I don't care to play stock lists, I want to play whatever gives us the best chance to win. This is why I also like to experiment, I'm sure you've seen me trying to cram Thopter-Sword into this list.
@Cody_X - Explosives does sound pretty good in theory against a lot of the good decks, I just don't like that on 2 it's going to kill most of our enchantments. Maybe it's the case that doesn't matter though, much the way that RIP hitting our cards often doesn't matter either.
@Rickerster - Yes, thanks. I hadn't considered how much playing 3 Halos needs concessions in the manabase. Halo is not a card I usually advocate for, main nor side.
It does answer blood moon, and geist isn't a terribly important target. Missing liliana here definitely does hurt, but its not the end of the world.
Hitting our enchantments is also not super relevant. Its not generally good in the same matchups that spreading seas is (with the possible exception of traverse shadow). Halo does have a little overlap, but EE gets cast for 1 against a lot of decks as well. It obviously nonbos with stony, and it has nearly 0 overlap with rest in peace.
Its not perfect, but I think its just so incredibly well positioned right now, that it almost doesnt matter.
Okay, so when did playing a million Snares main become the "concensus best thing"? I reread the comments since the start of the PT and I honestly just don't follow -- all of the lists from the PT play 1 (except for like one list playing 2), and I'm all for that. The second is a little questionable, but it's not bad. But 3? Really...
Anyways, why is everyone high on Runed Halo now too? I've been playing with Blessed Alliances main in the same slot that Halo would take, and recently switched to 1 Alliance/1 Halo (no evaluation on that yet) but I've always felt Halo was better as a sideboard card. But 3 main? That's pretty out there too, so you guys really need to convince me.
As for a Condemn, I'm down to play a maindeck copy, but probably not over my Blessed Alliance, so we'll see.
I don't like playing snare, but it is amazing in our bad match ups (burn, storm). And you do lose a lot when people curve out especially when you're on the draw. There is justification to play it, but I don't want to play it on mtgo. It's the same thing with halo.
@annihilator you should play 25 lands if you don't want to be greedy
I don't like playing snare, but it is amazing in our bad match ups (burn, storm). And you do lose a lot when people curve out especially when you're on the draw. There is justification to play it, but I don't want to play it on mtgo. It's the same thing with halo.
@annihilator you should play 25 lands if you don't want to be greedy
I do think Snare has its place, it's just a leap to go from "Snare is good now" to "let's play an almost-playset". Similar thing with Halo.
As for the land, I agree with you but I might decide to be greedy. What would you cut if you were to squeeze a land in there?
(About an AV version of UW) It could be the time for a come back. The issue, here, is the usual: if we're running more CA spells, what will we cut from the maindeck? I'm not a fan of shaving counterspells, because they are SO valuable right now. Maybe - maybe - I could see trimming the Walls, but then I'm oriented to play at least a pair of Spell Snare to prevent folding from aggressive strategies.
In my opinion, the flexible slots that are becoming staples in this metagame are: a) Spell Snare, because it’s very good right now. I used to hate it, and played 4-5 months without a single copy of it. But now, if you look at the top decks, every single one of them suffers Snare. More Snapcasters in Modern means that Snare is good. More Azcanta, it’s the same. More Storm? Yes, please (and my Storm win rate skyrocketed since I had them again in my sixty(one)). Against GB Tron they are incredibly useful, thanks to our manadenial plan taking Sylvan Scrying is a good play, and Collective Brutality is also annoying. Etcetera...
I have to begrudgingly agree about Spell Snare. I still think it's a bad card against about 50% of the field, but I also think it's close to the best card in the deck against the other 50%. I'm not packing a list without 3 of them (Snares), and it looks like you're on the same page. We might just disagree about it's sideboard potential. I'm sticking a minimum of 1 in the main, and 1 in the side, just not sure where the third goes.
As you can see, there actually wasn't really any discussion on Snare. There're lists referring offhand to Snare being good, starting with 2 copies, then moving up to 3. A small section on why Snare is good (because of Tron, Snapcaster Mage, Storm, and Azcanta; all of which aren't new -- even Azcanta's been on the scene for a little bit. In fact, it's the reason I added the 1st Snare to my maindeck again), and then all of the sudden we're not possibly playing a list with less than 3 in the 75?
I've been reading the comments. :/ I just don't think Snare is so good to be playing 3 copies -- they'll just be dead in your hand while you lose. I think the lists from the PT (and our lists beforehand) were right on the nail -- one copy. Maybe 2 for metagaming local shops.
