I also have been tinkering with an artifact version using Ingenious Smith over Stoneforge. It’s obviously a budget version but has been pretty consistent hitting targets due to the amount in the deck. Trying to decide which version I favor more.
4 Ingenious Smith
4 Wall of Omens
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Skyclave Apparition
1 Cavalier of Dawn
3 Sun Titan
1 Gideon of the Trials
4 Path to Exile
2 Generous Gift
1 Winds of Abandon
1 Day of Judgment
2 Wrath of God
3 Mortarpod
2 Batterskull
1 Kaldra Compleat
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Mistveil Plains
14 Plains
I tailored this deck for this agressive meta and it really shows in the games. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Dragon's Rage Channeler are very powerful cards, but with 3 Path to Exile, 2 Mortarpod and 3 Prismatic Ending, with the addition of our 2 mana creatures, usually they are threats we can deal well in the early game. Survive the early game and the game is very much favored.
Teferi isn't better than any of the cards in the deck and doesn't disrupt them as much, so they are the first to go. Given that i already feel very confident in our chances of winning the long game, 1 less titan to trim out the curve and put more inpactfull cards seems like a good choice. Sanctifier en-Vec is a wonderful card, having pretection against all the cards they have (asside from Prismatic Ending if they are running it) and exiling Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger as well as their other cards to stop them from achieving Delirium.
Very explosive deck with the ability to put several Hollow One as soon as turn 1! Usually they don't do it, but turn 1 Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, with turn 2 The Underworld Cookbook and a discard/ draw spell can be very strong, enabling Hollow One and Vengevine.
Given the suite of exile based removal we have in the deck, it's also not a bad match up as long as they don't have the god hands that dump Hollow One and Vengevine on turn 1 and 2.
All the sideboard cards are great disruption for the graveyard recursion plan they have, and saving removal for their big hitters makes this play like any other explosuve aggro deck we are used to.
Round 3 drew 1-1 against Hammertime
My opponent was new with the deck and took a long time making decisions so the games went very long and unfortunatly couldn't close game 3, although the win was almost certain.
Game 1 lost because i was stuck on 2 lands for the entire game, without drawing either a Path to Exile or Solitude and with 2 Skyclave Apparition in hand. He eventually ovwerpowers my defences by swinging with 2 constructs. I block one with Kaldra Compleat and one with Stoneforge Mystic, and he answers by putting 2 Colossus Hammer and a Shadowspear on the big Construct that was being blockes by Stoneforge at instant speed because of Sigarda's Aid.
Game 2 I keep a one lander, but had 2 Prismatic Ending, 1 Solitude, 1 Wall of Omens and 1 Sanctum Prelate in hand. I knew even if it took 2 turns to draw the second land i was safe from most of his early game. Got 2 lands on the next turns and the game was very doomed for my opponent when i played Sanctum Prelate on 1 and dealt with his Urza's Saga. He couldn't play Sigarda's Aid or his equipments and eventually he conceded.
Game 3 went very long and was a grindy one. He had Sigarda's Aid and was swinging with his Inkmoth Nexus every turn but never put any equipment on it, just baiting the removal. I didn't fall for it and went to 5 infect with no chance of death as i always had a Path to exile, Solitude and Seal of Cleansing ready to go. Puresteel Paladin and Esper Sentinel were actually quite good for him as they drew quite a bit of cards that made him stay in the game just enough to hold on for a draw.
I will post the other 4 matches tomorrow as I'm a bit short on time but i hope this results and short explanations benefit you and spark some interesting discussions in the thread!
Hey folks, just sharing the list I ran last Friday at FNM. I'm experimenting with card choices right now and by no means think this is the optimal version.
Went 3-1
winning vs 2-0 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician combo, 2-1 mono white death and taxes, and 2-0 hammer time
losing vs Esper Control
Some notes: I actually really liked the elite spellbinders in the board vs the control matchup. Game 2 on the play I had 2 spellbinder in my opener and landed the first to see vindicate, archmage's charm, and cryptic, took the charm, and would have probably won that game if he didn't topdeck counterspell for my follow-up spellbinder taking the cryptic.
maindeck kaya's guile seems like a solid GY hate against me.
Not drawing stoneforge for the whole match probably contributed to the loss.
I'm pretty happy with the maindeck 3 prismatic ending. I'm considering cutting a verdict, but in the matchups you want it, you really want it.
Hey everyone! Glad to see this thread is still active and thriving! This is by far my favorite Magic deck and I’ve been piloting it for years. I’m trying to get back into Modern after a while of being away and want to get back to my Emeria roots. Though I’m well aware that the Stoneforge build is the best version of this deck, I’m really tired of greedy WotC just ravaging my bank account and can’t justify spending all that money for certain cards. Instead I’d like to go in on a mono white creature heavy version of the deck.
welcome to the thread.
yeah, SFM is still quite expensive.
if you want a mono W build that does not use sfm. Here's Fincown's mono white. It was able to reach a 5-0 in 2019.
Hey folks, just sharing the list I ran last Friday at FNM. I'm experimenting with card choices right now and by no means think this is the optimal version.
Went 3-1
winning vs 2-0 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician combo, 2-1 mono white death and taxes, and 2-0 hammer time
losing vs Esper Control
Some notes: I actually really liked the elite spellbinders in the board vs the control matchup. Game 2 on the play I had 2 spellbinder in my opener and landed the first to see vindicate, archmage's charm, and cryptic, took the charm, and would have probably won that game if he didn't topdeck counterspell for my follow-up spellbinder taking the cryptic.
maindeck kaya's guile seems like a solid GY hate against me.
Not drawing stoneforge for the whole match probably contributed to the loss.
hmm, looks like sfm really is a powerful part of our deck.. and drawing it or not can be the difference between winning or losing. Nice to hear that spellbinders are good against control.
congrats on the good finish.
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I was gone from the thread, because it's become a bit busy again irl.. also the delta variant of corona got into my country. We are in lockdown again until Aug 20th.
Congratulations on the finishes and the new builds, and welcome back to YJBh33ls. Before I get to my input, I should first say that I think your initial list is a better one than the Ingenious Smith version, but is perhaps playing one too many of both Cavalier of Dawn and Gideon of the Trials. With the first, I don't believe you have the Artifact and Enchantment count to support drawing two at any point, and with the second the card purely does not play well in multiples other than against Burn. A single copy of each should give you a reasonable maindeck coverage without costing too much in awkward draws, with a second (and even maybe a third) Gideon in the sideboard to come in against specifically combo matchups. Your mileage may vary, but I think that this balance will be better for you if you can replace the two slots you gain with the fourth Charming Prince and a flex slot of your choice (Skyscanner, Priest of Ancient Lore, the fourth Skyclave Apparition, potentially Ranger-Captain of Eos if your sideboard supports it, or even a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar if you want to push the emblem for value on Gid3on while adding a very significant upgrade to both your attrition and your small-ball games). Finally, on the Smith build, I think that Batterskull is a fine card to hardcast, but there are many effects I would prefer over the seven mana investment for Kaldra Compleat if that was the only way I could get it on the battlefield. In both decks, however, I would say that your boardstate is much more important to maintain given your blink synergies and Skyclave downside on Wrath of God, so I personally would recommend maxing out on Settle the Wreckage initially. This is possible because Meddling Mage is less common at the moment. I hope this helps!
My own testing has brought me to a strange place, and I will be attending my first tournament in almost two years tonight with the heaviest version yet of my build. Elspeth Conquers Death was overall quite good and a card I would be willing to play in the future, but I could not justify leaving it in in several matchups where its only target was Planeswalkers like Big Teferi and Jace, leaving me with no clean answers to them if they managed to get out of control. I therefore exchanged it for a copy of Hour of Revelation with surprisingly passable results. The ability to clean up multiple Planeswalkers or utility Artifacts along with a creature or two was very strong, and Teferi, Time Raveler was a greater contributor to its power than anticipated (by helping to discount it on turns 6+, by preserving Crucible of Worlds around it, by guaranteeing its resolution, and by upgrading its timing utility). The fact of Tef3ri's consistent value and synergy with Sun Titan to invalidate and/or exhaust countermagic, combined with the general decrease in Counterspell numbers recently, has also led me to go down to 3 Supreme Verdict in order to maintain the blowout potential of a singleton Settle the Wreckage, which both deals with resilient or Haste creatures permanently and provides a way to force opponents to respect open mana.
Going back to Hour of Revelation, however, there were one or two oddball combo matchups where I was still unable to justify leaving it in to deal with wild sideboard strategies, and so I have gone up to 61 cards for the time being in my own copy of Cavalier of Dawn to recur with Emeria. This double resilience to noncreature permanents has allowed me to modify the sideboard, which now no longer sports Celestial Purge, and instead adds back in a better "Fish" style plan post-board with Specter's Shroud joining Drannith Magistrate in place of my former two-of. I will take my chances on the 4-mana red Planeswalkers at the moment, with Prismatic Ending pulling a lot of weight against all the other common Purge targets. This new configuration expands the complexity of the sideboard a great deal, but allows for a very high level of customization and punishes both Combo and the currently-popular Cascade mechanic in general much better. As a bonus, when played early the Magistrate acts as a complete trump to Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer which is also very strong at forcing sub-optimal sequencing from Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Light up the Stage, Snapcaster Mage, Bring to Light, Bonecrusher Giant, and Expressive Iteration decks as well as all Suspend strategies.
Here, then, is my list ahead of a small tournament tonight (I anticipate it to be 3 rounds):
Hey guys, sorry vacations got in the way and i completly forgot to put the results i talked about before.
Also hope everything is okay with you and your loved ones Fluff! We'll get through this eventually!
About the FNM i had previously mentioned:
Round 1 - Won 2-0 against 8 Rack
I think this is a wonderfull matchup given the cycling effects we have in the deck, always drawing us cards, and the presence of Prismatic Ending and Skyclave Apparition just dealing with their cards permanently.
Always fun having a midrange matchup. I have discussed this match up previously and overall felt very good in it. The value is just better in our deck so in my experiance we usually come out on top.
Teferi Time Raveler and Emeria really shine in this match up as we could expect in a control game. My loss was very unfortuante as i had an active Emeria with absolutly no creatures in the game, had a hand with 3 Prismatic Ending and 2 Supreme Verdict, only 2 lands left in the deck and 2 Mortarpod in play. I think if i tried i couldn't replicate how unlucky my draws were.
Hadn't played this matchup before and was honestly quite suprised by it's resilience. The Ozolith, Throne of Geth to avoid Exile based effects and Animation Module were actually cards that gave me trouble, specially when Urza's Saga just gets everything they need. But the removal was just too much and picking the right targets proved crucial for a win.
I think this FNM had a great variety of decks and being able to deal with aggro, midrange and control with more or less ease is a testament to it's power.
This past weekend also went to FNM and went 2-1, losing a very fun and highly contested third round against the new Grixis Dress Down created by AspiringSpike.
I have made some adjustments to my sideboard, taking out Shadowspear, Kor Firewalker and Sorcerous Spyglass, and putting in Chalice of the Void, a 4th Teferi, Time Raveler and a Void Mirror. Shadowspear, Kor Firewalker came out because i mostly used them for the burn match up which doesn't seem to appear anymore and Sorcerous spyglass loses a bit of it's charm given the existance of Prismatic Ending and me not feeling the need to bring it as a devastating answer to whatever my opponents are doing. Chalice of the Void came in mostly as an answer for Cascade decks like Living End and Rhinos, bit it's also quite good against Izzet Blitz and Grixis Death's Shadow. 4th Teferi, Time Raveler came as another answer for Cascade decks (although a late one at turn 3 which still gives them a chance to do it once) and as a card to bring against control where i feel that i all the removal i have packed in my mainboard is mostly useless. Void Mirror as another answer for cascade decks and Tron (more Eldrazi Tron) (really went heavy on this anti cascade sideboard as i realizzed i had basically no answers for it on the sideboard and just need more, that could also deal with other decks, therefore this selection of cards).
