy decklist.
How did Blessed Alliance help you in sideboard matchups, against burn and not against it? Was it better than Kor Firewalker for you or did you feel like it did more work in general?
It helped alot. I tried it because of my bad matchup vs Infect, and I prefer not to target their creatures (Vines of Vastwood is often a 4-of in their deck) and sometimes it can be cast with several effects in the midrange matchup. Burn is pretty much an easy matchup with just the mainboard... That's why i didn't have room for the Firewalker (as I think Leyline is a better card, to protect vs discard as well as burn).
How is the match versus Jund? Because abrupt decay and maelstrom pulse, is destoyer with the supression field and Ghostly prision.
How sideboarding vs Jund?,What card is the best vs Jund,Junk,....?
Dunno really... I know they play Abrupt and It's a good card vs both our Supression Field and Ghostly, yet I found that they get a hard time fetching for their mana and get what they need. I would say that Leyline is really good in that matchup, but Celestial Purge is also really sweet!
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
2 Lightning Helix
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Stormbreath Dragon
I would definately recommend people trying this deck-archetype out, cuz it's both fun and really good in the actual meta.
First match was against Coco-Company, they had no chance as they both run a greedy mana base, and anger of the gods take care of pretty much every dude they play...
Second was vs a Mardu-control brew. They had me with a few discard spells, but played too many dead cards (removal) and their tokens from lingering souls did pretty much nothing against Magus and Ghostly prison. One time they had a Liliana at 6, and I had 2 suppression fields out, so they couldn't both play a spell and activate her... I just waited a few turns, playing nothing (to keep my hand intact with her going +1 each turn) until I got a Goblind Dark-Dweller and turned the fight (had 2 Boom/Bust in the grave so...). With no mana on board, they couldn't activate her, or do anything about my goblin, so it was just a few turns before they were dead.
Third up was Burn. Straight, ordinary naya burn. They were on the play but I held a hand with Chalice, so I got a few spells from them before turning the tide of battle with lots of land destruction and a lightning helix played twice (one from hand, one from graveyard). Match 2 they had a great start, killing me on turn 3. Match 3 I got both Leyline and Chalice on hand, so it was pretty much game at that point, and they never drew their enchantment-removal.
Fourth I met the Death & Taxes deck in modern. Pretty much a heatbear-deck with some eldrazi elements going. This was a hard matchup, both because of Thalia (making pretty much every card in my deck worthless) but also because how much discard and card-steal they had... At last matchm in time I turned the tide with Bust, with them having a Bitterblossom in game (I guess from sideboard vs control?) ticking them at 1 each turn. With two ghostly in play, they could just sit there wait for 4 new lands to attack with one of their tokens each turn... but forntunately for me, that took too long for them.
Last, fifth match me and my opponent never played, we just drawed into the top 8.
And in the quarterfinals I met Elves! I hate that deck as they rarely care about their lands except for the few first turns, as they have lots of mana-givers. Unfortunately for them, I play Anger and pretty much kill everything they play. Tabernacle did do some stuff, but their Druid-lord that taps for 1 green for each elf did the trick, so they rarely had any problems with keeping their dudes on board. That is, until I killed that sucker. Therefrom i turned the tide in my favour, beating them slowly to death with my magus and destroying their lands.
Semifinals... Dredge. The new modern-beast back again, with new engines... I knew it was played, but I couldn't play RiP because of my Flagstones and Goblins, so I had to make a call... I made the wrong choice, as I picked Tormod's, which pretty much does nothing except buying you a turn against dredge. So I got owned by a few large Trolls, and a flashbacked Conflagrate on 11. Though, I learned a lesson... I'm now changing my 2 Tormod's to 2 Sun och Wheel and Moon (just need to buy 2) as they shut down all my opponents stuff, and I get to play Goblins and Flagstones as usual. Also looking for another Linvala, as it completely shuts down lots of good creatures in the meta, and It's another wincon in my not so win-con heavy decklist.
Similar to my list, similar results too- well done. Dredge is not so bad for us, Ghostly Prison, Magus and landkill hurt them. Leyline hits the Conflagrate post board. I always like 4 in the board. I don't run Anger OTG, so Elves is hard for me game one, I find Livala is a beast in that match. Tormod's is terrible, Relic is better, Grafdigger's and Wheel are better, as is playing the nonbo with RIP/Flagstones and just living with it and taking out the Crucible.
I use Blessed Alliance in White-X pillow fort, it is a great card, very flexible, but for landkill I prefer Oust.
Yeah, I was pretty much inspired to change much to what you tried in a similiar build, and it worked pretty good!
I had problems with Dredge as they are insanely fast sometimes... combined with Conflagrate and it was game :/ I've been getting 2 Wheel now, it doesn't shut off my Flagstones, and the Dark-Dweller combo still works, so I'm pretty sure it's the best grave-hate we can include in the 75.
How are you faring vs Nahiri Control? Just lost a match vs that deck today... not because Nahiri threw out Emrakul fast (suppression field goes a long way both against fetches and planeswalkers) but because of the immense amount of counterspells. I couldn't resolve a single spell in like 5-6 turns after the first match which I won. And when nothing on my side gets resolved, they keep hitting lands and eventually can both drop a relevant play and keep mana to counter my next spell.
Not sure I agree on Oust at all... mostly because I always see them damn Vines, protecting their only attacker, and as you said; it's really flexible to sometimes untap a blocker or gain some life.
So, new Chandra seems ok... Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Pretty sure some number of this card will be making its way into my list. I ran a couple of Pyromasters at one point to decent success and this seems like a strict upgrade to me. Card does it all: repeated CA/shocks on a plus ability, ramp (turn 4 Chandra into turn 5 Elspeth? Or turn 4 Elspeth if you SSG into Chandra on turn 3!), kill x/4 creatures, and an emblem that can potentially win you the game should your other win cons fail to get there. This is gross.
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
2 Lightning Helix
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Stormbreath Dragon
I would definately recommend people trying this deck-archetype out, cuz it's both fun and really good in the actual meta.
First match was against Coco-Company, they had no chance as they both run a greedy mana base, and anger of the gods take care of pretty much every dude they play...
Second was vs a Mardu-control brew. They had me with a few discard spells, but played too many dead cards (removal) and their tokens from lingering souls did pretty much nothing against Magus and Ghostly prison. One time they had a Liliana at 6, and I had 2 suppression fields out, so they couldn't both play a spell and activate her... I just waited a few turns, playing nothing (to keep my hand intact with her going +1 each turn) until I got a Goblind Dark-Dweller and turned the fight (had 2 Boom/Bust in the grave so...). With no mana on board, they couldn't activate her, or do anything about my goblin, so it was just a few turns before they were dead.