If you feel otherwise, I am quite interested in your thoughts -- but they aren't in the pages yet.
You want snare to stop some aggro deck draws (affinity, burn), to have as much interaction vs combo (storm), and you want snare because pathing a dark confidant is awful. Snare used to be great in the blue mirrors, but now not many people are playing remand/mana leak, so snare isn't that useful in winning a counter war. It's still a great answer to snapcaster though, but some jeskai lists play 3, and obviously UW is down to 1-2. Azcanta just dies to field of ruin or seas. Letting them have a think tank is w/e.
This deck doesn't fold to Tron/scapeshift, so snare isn't really needed for that match up.
I think the meta is too diverse on mtgo to play it. But if your meta is a lot of rock, burn and storm, I could see playing 3-4.
@annihilator I'd cut mana leak or blessed alliance.
BloodyRabbit actually pin-pointed the reason why I don't like snare in my UW lists - you need to have multiples for it to be excellent and increase the chances of having it when it is actually preferable, which is the early game. This is why I don't want to run it, snare is dead or low impact in a considerable amount of matchups (lantern being the biggest offender), counters increasingly less relevant spells as the game progresses (dark confidant isn't nearly as intimidating on turn four onwards as he is on turn two) and thus personally, won't be packing any for the next few events.
I think that the same can be stated for Ancestral Vision. You have to run a lot of them, to increase the chance of having one in your opening hand. But the more you play them, more likely you're drawing one of them by turn 3 or later on the game, when they're essencially a dead card. IMO, that's a card that must be played in lists with heavy loot (as Jeskai Nahiris, for example) or with As Foretold. I did play AVs on my Jeskai Nahiris, and even on this deck, I felt they were too clunky and too binary. I had to have them by turn 2 at most, otherwise they were going to be irrelevant on most of the games.
Spell Snare is similar in the sense that it's a lot better on the first turns. I did like the card when Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Goryo's Vengeance and Voice of Resurgence were more played. Now that those cards are very rarely seen, at least on my field, I don't like it that much anymore. Green decks seem to be just jumping the 2 CMC curve now. They play a dork turn 1 and a 3 CMC threat on turn 2. It's also bad against the most popular Aggro decks on my field due to Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial (Humans and Merfolks). Grishoalbrand has been kicked away form the format by DS, I assume. Jund is not played oftenly now, because it loses hard to the Big Mana Decks.
I used to play 2 of them on my Jeskai and more oftenly than I consider acceptable, it was just a dead card. My opponent was doing something dangerous, I wanted something proactive, a generic counterspell or a removal and it was neither. It's still great vs Burn, Storm, Affinity and U-Controls, and the first two are though match-ups. But I'd rather play something less powerful against those two decks, but less narrow, like a Negate, for example.
What do you guys think? Anyone else have a list that they would be willing 100% to register for a GP if it were tomorrow?
I think you're making a mistake if you're not at least considering Vendilion Clique. Also 4th Celestial Colonnade is surely core and you can consider the GQ or the 5th fetchland for the flex slot. 24 lands has always been good for me but I think there's not much point in discussing that at least among people who have played the deck as much as we have.
Fortunately I have an extra week until my next GP (Lyon) so I'll look forward to your report. Then again I might also audible to UR Pyromancer, I'm a big sucker for any deck that has Ancestral Vision.
The 4th colonnade is a core card for sure, I'm just toying with an inspiration by Levy casting condemn on his own colonnade. My logic is that in the match-ups where we need colonnade to win, condemn is probably bad and the match-ups where we need Condemn, once we've stabilized, we are going to win regardless of how many colonnades we have and the ETB tapped matters a lot (vs humans for example). So if one were to run 2x condemn main, cutting a colonnade is reasonable because Condemn acts as extra colonnades and life against control, sort of.
As far as Clique is concerned, I'm not convinced that it's a maindeck card, despite every pro playing at least 1 copy. It's a great SB card but the ETB isn't worth a full card outside of the combo matches, and neither is 3/1 flyer in a deck that isn't looking to put on pressure. I think players are winning despite Clique, not because of it, much in the same way as the player who played 1 Ojutai.
What do you guys think? Anyone else have a list that they would be willing 100% to register for a GP if it were tomorrow?
I think you're making a mistake if you're not at least considering Vendilion Clique. Also 4th Celestial Colonnade is surely core and you can consider the GQ or the 5th fetchland for the flex slot. 24 lands has always been good for me but I think there's not much point in discussing that at least among people who have played the deck as much as we have.