Game 1 i think it's an instant loss. I have no way of interacting with my opponent is doing and when he decides to cascade, he can preety much one shot me without me being able to do anything.
Really glad i made the sideboard changes to take cascade matchups into account as they really saved me, as even if they dealt with one piece of hate, having multiples allowed me to never lose to a force of negation, a Brazen Borrower bouncing my hate card or a Grief taking it away before playing.
Dress Down is a legit card right now, and i encourage you to see it's gameplay to understand it's interactions, from turning Death's Shadow into 13/13 when it enters, to casting it at eot with Lurrus of the Dream-Den so it stays for our entire turn before being sacrificed. It's a very versitile card and it really wrecked me when i was counting with a Stoneforge Mystic to fetch me an equipment, or cancelling a Sun Titan trigger or simply a draw from Wall of Omens. Still the deck faired well against this new threat and it came down to who had the better topdeck, which my opponent ended up having. Still think our deck is favoured in the matchup being a Lurrus Death's Shadow deck, but the Dress Down is definitly something i have to keep in mind and play around more next time.
Hey guys, sorry vacations got in the way and i completly forgot to put the results i talked about before.
Also hope everything is okay with you and your loved ones Fluff! We'll get through this eventually!
Round 4 - Won 2-0 Against Hardened Scales
Hadn't played this matchup before and was honestly quite suprised by it's resilience. The Ozolith, Throne of Geth to avoid Exile based effects and Animation Module were actually cards that gave me trouble, specially when Urza's Saga just gets everything they need. But the removal was just too much and picking the right targets proved crucial for a win.
I think this FNM had a great variety of decks and being able to deal with aggro, midrange and control with more or less ease is a testament to it's power.
I hope you had a nice vacation. ^____^
well, and somehow I'm still alive. Not joking.. someone died from the delta variant only 20 or 30 meters from where I work. Soldiers sealed off that street, and took everyone who were in close contact with the deceased to a quarantine facility.
back to mtg... nice to see you finally got a match against the new Hardened Scales deck. Is it a tough match-up for us, or it's easy enough to beat?
Hello all, and congratulations on the solid results, Starstorm.
My own outing was quite good, apart from the fact that I was so rusty I literally lost two games because of improper communication, both of which ultimately cost me match wins. The theoretical side seems solid, however, and I am cautiously optimistic about my new sideboard configuration.
Before I describe the matches, though, I do find it interesting to note, Starstorm, that we have both increased our targeted interaction for free spells, while simultaneously reducing our reliance on Pithing Needle effects. The complete overhaul required to combat the rise of Prismatic Ending is a primary reason for the first trend in my eyes, while the abuse of Cascade with the alternate-cost only Suspend cards appears to be the largest section of unfair threats in the format at the moment, and my Drannith Magistrate joins your Chalice of the Void and Void Mirror as options to consider in this fight to address the second point.
On to the record of my games, then, which ended up at 1-1-1.
Round 1: 2-0 against four(+?)-Colour Kaheera Elementals.
This was about as clean as it gets on paper. The Ephemerate plus Evoke synergies they produce (Specifically with Solitude and Fury) only interact after our ETB effects have accrued some amount of value, and they are completely dependent on board state in any event. Their manabase is also highly ambitious, and can be attacked quite early - my opponent had only a Forest and a Plains as basics, and just in setting up my colours during efficient sequencing before a Supreme Verdict I took him off of red mana for two turns. Speaking of Supreme Verdict, there was nearly zero maindeck interaction for Wrath effects, and none if their limited number of Flash plays are not a concern. Blinking their creatures still returns them to play immediately, which leaves them with no board state on the next attack step, so a sweeper generally represents multiple turns of stabilization. I was wary of Lightning Skelemental, and so I prioritized an active Mortarpod whenever they were threatening to connect BRR mana, but as this configuration of lands was easy to disrupt I was never actually exposed to a card I cannot confirm they were playing.
Game one was a simple affair given that their Cavern of Souls leaving play made their hand extremely awkward, with them conceding to Settle the Wreckage as a second sweeper of the game - all this the turn before Emeria activated after an attacking Sun Titan had just traded with multiple creatures while returning my Field of Ruin to confirm that they were out of basics.
Game two was more competitive, with Ephemerate showing off an interesting synergy by triggering Risen Reef off of Flamekin Harbinger to get access to any creature they wanted immediately, but since this was only translating to cards in hand after my Supreme Verdict resolved everything still felt heavily favoured from what I saw. In the end, his Omnath, Locus of the Roil on a small board was insufficient to stop my Stoneforge Mystic plus Kaldra Compleat which I equipped with Batterskull.
Things were essentially as expected here, and I was looking forward to testing out my new sideboard to see how things went without the Celestial Purge and Blessed Alliance I have had access to in the past, but I misplayed mechanically to lose game two, and then made a poor keep in game three which left me too far behind to catch up to his Eidolon of the Great Revel when I missed on my second land. I feel that the matchup is now definitely higher-pressure without the safety blanket of extra burst lifegain, but the singleton sideboard Lone Missionary earns its keep essentially because it is still an enormously powerful tool in the matchup, leading directly to game wins almost every time if drawn.
Game one was unusual, in that I won on the draw because my second Stoneforge Mystic was not immediately murdered on sight, so I cleanly activated it to put Batterskull in play on turn four after he had killed my first with a Lightning Helix. His Monastery Swiftspear and off-curve Eidolon of the Great Revel were unable to do better than trade with it on my attack, and he conceded when I re-set it and he found no answer.
Game two was a stronger start in Goblin Guide for him, which he followed up with a Monastery Swiftspear plus Lava Spike. My turn-one and turn-two taplands let me cast a Prismatic Ending on the Prowess Monk to reduce the clock on turn two, and he followed up on his turn with another Eidolon of the Great Revel plus Lightning Bolt. On my turn, I cast a Wall of Omens and made my mistake. His Goblin Guide had revealed a Flooded Strand, so I short-circuited to my default testing mode of "reduce dead draws and known information" and instead of my original intention clearly said "I'll fetch a tapland and say go" instead of casting the Shadowspear I drew off of the Plains in my hand - immediately regretting my verbalization since I had just committed to wasting a mana and costing me an unnecessary point of life. On his next turn, he played a Boros Charm and a second Eidolon of the Great Revel, so my life total was now too low to play the Equipment safely in the hopes of suiting up my Wall for damage control through his now-double Pyrostatic Pillar effect. I had a chance to stabilize if I drew a Supreme Verdict or a Settle the Wreckage, but the lost point of life now meant I couldn't even stay above three on the next turn to give me two shots at this play.
Still cursing myself for the mistake, I kept a hand of Raugrin Triome, Prismatic Ending, Path to Exile, Shadowspear, Stoneforge Mystic, Wall of Omens, and Settle the Wreckage. These are solid cards, but in accepting them I essentially banked on the fact that I would make my second land on time, which I now think was overall a worse gamble than a fresh seven cards would have been. One-landers on the play are rarely correct to keep in my version in any case. As it turned out, he was able to provide the fastest clock possible with another Goblin Guide on turn one, which showed a second Wall of Omens on top of my deck. On my turn, I exiled his Guide with my Sorcery, and he cast an Eidolon of the Great Revel which he followed up with a second plus a Monastery Swiftspear after I missed again on land and was induced to cast my Path. I drew a Plains on turn four and was able to cast a desperation-mode Stoneforge Mystic, but his follow-up play was a Roiling Vortex plus Lightning Helix on my last remaining hope which essentially sealed the deal when I was left without a land again on turn five.
This was again a matchup that seemed like it could go to plan, but a slow pace of play combined with another mental lapse to leave me unable to deal the final points of damage while in a commanding position during extra turns. Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Collected Company with Shaman of the Pack are still a very tricky combination of cards to play around, but high numbers on Mortarpod and sweepers are a twin set of fundamental advantages in the matchup. Of note is that their version was more combo-oriented, and able to flood the board early and/or rebuild late, but I still felt that I was steadily sliding into the driver's seat as the game extended.
In game one I was able to use Mortarpod on the play to set my opponent back an Elvish Mystic right out of the gate, and continued towards a commanding presence as we negotiated a sequence of small advantages on both sides. I eventually cashed in on a 3-for-1 with Supreme Verdict, then followed up with a Stoneforge Mystic for more Mortarpod action which decimated his rebuild attempt in combination with Teferi, Time Raveler, while I worked steadily towards Emeria, the Sky Ruin. He eventually began running low on basics by the time I was bringing back Sun Titan, but he continued to play on in hopes of playing an Elvish Archdruid for a Collected Company to drain me out from 10 or so in one double-trigger after I had him locked out of black mana. I was eventually able to simply grab a Batterskull to get my life total out of range before moving on to present lethal damage, but it is notable to me that I could have removed his out if any of my three Field of Ruin had been a Ghost Quarter instead. The cards are not identical, and manabase disruption on Basic lands is an effect I find very difficult to provide access to in any other way.
For game two, we got to a midgame scenario where his Heritage Druid combined with a Nettle Sentinel and an Elvish Warmaster to cast five elves off the top of his Library with Realmwalker. This was after a rebuild from Supreme Verdict on my part, and so I used my active Teferi, Time Raveler to return a Wall of Omens to my hand. When I drew an Hour of Revelation, I changed my plan to casting that instead of the Settle the Wreckage I had in my hand. This was correct, but then when I passed the turn and tried to cast it at instant-speed during his attack step for value, he embarrassingly had to remind me that I would have needed to do so on my turn because I had indeed used the negative ability on my Planeswalker. I apologized, and had to cast the Settle the Wreckage instead, but he was able to play around the extra sweeper over the next few turns while I failed to find an Emeria, the Sky Ruin to take over. I ultimately lost to an activation of Elvish Warmaster which he had held back to follow up a mid-size board. If I had simply inverted my sweepers as intended, his game-winning play would more than likely have been maximally punished by a mass exile at instant-speed.
Game three was a similar affair, where multiple sweepers got me to a very strong boardstate with an active Stoneforge Mystic, and my two largest Living Weapon Equipment were on their way to dominating the battlefield, but time was called and several copies of Elvish Visionary as blockers for him left me with insufficient mana to ping all of his defenses away with Mortarpod on the final attack step, and as 2-1 would not have been sufficient for prizes we simply agreed to a draw.
In games two and three, I took out my Crucible of Worlds and Cavalier of Dawn to put in a third Prismatic Ending and a Declaration in Stone. The interaction between Hour of Revelation and Cavalier of Dawn felt fairly clean on the evening, since I was mostly finding justifiable reasons to leave one of them in to cover for strange scenarios whenever I took the other one out. The one exception was against Burn, where both were too slow to keep in but it felt as if Prismatic Ending easily accounted for any rogue strategy other than four-mana Chandras (which do need to be respected at times, o more work will have to follow). Also noteworthy in that matchup was that the x-spell provided extra pain-free options to deal with their Eidolons, which is useful to remember if the luxury of inefficiency using extra colourless mana ever becomes available.