Third up was Burn. Straight, ordinary naya burn. They were on the play but I held a hand with Chalice, so I got a few spells from them before turning the tide of battle with lots of land destruction and a lightning helix played twice (one from hand, one from graveyard). Match 2 they had a great start, killing me on turn 3. Match 3 I got both Leyline and Chalice on hand, so it was pretty much game at that point, and they never drew their enchantment-removal.
Fourth I met the Death & Taxes deck in modern. Pretty much a heatbear-deck with some eldrazi elements going. This was a hard matchup, both because of Thalia (making pretty much every card in my deck worthless) but also because how much discard and card-steal they had... At last matchm in time I turned the tide with Bust, with them having a Bitterblossom in game (I guess from sideboard vs control?) ticking them at 1 each turn. With two ghostly in play, they could just sit there wait for 4 new lands to attack with one of their tokens each turn... but forntunately for me, that took too long for them.
Last, fifth match me and my opponent never played, we just drawed into the top 8.
And in the quarterfinals I met Elves! I hate that deck as they rarely care about their lands except for the few first turns, as they have lots of mana-givers. Unfortunately for them, I play Anger and pretty much kill everything they play. Tabernacle did do some stuff, but their Druid-lord that taps for 1 green for each elf did the trick, so they rarely had any problems with keeping their dudes on board. That is, until I killed that sucker. Therefrom i turned the tide in my favour, beating them slowly to death with my magus and destroying their lands.
Semifinals... Dredge. The new modern-beast back again, with new engines... I knew it was played, but I couldn't play RiP because of my Flagstones and Goblins, so I had to make a call... I made the wrong choice, as I picked Tormod's, which pretty much does nothing except buying you a turn against dredge. So I got owned by a few large Trolls, and a flashbacked Conflagrate on 11. Though, I learned a lesson... I'm now changing my 2 Tormod's to 2 Sun och Wheel and Moon (just need to buy 2) as they shut down all my opponents stuff, and I get to play Goblins and Flagstones as usual. Also looking for another Linvala, as it completely shuts down lots of good creatures in the meta, and It's another wincon in my not so win-con heavy decklist.
How did Blessed Alliance help you in sideboard matchups, against burn and not against it? Was it better than Kor Firewalker for you or did you feel like it did more work in general?
It helped alot. I tried it because of my bad matchup vs Infect, and I prefer not to target their creatures (Vines of Vastwood is often a 4-of in their deck) and sometimes it can be cast with several effects in the midrange matchup. Burn is pretty much an easy matchup with just the mainboard... That's why i didn't have room for the Firewalker (as I think Leyline is a better card, to protect vs discard as well as burn).
How is the match versus Jund? Because abrupt decay and maelstrom pulse, is destoyer with the supression field and Ghostly prision.
How sideboarding vs Jund?,What card is the best vs Jund,Junk,....?
Dunno really... I know they play Abrupt and It's a good card vs both our Supression Field and Ghostly, yet I found that they get a hard time fetching for their mana and get what they need. I would say that Leyline is really good in that matchup, but Celestial Purge is also really sweet!
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
2 Lightning Helix
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Stormbreath Dragon
I would definately recommend people trying this deck-archetype out, cuz it's both fun and really good in the actual meta.
First match was against Coco-Company, they had no chance as they both run a greedy mana base, and anger of the gods take care of pretty much every dude they play...
Second was vs a Mardu-control brew. They had me with a few discard spells, but played too many dead cards (removal) and their tokens from lingering souls did pretty much nothing against Magus and Ghostly prison. One time they had a Liliana at 6, and I had 2 suppression fields out, so they couldn't both play a spell and activate her... I just waited a few turns, playing nothing (to keep my hand intact with her going +1 each turn) until I got a Goblind Dark-Dweller and turned the fight (had 2 Boom/Bust in the grave so...). With no mana on board, they couldn't activate her, or do anything about my goblin, so it was just a few turns before they were dead.
Third up was Burn. Straight, ordinary naya burn. They were on the play but I held a hand with Chalice, so I got a few spells from them before turning the tide of battle with lots of land destruction and a lightning helix played twice (one from hand, one from graveyard). Match 2 they had a great start, killing me on turn 3. Match 3 I got both Leyline and Chalice on hand, so it was pretty much game at that point, and they never drew their enchantment-removal.
Fourth I met the Death & Taxes deck in modern. Pretty much a heatbear-deck with some eldrazi elements going. This was a hard matchup, both because of Thalia (making pretty much every card in my deck worthless) but also because how much discard and card-steal they had... At last matchm in time I turned the tide with Bust, with them having a Bitterblossom in game (I guess from sideboard vs control?) ticking them at 1 each turn. With two ghostly in play, they could just sit there wait for 4 new lands to attack with one of their tokens each turn... but forntunately for me, that took too long for them.
Last, fifth match me and my opponent never played, we just drawed into the top 8.
And in the quarterfinals I met Elves! I hate that deck as they rarely care about their lands except for the few first turns, as they have lots of mana-givers. Unfortunately for them, I play Anger and pretty much kill everything they play. Tabernacle did do some stuff, but their Druid-lord that taps for 1 green for each elf did the trick, so they rarely had any problems with keeping their dudes on board. That is, until I killed that sucker. Therefrom i turned the tide in my favour, beating them slowly to death with my magus and destroying their lands.
Semifinals... Dredge. The new modern-beast back again, with new engines... I knew it was played, but I couldn't play RiP because of my Flagstones and Goblins, so I had to make a call... I made the wrong choice, as I picked Tormod's, which pretty much does nothing except buying you a turn against dredge. So I got owned by a few large Trolls, and a flashbacked Conflagrate on 11. Though, I learned a lesson... I'm now changing my 2 Tormod's to 2 Sun och Wheel and Moon (just need to buy 2) as they shut down all my opponents stuff, and I get to play Goblins and Flagstones as usual. Also looking for another Linvala, as it completely shuts down lots of good creatures in the meta, and It's another wincon in my not so win-con heavy decklist.
Similar to my list, similar results too- well done. Dredge is not so bad for us, Ghostly Prison, Magus and landkill hurt them. Leyline hits the Conflagrate post board. I always like 4 in the board. I don't run Anger OTG, so Elves is hard for me game one, I find Livala is a beast in that match. Tormod's is terrible, Relic is better, Grafdigger's and Wheel are better, as is playing the nonbo with RIP/Flagstones and just living with it and taking out the Crucible.
I use Blessed Alliance in White-X pillow fort, it is a great card, very flexible, but for landkill I prefer Oust.
Yeah, I was pretty much inspired to change much to what you tried in a similiar build, and it worked pretty good!
I had problems with Dredge as they are insanely fast sometimes... combined with Conflagrate and it was game :/ I've been getting 2 Wheel now, it doesn't shut off my Flagstones, and the Dark-Dweller combo still works, so I'm pretty sure it's the best grave-hate we can include in the 75.