Fortunately I have an extra week until my next GP (Lyon) so I'll look forward to your report. Then again I might also audible to UR Pyromancer, I'm a big sucker for any deck that has Ancestral Vision.
The 4th colonnade is a core card for sure, I'm just toying with an inspiration by Levy casting condemn on his own colonnade. My logic is that in the match-ups where we need colonnade to win, condemn is probably bad and the match-ups where we need Condemn, once we've stabilized, we are going to win regardless of how many colonnades we have and the ETB tapped matters a lot (vs humans for example). So if one were to run 2x condemn main, cutting a colonnade is reasonable because Condemn acts as extra colonnades and life against control, sort of.
As far as Clique is concerned, I'm not convinced that it's a maindeck card, despite every pro playing at least 1 copy. It's a great SB card but the ETB isn't worth a full card outside of the combo matches, and neither is 3/1 flyer in a deck that isn't looking to put on pressure. I think players are winning despite Clique, not because of it, much in the same way as the player who played 1 Ojutai.
I agree with you. Vendilion Clique without the Burn spells and the higher creature count that Jeskai has (Spell Quellers, more copies of Snapcasters and eventually some Geists), seems a little awkward to me. Also, I feel like on the current metagame, Vendilion is good agaisnt decks that we already are good against, except for Storm and maybe some U-Controls (not all of them, too).
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
I played with a mainboard Clique for a little bit before I just switched to Secure for a better threat. I wanted extra wincons, and Secure is a better wincon than Clique. If I were looking for better tempo, I'd play Clique.
Nassif was also very skeptical of Clique in theory and then found it always overperformed for him in practice, so I would recommend you just give it a shot.
I am not saying that it is a must-have by any means, but I highly discourage people to dismiss it without having tried it first.
I mean, I've had 1-2 copies of it in the sideboard basically ever since I started playing the deck, it's not like I'm unaware of the cards capabilities and where it shines. It gets boarded in probably more than any other card, i've probably played near as many games with it as without. It's just that some cards, like Azcanta and leak, are amazing game 1 cards and get sided out a ton, and some cards like Clique, are amazing Game 2 cards and get boarded in all the time.
I caught most of that stream as well, great stuff as usual.
Have to agree with Borzi, EE sounds good in theory but it looked terrible every single time he drew it. It got locked out by Stony multiple times, and would have been better as a sweeper in almost every time. I think Settle or wrath is a fine sideboard card in that slot.
Where I disagree is on the 3 fetchland basis. It just seems absurd to me. Some of us are considering playing 5th and even 6th fetches because of the interaction with stuff like Logic Knot, Azcanta and Crucible of worlds, not to mention the ability to play around blood moon. It's nice to play less painful mana, and have less dead cards going super late, but the later can be built around in better ways than cutting Flooded Strand. I would certainly cut all the mystic gates, glacial fortresses and even a Celestial Colonnade to add extra fetchables before ever touching a flooded strand if I though that was a real concern.
I caught most of that stream as well, great stuff as usual.
Have to agree with Borzi, EE sounds good in theory but it looked terrible every single time he drew it. It got locked out by Stony multiple times, and would have been better as a sweeper in almost every time. I think Settle or wrath is a fine sideboard card in that slot.
Where I disagree is on the 3 fetchland basis. It just seems absurd to me. Some of us are considering playing 5th and even 6th fetches because of the interaction with stuff like Logic Knot, Azcanta and Crucible of worlds, not to mention the ability to play around blood moon. It's nice to play less painful mana, and have less dead cards going super late, but the later can be built around in better ways than cutting Flooded Strand. I would certainly cut all the mystic gates, glacial fortresses and even a Celestial Colonnade to add extra fetchables before ever touching a flooded strand if I though that was a real concern.
That's a really bad idea from my experience - I tried facilitating more than two logic knot using fetchlands before and it's just way more damage than you want to be taking. When the games go as long as they do, lightning bolt is a serious threat in the late game and every point of damage that you deal to yourself ends up being relevant. Furthermore, it increases the situations where you are forced to shock fetch more than you might realise. It also doesn't actually have a very high impact on delve / flipping azcanta to make it worth it. Playing four fetchlands is of course, completely reasonable, but going for more than that is not that great.
I had the same problems a bunch of times. Sometimes I kept drawing fetches and had no more lands to fetch for, and sometimes I had to Bolt myself to search for my Hallowed Fountain in order to cast a timely Verdict, Cryptic or Gideon.