On the whole, I wish I could have drawn the Cavalier a little more often to assess its overall power level, but otherwise the cards mostly felt solid to me. My play, on the other hand, was quite poor, and I hope that I will be able to shake off the rust with weekly Wednesday events having been announced in the same location. I played a few test games against B/G infect powered by the printing of Ignoble Hierarch afterwards, where things are still comfortable due to Sweepers and Mortarpod as usual, but I can report the strength of Phyrexian Crusader as a threat which ignores the blocking bodies on Wall of Omens, Stoneforge Mystic, and Sun Titan. Priority shifts slightly there to preserving Germ tokens, Pilgrim's Eye, or Court Hussar when it is around, but otherwise their patterns are the same as the U/G version, but trading explosiveness for resilience. I also played two game 1's against four-colour Indomitable Creativity, which I am pleased to report were game wins, but the version in question was looking to build to 5 mana seeking a boardstate of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn plus Serra's Emissary, so I both had extra time to set up and additional turns of disruption to offer. In addition, their version did not run Remand, which meant that I was able to resolve Teferi, Time Raveler at will to bounce their Eldrazi whenever I did not have a Supreme Verdict. Attacking their manabase was also viable, as they were stretched quite thin. Some of these factors would change significantly for the worse against the versions that simply try to Polymorph on turn four, and against versions running more Nahiri, the Lithomancer. Nonetheless, there is a good deal more interaction available to the matchup than I had initially assumed.
I that this information is useful to you all, and wish you a good day.
Played a 3 round FNM, was supposed to test the Stoneforge package that everyone's on but unfortunately my friend forgot to bring a Batterskull for me to borrow so we stuck with the Ranger Captain package instead.
Round 1: 2-0 vs. Jeskai Stoneblade
I opened with Thraben Inspector + Wall of Omens which rendered his Ragavan useless. He plays Stoneforge fetching up Kaldra and I answer the germ with Solitude. I eventually run him out of cards with Ranger Captain fetching up Inspectors and cracking clues along the way while hitting his white sources with my land denial package.
Game 2 (+2 Dovin's Veto, -2 Verdict) Game was grindy and I flooded for a while with like 10 lands (no Emeria) while trading 1:1. It was looking quite bad for me until I drew into Wall of Omens into Thraben (crack clue) into Ranger Captain (finding Kami) which stalled for me a bit more. I eventually get a big turn with Yorion/Sun Titan/Charming Prince and he can't come back.
Round 2: 2-0 vs. General Ferrous Omnath
Game 1 luckily had 2 Teferi's in hand so I kept bouncing General Ferrous and he couldn't develop a board. I land a Sun Titan and he doesn't have the removal to keep up even though he made a couple of golems. I build up my board and get an active Emeria and it was quite an easy finish.
Game 2 (+1 Winds of Abandon, +1 Crucible, -2 Prismatic Endings. Was more of the same where I built up a decent board, he lands an early Rest in Peace which I eventually exile with Prismatic Ending. An interesting turn I had was playing a Phantasmal Image copying his Omnath. I fetch a land that was already on the battlefield to get the first trigger, then play a Sun Titan getting back the same fetchland, cracking it for the 3rd trigger which wiped out both his W6 and Teferi. That felt reallly good.
Round 3: 2-1 vs. Domain Aggro (Scion/Kavu/Brushfire Elemental/some Domain pump spell)
Game 1 I got ran over, took 2 tribal flames and a Boros Charm to the face and I was quickly dead.
Game 2 (+1 Winds of Abandon, -1 Prismatic Ending) In hindsight should have brought in Sanctifier which has pro red. He was setting up for a big turn with Boros Charm (double strike) with the domain pump spell, but I blow him out with an evoked Solitude. He can't keep up with my card advantage and enormous amounts of removal and I land a Sun Titan and do my thing.
Game 3 He gets an early Territorial Kavu on board with domain which I immediately answer with Skyclave Apparition. He also gets a Brushfire elemental on board but doesn't have the lands to make him good. His hand was full of Boros Charms / Tribal Flames which I negated with Charming Prince lifegain. I set up a bunch of dinky blockers (Walls/ Court Hussar / Thrabens) and I stall long enough for Sun Titan / blinking Charming Prince to get out of range.
Overall deck felt great today, probably cause I faced midrange creature decks which I feel is Emeria's strong suit. Would still like to try out the Stoneforge package but Ranger-Captain / Kami looping was good for padding my life and cycling more cards with Thraben Inspector. Stoneforge would definitely help with the closing speed problems of the deck. The Ranger Captain sac ability wasn't very relevant today and probably not as relevant in the meta due to the lack of combo decks. Other cards I'm on the fence on are Flickerwisp / Court Hussar ; think I really want to bump the Teferi count to 4 to deal with the Cascade/Ephemerate decks. I will continue to test with Yorion though cause he has impressed. Spreading Seas has been awesome and would highly recommend.
Hey Fluff, I hope you are still doing well, and that things continue to stay relatively safe for you - the recent death in your immediate vicinity is surely an alarming development. Take care of yourself, and think about re-implementing early pandemic behaviour on your own initiative if you feel concern. There is definitely peer pressure to return things to "Pre-COVID19 normal" here despite the rise of the delta variant, which means that you could have to stand up through some mild hazing if you think a few lockdown measures are needed. Schedule some time to seriously evaluate your recent actions in order to see how much you really seem to care, then trust your own judgement no matter how persuasive others appear; no-one else can articulate your circumstances as well as you are able to understand them from inside of your own life - as is the case with most human beings, your instincts likely move much faster than your conscious thought processes. If the threat is of a lower level than the current social practices seem to protect you from, follow the cues of others in public and things will likely be all right. If people make jokes about any "excessive" hand-washing, contact avoidance, sanitizing, or mask-wearing that you feel compelled to do, however, you should remember to laugh with them, admit that you feel odd about it too, and let them know that it just makes you feel more comfortable. If your measures do not inconvenience them directly and they continue to press you to change them once they are clear on your attitudes, assess whether they are worth the trouble of having a serious conversation about it with. If not, these are the kinds of individuals that you may not want to be around for a little while. Good luck.
Congratulations on the finish as well, coffeeortea, it is true that you had a very solid set of pairings, but you also did not throw anything away and I think I agree with most of your sideboarding decisions. Could I ask, though, what you brought Dovin's Veto in for, specifically, against Jeskai? I am not at all a fan of the card, finding it extraordinarily difficult to sequence for when we want to tap out so much, and my very short list of playable pieces of countermagic includes only Glen Elendra Archmage, Cerulean Drake, Aether Gust, and Steel Sabotage because these can also independently contribute to controlling board state if drawn when I am behind, or when the opponent has already resolved key threats. Since none of them are currently good in the format, I feel strongly that Counterspell variants are not a firm plan, and should be limited to one-ofs at most to maximise the sideboard's effectiveness in general. The fact that Veto is impossible cast off of a turn-two Field of Ruin is another huge blow against it, because early interaction for Combo is often the best justification for bringing it in. Since in general you never play against exactly what you expected and sideboard cards are more often pressed into service against other decks than intended, I advocate maximal synergy with surviving to trigger Emeria, the Sky Ruin as this is our deck's main advantage. Game losses BECAUSE I drew sideboard cards instead of relevant ways to mitigate threats are utter disaster scenarios for me, and I try very hard to avoid these like the plague. Your plan in the matchup may have been radically different than mine, however, so please let me know what dynamics you were expecting to bring the card in for!
Next, I would like to ask against your Domain opponent (incidentally, I am nearly certain the pump spell you mentioned was sweet old-school tech in either some Timeshifted version of Gaea's Might or more likely the unequivocally Modern-legal Might of Alara) not precisely why you brought in Winds of Abandon, since it is a very good card when the opposing Basic count is as low as theirs tends to be, but more why you removed a copy of Prismatic Ending for it. Early interaction is very strong anyway, but they commonly have cheap Planeswalkers as sideboard cards, not to mention Klothys, God of Destiny or Scavenging Ooze, so I would probably have tried to take out either a Flickerwisp or a lategame piece like Emeria, the Sky Ruin or Sun Titan instead in order to leave the Sorcery in. If you manage to get the board clear against these kinds of Aggro decks, the chances of winning rise dramatically and so extra synergies in the midgame and big game-ending plays lose some amount of value. On the subject of Flickerwisp, however, I can say with confidence that I would be completely ecstatic to have a fourth copy of Teferi, Time Raveler if I knew it was directly replacing the 3/1 flier. My bias against the card has been thoroughly noted elsewhere, however, so this you may feel free to take with a whole handful of salt. I can say, in any event, that four Tef3ri was only barely too many at the moment in my 60-card version, so I have no doubt that you can easily support the maximum number in your 80-card build.
Moving on to two final points on your deck construction, then, I would like to first mention that the activated ability on Ranger-Captain of Eos does currently yield a huge amount of play in the Cascade matchup, where testing has shown that they must find a Pithing Needle or a removal spell for it before they can even attempt to put their "1-card" combo piece on the stack, since it is usually trivial at that point to respond to the trigger it creates as a clean 0.5-for-1. This is compounded by the fact that the Human Soldier plays magnificently in two separate ways into opposing copies of Teferi, Time Raveler or Brazen Borrower (for value or safety, depending on whether they can threaten to go off immediately) and continues to pressure their life total to close out the game all the while. The same holds true for Bring to Light decks, where nearly all of the same interactions are relevant. Finally, I would like to ask how useful you have found your copy of Blast Zone, given that you have no maindeck Crucible of Worlds. I have found it a little too slow at answering the board before I could do so with other sequences, and its mana investment to be a little too high for the effect, given that its opportunity cost necessarily sets back the Plains count by one as a base rate. If you wanted to keep the card, I would be more vocal about leaning into my biases to cut your second Flickerwisp for the land recursion artifact, meaning that your manabase "Engineered Explosives" analogue would then have recursion for a midgame soft-lock to build towards. This would give you an extra sideboard slot, which you may appreciate since it usually feels much safer to have multiple copies of Aven Mindcensor to beat Ramp decks at the moment. As a last suggestion, I would recommend removing your Prismatic Vista to add in one Mistveil Plains to your deck. This gives your other fetchlands an additional value target in the grindy games and allows for extra play against Mill, but will more relevantly sometimes allow you to "tuck" your Kami of False Hope or Thraben Inspector in response to Ranger-Captain of Eos entering the Battlefield when running low on targets, setting up more soft-locks even should other recursion not appear.
At any rate, I was mostly coming on the forum today to mention that I will be playing in another 3-round Modern tournament tonight, where I have modified my deck in accordance with the following list:
The modifications were based on a mild overperformance of Prismatic Ending last week along with a lack of conclusive evidence for the Hour of Revelation. My concern for the curve made me displace the latter card with my sideboard's scalable exile effect, allowing me to add a copy of Heliod's Intervention in its place. This means that I have only Cavalier of Dawn remaining in my maindeck as an answer to 4+ mana value permanents, but I will hope that this will prove sufficient since it can be found on a recursion-friendly creature when Emeria begins to take over from these kinds of threats. If I find this insufficient and things continue to trend the way they have been, I may drop down to two total Path to Exile so that I can put in a second Cavalier or re-instate the Elspeth Conquers Death to the maindeck for next week. This all assumes the curve holds up to scrutiny, but I am reasonably happy with things as they would then appear on paper. Incidentally, the Heliod's Intervention is being added as 1) a versatile and potentially card-advantageous way to re-introduce an instant-speed Disenchant variant which can punish things like Inkmoth Nexus by continuing to bluff or mask Settle the Wreckage without telegraphing the presence of either, 2) a better long-term piece of interaction for Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace where appropriate, 3) an extra scalable threat against Hardened Scales, and 4) an additional instant-speed burst lifegain spell against Burn which can double as a way to painlessly remove their new combination of Eidolon of the Great Revel and Roiling Vortex.
I will likely be able to report on my matches and deck performance tomorrow.
You are welcome, Fluff, things are not bad at all here (COVID-wise) in population-poor Saskatchewan, and I am very glad to report that in addition to the university returning to in-person classes, my soccer league now intends to move ahead with full league play for the fall where it had until now been cautious about re-opening out of the reduced-number and frequency of games which characterised its "bubble" format. I have hope that some more frequent tournaments will also therefore come available for Magic as well.
