I think the pros and cons of Breach vs Nahiri have already been lined out pretty well
Breach can be done a turn earlier
Breach can be done at instant speed (sacs at beginning of next end step)
Nahiri requires only one dedicated combo slot whilst Breach requires 8
Nahiri is a one-card combo whilst Breach needs both cards in hand
Nahiri helps with stabilizing before going off whilst Breach does not
The value of those you will have to weigh yourself. As for a white splash, the advantages would be a better sideboard, Lightning Helix and Path to Exile (although the latter does make Annihilator worse)
Bribery: not only gets you your opponent's Emrakul, it also stays in play, preventing a Nahiri ultimate. Has applications against Tron and other decks.
Zealous Conscripts: let your opponent get Nahiri to 8, then resolve this guy through Negate to steal Nahiri and ult it yourself. Similar effectiveness against Tron. Goes infinite with Kiki if you can steal one.
I've also seen a 2 resto / 1 Kiki splash locally, resto is nice by itself and making the opponent have to consider the combo is another layer of complexity for the match.
The black splash for lingering souls might be worth it too in several matchups.
Im playing UR Breach right now, and with an insane win rate at that, but i just splashed white for a Fountain and Plains for a pair of Nahiri's i got for me and my buddy placing 1st and 2nd at FNM, he was playing Breach and i was on Jund. What does white offer that i am missing from Breach? An almost better sideboard? Helix? Both decks are doing the same thing and one can get it done turn 5 and catch people off gaurd.
Breach only deals 15 damage, sometimes your opponent will just sac all lands and win with his remaining creatures. Additionally breach is weaker against cards like slaughter games or discard, as discrading your breach often leaves you with a bad hand. The looting ability of nahiri increases makes the deck more consistent and with path you can remove bigger threads. I played breach for a while and often had trouble beating other control decks. Grixis for eample is hardly beatable, as they run threads you can't remove, have discard and cheaper counters.
Breach deals 15 but the Emrakul trigger makes them sac their board, against almost every deck thats resetting them back to the begining of the game with not a lot of life and fewer ways to come back. I dont think i have ever attacked with my hasty Emrakul and lost a game.
I can see why in the late game an Emmy coming off a Nahiri wont be able to do as much as an Emmy a turn, 2 or 3 sooner. I feel like none of you guys have played the deck i am talking about, it runs so much interaction.
Know it actually doesn't. You have at least 8 cards in the deck that are dedicated to the combo. The Jeskai Harbinger deck only runs one dedicated card, a singleton Emarkul, as such the ENTIRE rest of the deck is interaction.
My main deck is Jund, so we always play test the matchup. Game 1 is heavily in the favor of Breach. Games 2 and 3 come down to Thoughtseize or S-Games. Otherwise, Jund cant win.
I dont know what the rest of you guys are saying about them having a field presence at all remaining because thats never happened after getting the combo off. Once Through the Breach resolves the game just ends. The other player either dies or has such a low life total that a Snap, Clique, Bolt, Electrolyze, anything can finish them off. I feel like from your guy's point of view, Emrakul is coming in much later in the game if at all, and it might not be enough at that point in the game to close it.
Jeskai has recently risen to a tier one deck and possibly the best deck in all of modern because Nahiri IS that good and her combo kill is much less clunky then Through the Breach, which is a very low tiered deck.
the deck is faster, the average cmc is much lower, and in the two events i have gotten to play in with it, it has gone 7-1 in total wins/loses. I dont get to play in paper often anymore, i have only gotten to play in 10 events all year long, including FNM's and GPTs, so i dont have any further evidence to prove how good it is in the current meta game. But ill come back every once in a while and post my recent results with it. There are 6 PPTQ's coming up locally and i will likely try Breach there.
AVG. CMC is lower? That's pretty funny. You are running 4 copies of and 4 copies of I'd have to imagine your deck has one of the highest converted mana costs in all of MTG, outside of Tron, on the other hand Nahiri decks are playing 4 copies of Nahiri at 4 CMC and everything else ranges from 1-3 in CMC (except singleton Emarkul, which we can discard).