I believe I solved the problem by cutting the Mystic Gate for a Prairie Stream. I have been enjoying it a lot. Now I have one more fetchable land, and it easily enters the battlefield untapped by turn 3 or 4 without doing me any damage. If I feel like I'm not gonna need an untapped dual land or I won't have 2 basics on the field to make it enter untapped, I just fetch for it at my opponent's end step.
I feel like it's better than Irrigated Farmland. If I had to cut one, I'd probably go for the Farmland. But I'm keeping both for now.
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
Long time lurker, just a thought, maybe my logic is flawed but it seems that Field of Ruin is a fetch land, since we run around 8 basics, so with 3 Flooded Strand and 4 Field of Ruin, are we actually running a fair number of fetches?
Again, not sure my thinking is sound, but I've been enjoying this deck tremendously, and look forward to seeing more stuff!
Yea, field is basically a fetch land, but it doesn't help you get under blood moon, or fix for a turn 3 Gideon. Sometimes it's too slow to effectively fix for a turn 4 Verdict as well because you often have to react on turn 3.
I also really like Prairie Stream right now, I think my mananase is going to look like this:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
5 Island
3 Plains
Most people don't like having 2 Fountain, but I think that might be a vestige of pre-field logic. Having less dead fetch lands is important now, and it seems most people realize that. I just strongly disagree that lowering the number of fetches is the best way to combat that issue, especially in light of Azcanta/logic knot.
Yea, field is basically a fetch land, but it doesn't help you get under blood moon, or fix for a turn 3 Gideon. Sometimes it's too slow to effectively fix for a turn 4 Verdict as well because you often have to react on turn 3.
I also really like Prairie Stream right now, I think my mananase is going to look like this:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
5 Island
3 Plains
Most people don't like having 2 Fountain, but I think that might be a vestige of pre-field logic. Having less dead fetch lands is important now, and it seems most people realize that. I just strongly disagree that lowering the number of fetches is the best way to combat that issue, especially in light of Azcanta/logic knot.
My manabase is almost the same. The only changes are:
How do you feel about GQ? Doesn't it screw your colours? Do you play Crucible? I like the idea of having a 5th LD, specially one that destroys basics, but I'm afraid of being colour screwed oftenly.
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
In most cases, I would agree that it could be a 50-50 match up. However, Against Reid Duke, I would say I personally am a 95-5 underdog. I am being extremely generous with my 5% too.
@Thejeskaiway - The 5th colorless sources is something I advocated for as soon as I realized Field was playable. I ran the math (under Karsten's assumptions) and realized that without even considering field and GQ as fixing, this deck could support 5 colorless sources. However, that math included a minimum of 10 cantrips (everyone was on 2 wall of omens at the time). I underestimated Fields ability for fixing, so without actually running the numbers again, I'm operating on the assumption that between Azcanta and Field, the mana base can still support 5 colorless sources even while reducing the number of cantrips. Another thing that has changed since then is people adopting Runed Halo, so if you're on that I probably wouldn't want the 5th colorless.
These assumptions have worked for me in practice as well, I never find myself with an inability to verdict on 4. Rarely, but not never, Gideon on 3 can be a bit awkward, and so can be cryptic on 4. I think I can safely say that I'm not the only player operating under these assumptions, Ben Hill has also been on 5 colorless for a good while now, and he wasboasting a near 80% win rate during his last stream. One of the players who went 7-1-2 in modern at the PT was on 5 colorless as is Heatchecker, a streamer from twitch whose UW game I respect.
@mgoetze - it's possible that 2nd Stream could be better than 2nd fountain, especially if one were to move to 5 fetches and 9 basics. Unfortunately I won't have time to test that before the GP and the idea of having so many lands that ETB tapped before turn 3 is pretty scary going into a GP where I expect aggressive decks to be the rule.
@Cody_X - Explosives does sound pretty good in theory against a lot of the good decks, I just don't like that on 2 it's going to kill most of our enchantments. Maybe it's the case that doesn't matter though, much the way that RIP hitting our cards often doesn't matter either.
@Rickerster - Yes, thanks. I hadn't considered how much playing 3 Halos needs concessions in the manabase. Halo is not a card I usually advocate for, main nor side.
Hitting our enchantments is also not super relevant. Its not generally good in the same matchups that spreading seas is (with the possible exception of traverse shadow). Halo does have a little overlap, but EE gets cast for 1 against a lot of decks as well. It obviously nonbos with stony, and it has nearly 0 overlap with rest in peace.