How are you faring vs Nahiri Control? Just lost a match vs that deck today... not because Nahiri threw out Emrakul fast (suppression field goes a long way both against fetches and planeswalkers) but because of the immense amount of counterspells. I couldn't resolve a single spell in like 5-6 turns after the first match which I won. And when nothing on my side gets resolved, they keep hitting lands and eventually can both drop a relevant play and keep mana to counter my next spell.
Not sure I agree on Oust at all... mostly because I always see them damn Vines, protecting their only attacker, and as you said; it's really flexible to sometimes untap a blocker or gain some life.
In Landkill I find it is all about resolving an early Chalice, S Field or Boom/Bust. Being on the play really counts for a lot. They do not run that many counters, but they run enough to go no, no and no, by which time we get screwed. Sometimes we get a sf down or landkill spell off and they go "yes, no, oh damn I am one mana short, bugger".
Incidentally if you play RW Bridge Control then Nahiri can't hit the bridge, and Leyline is main deck and you can use Rest in Peace main deck, and the whole match is totally different again.
Oust is good because it costs one and does not deal damage so can't be beaten with pump or boarded Wild Defiances. I am happy to use it on their mana dorks- every time- and rely on Chalice/Ghostly/Halo/Sfield effects to deal with their dude- its really just another kill spell that costs one and does not give them a land like Path. It rocks against Death's Shadow and generally fits in with our plan against both decks. A Fog works ok in the slot, one or two cc like Dawn Charm. I had a board card slot reserved for those matchups and it did well in both. I would also point out Blessed Alliance is very good too, if they do not know you have it. Even if they do it switches off the +1+1 trigger from Noble as they have to attack with both in order to protect it. Again it is multi purpose. One issue here is that they can sometimes just hit the Spell Pierce and Nature's Claim effect to stop our hate and beat us. It happens, but generally if we can deal with the first dude a Ghostly and S Field or Chalice leaves us normally alive and on 5/6/7/8 poison, ready to take control.
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Agree with all the points above. Generally most 4cc PWs can slip into a RW shell, the key is not getting conflicts and maximising synergy.
The new one feels like a value engine, and is adequately costed all round.
Lots of possibilities, as said above. Generally RW shells here have what they need to do well and get new toys. If only Pillow Fort (enchantment based decks) got as much love.
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Step 1: choose a win-con that isn't particularly vulnerable to counterspells and doesn't have too much conflict with Chandra's first ability.
Step 2: figure out what you're going to do about tarmagoyfs, tron, and combo decks
Step 3: devote the rest of your deck to defeating aggro (prison, bridge, etc...)
Chandra neatly sidesteps some of my biggest complaints about the bridge and prison builds by not only providing possible card advantage but also dealing damage directly to your opponent. Think about shocking your opponent to death. I'm okay with that. If she gets her emblem out then it's GG.
As Matthew Mcconaughey would say... "Alright alright alright!"
I have been sitting on the shell of a deck idea for a few months. I originally attempted to build it around Nahiri but it was simply too nonbo to make it work. Key concepts are Eternal Scourge and maindeck Relic of Progenitus. This is about "breaking" Eternal Scourge, and in my opinion RW control already does some of the things that are necessary to make Eternal Scourge work. Relic of Progenitus also has a nice - uh - common cause I guess you could say.
The key difference between Nahiri and the new Chandra is in what happens to the "extra" card in their cycling ability. Whereas Nahiri puts it in the graveyard, Chandra exiles. It's a minor difference in wording but it makes a big difference in how it plays together with Eternal Scourge.
But let's talk about the new Chandra first. Her first ability is the juice. I will borrow DrMark's analogy between Planeswalkers and Enchantments.(check the primer kiddos) Compare her to Assemble the Legion. One turn quicker to hit the board. She starts pinging with Shocks immediately, and by the fourth turn on the board she should have pinged your opponent 3 times and then granted an emblem that turns every Lightning Bolt into 8 damage to the face. That's 6 damage and the emblem by turn 7. Assemble the Legion hits the board on turn 5, deals 1 damage on turn 6 and two more damage on turn 7. That's 3 damage by turn 7.
Of course there's a lot more that we could say about the differences between the cards, but I think that I've already made a pretty reasonable case to show that Chandra can replace Assemble the Legion as a potential win-con. The argument becomes more compelling when you realize that she is ALSO granting us card advantage if we want it. Now of course we can't get the Shock effect AND the card, but it's our choice to make. Can Outpost Siege switch modes all of a sudden and start casting Shock? No.
And this is just her first ability alone. If Chandra was a 4 cmc enchantment that granted the first ability every round, you'd have to at least give it some consideration. The fact is - Chandra can single-handedly replace a bunch of cards in our deck. She's the win-con, the card draw, and the general problem solver. I still think that Nahiri is more powerful in a vacuum if I'm being perfectly honest, but Nahiri was nonbo with so many of the things that we do. Chandra on the other hand is not nonbo. Chandra is combo.
Here is an incomplete shell. The fun part will be figuring out what we need to add to get the deck completed.
That leaves 13 slots. My top candidates to fill out the rest of the deck are most of the usual suspects. One simple way to improve our matchup against Tron and other Land-based strategies is to run 3-4 Blood Moon plus 3-4 Ghost Quarter. Of course Ghost Quarters are nonbo with Blood Moon on the board, but if Blood Moon is active then the Ghost Quarters make excellent mountains. Win-win.
I think creature sweepers are important, and I'm leaning toward Anger of the Gods and Wrath of God for that because I want to have the exile effect. Ajani is also a very good fit within the concept, and can do some real work for us. I have never liked him as the primary focus of a deck but he's wonderful 'partner' Planeswalker.
I've playtested a few times already and it plays well. It's refreshingly straight-forward compared to many of the other builds I've put forth. You play it kinda similarly to a Rock deck. When a threat pops up you smash it. Keep smashing threats until you can cast a Planeswalker or an Eternal Scourge.
The mana works pretty well if you keep the focus on low CMC direct damage spells.
If your opponent is using their Graveyard a lot, you use the Relic of Progenitus to make their deck misfire.
If your opponent has tons of removal and/or counterspells, you have Eternal Scourge.
If your opponent has infect, you take your loss like a man. (Just kidding, hope your removal gets the job done)
If you decide to use Blood Moon, then you're going to get the customary free wins from that. I'm probably missing a major archetype or two as I post this so let me know what I missed and I'll work on it.
This is an "all of the above" moment. Scourge works just fine in the early game as an on-the curve blocker, then afterwards adds a bit of extension to your lightning bolts as it allows you to kill an up to 6 toughness creature in a blocking exchange.
Then it sits there waiting for another go-round. The longer the game goes, the more work you'll get from it. Of course RW control is really good at making games go long. You'll find that at a certain point in the game it can almost single-handedly negate an opponents card draw advantage. Even if they draw two PtE per turn, you can make them burn it all.