Moving on to my event from last night, then, I managed to achieve a worse record than last week with a record of a loss and two draws. My best days of Magic are a far cry from where I am at now, since I could actually feel myself taking too much time on routine decisions. I do tend to overthink things in general, so this is not altogether unexpected, however I have been too long away from competitive Rules Enforcement Level, which makes my thought processes click much slower. I do still feel solid about my theory, and have a few interesting things to report, but at this rate I am fairly certain I will need another month at least to get "back in the saddle", as it were.
Round one was a 1-1-1 Draw (0-0-1 record) against Four-colour Elementals again, this time from a higher-calibre pilot than last week, and I was able to confirm that if this deck increases in popularity I will be very happy to continue playing Emeria, as the matchup still feels very good. I lost game one after stabilizing the board with a 4-for-1 Supreme Verdict on fifteen life, and in looking at the board I felt that his best chance to win was through Omnath, Locus of Creation. On seven mana, I therefore chose to cast a Pilgrim's Eye then a Court Hussar instead of my Sun Titan because I wished to a) find a piece of interaction for Omnath and b) play around a potential Solitude plus Ephemerate. I saw only lands and Prismatic Ending off of the Hussar, and since he did have the Omnath It went uncontested and my Titan was not able to pressure it sufficiently. In sideboarding, I removed my Cavalier of Dawn and one Teferi, Time Raveler, then put in my extra Ghost Quarter and my Declaration in Stone (which has been proving a very good card so far). I then chose the draw, and cleanly won the game after removing his Wrenn and Six with a Prismatic Ending and using my Ghost Quarter on his double Utopia Sprawled Forest after clearing the board with a Settle the Wreckage to ruin his manabase when he searched up only a single land. In game three, I did a similar thing with Supreme Verdict after bouncing his Omnath multiple times with two separate Tef3ris, and was beginning to take over when time was called. When neither of us could present lethal, we drew since it was the first round and we were both live to make prizes from that point.
Round two was another 1-1 draw (0-0-2 record) against U/R Ragavan/Murktide tempo. This was against a friend whom I hadn't seen since well before the lockdown, and we spent entirely too much time chatting during the match (as evidenced by the fact that we ere caught off guard by extra turns being called while we were shuffling up for game three). Pace of play was not as much a concern here, since the matchup tends to move moderately quickly, and we played game three after the tournament for fun with me winning after a very shaky stabilization process. I lost game one on the draw to a maindeck Spell Pierce on my Prismatic Ending for their turn-one Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, which I could have played around by casting Wall of Omens instead. I thought it was better to remove the monkey from the table cleanly to play around some unspecified disaster scenario, but instead ended up enabling the exact play I described. They were then able to resolve a Murktide Regent and generate extra Treasure tokens by the time I was able to cast a Supreme Verdict, leaving me too far behind in mana and life total to stabilize after my sweeper. Game two was much more typical in my mind, with Mortarpod and Wall of Omens combining to control their Dash threat for the entire early game, and an increasingly wide board on my part keeping pace with their excellent draw while I continued to pressure their basic-light manabase (3 Island only) with Field of Ruin. The matchup felt dangerous, but solidly in Emeria's wheelhouse, with the occasional blowout loss to Counterspell on key plays. Since they have little way of knowing what is key, however, they tend to have difficulty deciding whether Pilgrim's Eye represents strength or weakness, and spend their Archmage's Charm and such in awkward ways. My version also does a very creditable job of denying any value to Unholy Heat, so I would call things favourable on the whole. My sideboarding included removing Crucible of Worlds, Cavalier of Dawn and Settle the Wreckage to reduce my vulnerability to Counterspell while bringing in Lone Missionary and Declaration in Stone as well as replacing one Emeria, the Sky Ruin with a Ghost Quarter and experimentally taking out both of my Court Hussar to fit in three Remorseful Cleric. I was reasonably happy with the cheap flying body and the option to remove Delerium at a moment's notice, but I believe I will only bring in two of these in the future in order to leave in one Hussar as a way to set up Supreme Verdict and to provide better grist for the recursion lategame.
Round three was an 0-2 loss (0-1-2 record) to 8cast8plate, an Affinity brew by another friend that achieved a surprising resilience and consistency by playing "supermax" numbers of Thoughtcast and Cranial Plating in Thought Monitor and NEttlecyst. When he cast his opener of Springleaf Drum off of a Darksteel Citadel with an Ornithopter and Memnite into another Drum plus Thoughtcastto follow up, I gave him a wry smile and he chuckled back because he knew both that I had been looking to borrow my new addition of a Heliod's Intervention, and that I hadn't been able to add it in it since I wasn't able to go home before the tournament. The Blessed Alliance I was running instead was of absolutely no use all night. Going back to the match, however, I did manage to stabilize his board down to two Frogmite on the draw, but their immunity to Prismatic Ending proved telling when I missed my fourth land and couldn't cast Teferi, Time Raveler since he did not give me time to activate my Field of Ruin off of the two Plains that had cast all my Path to Exile and Wall of Omens. For game two, I removed my Kaldra Compleat, my Crucible of Worlds, my Cavalier of Dawn, and an Emeria, the Sky Ruin as ponderous plays against his fastest draws, and added in Shadowspear, Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, and Ghost Quarter to speed up my early game and trim the curve for my opening draws. I also inconclusively ran the experimental removal of my two Court Hussar back for a second chance to evaluate the strategy, adding in Revoke Existence and Declaration in Stone again (this last card would have been the Intervention If I had secured it in time). As it was, I did catch two Frogmite with the exile effect, which stabilized the board and kept me alive for a couple of extra turns in game two, but ultimately the extra damage of replacing these with alternative Artifacts in Clue tokens added up to my inability to remove his sideboarded Etched Champion in time to take over with my Batterskull while I was using a tutored Shadowspear to slowly grind away his largely Indestructible manabase in combination with his zero basics and my extra Wasteland lookalikes. At present his speed in the fastest of his draws poses a significant issue, but as I felt able to deal with his lategame playset of Urza's Saga cleanly, I will very much look forward to playing him again next week, with the new Intervention in place if I can!
I believe that about covers the outing, so a winless evening for me was the result. Despite this, I felt reasonable since it was almost the exact same results as last week otherwise, and I am still getting my feet under me for tournament play. We'll have to see how I do over the next few weeks.
card advantage from 8 thoughtcast effects do add a lot of resilience to Affinity. And I used to be a legacy affinity player, the Etched Champion.. I bring three of them in against removal heavy decks, it's hard to get rid of if the opponent does not have board wipes or sac effect. If you expect to face a lot more affinity.. I suggest adding one Stony Silence to the sideboard. The stony would prevent the indestructible artifact lands from producing mana, and prevent cranial plating from being equipped, and make clue tokens unusable.. ---- however, It would cause batterskull and kaldra cannot be equipped to our other creatures.. but I still believe it would have a more negative affect on the affinity player, more than it has a negative effect on us.
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primer update:
fnm report by Gerant added to Tournament reports section.
Hey everyone, hope things are going better with everyone!
I've been having more work due to Covid and haven't been able to post here as regularly as i'd like.
Sorry to hear your results weren't the best Stéphane but like you said, it's probably just a matter of getting back in the saddle and hopefully things will start going smoother.
About the cascade discussion, i forgot about Drannith Magistrate but it seems like a fantastic option namely against Temur Rhinos, as their damage spells are all 2 damage with the exception of Fury. I went with Chalice of the Void to cover more ground against other decks like Izzet Tempo with Murktide Regent and Death's Shadow decks, and Void Mirror for Tron and Eldrazi Tron matchups that while i haven't played in a while, are well positioned to make a return and know some players in my area that play them. I'm also now running Lavinia, Azorious Renegade not only because of cascade but all the other free spells like elementals but i could see dropping either void mirror or Lavinia for a Magistrate. I actually won against Living End and Temur Rhinos the 2 times i played against them, and while i think they are hard matchups, the sideboard felt very good and gave me the game.
Boros Burn is something i absolutly have to consider now too. I had taken all my dedicated sideboard for burn as i hadn't played it in months. But as per usual, burn is making a comeback and a game i had i lost super cleanly with him only casting burn spells and without a single permanent. Being such a removal heavy deck, with no targets my cards did basically nothing and when Stoneforge was killed on sight i had no way of winning. Already changed the sideboard a bit, by including Shadowspear again and like you mentioned in your matchup discussions, Heliod's Intervention is card that might be very well positioned right now with all the artifact decks, the ocasional enchantress and burn. Definitely need to make some room for it in the side.
I do find your draws were unfortunate but with time and speedier play they can easily become wins again. Unfortunatly it is the curse of the deck and i've been drawin some games purely because my opponents take way to long to make their plays even when they have 1 or 0 cards in hand. Was specially frustrated on one of the last FNM's thet i went 3-0-1, where i could have had 4 wins and instead had a draw that made me lose 1st place, in a game that was a certain win but my opponent just decided to really take it's time (i'll go more in depth when i do my matchup discussions).
I was also very surprised both by Affinity and Hardened Scales resiliency. Both the explosive start and the ability to switch counters around was definitely annoying and the card that for me had just turned every artifact deck so consistent: Urza's Saga. It's amazing how one card can swing a game so much. The same happens in the Hammertime matchup where even when i bounce and kill evryhting, that card just gives them the reach to hang on way more tuns than they were supposed to. While i've been winning all the matchups against Urza's Saga decks, i think they end up being far closer games than they had to be only because of that card.
Also Stéphane, what have been, in your opinion, the underperforming and overperfoming cards in your build?
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4 Ingenious Smith
4 Wall of Omens
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Skyclave Apparition
1 Cavalier of Dawn
3 Sun Titan
1 Gideon of the Trials
4 Path to Exile
2 Generous Gift
1 Winds of Abandon
1 Day of Judgment
2 Wrath of God
3 Mortarpod
2 Batterskull
1 Kaldra Compleat
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Mistveil Plains
14 Plains
Managed to play 2 FNM's this weekend and won both of them, with 6 wins and 1 draw in total.
This is the build i went with, very simillar to what i had used previously, only changing some sideboard slots:
2 Windswept Heath
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
6 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Raugrin Triome
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
3 Field of Ruin
3 Flooded Strand
1 Snow-Covered Island
Creatures
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Wall of Omens
4 Skyclave Apparition
2 Court Hussar
3 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
2 Mortarpod
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Batterskull
Planeswalker
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
Sorcery
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Supreme Verdict
Instant
3 Path to Exile
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Sanctifier en-Vec
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Damping Sphere
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Shadowspear
1 Gideon of the Trials
1 Celestial Purge
1 Sanctum Prelate
In the first tournament went 2-0-1
First round won 2-0 Rakdos Midrange with Lurrus of the Dream-Den
I tailored this deck for this agressive meta and it really shows in the games. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Dragon's Rage Channeler are very powerful cards, but with 3 Path to Exile, 2 Mortarpod and 3 Prismatic Ending, with the addition of our 2 mana creatures, usually they are threats we can deal well in the early game. Survive the early game and the game is very much favored.
I dont exactly remember the sideboard as i forgot to write down my changes in this day but i think it was:
Sideboarded in: 2 Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Celestial Purge and 1 Remorseful Cleric.
Sideboarded out: 3 Teferi, Time Raveler, 1 Sun Titan.
Teferi isn't better than any of the cards in the deck and doesn't disrupt them as much, so they are the first to go. Given that i already feel very confident in our chances of winning the long game, 1 less titan to trim out the curve and put more inpactfull cards seems like a good choice. Sanctifier en-Vec is a wonderful card, having pretection against all the cards they have (asside from Prismatic Ending if they are running it) and exiling Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger as well as their other cards to stop them from achieving Delirium.