Its not perfect, but I think its just so incredibly well positioned right now, that it almost doesnt matter.
Anyways, why is everyone high on Runed Halo now too? I've been playing with Blessed Alliances main in the same slot that Halo would take, and recently switched to 1 Alliance/1 Halo (no evaluation on that yet) but I've always felt Halo was better as a sideboard card. But 3 main? That's pretty out there too, so you guys really need to convince me.
As for a Condemn, I'm down to play a maindeck copy, but probably not over my Blessed Alliance, so we'll see.
Edit: Major Tourney List:
4x Celestial Colonnade
2x Glacial Fortress
1x Mystic Gate
3x Field of Ruin
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Flooded Strand
2x Hallowed Fountain
5x Island
2x Plains
Removal (11)
4x Path to Exile
1x Blessed Alliance
2x Detention Sphere
3x Supreme Verdict
1x Settle the Wreckage
1x Spell Snare
2x Mana Leak
1x Negate
1x Logic Knot
3x Cryptic Command
Card Advantage/Selection (14)
4x Serum Visions
4x Spreading Seas
2x Search for Azcanta
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Sphinx's Revelation
2x Snapcaster Mage
Finishers (3)
2x Gideon of the Trials
1x Secure the Wastes
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Dispel
1x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Runed Halo
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Celestial Purge
1x Negate
1x Disdainful Stroke
3x Spell Queller
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
@annihilator you should play 25 lands if you don't want to be greedy
I do think Snare has its place, it's just a leap to go from "Snare is good now" to "let's play an almost-playset". Similar thing with Halo.
As for the land, I agree with you but I might decide to be greedy. What would you cut if you were to squeeze a land in there?
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
As you can see, there actually wasn't really any discussion on Snare. There're lists referring offhand to Snare being good, starting with 2 copies, then moving up to 3. A small section on why Snare is good (because of Tron, Snapcaster Mage, Storm, and Azcanta; all of which aren't new -- even Azcanta's been on the scene for a little bit. In fact, it's the reason I added the 1st Snare to my maindeck again), and then all of the sudden we're not possibly playing a list with less than 3 in the 75?
I've been reading the comments. :/ I just don't think Snare is so good to be playing 3 copies -- they'll just be dead in your hand while you lose. I think the lists from the PT (and our lists beforehand) were right on the nail -- one copy. Maybe 2 for metagaming local shops.
If you feel otherwise, I am quite interested in your thoughts -- but they aren't in the pages yet.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
This deck doesn't fold to Tron/scapeshift, so snare isn't really needed for that match up.
I think the meta is too diverse on mtgo to play it. But if your meta is a lot of rock, burn and storm, I could see playing 3-4.
@annihilator I'd cut mana leak or blessed alliance.
I think that the same can be stated for Ancestral Vision. You have to run a lot of them, to increase the chance of having one in your opening hand. But the more you play them, more likely you're drawing one of them by turn 3 or later on the game, when they're essencially a dead card. IMO, that's a card that must be played in lists with heavy loot (as Jeskai Nahiris, for example) or with As Foretold. I did play AVs on my Jeskai Nahiris, and even on this deck, I felt they were too clunky and too binary. I had to have them by turn 2 at most, otherwise they were going to be irrelevant on most of the games.
Spell Snare is similar in the sense that it's a lot better on the first turns. I did like the card when Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Goryo's Vengeance and Voice of Resurgence were more played. Now that those cards are very rarely seen, at least on my field, I don't like it that much anymore. Green decks seem to be just jumping the 2 CMC curve now. They play a dork turn 1 and a 3 CMC threat on turn 2. It's also bad against the most popular Aggro decks on my field due to Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial (Humans and Merfolks). Grishoalbrand has been kicked away form the format by DS, I assume. Jund is not played oftenly now, because it loses hard to the Big Mana Decks.
I used to play 2 of them on my Jeskai and more oftenly than I consider acceptable, it was just a dead card. My opponent was doing something dangerous, I wanted something proactive, a generic counterspell or a removal and it was neither. It's still great vs Burn, Storm, Affinity and U-Controls, and the first two are though match-ups. But I'd rather play something less powerful against those two decks, but less narrow, like a Negate, for example.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
The 4th colonnade is a core card for sure, I'm just toying with an inspiration by Levy casting condemn on his own colonnade. My logic is that in the match-ups where we need colonnade to win, condemn is probably bad and the match-ups where we need Condemn, once we've stabilized, we are going to win regardless of how many colonnades we have and the ETB tapped matters a lot (vs humans for example). So if one were to run 2x condemn main, cutting a colonnade is reasonable because Condemn acts as extra colonnades and life against control, sort of.