It's not a great way to negate a creature advantage, but it can help you with that. Every turn it buys gets you closer to drawing your other answers.
And if (when) you exhaust your opponents resources, it provides inevitability.
The decks that my proposal are least equipped to handle are the fast aggro and combo decks, but that doesn't mean it can't deal. That's what the 13 flexible slots are there for, and the sideboard should cover most of the rest.
In Landkill I find it is all about resolving an early Chalice, S Field or Boom/Bust. Being on the play really counts for a lot. They do not run that many counters, but they run enough to go no, no and no, by which time we get screwed. Sometimes we get a sf down or landkill spell off and they go "yes, no, oh damn I am one mana short, bugger".
Incidentally if you play RW Bridge Control then Nahiri can't hit the bridge, and Leyline is main deck and you can use Rest in Peace main deck, and the whole match is totally different again.
Oust is good because it costs one and does not deal damage so can't be beaten with pump or boarded Wild Defiances. I am happy to use it on their mana dorks- every time- and rely on Chalice/Ghostly/Halo/Sfield effects to deal with their dude- its really just another kill spell that costs one and does not give them a land like Path. It rocks against Death's Shadow and generally fits in with our plan against both decks. A Fog works ok in the slot, one or two cc like Dawn Charm. I had a board card slot reserved for those matchups and it did well in both. I would also point out Blessed Alliance is very good too, if they do not know you have it. Even if they do it switches off the +1+1 trigger from Noble as they have to attack with both in order to protect it. Again it is multi purpose. One issue here is that they can sometimes just hit the Spell Pierce and Nature's Claim effect to stop our hate and beat us. It happens, but generally if we can deal with the first dude a Ghostly and S Field or Chalice leaves us normally alive and on 5/6/7/8 poison, ready to take control.
I'm having two boardslots in my current list that I'm unsure of. Sometimes I feel I'm having a bit too few wincons, and thinking about adding maybe 2 Restoration Angels (they can save Dark-Dwellers and make them trigger their ETB another time) or just have 2 Stormbreath Dragons as they are really fast and hard to handle for many decks
What do you think drmarkb? This is the current list I'm trying out at the moment:
CREATURES (7)
3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
ENCHANTMENTS (8)
4 Suppression Field
4 Ghostly Prison
SORCERIES (15)
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
INSTANTS (2)
2 Lightning Helix
ARTIFACTS (4)
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Stony Silence
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Celestial Purge
1 Pyroclasm
2 Restoration Angel//Stormbreath Dragon (Or any other wincon-card vs control and slow matchups)
Looks good, I would add a Linvala sideboard if you expect Elves and Melira, the elf match is very hard without them, even with Anger, I would probably over a C Purge. I think Anger @ 3 is perhaps a bit much, many aggro decks seem to pack Mutagenics, I would consider Blessed Alliance main over one of them, its very flexible. I would also add a Runed Halo to the 75, that kind of flexibility is vital, and take Stony to 3 minimum- you only need to see Darksteel Citadel so many times before you realise how reliant we are on borfd cards v affinity. Some critters are fine, Resto is better if you run Rider's main, I think Stormbreath is a strong option in the right meta.
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You probably should cut two Megalith or a fetch and a Meglith for two Temple. Temple is one of the very best things the deck can do- those Scry 1s are superb in those early plays.
Remember Blood Moon won't always be down, when it is you opponent should be in trouble, otherwise don't lay it. Megalith is great vs certain decks, but two is over the top.
Getting to 4 mana by t4 is essential against UR-x, scry helps it.
You need Rest in Peace main deck for UR-X- those Snappies alone give such value. RIP stops them.
Almost no decks in the format have zero graveyard manipulation or effects- anything with Snappy, Goyf, Modular, Persist, Scooze, Lingering S, the few decks in the format that have
RIP stops their Snappy into remand from the bin turns that basically set them up to win- when their two Cryptics and 2cc/1cc spells can be cast just once you start to get stuff through.
Playing 4 Leyline goes a long way in the match too- because one of the best ways to beat that deck is to get Ajani down and Leyline stops direct damage spells targetting you and redirecting to her. One of their best ways to win is to the head- Snappy beats rarely do it. Those Electrolyses don't do much with it down either. Grixis' K commands look pretty rubbish with RIP/Leylines too. The actual bin decks, Pyromancer, Living End, Grishoalbrand, Dredge, Loam Pox are obviously decks that hate it as well.
Dangerous Wager is awful in the early game- I would avoid.
Crucible is good in that Nahiri can't exile it and GQ can repeatedly activate to nerf Tron, but it is obviously much, much better in landkill lockdown decks that also run Mindcensor. I would rather run RIP main and dump crucible.
Magus won't do much for you- no Suppression Field or landkill makes it sub-optimal. If you ran a couple of Ghostly Prisons it would make a little more sense.
Magma jet is decent at filtering early.
Storm should be easy wit 4 Leyline main. A Ghostly main helps too, and RIP is obviously good too-consider them main. Stick a Rule of Law/Eidolon effect in and you are golden.
Runed halo can act as a card that is part leyline or part removable removal depending on circumstances.
Worth considering - I use two-four depending on which version of RW lockdown you are talking about.
We don't beat tron by recurring GQ - if you play dedicated landkill decks that works well enough at locking them. But without that it is not possible to lock them- partially they use Loam from the board or their own crucible game 2 if they sniff landkill G1. Crumble to dust is more effective at nerfing their Tron aspirations permanently. With tron you can nerf the odd land but even vs. landkill decks they get a big play off more often than not. RIP is half-decent against tron anyway- 4 of their cards draw when it hit the bin, wurmcoil needs to be binned to get extra value, although without wrath around that is sort of moot. Blood Moon will eventually be ruined by Tron, but you can win in the mean time.
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This thread has a problem that most of the other primers do not have, in that it includes some very different approaches to the idea. RW Lockdown and RW control share a ton of cards, but there's a fundamental and intractable difference between a few of the approaches.
-Land destruction builds attack the opponents ability to cast spells.
-Magus and Ghostly Prison builds allow spells and allow resources to collect on the field, but seek to prevent your opponent from using their cards against you.
-Then there's the control builds, which occupy a space in the meta somewhere between Jund and Jeskai control in that they more-or-less attempt to play fair.
If you expand the definition of the archetype even further you can get into some pretty much pure mid-range builds, and then you can also get into some Sphere of Safety style pillow-forts at the other extreme. I've built and defended a lot of these, and I now have a problem where it's difficult for me to express my satisfaction for a new card. I once defended Tajic in a certain context, and Crack the Earth in another, and then Nahiri and now Chandra in yet another type of build. My message must be confusing, and I think that the thread has become a little bit confusing as well.