Second round won 2-0 against Mono red Discard with Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar.
Very explosive deck with the ability to put several Hollow One as soon as turn 1! Usually they don't do it, but turn 1 Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, with turn 2 The Underworld Cookbook and a discard/ draw spell can be very strong, enabling Hollow One and Vengevine.
Given the suite of exile based removal we have in the deck, it's also not a bad match up as long as they don't have the god hands that dump Hollow One and Vengevine on turn 1 and 2.
Sideboarded in: 2 Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Celestial Purge, 1 Remorseful Cleric and 1 Ashiok, Dream Render
Sideboarded out: 2 Teferi, Time Raveler, 1 Sun Titan and 2 Mortarpod
All the sideboard cards are great disruption for the graveyard recursion plan they have, and saving removal for their big hitters makes this play like any other explosuve aggro deck we are used to.
Round 3 drew 1-1 against Hammertime
My opponent was new with the deck and took a long time making decisions so the games went very long and unfortunatly couldn't close game 3, although the win was almost certain.
Game 1 lost because i was stuck on 2 lands for the entire game, without drawing either a Path to Exile or Solitude and with 2 Skyclave Apparition in hand. He eventually ovwerpowers my defences by swinging with 2 constructs. I block one with Kaldra Compleat and one with Stoneforge Mystic, and he answers by putting 2 Colossus Hammer and a Shadowspear on the big Construct that was being blockes by Stoneforge at instant speed because of Sigarda's Aid.
Sideboarded in: 2 Seal of Cleansing, 1 Aven Mindcensor, 1 Sanctum Prelate.
Sideboarded out: 2 Mortarpod, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice, 1 Skyclave Apparition
Game 2 I keep a one lander, but had 2 Prismatic Ending, 1 Solitude, 1 Wall of Omens and 1 Sanctum Prelate in hand. I knew even if it took 2 turns to draw the second land i was safe from most of his early game. Got 2 lands on the next turns and the game was very doomed for my opponent when i played Sanctum Prelate on 1 and dealt with his Urza's Saga. He couldn't play Sigarda's Aid or his equipments and eventually he conceded.
Game 3 went very long and was a grindy one. He had Sigarda's Aid and was swinging with his Inkmoth Nexus every turn but never put any equipment on it, just baiting the removal. I didn't fall for it and went to 5 infect with no chance of death as i always had a Path to exile, Solitude and Seal of Cleansing ready to go. Puresteel Paladin and Esper Sentinel were actually quite good for him as they drew quite a bit of cards that made him stay in the game just enough to hold on for a draw.
I will post the other 4 matches tomorrow as I'm a bit short on time but i hope this results and short explanations benefit you and spark some interesting discussions in the thread!
Went 3-1
winning vs 2-0 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician combo, 2-1 mono white death and taxes, and 2-0 hammer time
losing vs Esper Control
3x Emeria, The Sky Ruin
4x Field of Ruin
4x Flooded Strand
1x Ghost Quarter
2x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
7x Plains
1x Prairie Stream
1x Raugrin Triome
4x Path to Exile
2x Charming Prince
2x Court Hussar
1x Pilgrim's Eye
4x Skyclave Apparition
1x Solitude
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Sun Titan
4x Wall of Omens
1x Batterskull
1x Kaldra Compleat
1x Mortarpod
3x Supreme Verdict
1x Celestial Purge
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Detention Sphere
3x Elite Spellbinder
3x Remorseful Cleric
1x Sanctum Prelate
3x Seal of Cleansing
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
Some notes: I actually really liked the elite spellbinders in the board vs the control matchup. Game 2 on the play I had 2 spellbinder in my opener and landed the first to see vindicate, archmage's charm, and cryptic, took the charm, and would have probably won that game if he didn't topdeck counterspell for my follow-up spellbinder taking the cryptic.
maindeck kaya's guile seems like a solid GY hate against me.
Not drawing stoneforge for the whole match probably contributed to the loss.
I'm pretty happy with the maindeck 3 prismatic ending. I'm considering cutting a verdict, but in the matchups you want it, you really want it.
welcome to the thread.
yeah, SFM is still quite expensive.
if you want a mono W build that does not use sfm. Here's Fincown's mono white. It was able to reach a 5-0 in 2019.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2039767#paper
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
fnm report by Starstorm and Spencerinnd_ added to the primer. Table of Contents → Tournament Reports.
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oh, you're getting a lot of experience on the deck.
thanks for sharing your report.
and congrats on finishing well.
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hmm, looks like sfm really is a powerful part of our deck.. and drawing it or not can be the difference between winning or losing. Nice to hear that spellbinders are good against control.
congrats on the good finish.
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I was gone from the thread, because it's become a bit busy again irl.. also the delta variant of corona got into my country. We are in lockdown again until Aug 20th.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Congratulations on the finishes and the new builds, and welcome back to YJBh33ls. Before I get to my input, I should first say that I think your initial list is a better one than the Ingenious Smith version, but is perhaps playing one too many of both Cavalier of Dawn and Gideon of the Trials. With the first, I don't believe you have the Artifact and Enchantment count to support drawing two at any point, and with the second the card purely does not play well in multiples other than against Burn. A single copy of each should give you a reasonable maindeck coverage without costing too much in awkward draws, with a second (and even maybe a third) Gideon in the sideboard to come in against specifically combo matchups. Your mileage may vary, but I think that this balance will be better for you if you can replace the two slots you gain with the fourth Charming Prince and a flex slot of your choice (Skyscanner, Priest of Ancient Lore, the fourth Skyclave Apparition, potentially Ranger-Captain of Eos if your sideboard supports it, or even a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar if you want to push the emblem for value on Gid3on while adding a very significant upgrade to both your attrition and your small-ball games). Finally, on the Smith build, I think that Batterskull is a fine card to hardcast, but there are many effects I would prefer over the seven mana investment for Kaldra Compleat if that was the only way I could get it on the battlefield. In both decks, however, I would say that your boardstate is much more important to maintain given your blink synergies and Skyclave downside on Wrath of God, so I personally would recommend maxing out on Settle the Wreckage initially. This is possible because Meddling Mage is less common at the moment. I hope this helps!
My own testing has brought me to a strange place, and I will be attending my first tournament in almost two years tonight with the heaviest version yet of my build. Elspeth Conquers Death was overall quite good and a card I would be willing to play in the future, but I could not justify leaving it in in several matchups where its only target was Planeswalkers like Big Teferi and Jace, leaving me with no clean answers to them if they managed to get out of control. I therefore exchanged it for a copy of Hour of Revelation with surprisingly passable results. The ability to clean up multiple Planeswalkers or utility Artifacts along with a creature or two was very strong, and Teferi, Time Raveler was a greater contributor to its power than anticipated (by helping to discount it on turns 6+, by preserving Crucible of Worlds around it, by guaranteeing its resolution, and by upgrading its timing utility). The fact of Tef3ri's consistent value and synergy with Sun Titan to invalidate and/or exhaust countermagic, combined with the general decrease in Counterspell numbers recently, has also led me to go down to 3 Supreme Verdict in order to maintain the blowout potential of a singleton Settle the Wreckage, which both deals with resilient or Haste creatures permanently and provides a way to force opponents to respect open mana.
Going back to Hour of Revelation, however, there were one or two oddball combo matchups where I was still unable to justify leaving it in to deal with wild sideboard strategies, and so I have gone up to 61 cards for the time being in my own copy of Cavalier of Dawn to recur with Emeria. This double resilience to noncreature permanents has allowed me to modify the sideboard, which now no longer sports Celestial Purge, and instead adds back in a better "Fish" style plan post-board with Specter's Shroud joining Drannith Magistrate in place of my former two-of. I will take my chances on the 4-mana red Planeswalkers at the moment, with Prismatic Ending pulling a lot of weight against all the other common Purge targets. This new configuration expands the complexity of the sideboard a great deal, but allows for a very high level of customization and punishes both Combo and the currently-popular Cascade mechanic in general much better. As a bonus, when played early the Magistrate acts as a complete trump to Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer which is also very strong at forcing sub-optimal sequencing from Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Light up the Stage, Snapcaster Mage, Bring to Light, Bonecrusher Giant, and Expressive Iteration decks as well as all Suspend strategies.
Here, then, is my list ahead of a small tournament tonight (I anticipate it to be 3 rounds):
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
3 Path to Exile
2 Prismatic Ending
4 Wall of Omens
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Court Hussar
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Settle The Wreckage
1 Cavalier of Dawn
1 Batterskull
3 Sun Titan
1 Hour of Revelation
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Prismatic Ending
1 Shadowspear
1 Specter's Shroud
1 Revoke Existence
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
1 Lone Missionary
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
3 Remorseful Cleric
I will try to write a full report on my results tomorrow.
Hoping you are all well,
-Stéphane Gérard
{EDIT: FORMATTING ON DECKLIST.]
looking forward to see the results.
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Also hope everything is okay with you and your loved ones Fluff! We'll get through this eventually!
About the FNM i had previously mentioned:
Round 1 - Won 2-0 against 8 Rack
I think this is a wonderfull matchup given the cycling effects we have in the deck, always drawing us cards, and the presence of Prismatic Ending and Skyclave Apparition just dealing with their cards permanently.
Sideboarded out: 2 Supreme Verdict, 3 Solitude, 2 Mortarpod, 1 Path to Exile
Sideboarded in: 2 Sanctifier en-Vec, 2 Seal of Cleansing, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Celestial Purge, 1 Crucible of Worlds, 1 Gideon of the Trials
Round 2 - Won 2-0 against Orzhov Stoneblade
Always fun having a midrange matchup. I have discussed this match up previously and overall felt very good in it. The value is just better in our deck so in my experiance we usually come out on top.
Sideboarded out: 2 Mortarpod, 1 Solitude, 1 Teferi Time Raveler
Sideboarded in: 2 Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Ashiok, Dream Render, 1 Aven Mindcensor
Round 3 - Won 2-1 against Sultai Control, with Wilderness Reclamation and Nexus of Fate
Teferi Time Raveler and Emeria really shine in this match up as we could expect in a control game. My loss was very unfortuante as i had an active Emeria with absolutly no creatures in the game, had a hand with 3 Prismatic Ending and 2 Supreme Verdict, only 2 lands left in the deck and 2 Mortarpod in play. I think if i tried i couldn't replicate how unlucky my draws were.
Sideboarded out: 2 Prismatic Ending, 3 Solitude, 2 Supreme Verdict, 1 Path to Exile
Sideboarded in: 1 Sanctifier en-Vec, 2 Seal of Cleansing, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Remorseful Cleric, 1 Crucible of Worlds, 1 Gideon of the Trials, 1 Ashiok, Dream Render, 1 Aven Mindcensor
Round 4 - Won 2-0 Against Hardened Scales
Hadn't played this matchup before and was honestly quite suprised by it's resilience. The Ozolith, Throne of Geth to avoid Exile based effects and Animation Module were actually cards that gave me trouble, specially when Urza's Saga just gets everything they need. But the removal was just too much and picking the right targets proved crucial for a win.
Sideboarded out: 2 Mortarpod, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
Sideboarded in: 2 Seal of Cleansing, 1 Sorcerous Spyglass
I think this FNM had a great variety of decks and being able to deal with aggro, midrange and control with more or less ease is a testament to it's power.
I have made some adjustments to my sideboard, taking out Shadowspear, Kor Firewalker and Sorcerous Spyglass, and putting in Chalice of the Void, a 4th Teferi, Time Raveler and a Void Mirror.
Shadowspear, Kor Firewalker came out because i mostly used them for the burn match up which doesn't seem to appear anymore and Sorcerous spyglass loses a bit of it's charm given the existance of Prismatic Ending and me not feeling the need to bring it as a devastating answer to whatever my opponents are doing.