As far as Clique is concerned, I'm not convinced that it's a maindeck card, despite every pro playing at least 1 copy. It's a great SB card but the ETB isn't worth a full card outside of the combo matches, and neither is 3/1 flyer in a deck that isn't looking to put on pressure. I think players are winning despite Clique, not because of it, much in the same way as the player who played 1 Ojutai.
I agree with you. Vendilion Clique without the Burn spells and the higher creature count that Jeskai has (Spell Quellers, more copies of Snapcasters and eventually some Geists), seems a little awkward to me. Also, I feel like on the current metagame, Vendilion is good agaisnt decks that we already are good against, except for Storm and maybe some U-Controls (not all of them, too).
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
I mean, I've had 1-2 copies of it in the sideboard basically ever since I started playing the deck, it's not like I'm unaware of the cards capabilities and where it shines. It gets boarded in probably more than any other card, i've probably played near as many games with it as without. It's just that some cards, like Azcanta and leak, are amazing game 1 cards and get sided out a ton, and some cards like Clique, are amazing Game 2 cards and get boarded in all the time.
Have to agree with Borzi, EE sounds good in theory but it looked terrible every single time he drew it. It got locked out by Stony multiple times, and would have been better as a sweeper in almost every time. I think Settle or wrath is a fine sideboard card in that slot.
Where I disagree is on the 3 fetchland basis. It just seems absurd to me. Some of us are considering playing 5th and even 6th fetches because of the interaction with stuff like Logic Knot, Azcanta and Crucible of worlds, not to mention the ability to play around blood moon. It's nice to play less painful mana, and have less dead cards going super late, but the later can be built around in better ways than cutting Flooded Strand. I would certainly cut all the mystic gates, glacial fortresses and even a Celestial Colonnade to add extra fetchables before ever touching a flooded strand if I though that was a real concern.
I had the same problems a bunch of times. Sometimes I kept drawing fetches and had no more lands to fetch for, and sometimes I had to Bolt myself to search for my Hallowed Fountain in order to cast a timely Verdict, Cryptic or Gideon.
I believe I solved the problem by cutting the Mystic Gate for a Prairie Stream. I have been enjoying it a lot. Now I have one more fetchable land, and it easily enters the battlefield untapped by turn 3 or 4 without doing me any damage. If I feel like I'm not gonna need an untapped dual land or I won't have 2 basics on the field to make it enter untapped, I just fetch for it at my opponent's end step.
I feel like it's better than Irrigated Farmland. If I had to cut one, I'd probably go for the Farmland. But I'm keeping both for now.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
Again, not sure my thinking is sound, but I've been enjoying this deck tremendously, and look forward to seeing more stuff!
Keep up the great work!
U/W Control
Mono U Tron
Standard
U/G Fish
I also really like Prairie Stream right now, I think my mananase is going to look like this:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
5 Island
3 Plains
Most people don't like having 2 Fountain, but I think that might be a vestige of pre-field logic. Having less dead fetch lands is important now, and it seems most people realize that. I just strongly disagree that lowering the number of fetches is the best way to combat that issue, especially in light of Azcanta/logic knot.
My manabase is almost the same. The only changes are:
- 1 Hallowed Fountain + 1 Irrigated Farmland
- 1 Ghost Quarter + 1 Glacial Fortress
How do you feel about GQ? Doesn't it screw your colours? Do you play Crucible? I like the idea of having a 5th LD, specially one that destroys basics, but I'm afraid of being colour screwed oftenly.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
These assumptions have worked for me in practice as well, I never find myself with an inability to verdict on 4. Rarely, but not never, Gideon on 3 can be a bit awkward, and so can be cryptic on 4. I think I can safely say that I'm not the only player operating under these assumptions, Ben Hill has also been on 5 colorless for a good while now, and he wasboasting a near 80% win rate during his last stream. One of the players who went 7-1-2 in modern at the PT was on 5 colorless as is Heatchecker, a streamer from twitch whose UW game I respect.
@mgoetze - it's possible that 2nd Stream could be better than 2nd fountain, especially if one were to move to 5 fetches and 9 basics. Unfortunately I won't have time to test that before the GP and the idea of having so many lands that ETB tapped before turn 3 is pretty scary going into a GP where I expect aggressive decks to be the rule.