I've tried to solve this before but my attempts have not worked. I created a RW control thread at one point to differentiate myself, but as I recall I eventually got a helpful suggestion that I should come back to this very thread and post it here instead. RWB Mardu midrange thread exists, but it's not taken kindly if I come in as an outsider and attempt to convince them to give up on one of their colors. Skred Red and Blue Moon are close cousins, but Skred players are resistant to the inclusion of white mana and Blue Moon players can't imagine life without counterspells. Nahiri Jeskai essentially made my Nahiri build, but with Snapcaster Mages and counterspells. Given the success they've had, it's hard to say that they're not right.
So here at last is the issue that I'd like to solve if we can. Is there a way that we can better organize our discussions? I think that new Chandra could be amazing as the backbone of a more-or-less fair RW Control build, but I'm not necessarily saying that she'd be all that interesting in a LD build or Stax build.
I think that the RW Fastlands could be very useful to some of the more extreme concepts I've wanted to explore, but may not have a place in the standard builds.
I think that this is a problem that needs to be solved, because otherwise we're missing out on an opportunity to assert ourselves. For example DrMark and janozimek are currently in the midst of an important conversation that shouldn't be interrupted, but it applies very specifically to one particular build. Meanwhile if you're checking in on the Modern Spoiler thread for Kaladesh, you'd see that there are some very smart outsiders (as in they play other decks) who have singled out RW Control as one of the most likely beneficiaries of the new Chandra, and yet there's hardly anybody in this thread who seems interested in it.
I'll say my piece at least. Chandra is worth building around. I suspect that she won't work properly if you try to shove her into a LD-heavy build or any build that uses SF. She also won't be protected by Ghostly Prison, so you're down to Ensnaring Bridge and Magus of the Tabernacle if you're attempting a prison lockdown. But she so efficiently fills some holes in our card-pool that she might enable some strategies that didn't formerly have the reach to get the job done. These aren't new ideas, they're rejected ideas. But they were rejected due to a lack of synergy and/or good-stuff. CHANDRA IS POWERFUL GOOD STUFF. She's better even than Nahiri for our needs I think. Now I can see how you might think that each of her abilities is ever so slightly limited, but the total package is undeniably strong. This is a 4-ability planeswalker. She protects herself, she wins games quickly, she gives card advantage. She is significantly better than Ajani on a stalled board, and unlike Nahiri - her draw ability isn't shut down if you run out of cards in your hand. If a nuisance damage source prevents her from building loyalty, she is still capable of continuing to apply a clock against your opponent. Her flame slash can be directed against Dark Confidants and can be combined with a lightning bolt to destroy very large threats. Her mana ability is actually VERY useful in conjunction with Armageddon effects now that I think about it, and at a minimum it gives you more options in case you ever wanted to cast multiple spells on the same turn (e.g. Ajani + Lightning Helix on turn 5)
The problem with differentiating between the builds primer wise is that most decks borrow heavily from each other, especially in that the lockdown approach includes board wiping landkills not only in the form of Ajani but increasingly of late some boom bust action, sometimes even picking up Ghostly or Magus action. Nahiri builds (that of course don't run bridge) also have branched out in to landkill-ponza. The synergies in these decks are different, but to be honest just changing one card - eg including suppression field or a chalice produces a radically different deck within any one version that can be identified.
The primer contains some of the casual stax discussion too, although nobody really comments on it as locking people out with a world queller is not likely to be top 8-ing any time soon, so we can to a large extent ignore that. Should the need arise I can remove that but I include it in the primer for historical reasons.
There is a Modern landkill primer of course and I try not to step on its toes by including RG or naya landkill, even though landkill/stax is right up their alley. Mono Red versions I normally direct to skred red if they have the snow engine.
Pillow fort I run the primer for in Creation, if a deck was nothing but enchantments (or enchantments plus Bridges only, at an absolute push) I would direct it to there, even though again those decks can run Obliterate.
That thread highlights the issue of deck overlap- Enduring Ideal is a variant on Pillow Fort and its the same guys largely on both. Separation works well there as the Ideal version so distinct in its end game, even though 80% of the cards are the same. It is not the only archetype to suffer here. For example Pox in Legacy has two distinct versions, almost 3 (a rack pox, a bloodghast type aggro pox and a prison pox, not to mention a BG or Jund loam based pox). In the end rack pox is hived off but there is a huge crossover, whilst the others remain under one banner. I personally can just about see a Melira/Co Junk deck being separate from one not running the combo, but having played against both, its pretty hard to tell them apart. USA or Jesakai control and UW control are the same as well really, producing a huge spectrum of similar feel decks that basically get lumped into two threads, even though some may be running Planeswalkers like Nahiri and some may be swinging with Geists.
I have no issue with conversations being interrupted, btw. Posting about your latest version, that may be totally different to all others, is not just fine, it is excellent. Exactly what the thread is for. All your contribution are both creative and most welcome- even if nobody replies straight away I know the views suggest we get a fair amount of traffic. I think there is probably more chance of passing help or interest if we don't split up too much until one "dominant" version emerges- when that happens I will split the thread. We are in many ways a deck creation-style thread, because whereas Grixis can be built as Delver or Control (with 80% of the cards identical), basically there are not two or three ways of building grixis control- people are not going to have a counter and non counter version in the way we have a landkill or non landkill version.
If it were a specific conversation people can chose to PM each other of course.
I have already said somewhere (maybe not this thread) that Chandra is an exciting build around card. I am waiting to see the rest before I do anything because I don't start building until the whole of the new set is out- I never pre-order expensive cards (I play Legacy and Modern, I own over 30 Modern decks, about 5-6 I play and work on myself, about 2-3 I have played years ago in different form, the rest I update approximately two monthly and loan out without playing too much- I am not really short of a deck so am in no urgent hurry to grab new cards and build with them unless they are cheap), and the set is a while away yet.
I can say with confidence that SF never goes in PW decks, I agree totally.
It's so different from my other pet deck. I helped to develop the Bant Hexproof deck that had people feeling salty in Standard - way back when RtR was just released. Then I transitioned over to Bogles when it became clear that the standard version wasn't going to competitively viable after rotation. Both of those are very specific decks with - in the case of the standard version - no flex spots at all unless you just wanted to be different.
I almost feel bad about bringing ideas in here sometimes. There's too much going on. I can't say that I wouldn't be able to help the "core" version - which is whatever list you're playing I would say - but instead I'm trying to work Super-Friends angles that have very little in common. I worry that I'm doing more harm than good in that case.
Don't fear....to be honest I play the landkill and bridge version, the latter being capable of running superfriends (Bar Nahiri, Gideon J, and Elspth KE.) Running PWs is the way forward for Boros Bridge and non bridge decks alike- the exception being landkill-stax, which for my money works better with S field. Superfriends is great, it works well, bring as many ideas as you have. There are no core version of RW lockdown, there are 3 overlapping cores of decks that are in the same area of the spectrum. I have played most versions of landkill and lockdown, together with other prison decks in the format, Top control, Skred, Martyr Proc, 8 rack etc. They all vary greatly because simply put there is not enough success at the tp level to come up with a "core" version. If you are familiar with Quantum theory I will draw a loose analogy, I would say our decks are producing both wave and particle answers depending on the experiment we set. Other decks in the format like Boggles basically are clearly defined, producing one or the other but not both.