Chalice of the Void came in mostly as an answer for Cascade decks like Living End and Rhinos, bit it's also quite good against Izzet Blitz and Grixis Death's Shadow. 4th Teferi, Time Raveler came as another answer for Cascade decks (although a late one at turn 3 which still gives them a chance to do it once) and as a card to bring against control where i feel that i all the removal i have packed in my mainboard is mostly useless. Void Mirror as another answer for cascade decks and Tron (more Eldrazi Tron) (really went heavy on this anti cascade sideboard as i realizzed i had basically no answers for it on the sideboard and just need more, that could also deal with other decks, therefore this selection of cards).
This is the deck i went with:
1 Windswept Heath
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
6 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Raugrin Triome
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
3 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Snow-Covered Island
Creatures
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Wall of Omens
4 Skyclave Apparition
2 Court Hussar
3 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
2 Mortarpod
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Batterskull
Planeswalker
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
Sorcery
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Supreme Verdict
Instant
3 Path to Exile
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Sanctifier en-Vec
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Damping Sphere
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Void Mirror
1 Gideon of the Trials
1 Celestial Purge
1 Sanctum Prelate
Round 1 - Won 2-0 against Izzet Blitz
Very favourable matchup as i have described previously, and it gets even better with sideboard.
Sideboarded out: 2 Sun Titan, 1 Kaldra Compleat, 2 Mortarpod
Sideboarded in: 2Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Celestial Purge, 1 Chalice of the Void
Round 2 - Won 2-1 against Living End
Game 1 i think it's an instant loss. I have no way of interacting with my opponent is doing and when he decides to cascade, he can preety much one shot me without me being able to do anything.
Really glad i made the sideboard changes to take cascade matchups into account as they really saved me, as even if they dealt with one piece of hate, having multiples allowed me to never lose to a force of negation, a Brazen Borrower bouncing my hate card or a Grief taking it away before playing.
Sideboarded out: 4 Skycalve Apparition[/card], 3 Prismatic Ending, 2 Mortarpod, 1 Kaldra Compleat
Sideboarded in: 2Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Chalice of the Void, 1 Teferi, Time Raveler, 1 Void Mirror, 1 Gideon of the Trials, 1 Remorseful Cleric, 1 Damping Sphere, 1 Ashiok, Dream Render
Round 3 - lost 1-2 against Grixis Dress Down
Dress Down is a legit card right now, and i encourage you to see it's gameplay to understand it's interactions, from turning Death's Shadow into 13/13 when it enters, to casting it at eot with Lurrus of the Dream-Den so it stays for our entire turn before being sacrificed. It's a very versitile card and it really wrecked me when i was counting with a Stoneforge Mystic to fetch me an equipment, or cancelling a Sun Titan trigger or simply a draw from Wall of Omens. Still the deck faired well against this new threat and it came down to who had the better topdeck, which my opponent ended up having. Still think our deck is favoured in the matchup being a Lurrus Death's Shadow deck, but the Dress Down is definitly something i have to keep in mind and play around more next time.
Sideboarded out: 3 Teferi, Time Raveler
Sideboarded in: 2 Sanctifier en-Vec, 1 Chalice of the Void
fnm reports by Starstorm added to the primer. Table of Contents → Tournament Reports.
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I hope you had a nice vacation. ^____^
well, and somehow I'm still alive. Not joking.. someone died from the delta variant only 20 or 30 meters from where I work. Soldiers sealed off that street, and took everyone who were in close contact with the deceased to a quarantine facility.
back to mtg... nice to see you finally got a match against the new Hardened Scales deck. Is it a tough match-up for us, or it's easy enough to beat?
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Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
My own outing was quite good, apart from the fact that I was so rusty I literally lost two games because of improper communication, both of which ultimately cost me match wins. The theoretical side seems solid, however, and I am cautiously optimistic about my new sideboard configuration.
Before I describe the matches, though, I do find it interesting to note, Starstorm, that we have both increased our targeted interaction for free spells, while simultaneously reducing our reliance on Pithing Needle effects. The complete overhaul required to combat the rise of Prismatic Ending is a primary reason for the first trend in my eyes, while the abuse of Cascade with the alternate-cost only Suspend cards appears to be the largest section of unfair threats in the format at the moment, and my Drannith Magistrate joins your Chalice of the Void and Void Mirror as options to consider in this fight to address the second point.
On to the record of my games, then, which ended up at 1-1-1.
Round 1: 2-0 against four(+?)-Colour Kaheera Elementals.
This was about as clean as it gets on paper. The Ephemerate plus Evoke synergies they produce (Specifically with Solitude and Fury) only interact after our ETB effects have accrued some amount of value, and they are completely dependent on board state in any event. Their manabase is also highly ambitious, and can be attacked quite early - my opponent had only a Forest and a Plains as basics, and just in setting up my colours during efficient sequencing before a Supreme Verdict I took him off of red mana for two turns. Speaking of Supreme Verdict, there was nearly zero maindeck interaction for Wrath effects, and none if their limited number of Flash plays are not a concern. Blinking their creatures still returns them to play immediately, which leaves them with no board state on the next attack step, so a sweeper generally represents multiple turns of stabilization. I was wary of Lightning Skelemental, and so I prioritized an active Mortarpod whenever they were threatening to connect BRR mana, but as this configuration of lands was easy to disrupt I was never actually exposed to a card I cannot confirm they were playing.
Game one was a simple affair given that their Cavern of Souls leaving play made their hand extremely awkward, with them conceding to Settle the Wreckage as a second sweeper of the game - all this the turn before Emeria activated after an attacking Sun Titan had just traded with multiple creatures while returning my Field of Ruin to confirm that they were out of basics.
Game two was more competitive, with Ephemerate showing off an interesting synergy by triggering Risen Reef off of Flamekin Harbinger to get access to any creature they wanted immediately, but since this was only translating to cards in hand after my Supreme Verdict resolved everything still felt heavily favoured from what I saw. In the end, his Omnath, Locus of the Roil on a small board was insufficient to stop my Stoneforge Mystic plus Kaldra Compleat which I equipped with Batterskull.
In sideboarding I removed Cavalier of Dawn and two Teferi, Time Raveler to interact more with his mana and cheap early value creatures like Voice of Resurgence by bringing in the second Ghost Quarter, the third Prismatic Ending, and the Declaration in Stone.
Round 2: 1-2 against Boros Burn.
Things were essentially as expected here, and I was looking forward to testing out my new sideboard to see how things went without the Celestial Purge and Blessed Alliance I have had access to in the past, but I misplayed mechanically to lose game two, and then made a poor keep in game three which left me too far behind to catch up to his Eidolon of the Great Revel when I missed on my second land. I feel that the matchup is now definitely higher-pressure without the safety blanket of extra burst lifegain, but the singleton sideboard Lone Missionary earns its keep essentially because it is still an enormously powerful tool in the matchup, leading directly to game wins almost every time if drawn.
Game one was unusual, in that I won on the draw because my second Stoneforge Mystic was not immediately murdered on sight, so I cleanly activated it to put Batterskull in play on turn four after he had killed my first with a Lightning Helix. His Monastery Swiftspear and off-curve Eidolon of the Great Revel were unable to do better than trade with it on my attack, and he conceded when I re-set it and he found no answer.
Game two was a stronger start in Goblin Guide for him, which he followed up with a Monastery Swiftspear plus Lava Spike. My turn-one and turn-two taplands let me cast a Prismatic Ending on the Prowess Monk to reduce the clock on turn two, and he followed up on his turn with another Eidolon of the Great Revel plus Lightning Bolt. On my turn, I cast a Wall of Omens and made my mistake. His Goblin Guide had revealed a Flooded Strand, so I short-circuited to my default testing mode of "reduce dead draws and known information" and instead of my original intention clearly said "I'll fetch a tapland and say go" instead of casting the Shadowspear I drew off of the Plains in my hand - immediately regretting my verbalization since I had just committed to wasting a mana and costing me an unnecessary point of life. On his next turn, he played a Boros Charm and a second Eidolon of the Great Revel, so my life total was now too low to play the Equipment safely in the hopes of suiting up my Wall for damage control through his now-double Pyrostatic Pillar effect. I had a chance to stabilize if I drew a Supreme Verdict or a Settle the Wreckage, but the lost point of life now meant I couldn't even stay above three on the next turn to give me two shots at this play.
Still cursing myself for the mistake, I kept a hand of Raugrin Triome, Prismatic Ending, Path to Exile, Shadowspear, Stoneforge Mystic, Wall of Omens, and Settle the Wreckage. These are solid cards, but in accepting them I essentially banked on the fact that I would make my second land on time, which I now think was overall a worse gamble than a fresh seven cards would have been. One-landers on the play are rarely correct to keep in my version in any case. As it turned out, he was able to provide the fastest clock possible with another Goblin Guide on turn one, which showed a second Wall of Omens on top of my deck. On my turn, I exiled his Guide with my Sorcery, and he cast an Eidolon of the Great Revel which he followed up with a second plus a Monastery Swiftspear after I missed again on land and was induced to cast my Path. I drew a Plains on turn four and was able to cast a desperation-mode Stoneforge Mystic, but his follow-up play was a Roiling Vortex plus Lightning Helix on my last remaining hope which essentially sealed the deal when I was left without a land again on turn five.
For sideboarding, I removed two Teferi, Time Raveler and a Crucible of Worlds plus the Hour of Revelation, the Cavalier of Dawn and a Mortarpod to bring in the Lone Missionary, the third Prismatic Ending, the Sanctum Prelate, the Shadowspear, the second Ghost Quarter to attack their colours, and the Specter's Shroud both to boost Lifelink attacks and to pressure their hand early in burn-heavy draws as they have no direct card advantage.
Round 3: 1-1-1 against Golgari Elves.
This was again a matchup that seemed like it could go to plan, but a slow pace of play combined with another mental lapse to leave me unable to deal the final points of damage while in a commanding position during extra turns. Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Collected Company with Shaman of the Pack are still a very tricky combination of cards to play around, but high numbers on Mortarpod and sweepers are a twin set of fundamental advantages in the matchup. Of note is that their version was more combo-oriented, and able to flood the board early and/or rebuild late, but I still felt that I was steadily sliding into the driver's seat as the game extended.
In game one I was able to use Mortarpod on the play to set my opponent back an Elvish Mystic right out of the gate, and continued towards a commanding presence as we negotiated a sequence of small advantages on both sides. I eventually cashed in on a 3-for-1 with Supreme Verdict, then followed up with a Stoneforge Mystic for more Mortarpod action which decimated his rebuild attempt in combination with Teferi, Time Raveler, while I worked steadily towards Emeria, the Sky Ruin. He eventually began running low on basics by the time I was bringing back Sun Titan, but he continued to play on in hopes of playing an Elvish Archdruid for a Collected Company to drain me out from 10 or so in one double-trigger after I had him locked out of black mana. I was eventually able to simply grab a Batterskull to get my life total out of range before moving on to present lethal damage, but it is notable to me that I could have removed his out if any of my three Field of Ruin had been a Ghost Quarter instead. The cards are not identical, and manabase disruption on Basic lands is an effect I find very difficult to provide access to in any other way.
For game two, we got to a midgame scenario where his Heritage Druid combined with a Nettle Sentinel and an Elvish Warmaster to cast five elves off the top of his Library with Realmwalker. This was after a rebuild from Supreme Verdict on my part, and so I used my active Teferi, Time Raveler to return a Wall of Omens to my hand. When I drew an Hour of Revelation, I changed my plan to casting that instead of the Settle the Wreckage I had in my hand. This was correct, but then when I passed the turn and tried to cast it at instant-speed during his attack step for value, he embarrassingly had to remind me that I would have needed to do so on my turn because I had indeed used the negative ability on my Planeswalker. I apologized, and had to cast the Settle the Wreckage instead, but he was able to play around the extra sweeper over the next few turns while I failed to find an Emeria, the Sky Ruin to take over. I ultimately lost to an activation of Elvish Warmaster which he had held back to follow up a mid-size board. If I had simply inverted my sweepers as intended, his game-winning play would more than likely have been maximally punished by a mass exile at instant-speed.