Hi, to add my grain of salt to the UR Breach debate: it was the first deck I tried after the Twin ban. My build was pretty much the Twin shell with the 8 combo pieces and 4 spirit guides.
The deck was really strong and fast: the acceleration of the guides allowed for early turns breaches or blood moons post side (I once won a game with turn 1 blood moon, that was sweet). The problem of the "bad" control game was not that relevant. You had a lot of dead cards but also a lot of cantrips, draw spells, looting effect (2x loothouse+izzet charm), and the snapcaster+bolt shell allowed to perform decently as a control deck.
Post side, the spirit guides could be removed to make way for more control elements, or side out the combo entierly to become blue moon.
As mentionned, the main drawback of the deck was that breaching didn't always win the game. I actually stopped playing this deck because I found myself comboing at 3-5 life, getting my opponent to 5 and 1 permanent and losing to their last creature. That was really a dealbreaker, and happened a lot more than I thought (especially against eldrazi).
As for the comparaison with Nahiri control, I think it's not really fair: the harbinger deck is first a control deck, where Nahiri is a way to end the game quickly once you've taken the advantage, or stabilise by forcing your opponent to deal with it while you set up your own gameplan. UR Breach is more of a combo/control hybrid where you aim at controlling until turn 4-5 then breach an emrakul. It's a very different gameplan, and the Breach combo doesn't do a lot to compliment your control gameplan, while Nahiri is a very good control card. Her +2 dug me out of very bad situation while exiling enchantments is really good (some people still bring in Keranos from the side against me. Seriously. I've never been happier than when they tap out for a keranos and I exile it so easily)
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MTGO Username: Tajicyolo
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show Duel Commander:Kess High Tide Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
Two cards I'd like to discuss: Harvest Pyre; I've been playing Relic of Progenitus again and some utility I've been finding very useful is to exile away my own fetches. If a game goes long, getting to shuffle back your graveyard back in your deck after filtering out some fetches significantly improves your draws. This made me turn to Harvest Pire as it is the most flexible way to exile cards from your graveyard; Logic Knot is great but the timing of being a counterspell can get awkward, Harvest Pire in response to Emrakul's trigger exiling any land or other dead draw to burn a Birds of Paradise for 8 damage seems strong. And of course Harvest Pire gets fueled by Nahiri for an additional way to deal wit 4+ toughness creatures. It seems like a good one-of.
Thing in the Ice: It seems like this card would synergise incredibly well with Nahiri. Blocks attackers whilst Nahiri's rummage makes it easy to flip, especially now we run ~7 Visions. It turns on removal but the only thing I really mind seeing it die to is Abrupt Decay, having it trade with Path to Exile would actually be a huge gain.
I'm interested with Harvest Pyre, but I still thing Thing in the Ice is a bit of a trap. It dilutes the control plan slightly, and often times will be useless compared to a Nahiri. A creature Upheaval isn't bad, but there's a big investment to get to that point.
I'm interested with Harvest Pyre, but I still thing Thing in the Ice is a bit of a trap. It dilutes the control plan slightly, and often times will be useless compared to a Nahiri. A creature Upheaval isn't bad, but there's a big investment to get to that point.
I see what you mean; it's easy to say you want a 7/8 Evacuation in your deck, but you also need to ask how useful an 0/4 wall is. With how diverse modern is, that varies a lot per matchup. Looking at the tier1 decks, the decks where I actively dislike titi is versus affinity and Jund, against the others it seems decent to strong. In the end it is mostly the question on whether I want my utility one-ofs or just 3 Thing in the Ice
What gap is Harvest pyre supposed to fill? We're already running 4 bolt, 4 path and 1-4 lightning helix. Add to that snapcaster and Nahiri's -2 and we should be golden as it relates to single-target removal.
It kills 4+ toughness creatures without ramping the opponent; I would sure as hell play a fifth Path to Exile if I was allowed to. I also do in fact cut removal for it; in the draft Titi/pyre list Im going to test, Pyri is in the slot Electrolyze would normally be.