I would recommend patience regarding getting people on board with new cards, enthusiasm is great but Modern develops slowly without Pro Tours.
Obliterate works in Pillow Fort against all non discard decks, you have to be very enchantment heavy but it does work.
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We play such a long game that the one turn delay (on haste creatures) makes no difference. If our plan was to apply pressure in the mid-game, then perhaps as the card limits the effectiveness of blockers somewhat.
Being 1cmc is still worth considering the effects. I just like how it plays into a curve with Suppression Field and Storage Matrix.
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If you actually want a "sod you I win card" and you are enchantment heavy, preferably running suppression field or planeswalkers then Obliterate is disgusting. Uncounterable, leaves nothing but PWs and Enchantments. Its not stellar in most RW Prisons unless you are close to Pillow Fort using Sphere of Safety. I have used it a lot in RW Pillowfort, and it just ends games against UR-x. Sadly its rare even an enchantment heavy lockdown deck can justify more than a single copy, as its very narrow and those types of decks need a lot of cards against certain other strategies. But it is worth baring in mind- 90% of UR-X players know that if the game goes on they win, they also know that getting ahead on mana gets the value train going. Typically those decks run 14 "real and coloured" lands and a bunch of fetches and utility lands. The pilotss will throw land down and if you get to a late game the card can just come down and leave them totally knackered.
There are no real "hosers" for the UR-X decks other than those options, matches get won when we draw cards and keep up and lay a wincon that lasts more than a couple of turns. You could try a cheeky Banefire type card, but often it is not enough.
It helped alot. I tried it because of my bad matchup vs Infect, and I prefer not to target their creatures (Vines of Vastwood is often a 4-of in their deck) and sometimes it can be cast with several effects in the midrange matchup. Burn is pretty much an easy matchup with just the mainboard... That's why i didn't have room for the Firewalker (as I think Leyline is a better card, to protect vs discard as well as burn).
Dunno really... I know they play Abrupt and It's a good card vs both our Supression Field and Ghostly, yet I found that they get a hard time fetching for their mana and get what they need. I would say that Leyline is really good in that matchup, but Celestial Purge is also really sweet!
Yeah, I was pretty much inspired to change much to what you tried in a similiar build, and it worked pretty good!
I had problems with Dredge as they are insanely fast sometimes... combined with Conflagrate and it was game :/ I've been getting 2 Wheel now, it doesn't shut off my Flagstones, and the Dark-Dweller combo still works, so I'm pretty sure it's the best grave-hate we can include in the 75.
How are you faring vs Nahiri Control? Just lost a match vs that deck today... not because Nahiri threw out Emrakul fast (suppression field goes a long way both against fetches and planeswalkers) but because of the immense amount of counterspells. I couldn't resolve a single spell in like 5-6 turns after the first match which I won. And when nothing on my side gets resolved, they keep hitting lands and eventually can both drop a relevant play and keep mana to counter my next spell.
Not sure I agree on Oust at all... mostly because I always see them damn Vines, protecting their only attacker, and as you said; it's really flexible to sometimes untap a blocker or gain some life.
WUBG Atraxa Superfriends
WRBG Saskia's Angry
UBRG Yidris Valuetown
WUBR Breya "not just for infinite combos anymore" Etherium Shaper
mana]W[/mana]UR Narset the Nerfed
WBG Ghave counters madness
BRG Prossh, Token Master
UBG Tasigur Seedborn Control
WU Brago Bouncy Castle
WB Karlov Voltron
B Erebos/Drana MBC
R Feldon jank
Add in the new RW fastland, and the white mythic and we've suddenly got lots of interesting ideas to explore again.
In Landkill I find it is all about resolving an early Chalice, S Field or Boom/Bust. Being on the play really counts for a lot. They do not run that many counters, but they run enough to go no, no and no, by which time we get screwed. Sometimes we get a sf down or landkill spell off and they go "yes, no, oh damn I am one mana short, bugger".
Incidentally if you play RW Bridge Control then Nahiri can't hit the bridge, and Leyline is main deck and you can use Rest in Peace main deck, and the whole match is totally different again.
Oust is good because it costs one and does not deal damage so can't be beaten with pump or boarded Wild Defiances. I am happy to use it on their mana dorks- every time- and rely on Chalice/Ghostly/Halo/Sfield effects to deal with their dude- its really just another kill spell that costs one and does not give them a land like Path. It rocks against Death's Shadow and generally fits in with our plan against both decks. A Fog works ok in the slot, one or two cc like Dawn Charm. I had a board card slot reserved for those matchups and it did well in both. I would also point out Blessed Alliance is very good too, if they do not know you have it. Even if they do it switches off the +1+1 trigger from Noble as they have to attack with both in order to protect it. Again it is multi purpose. One issue here is that they can sometimes just hit the Spell Pierce and Nature's Claim effect to stop our hate and beat us. It happens, but generally if we can deal with the first dude a Ghostly and S Field or Chalice leaves us normally alive and on 5/6/7/8 poison, ready to take control.
The new one feels like a value engine, and is adequately costed all round.
Lots of possibilities, as said above. Generally RW shells here have what they need to do well and get new toys. If only Pillow Fort (enchantment based decks) got as much love.
Step 2: figure out what you're going to do about tarmagoyfs, tron, and combo decks
Step 3: devote the rest of your deck to defeating aggro (prison, bridge, etc...)
Chandra neatly sidesteps some of my biggest complaints about the bridge and prison builds by not only providing possible card advantage but also dealing damage directly to your opponent. Think about shocking your opponent to death. I'm okay with that. If she gets her emblem out then it's GG.
I have been sitting on the shell of a deck idea for a few months. I originally attempted to build it around Nahiri but it was simply too nonbo to make it work. Key concepts are Eternal Scourge and maindeck Relic of Progenitus. This is about "breaking" Eternal Scourge, and in my opinion RW control already does some of the things that are necessary to make Eternal Scourge work. Relic of Progenitus also has a nice - uh - common cause I guess you could say.
The key difference between Nahiri and the new Chandra is in what happens to the "extra" card in their cycling ability. Whereas Nahiri puts it in the graveyard, Chandra exiles. It's a minor difference in wording but it makes a big difference in how it plays together with Eternal Scourge.
But let's talk about the new Chandra first. Her first ability is the juice. I will borrow DrMark's analogy between Planeswalkers and Enchantments.(check the primer kiddos) Compare her to Assemble the Legion. One turn quicker to hit the board. She starts pinging with Shocks immediately, and by the fourth turn on the board she should have pinged your opponent 3 times and then granted an emblem that turns every Lightning Bolt into 8 damage to the face. That's 6 damage and the emblem by turn 7. Assemble the Legion hits the board on turn 5, deals 1 damage on turn 6 and two more damage on turn 7. That's 3 damage by turn 7.