Game three was a similar affair, where multiple sweepers got me to a very strong boardstate with an active Stoneforge Mystic, and my two largest Living Weapon Equipment were on their way to dominating the battlefield, but time was called and several copies of Elvish Visionary as blockers for him left me with insufficient mana to ping all of his defenses away with Mortarpod on the final attack step, and as 2-1 would not have been sufficient for prizes we simply agreed to a draw.
In games two and three, I took out my Crucible of Worlds and Cavalier of Dawn to put in a third Prismatic Ending and a Declaration in Stone. The interaction between Hour of Revelation and Cavalier of Dawn felt fairly clean on the evening, since I was mostly finding justifiable reasons to leave one of them in to cover for strange scenarios whenever I took the other one out. The one exception was against Burn, where both were too slow to keep in but it felt as if Prismatic Ending easily accounted for any rogue strategy other than four-mana Chandras (which do need to be respected at times, o more work will have to follow). Also noteworthy in that matchup was that the x-spell provided extra pain-free options to deal with their Eidolons, which is useful to remember if the luxury of inefficiency using extra colourless mana ever becomes available.
On the whole, I wish I could have drawn the Cavalier a little more often to assess its overall power level, but otherwise the cards mostly felt solid to me. My play, on the other hand, was quite poor, and I hope that I will be able to shake off the rust with weekly Wednesday events having been announced in the same location. I played a few test games against B/G infect powered by the printing of Ignoble Hierarch afterwards, where things are still comfortable due to Sweepers and Mortarpod as usual, but I can report the strength of Phyrexian Crusader as a threat which ignores the blocking bodies on Wall of Omens, Stoneforge Mystic, and Sun Titan. Priority shifts slightly there to preserving Germ tokens, Pilgrim's Eye, or Court Hussar when it is around, but otherwise their patterns are the same as the U/G version, but trading explosiveness for resilience. I also played two game 1's against four-colour Indomitable Creativity, which I am pleased to report were game wins, but the version in question was looking to build to 5 mana seeking a boardstate of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn plus Serra's Emissary, so I both had extra time to set up and additional turns of disruption to offer. In addition, their version did not run Remand, which meant that I was able to resolve Teferi, Time Raveler at will to bounce their Eldrazi whenever I did not have a Supreme Verdict. Attacking their manabase was also viable, as they were stretched quite thin. Some of these factors would change significantly for the worse against the versions that simply try to Polymorph on turn four, and against versions running more Nahiri, the Lithomancer. Nonetheless, there is a good deal more interaction available to the matchup than I had initially assumed.
I that this information is useful to you all, and wish you a good day.
-Stéphane Gérard
fnm report by Gerant added to Tournament reports section.
Table of Contents → Tournament Reports.
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9 Plains
1 Island
4 Field of Ruin
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Blast Zone
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
1 Raugrin Triome
Creatures
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
1 Kami of False Hope
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Charming Prince
4 Wall of Omens
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Skyclave Apparition
4 Ranger-Captain of Eos
2 Court Hussar
2 Flickerwisp
3 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
4 Path to Exile
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Spreading Seas
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Remorseful Cleric
2 Sanctifier en-Vec
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Damping Sphere
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Void Mirror
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Winds of Abandon
Played a 3 round FNM, was supposed to test the Stoneforge package that everyone's on but unfortunately my friend forgot to bring a Batterskull for me to borrow so we stuck with the Ranger Captain package instead.
Round 1: 2-0 vs. Jeskai Stoneblade
I opened with Thraben Inspector + Wall of Omens which rendered his Ragavan useless. He plays Stoneforge fetching up Kaldra and I answer the germ with Solitude. I eventually run him out of cards with Ranger Captain fetching up Inspectors and cracking clues along the way while hitting his white sources with my land denial package.
Game 2 (+2 Dovin's Veto, -2 Verdict) Game was grindy and I flooded for a while with like 10 lands (no Emeria) while trading 1:1. It was looking quite bad for me until I drew into Wall of Omens into Thraben (crack clue) into Ranger Captain (finding Kami) which stalled for me a bit more. I eventually get a big turn with Yorion/Sun Titan/Charming Prince and he can't come back.
Round 2: 2-0 vs. General Ferrous Omnath
Game 1 luckily had 2 Teferi's in hand so I kept bouncing General Ferrous and he couldn't develop a board. I land a Sun Titan and he doesn't have the removal to keep up even though he made a couple of golems. I build up my board and get an active Emeria and it was quite an easy finish.
Game 2 (+1 Winds of Abandon, +1 Crucible, -2 Prismatic Endings. Was more of the same where I built up a decent board, he lands an early Rest in Peace which I eventually exile with Prismatic Ending. An interesting turn I had was playing a Phantasmal Image copying his Omnath. I fetch a land that was already on the battlefield to get the first trigger, then play a Sun Titan getting back the same fetchland, cracking it for the 3rd trigger which wiped out both his W6 and Teferi. That felt reallly good.
Round 3: 2-1 vs. Domain Aggro (Scion/Kavu/Brushfire Elemental/some Domain pump spell)
Game 1 I got ran over, took 2 tribal flames and a Boros Charm to the face and I was quickly dead.
Game 2 (+1 Winds of Abandon, -1 Prismatic Ending) In hindsight should have brought in Sanctifier which has pro red. He was setting up for a big turn with Boros Charm (double strike) with the domain pump spell, but I blow him out with an evoked Solitude. He can't keep up with my card advantage and enormous amounts of removal and I land a Sun Titan and do my thing.
Game 3 He gets an early Territorial Kavu on board with domain which I immediately answer with Skyclave Apparition. He also gets a Brushfire elemental on board but doesn't have the lands to make him good. His hand was full of Boros Charms / Tribal Flames which I negated with Charming Prince lifegain. I set up a bunch of dinky blockers (Walls/ Court Hussar / Thrabens) and I stall long enough for Sun Titan / blinking Charming Prince to get out of range.
Overall deck felt great today, probably cause I faced midrange creature decks which I feel is Emeria's strong suit. Would still like to try out the Stoneforge package but Ranger-Captain / Kami looping was good for padding my life and cycling more cards with Thraben Inspector. Stoneforge would definitely help with the closing speed problems of the deck. The Ranger Captain sac ability wasn't very relevant today and probably not as relevant in the meta due to the lack of combo decks. Other cards I'm on the fence on are Flickerwisp / Court Hussar ; think I really want to bump the Teferi count to 4 to deal with the Cascade/Ephemerate decks. I will continue to test with Yorion though cause he has impressed. Spreading Seas has been awesome and would highly recommend.
that's an interesting build. So it looks like, builds without sfm can still perform.
____________
primer update:
fnm report by coffeeortea added to Tournament reports section.
Table of Contents → Tournament Reports.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Congratulations on the finish as well, coffeeortea, it is true that you had a very solid set of pairings, but you also did not throw anything away and I think I agree with most of your sideboarding decisions. Could I ask, though, what you brought Dovin's Veto in for, specifically, against Jeskai? I am not at all a fan of the card, finding it extraordinarily difficult to sequence for when we want to tap out so much, and my very short list of playable pieces of countermagic includes only Glen Elendra Archmage, Cerulean Drake, Aether Gust, and Steel Sabotage because these can also independently contribute to controlling board state if drawn when I am behind, or when the opponent has already resolved key threats. Since none of them are currently good in the format, I feel strongly that Counterspell variants are not a firm plan, and should be limited to one-ofs at most to maximise the sideboard's effectiveness in general. The fact that Veto is impossible cast off of a turn-two Field of Ruin is another huge blow against it, because early interaction for Combo is often the best justification for bringing it in. Since in general you never play against exactly what you expected and sideboard cards are more often pressed into service against other decks than intended, I advocate maximal synergy with surviving to trigger Emeria, the Sky Ruin as this is our deck's main advantage. Game losses BECAUSE I drew sideboard cards instead of relevant ways to mitigate threats are utter disaster scenarios for me, and I try very hard to avoid these like the plague. Your plan in the matchup may have been radically different than mine, however, so please let me know what dynamics you were expecting to bring the card in for!
Next, I would like to ask against your Domain opponent (incidentally, I am nearly certain the pump spell you mentioned was sweet old-school tech in either some Timeshifted version of Gaea's Might or more likely the unequivocally Modern-legal Might of Alara) not precisely why you brought in Winds of Abandon, since it is a very good card when the opposing Basic count is as low as theirs tends to be, but more why you removed a copy of Prismatic Ending for it. Early interaction is very strong anyway, but they commonly have cheap Planeswalkers as sideboard cards, not to mention Klothys, God of Destiny or Scavenging Ooze, so I would probably have tried to take out either a Flickerwisp or a lategame piece like Emeria, the Sky Ruin or Sun Titan instead in order to leave the Sorcery in. If you manage to get the board clear against these kinds of Aggro decks, the chances of winning rise dramatically and so extra synergies in the midgame and big game-ending plays lose some amount of value. On the subject of Flickerwisp, however, I can say with confidence that I would be completely ecstatic to have a fourth copy of Teferi, Time Raveler if I knew it was directly replacing the 3/1 flier. My bias against the card has been thoroughly noted elsewhere, however, so this you may feel free to take with a whole handful of salt. I can say, in any event, that four Tef3ri was only barely too many at the moment in my 60-card version, so I have no doubt that you can easily support the maximum number in your 80-card build.
Moving on to two final points on your deck construction, then, I would like to first mention that the activated ability on Ranger-Captain of Eos does currently yield a huge amount of play in the Cascade matchup, where testing has shown that they must find a Pithing Needle or a removal spell for it before they can even attempt to put their "1-card" combo piece on the stack, since it is usually trivial at that point to respond to the trigger it creates as a clean 0.5-for-1. This is compounded by the fact that the Human Soldier plays magnificently in two separate ways into opposing copies of Teferi, Time Raveler or Brazen Borrower (for value or safety, depending on whether they can threaten to go off immediately) and continues to pressure their life total to close out the game all the while. The same holds true for Bring to Light decks, where nearly all of the same interactions are relevant. Finally, I would like to ask how useful you have found your copy of Blast Zone, given that you have no maindeck Crucible of Worlds. I have found it a little too slow at answering the board before I could do so with other sequences, and its mana investment to be a little too high for the effect, given that its opportunity cost necessarily sets back the Plains count by one as a base rate. If you wanted to keep the card, I would be more vocal about leaning into my biases to cut your second Flickerwisp for the land recursion artifact, meaning that your manabase "Engineered Explosives" analogue would then have recursion for a midgame soft-lock to build towards. This would give you an extra sideboard slot, which you may appreciate since it usually feels much safer to have multiple copies of Aven Mindcensor to beat Ramp decks at the moment. As a last suggestion, I would recommend removing your Prismatic Vista to add in one Mistveil Plains to your deck. This gives your other fetchlands an additional value target in the grindy games and allows for extra play against Mill, but will more relevantly sometimes allow you to "tuck" your Kami of False Hope or Thraben Inspector in response to Ranger-Captain of Eos entering the Battlefield when running low on targets, setting up more soft-locks even should other recursion not appear.