Quick question about Jeskai Control with Nahiri. Why has no one run Lingering Souls and/or Kolaghan's Command. Both seem absurdly good right now with all the fast aggro or clunky midrange decks running around. Souls works well with Nahiri as well and K-Command is side/mainboard hate for the number one sideboard hate against Nahiri right now: Graffdigger's Cage[/card].
Obviously a black splash means you cannot run Cryptic Command, but at most we are talking 2 shocks. Dropping a Lingering Souls before a Nahiri seems safe as does pitching one to her too.
Quick question about Jeskai Control with Nahiri. Why has no one run Lingering Souls and/or Kolaghan's Command. Both seem absurdly good right now with all the fast aggro or clunky midrange decks running around. Souls works well with Nahiri as well and K-Command is side/mainboard hate for the number one sideboard hate against Nahiri right now: Graffdigger's Cage[/card].
Obviously a black splash means you cannot run Cryptic Command, but at most we are talking 2 shocks. Dropping a Lingering Souls before a Nahiri seems safe as does pitching one to her too.
There is a small mention of the black splash in the primer. It's definitely viable, especially the synergy between Nahiri and Lingering Souls is very good. However, it does tax your manabase a lot; you can't play any colorless lands, will take more damage from fetching untapped shocklands, and you should probably be playing 24 lands. The black splash makes grindy matchups better and gives access to Slaughter Games for combo matchups, but you do lose points versus the aggro matchups
Basically what Bearscape said. A lot of us actually don't run Cryptic anymore anyways. It's basically a meta call. Splash black to be better against mid-range and control, but make yourself significantly worse against aggro, or stick to that normal plan to be pretty good against everything.
I will be discussing sideboard cards in-depth if it pleases the court. I'm likely running our baby at GP Guangzhou next month and want to give you guys the inside of where I'm at with deck choices at the moment and the sideboard has the most room for innovation and improvement at the moment.
Ive been running the black splash and I really like it. I still run a ghost quarter and loot house. Maybe I'm getting lucky but mana hasn't been an issue for me. Souls is so good with nahiri. Against any deck trying to swing creatures at her lingering souls usually means free emerakul.
I would like to chime in with regards to the black splash. It's been very successful for me so far, and Lingering Souls was MVP for me last Friday, when I 4-0'd with this list:
I feel that I don't take much extra pain from my lands, as I'm usually just fetching the Watery Graves when I have a free fetch. I'm fine with casting the front half and letting it sit for a bit. Additionally, I feel like the sideboard options made available strengthen some of our tougher matchups. While I agree that Lingering Souls can be a bit clunky against some decks, there is a decent amount of Affinity, Zoo, and Suicide Zoo at my store, and I would say Souls are commonly just as effective as Timely Reinforcements, Electrolyze, and Vendilion Clique in the main would be in those matchups.
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Modern WU UWx Control variants RU Affinity
Commander WU Grand Arbiter Augustin IV- By "arbitration" I mean "no" WUB Ertai, the Corrupted- Solar Flare URG Riku of 2^n Reflections
I will be discussing sideboard cards in-depth if it pleases the court. I'm likely running our baby at GP Guangzhou next month and want to give you guys the inside of where I'm at with deck choices at the moment and the sideboard has the most room for innovation and improvement at the moment.
I'm voting in favor of this. No match-up analysis is complete without talking about sideboards.
On a sidenote, I tried Spreading Seas vs. Tron. Definitely like the card there. Think the key selling point of the card is that it complements the other Tron hate (Stony Silence, Crumble, Negate, etc.), meanwhile having applications in other match-ups. Need to try it out vs. Jund. I can't seeing it being too amazing there, but probably solid.
Loved playing this card back in standard. Nice to see applications in Modern. I think the last time I played Seas in Modern is Esper Zur.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Seas is best against Jund in my opinion. Against Tron it just eats a Naturalize effect, or gets swept up by an oblivion stone most of the time. I prefer Crumble to Dust. it's a more swingy card.
I'll talk about cards I don't think people should be playing in a GP sideboard tomorrow.