Of course there's a lot more that we could say about the differences between the cards, but I think that I've already made a pretty reasonable case to show that Chandra can replace Assemble the Legion as a potential win-con. The argument becomes more compelling when you realize that she is ALSO granting us card advantage if we want it. Now of course we can't get the Shock effect AND the card, but it's our choice to make. Can Outpost Siege switch modes all of a sudden and start casting Shock? No.
And this is just her first ability alone. If Chandra was a 4 cmc enchantment that granted the first ability every round, you'd have to at least give it some consideration. The fact is - Chandra can single-handedly replace a bunch of cards in our deck. She's the win-con, the card draw, and the general problem solver. I still think that Nahiri is more powerful in a vacuum if I'm being perfectly honest, but Nahiri was nonbo with so many of the things that we do. Chandra on the other hand is not nonbo. Chandra is combo.
Here is an incomplete shell. The fun part will be figuring out what we need to add to get the deck completed.
3x Relic of Progenitus
Creature (3)
3x Eternal Scourge
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Path to Exile
4x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Lands (25)
25x Lands
That leaves 13 slots. My top candidates to fill out the rest of the deck are most of the usual suspects. One simple way to improve our matchup against Tron and other Land-based strategies is to run 3-4 Blood Moon plus 3-4 Ghost Quarter. Of course Ghost Quarters are nonbo with Blood Moon on the board, but if Blood Moon is active then the Ghost Quarters make excellent mountains. Win-win.
I think creature sweepers are important, and I'm leaning toward Anger of the Gods and Wrath of God for that because I want to have the exile effect. Ajani is also a very good fit within the concept, and can do some real work for us. I have never liked him as the primary focus of a deck but he's wonderful 'partner' Planeswalker.
I've playtested a few times already and it plays well. It's refreshingly straight-forward compared to many of the other builds I've put forth. You play it kinda similarly to a Rock deck. When a threat pops up you smash it. Keep smashing threats until you can cast a Planeswalker or an Eternal Scourge.
The mana works pretty well if you keep the focus on low CMC direct damage spells.
If your opponent is using their Graveyard a lot, you use the Relic of Progenitus to make their deck misfire.
If your opponent has tons of removal and/or counterspells, you have Eternal Scourge.
If your opponent has infect, you take your loss like a man. (Just kidding, hope your removal gets the job done)
If you decide to use Blood Moon, then you're going to get the customary free wins from that. I'm probably missing a major archetype or two as I post this so let me know what I missed and I'll work on it.
Then it sits there waiting for another go-round. The longer the game goes, the more work you'll get from it. Of course RW control is really good at making games go long. You'll find that at a certain point in the game it can almost single-handedly negate an opponents card draw advantage. Even if they draw two PtE per turn, you can make them burn it all.
It's not a great way to negate a creature advantage, but it can help you with that. Every turn it buys gets you closer to drawing your other answers.
And if (when) you exhaust your opponents resources, it provides inevitability.
The decks that my proposal are least equipped to handle are the fast aggro and combo decks, but that doesn't mean it can't deal. That's what the 13 flexible slots are there for, and the sideboard should cover most of the rest.
I'm having two boardslots in my current list that I'm unsure of. Sometimes I feel I'm having a bit too few wincons, and thinking about adding maybe 2 Restoration Angels (they can save Dark-Dwellers and make them trigger their ETB another time) or just have 2 Stormbreath Dragons as they are really fast and hard to handle for many decks
What do you think drmarkb? This is the current list I'm trying out at the moment:
CREATURES (7)
3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
ENCHANTMENTS (8)
4 Suppression Field
4 Ghostly Prison
SORCERIES (15)
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
INSTANTS (2)
2 Lightning Helix
ARTIFACTS (4)
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
LANDS (24)
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Ghost Quarter
7 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Rugged Prairie
SIDEBOARD (15)
2 Stony Silence
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Celestial Purge
1 Pyroclasm
2 Restoration Angel//Stormbreath Dragon (Or any other wincon-card vs control and slow matchups)
Remember Blood Moon won't always be down, when it is you opponent should be in trouble, otherwise don't lay it. Megalith is great vs certain decks, but two is over the top.
Getting to 4 mana by t4 is essential against UR-x, scry helps it.
You need Rest in Peace main deck for UR-X- those Snappies alone give such value. RIP stops them.
Almost no decks in the format have zero graveyard manipulation or effects- anything with Snappy, Goyf, Modular, Persist, Scooze, Lingering S, the few decks in the format that have
RIP stops their Snappy into remand from the bin turns that basically set them up to win- when their two Cryptics and 2cc/1cc spells can be cast just once you start to get stuff through.
Playing 4 Leyline goes a long way in the match too- because one of the best ways to beat that deck is to get Ajani down and Leyline stops direct damage spells targetting you and redirecting to her. One of their best ways to win is to the head- Snappy beats rarely do it. Those Electrolyses don't do much with it down either. Grixis' K commands look pretty rubbish with RIP/Leylines too. The actual bin decks, Pyromancer, Living End, Grishoalbrand, Dredge, Loam Pox are obviously decks that hate it as well.
Dangerous Wager is awful in the early game- I would avoid.
Crucible is good in that Nahiri can't exile it and GQ can repeatedly activate to nerf Tron, but it is obviously much, much better in landkill lockdown decks that also run Mindcensor. I would rather run RIP main and dump crucible.
Magus won't do much for you- no Suppression Field or landkill makes it sub-optimal. If you ran a couple of Ghostly Prisons it would make a little more sense.
Magma jet is decent at filtering early.
Storm should be easy wit 4 Leyline main. A Ghostly main helps too, and RIP is obviously good too-consider them main. Stick a Rule of Law/Eidolon effect in and you are golden.
Worth considering - I use two-four depending on which version of RW lockdown you are talking about.
We don't beat tron by recurring GQ - if you play dedicated landkill decks that works well enough at locking them. But without that it is not possible to lock them- partially they use Loam from the board or their own crucible game 2 if they sniff landkill G1. Crumble to dust is more effective at nerfing their Tron aspirations permanently. With tron you can nerf the odd land but even vs. landkill decks they get a big play off more often than not. RIP is half-decent against tron anyway- 4 of their cards draw when it hit the bin, wurmcoil needs to be binned to get extra value, although without wrath around that is sort of moot. Blood Moon will eventually be ruined by Tron, but you can win in the mean time.
This thread has a problem that most of the other primers do not have, in that it includes some very different approaches to the idea. RW Lockdown and RW control share a ton of cards, but there's a fundamental and intractable difference between a few of the approaches.
-Land destruction builds attack the opponents ability to cast spells.