At any rate, I was mostly coming on the forum today to mention that I will be playing in another 3-round Modern tournament tonight, where I have modified my deck in accordance with the following list:
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
3 Path to Exile
3 Prismatic Ending
4 Wall of Omens
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Court Hussar
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Settle The Wreckage
1 Cavalier of Dawn
1 Batterskull
3 Sun Titan
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Shadowspear
1 Specter's Shroud
1 Revoke Existence
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Heliod's Intervention
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
1 Lone Missionary
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
3 Remorseful Cleric
The modifications were based on a mild overperformance of Prismatic Ending last week along with a lack of conclusive evidence for the Hour of Revelation. My concern for the curve made me displace the latter card with my sideboard's scalable exile effect, allowing me to add a copy of Heliod's Intervention in its place. This means that I have only Cavalier of Dawn remaining in my maindeck as an answer to 4+ mana value permanents, but I will hope that this will prove sufficient since it can be found on a recursion-friendly creature when Emeria begins to take over from these kinds of threats. If I find this insufficient and things continue to trend the way they have been, I may drop down to two total Path to Exile so that I can put in a second Cavalier or re-instate the Elspeth Conquers Death to the maindeck for next week. This all assumes the curve holds up to scrutiny, but I am reasonably happy with things as they would then appear on paper. Incidentally, the Heliod's Intervention is being added as 1) a versatile and potentially card-advantageous way to re-introduce an instant-speed Disenchant variant which can punish things like Inkmoth Nexus by continuing to bluff or mask Settle the Wreckage without telegraphing the presence of either, 2) a better long-term piece of interaction for Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace where appropriate, 3) an extra scalable threat against Hardened Scales, and 4) an additional instant-speed burst lifegain spell against Burn which can double as a way to painlessly remove their new combination of Eidolon of the Great Revel and Roiling Vortex.
I will likely be able to report on my matches and deck performance tomorrow.
Hoping you are all doing well,
-Stéphane Gérard
on card choices. Heliod's Intervention does look good against Burn. Their new eidolon + vortex looks painfully hot...
Goodluck on your next tourney. Looking forward to see the results.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
You are welcome, Fluff, things are not bad at all here (COVID-wise) in population-poor Saskatchewan, and I am very glad to report that in addition to the university returning to in-person classes, my soccer league now intends to move ahead with full league play for the fall where it had until now been cautious about re-opening out of the reduced-number and frequency of games which characterised its "bubble" format. I have hope that some more frequent tournaments will also therefore come available for Magic as well.
Moving on to my event from last night, then, I managed to achieve a worse record than last week with a record of a loss and two draws. My best days of Magic are a far cry from where I am at now, since I could actually feel myself taking too much time on routine decisions. I do tend to overthink things in general, so this is not altogether unexpected, however I have been too long away from competitive Rules Enforcement Level, which makes my thought processes click much slower. I do still feel solid about my theory, and have a few interesting things to report, but at this rate I am fairly certain I will need another month at least to get "back in the saddle", as it were.
Round one was a 1-1-1 Draw (0-0-1 record) against Four-colour Elementals again, this time from a higher-calibre pilot than last week, and I was able to confirm that if this deck increases in popularity I will be very happy to continue playing Emeria, as the matchup still feels very good. I lost game one after stabilizing the board with a 4-for-1 Supreme Verdict on fifteen life, and in looking at the board I felt that his best chance to win was through Omnath, Locus of Creation. On seven mana, I therefore chose to cast a Pilgrim's Eye then a Court Hussar instead of my Sun Titan because I wished to a) find a piece of interaction for Omnath and b) play around a potential Solitude plus Ephemerate. I saw only lands and Prismatic Ending off of the Hussar, and since he did have the Omnath It went uncontested and my Titan was not able to pressure it sufficiently. In sideboarding, I removed my Cavalier of Dawn and one Teferi, Time Raveler, then put in my extra Ghost Quarter and my Declaration in Stone (which has been proving a very good card so far). I then chose the draw, and cleanly won the game after removing his Wrenn and Six with a Prismatic Ending and using my Ghost Quarter on his double Utopia Sprawled Forest after clearing the board with a Settle the Wreckage to ruin his manabase when he searched up only a single land. In game three, I did a similar thing with Supreme Verdict after bouncing his Omnath multiple times with two separate Tef3ris, and was beginning to take over when time was called. When neither of us could present lethal, we drew since it was the first round and we were both live to make prizes from that point.
Round two was another 1-1 draw (0-0-2 record) against U/R Ragavan/Murktide tempo. This was against a friend whom I hadn't seen since well before the lockdown, and we spent entirely too much time chatting during the match (as evidenced by the fact that we ere caught off guard by extra turns being called while we were shuffling up for game three). Pace of play was not as much a concern here, since the matchup tends to move moderately quickly, and we played game three after the tournament for fun with me winning after a very shaky stabilization process. I lost game one on the draw to a maindeck Spell Pierce on my Prismatic Ending for their turn-one Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, which I could have played around by casting Wall of Omens instead. I thought it was better to remove the monkey from the table cleanly to play around some unspecified disaster scenario, but instead ended up enabling the exact play I described. They were then able to resolve a Murktide Regent and generate extra Treasure tokens by the time I was able to cast a Supreme Verdict, leaving me too far behind in mana and life total to stabilize after my sweeper. Game two was much more typical in my mind, with Mortarpod and Wall of Omens combining to control their Dash threat for the entire early game, and an increasingly wide board on my part keeping pace with their excellent draw while I continued to pressure their basic-light manabase (3 Island only) with Field of Ruin. The matchup felt dangerous, but solidly in Emeria's wheelhouse, with the occasional blowout loss to Counterspell on key plays. Since they have little way of knowing what is key, however, they tend to have difficulty deciding whether Pilgrim's Eye represents strength or weakness, and spend their Archmage's Charm and such in awkward ways. My version also does a very creditable job of denying any value to Unholy Heat, so I would call things favourable on the whole. My sideboarding included removing Crucible of Worlds, Cavalier of Dawn and Settle the Wreckage to reduce my vulnerability to Counterspell while bringing in Lone Missionary and Declaration in Stone as well as replacing one Emeria, the Sky Ruin with a Ghost Quarter and experimentally taking out both of my Court Hussar to fit in three Remorseful Cleric. I was reasonably happy with the cheap flying body and the option to remove Delerium at a moment's notice, but I believe I will only bring in two of these in the future in order to leave in one Hussar as a way to set up Supreme Verdict and to provide better grist for the recursion lategame.
Round three was an 0-2 loss (0-1-2 record) to 8cast8plate, an Affinity brew by another friend that achieved a surprising resilience and consistency by playing "supermax" numbers of Thoughtcast and Cranial Plating in Thought Monitor and NEttlecyst. When he cast his opener of Springleaf Drum off of a Darksteel Citadel with an Ornithopter and Memnite into another Drum plus Thoughtcastto follow up, I gave him a wry smile and he chuckled back because he knew both that I had been looking to borrow my new addition of a Heliod's Intervention, and that I hadn't been able to add it in it since I wasn't able to go home before the tournament. The Blessed Alliance I was running instead was of absolutely no use all night. Going back to the match, however, I did manage to stabilize his board down to two Frogmite on the draw, but their immunity to Prismatic Ending proved telling when I missed my fourth land and couldn't cast Teferi, Time Raveler since he did not give me time to activate my Field of Ruin off of the two Plains that had cast all my Path to Exile and Wall of Omens. For game two, I removed my Kaldra Compleat, my Crucible of Worlds, my Cavalier of Dawn, and an Emeria, the Sky Ruin as ponderous plays against his fastest draws, and added in Shadowspear, Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, and Ghost Quarter to speed up my early game and trim the curve for my opening draws. I also inconclusively ran the experimental removal of my two Court Hussar back for a second chance to evaluate the strategy, adding in Revoke Existence and Declaration in Stone again (this last card would have been the Intervention If I had secured it in time). As it was, I did catch two Frogmite with the exile effect, which stabilized the board and kept me alive for a couple of extra turns in game two, but ultimately the extra damage of replacing these with alternative Artifacts in Clue tokens added up to my inability to remove his sideboarded Etched Champion in time to take over with my Batterskull while I was using a tutored Shadowspear to slowly grind away his largely Indestructible manabase in combination with his zero basics and my extra Wasteland lookalikes. At present his speed in the fastest of his draws poses a significant issue, but as I felt able to deal with his lategame playset of Urza's Saga cleanly, I will very much look forward to playing him again next week, with the new Intervention in place if I can!
I believe that about covers the outing, so a winless evening for me was the result. Despite this, I felt reasonable since it was almost the exact same results as last week otherwise, and I am still getting my feet under me for tournament play. We'll have to see how I do over the next few weeks.
Hoping you are all doing well,
-Stéphane Gérard
card advantage from 8 thoughtcast effects do add a lot of resilience to Affinity. And I used to be a legacy affinity player, the Etched Champion.. I bring three of them in against removal heavy decks, it's hard to get rid of if the opponent does not have board wipes or sac effect. If you expect to face a lot more affinity.. I suggest adding one Stony Silence to the sideboard. The stony would prevent the indestructible artifact lands from producing mana, and prevent cranial plating from being equipped, and make clue tokens unusable.. ---- however, It would cause batterskull and kaldra cannot be equipped to our other creatures.. but I still believe it would have a more negative affect on the affinity player, more than it has a negative effect on us.
_________
primer update:
fnm report by Gerant added to Tournament reports section.
Table of Contents → Tournament Reports.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I've been having more work due to Covid and haven't been able to post here as regularly as i'd like.
Sorry to hear your results weren't the best Stéphane but like you said, it's probably just a matter of getting back in the saddle and hopefully things will start going smoother.
About the cascade discussion, i forgot about Drannith Magistrate but it seems like a fantastic option namely against Temur Rhinos, as their damage spells are all 2 damage with the exception of Fury. I went with Chalice of the Void to cover more ground against other decks like Izzet Tempo with Murktide Regent and Death's Shadow decks, and Void Mirror for Tron and Eldrazi Tron matchups that while i haven't played in a while, are well positioned to make a return and know some players in my area that play them. I'm also now running Lavinia, Azorious Renegade not only because of cascade but all the other free spells like elementals but i could see dropping either void mirror or Lavinia for a Magistrate. I actually won against Living End and Temur Rhinos the 2 times i played against them, and while i think they are hard matchups, the sideboard felt very good and gave me the game.
Boros Burn is something i absolutly have to consider now too. I had taken all my dedicated sideboard for burn as i hadn't played it in months. But as per usual, burn is making a comeback and a game i had i lost super cleanly with him only casting burn spells and without a single permanent. Being such a removal heavy deck, with no targets my cards did basically nothing and when Stoneforge was killed on sight i had no way of winning. Already changed the sideboard a bit, by including Shadowspear again and like you mentioned in your matchup discussions, Heliod's Intervention is card that might be very well positioned right now with all the artifact decks, the ocasional enchantress and burn. Definitely need to make some room for it in the side.
I do find your draws were unfortunate but with time and speedier play they can easily become wins again. Unfortunatly it is the curse of the deck and i've been drawin some games purely because my opponents take way to long to make their plays even when they have 1 or 0 cards in hand. Was specially frustrated on one of the last FNM's thet i went 3-0-1, where i could have had 4 wins and instead had a draw that made me lose 1st place, in a game that was a certain win but my opponent just decided to really take it's time (i'll go more in depth when i do my matchup discussions).
I was also very surprised both by Affinity and Hardened Scales resiliency. Both the explosive start and the ability to switch counters around was definitely annoying and the card that for me had just turned every artifact deck so consistent: Urza's Saga. It's amazing how one card can swing a game so much. The same happens in the Hammertime matchup where even when i bounce and kill evryhting, that card just gives them the reach to hang on way more tuns than they were supposed to. While i've been winning all the matchups against Urza's Saga decks, i think they end up being far closer games than they had to be only because of that card.
Also Stéphane, what have been, in your opinion, the underperforming and overperfoming cards in your build?