Relic of Progenitus will be one such card and I'll explain why.
The value of those you will have to weigh yourself. As for a white splash, the advantages would be a better sideboard, Lightning Helix and Path to Exile (although the latter does make Annihilator worse)
Bribery: not only gets you your opponent's Emrakul, it also stays in play, preventing a Nahiri ultimate. Has applications against Tron and other decks.
Zealous Conscripts: let your opponent get Nahiri to 8, then resolve this guy through Negate to steal Nahiri and ult it yourself. Similar effectiveness against Tron. Goes infinite with Kiki if you can steal one.
Jace, Architect of Thought: slow Nahiri number 5? 1/1 tokens?
I've also seen a 2 resto / 1 Kiki splash locally, resto is nice by itself and making the opponent have to consider the combo is another layer of complexity for the match.
The black splash for lingering souls might be worth it too in several matchups.
Know it actually doesn't. You have at least 8 cards in the deck that are dedicated to the combo. The Jeskai Harbinger deck only runs one dedicated card, a singleton Emarkul, as such the ENTIRE rest of the deck is interaction.
Jeskai has recently risen to a tier one deck and possibly the best deck in all of modern because Nahiri IS that good and her combo kill is much less clunky then Through the Breach, which is a very low tiered deck.
Take MTGS "testing" with a grain of salt. Ever card you can possibly imagine has been said as "it's been great for me in testing"
AVG. CMC is lower? That's pretty funny. You are running 4 copies of and 4 copies of I'd have to imagine your deck has one of the highest converted mana costs in all of MTG, outside of Tron, on the other hand Nahiri decks are playing 4 copies of Nahiri at 4 CMC and everything else ranges from 1-3 in CMC (except singleton Emarkul, which we can discard).
The deck was really strong and fast: the acceleration of the guides allowed for early turns breaches or blood moons post side (I once won a game with turn 1 blood moon, that was sweet). The problem of the "bad" control game was not that relevant. You had a lot of dead cards but also a lot of cantrips, draw spells, looting effect (2x loothouse+izzet charm), and the snapcaster+bolt shell allowed to perform decently as a control deck.
Post side, the spirit guides could be removed to make way for more control elements, or side out the combo entierly to become blue moon.
As mentionned, the main drawback of the deck was that breaching didn't always win the game. I actually stopped playing this deck because I found myself comboing at 3-5 life, getting my opponent to 5 and 1 permanent and losing to their last creature. That was really a dealbreaker, and happened a lot more than I thought (especially against eldrazi).
As for the comparaison with Nahiri control, I think it's not really fair: the harbinger deck is first a control deck, where Nahiri is a way to end the game quickly once you've taken the advantage, or stabilise by forcing your opponent to deal with it while you set up your own gameplan. UR Breach is more of a combo/control hybrid where you aim at controlling until turn 4-5 then breach an emrakul. It's a very different gameplan, and the Breach combo doesn't do a lot to compliment your control gameplan, while Nahiri is a very good control card. Her +2 dug me out of very bad situation while exiling enchantments is really good (some people still bring in Keranos from the side against me. Seriously. I've never been happier than when they tap out for a keranos and I exile it so easily)
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
Harvest Pyre; I've been playing Relic of Progenitus again and some utility I've been finding very useful is to exile away my own fetches. If a game goes long, getting to shuffle back your graveyard back in your deck after filtering out some fetches significantly improves your draws. This made me turn to Harvest Pire as it is the most flexible way to exile cards from your graveyard; Logic Knot is great but the timing of being a counterspell can get awkward, Harvest Pire in response to Emrakul's trigger exiling any land or other dead draw to burn a Birds of Paradise for 8 damage seems strong. And of course Harvest Pire gets fueled by Nahiri for an additional way to deal wit 4+ toughness creatures. It seems like a good one-of.
Thing in the Ice: It seems like this card would synergise incredibly well with Nahiri. Blocks attackers whilst Nahiri's rummage makes it easy to flip, especially now we run ~7 Visions. It turns on removal but the only thing I really mind seeing it die to is Abrupt Decay, having it trade with Path to Exile would actually be a huge gain.