-Magus and Ghostly Prison builds allow spells and allow resources to collect on the field, but seek to prevent your opponent from using their cards against you.
-Then there's the control builds, which occupy a space in the meta somewhere between Jund and Jeskai control in that they more-or-less attempt to play fair.
If you expand the definition of the archetype even further you can get into some pretty much pure mid-range builds, and then you can also get into some Sphere of Safety style pillow-forts at the other extreme. I've built and defended a lot of these, and I now have a problem where it's difficult for me to express my satisfaction for a new card. I once defended Tajic in a certain context, and Crack the Earth in another, and then Nahiri and now Chandra in yet another type of build. My message must be confusing, and I think that the thread has become a little bit confusing as well.
I've tried to solve this before but my attempts have not worked. I created a RW control thread at one point to differentiate myself, but as I recall I eventually got a helpful suggestion that I should come back to this very thread and post it here instead. RWB Mardu midrange thread exists, but it's not taken kindly if I come in as an outsider and attempt to convince them to give up on one of their colors. Skred Red and Blue Moon are close cousins, but Skred players are resistant to the inclusion of white mana and Blue Moon players can't imagine life without counterspells. Nahiri Jeskai essentially made my Nahiri build, but with Snapcaster Mages and counterspells. Given the success they've had, it's hard to say that they're not right.
So here at last is the issue that I'd like to solve if we can. Is there a way that we can better organize our discussions? I think that new Chandra could be amazing as the backbone of a more-or-less fair RW Control build, but I'm not necessarily saying that she'd be all that interesting in a LD build or Stax build.
I think that the RW Fastlands could be very useful to some of the more extreme concepts I've wanted to explore, but may not have a place in the standard builds.
I think that this is a problem that needs to be solved, because otherwise we're missing out on an opportunity to assert ourselves. For example DrMark and janozimek are currently in the midst of an important conversation that shouldn't be interrupted, but it applies very specifically to one particular build. Meanwhile if you're checking in on the Modern Spoiler thread for Kaladesh, you'd see that there are some very smart outsiders (as in they play other decks) who have singled out RW Control as one of the most likely beneficiaries of the new Chandra, and yet there's hardly anybody in this thread who seems interested in it.
I'll say my piece at least. Chandra is worth building around. I suspect that she won't work properly if you try to shove her into a LD-heavy build or any build that uses SF. She also won't be protected by Ghostly Prison, so you're down to Ensnaring Bridge and Magus of the Tabernacle if you're attempting a prison lockdown. But she so efficiently fills some holes in our card-pool that she might enable some strategies that didn't formerly have the reach to get the job done. These aren't new ideas, they're rejected ideas. But they were rejected due to a lack of synergy and/or good-stuff. CHANDRA IS POWERFUL GOOD STUFF. She's better even than Nahiri for our needs I think. Now I can see how you might think that each of her abilities is ever so slightly limited, but the total package is undeniably strong. This is a 4-ability planeswalker. She protects herself, she wins games quickly, she gives card advantage. She is significantly better than Ajani on a stalled board, and unlike Nahiri - her draw ability isn't shut down if you run out of cards in your hand. If a nuisance damage source prevents her from building loyalty, she is still capable of continuing to apply a clock against your opponent. Her flame slash can be directed against Dark Confidants and can be combined with a lightning bolt to destroy very large threats. Her mana ability is actually VERY useful in conjunction with Armageddon effects now that I think about it, and at a minimum it gives you more options in case you ever wanted to cast multiple spells on the same turn (e.g. Ajani + Lightning Helix on turn 5)
The primer contains some of the casual stax discussion too, although nobody really comments on it as locking people out with a world queller is not likely to be top 8-ing any time soon, so we can to a large extent ignore that. Should the need arise I can remove that but I include it in the primer for historical reasons.
There is a Modern landkill primer of course and I try not to step on its toes by including RG or naya landkill, even though landkill/stax is right up their alley. Mono Red versions I normally direct to skred red if they have the snow engine.
Pillow fort I run the primer for in Creation, if a deck was nothing but enchantments (or enchantments plus Bridges only, at an absolute push) I would direct it to there, even though again those decks can run Obliterate.
That thread highlights the issue of deck overlap- Enduring Ideal is a variant on Pillow Fort and its the same guys largely on both. Separation works well there as the Ideal version so distinct in its end game, even though 80% of the cards are the same. It is not the only archetype to suffer here. For example Pox in Legacy has two distinct versions, almost 3 (a rack pox, a bloodghast type aggro pox and a prison pox, not to mention a BG or Jund loam based pox). In the end rack pox is hived off but there is a huge crossover, whilst the others remain under one banner. I personally can just about see a Melira/Co Junk deck being separate from one not running the combo, but having played against both, its pretty hard to tell them apart. USA or Jesakai control and UW control are the same as well really, producing a huge spectrum of similar feel decks that basically get lumped into two threads, even though some may be running Planeswalkers like Nahiri and some may be swinging with Geists.
I have no issue with conversations being interrupted, btw. Posting about your latest version, that may be totally different to all others, is not just fine, it is excellent. Exactly what the thread is for. All your contribution are both creative and most welcome- even if nobody replies straight away I know the views suggest we get a fair amount of traffic. I think there is probably more chance of passing help or interest if we don't split up too much until one "dominant" version emerges- when that happens I will split the thread. We are in many ways a deck creation-style thread, because whereas Grixis can be built as Delver or Control (with 80% of the cards identical), basically there are not two or three ways of building grixis control- people are not going to have a counter and non counter version in the way we have a landkill or non landkill version.
If it were a specific conversation people can chose to PM each other of course.
I have already said somewhere (maybe not this thread) that Chandra is an exciting build around card. I am waiting to see the rest before I do anything because I don't start building until the whole of the new set is out- I never pre-order expensive cards (I play Legacy and Modern, I own over 30 Modern decks, about 5-6 I play and work on myself, about 2-3 I have played years ago in different form, the rest I update approximately two monthly and loan out without playing too much- I am not really short of a deck so am in no urgent hurry to grab new cards and build with them unless they are cheap), and the set is a while away yet.
I can say with confidence that SF never goes in PW decks, I agree totally.
I almost feel bad about bringing ideas in here sometimes. There's too much going on. I can't say that I wouldn't be able to help the "core" version - which is whatever list you're playing I would say - but instead I'm trying to work Super-Friends angles that have very little in common. I worry that I'm doing more harm than good in that case.
I'm a junky.
It's a huge mana cost though.
I would recommend patience regarding getting people on board with new cards, enthusiasm is great but Modern develops slowly without Pro Tours.
Obliterate works in Pillow Fort against all non discard decks, you have to be very enchantment heavy but it does work.
Wizards prints something we can use!
Being 1cmc is still worth considering the effects. I just like how it plays into a curve with Suppression Field and Storage Matrix.