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
I see what you mean; it's easy to say you want a 7/8 Evacuation in your deck, but you also need to ask how useful an 0/4 wall is. With how diverse modern is, that varies a lot per matchup. Looking at the tier1 decks, the decks where I actively dislike titi is versus affinity and Jund, against the others it seems decent to strong. In the end it is mostly the question on whether I want my utility one-ofs or just 3 Thing in the Ice
It kills 4+ toughness creatures without ramping the opponent; I would sure as hell play a fifth Path to Exile if I was allowed to. I also do in fact cut removal for it; in the draft Titi/pyre list Im going to test, Pyri is in the slot Electrolyze would normally be.
A tier one deck.
Quick question about Jeskai Control with Nahiri. Why has no one run Lingering Souls and/or Kolaghan's Command. Both seem absurdly good right now with all the fast aggro or clunky midrange decks running around. Souls works well with Nahiri as well and K-Command is side/mainboard hate for the number one sideboard hate against Nahiri right now: Graffdigger's Cage[/card].
Obviously a black splash means you cannot run Cryptic Command, but at most we are talking 2 shocks. Dropping a Lingering Souls before a Nahiri seems safe as does pitching one to her too.
There is a small mention of the black splash in the primer. It's definitely viable, especially the synergy between Nahiri and Lingering Souls is very good. However, it does tax your manabase a lot; you can't play any colorless lands, will take more damage from fetching untapped shocklands, and you should probably be playing 24 lands. The black splash makes grindy matchups better and gives access to Slaughter Games for combo matchups, but you do lose points versus the aggro matchups
3x Celestial Colonnade
1x Desolate Lighthouse
4x Flooded Strand
1x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Steam Vents
1x Sulfur Falls
2x Watery Grave
4x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Instant (17)
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Lightning Helix
3x Mana Leak
4x Path to Exile
2x Remand
2x Spell Snare
Sorcery (11)
3x Ancestral Vision
1x Anger of the Gods
3x Lingering Souls
4x Serum Visions
Creature (5)
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Snapcaster Mage
1x Crackling Doom
1x Crumble to Dust
1x Dispel
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Negate
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Slaughter Games
2x Stony Silence
1x Timely Reinforcements
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Wear / Tear
1x Wrath of God
I feel that I don't take much extra pain from my lands, as I'm usually just fetching the Watery Graves when I have a free fetch. I'm fine with casting the front half and letting it sit for a bit. Additionally, I feel like the sideboard options made available strengthen some of our tougher matchups. While I agree that Lingering Souls can be a bit clunky against some decks, there is a decent amount of Affinity, Zoo, and Suicide Zoo at my store, and I would say Souls are commonly just as effective as Timely Reinforcements, Electrolyze, and Vendilion Clique in the main would be in those matchups.
WU UWx Control variants
RU Affinity
Commander
WU Grand Arbiter Augustin IV- By "arbitration" I mean "no"
WUB Ertai, the Corrupted- Solar Flare
URG Riku of 2^n Reflections
^This. 1000x this.
I'm voting in favor of this. No match-up analysis is complete without talking about sideboards.
On a sidenote, I tried Spreading Seas vs. Tron. Definitely like the card there. Think the key selling point of the card is that it complements the other Tron hate (Stony Silence, Crumble, Negate, etc.), meanwhile having applications in other match-ups. Need to try it out vs. Jund. I can't seeing it being too amazing there, but probably solid.
Loved playing this card back in standard. Nice to see applications in Modern. I think the last time I played Seas in Modern is Esper Zur.
I don't run it however simply because I never manage to find a place for it in my sideboard; if I'd run it, I'd run it over Crumble to Dust.
Basically my question is; if you run Spreading Seas, what would you be running instead if you weren't running seas?
I'll talk about cards I don't think people should be playing in a GP sideboard tomorrow.
Relic of Progenitus will be one such card and I'll explain why.
Its a cuck or be cucked world.