Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to use Cryptic Command in the UW version of the deck? I can see having a bit of trouble with the triple U casting requirement, but other than that it seems good..
With the price hovering around 20 dollars now that Iconic Masters has been out for a bit, I was thinking of picking up a few copies.. or does that move it too far in the direction of regular UW control?
Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to use Cryptic Command in the UW version of the deck? I can see having a bit of trouble with the triple U casting requirement, but other than that it seems good..
With the price hovering around 20 dollars now that Iconic Masters has been out for a bit, I was thinking of picking up a few copies.. or does that move it too far in the direction of regular UW control?
To hit UUU reliably by turn-4 means running about 22 U-sources. This is not easy alongside Emeria, the Sky Ruin (due to the requirement for lots of Plains), and is made harder still with Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin taking up other land slots.
As far as pushing us too close to the UW archetype: I'm not convinced the border is so rigid. I think the bigger difference is that they use Celestial Colonnade while we use Emeria, the Sky Ruin. If we could reliably cast Cryptic Command, I'd certainly consider playing it.
I agree, I don't think Cryptic is a good fit for this deck. Partly because of its restrictive mana cost but also because being a tap out control deck it can often times be inconvenient to hold up counter magic. That said, Cryptic is a staple for a reason, it's an absurdly powerful card. I don't think anyone can argue with that. If it's cheap, and you think that you'll get use out of it, I would encourage you to pick up your playset. It'll be useful in a plethora of other decks at the very least.
Hello guys, I hope you can help me a little.
I have adopted this deck as my second modern deck. The last tournament I went to I got my ass kicked by Infect.
What are the best sideboard cards for this machup and how do generally play against it?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Plato:
"Only the dead have seen the end of the war."
Modern 0Affinity
Modern Silverblack RRed Deck Wins
Tiny Leaders EDH RWUShu Yun
Commander RWGUril, the Sad Panda
Commander RDarretti, the Scrap Lord
The best sideboard option for infect is likely Solemnity, however that is going a little deep. The cards your looking for in the maindeck are Gideon of the Trials, Path to Exile, Detention Sphere, Supreme Verdict, Ghost Quarter and Spreading Seas. In the sideboard cheap removal is what you need to fight Infect, things like Condemn and Blessed Alliance are good options. Remember to use your instant speed removal either in response to a lethal pump spell or at the end of combat. If you are on the draw and do not have removal that can interact with your opponent within the first two turns, ship the hand. Also keep an eye on their manland, as you can only remove it via instant speed removal or land destruction. Hope this helps!
For those of you who aren't interested in seeing Rivals of Ixalan cards spoiled, look away!
Azor, the Lawbringer
2WWUU
Legendary Creature - Sphinx
Flying
When Azor, the Lawbringer enters the battlefield, each opponent can't cast instant or sorcery spells during that player's next turn.
Whenever Azor attacks, you may pay XWUU. If you do, you gain X life and draw X cards.
6/6
There aren't a lot of modern decks that are going to want this, even considering its absurdly powerful affect, but if it has a shot anywhere I figured it's here, so it's at least worth discussing.
Pros for Azor:
Can't be removed by sorceries on his first turn in play
Flies, which makes it more difficult to chump
Not graveyard reliant
Gains life
Draws Cards
Pros for Sun Titan:
Vigilance, which allows him to block
Not as mana dependent
Generates value on ETB
They're both really tough to remove; they both dodge bolt, push, and dismember, only falling to things like path, go for the throat (does anyone play this anymore?) or terminate. Azor has double blue in the cost, which might be relevant sometimes but probably won't be when I'm dropping my six mana beater. And alot of it offsets itself; life gain is pretty similar to being able to block; there are some situations where you're going to want one or the other.
I've already replaced my fourth sun titan with Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I love her to death, and she seems great, but so far I've lost every game I've drawn her in. I'm considering replacing that slot with Azor.
Azor seems good, but I'm not that sure he is. He can still be killed by instant speed removal before he can attack/Revelation. Titan generates immediate value and adds more longevity. This could be another competitor for slots beyond the first three Titans though, I agree.
One advantage I haven't seen mentioned, is that you can cast Azor without having to worry about your opponent casting Grapeshot, Ad Nauseum, Living End, Scapeshift, or Through the Breach the next turn while you are tapped out, unlike Elspeth, SC or Sun Titan. Of course, those provide you immediate value like you said, but that advantage should still not be underestimated.
He can still be killed by instant speed removal before he can attack/Revelation. Titan generates immediate value and adds more longevity.
There are definitely situations where the EOT instant removal is going to be a critical play around factor, and in those situations I definitely want the Titan over Azor. But, at this point, basically the only important removal spell that hits either of these is if they have path. Statistically, fewer that one in 20 decks plays terminate, and after that the next instant that kills either of them is Go For The Throat, and when's the last time you saw anyone play GFTT? I guess vapor snag is also relevant, but that's still uncommon . . . Anyway, my basic point should read "when you're worried about EOT removal, be worried about EOT PtE, because almost nothing else in modern is going to get there".
One advantage I haven't seen mentioned, is that you can cast Azor without having to worry about your opponent casting Grapeshot, Ad Nauseum, Living End, Scapeshift, or Through the Breach the next turn while you are tapped out, unlike Elspeth, SC or Sun Titan.
. . .
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, though.
No, that's definitely important. there are certainly matchups where I want Azor over Sun Titan, and many of them include the ones you mentioned for those reasons. Guess we've got to get some actual testing in!
I agree Azor deserves to be tested at the very least. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel the matchup I want to see Elspeth, Sun's Champion every game, that I have struggled with in the past is Eldrazi-Tron. Azor can close the game in a turn and it has the upside of preventing All is Dust the turn it comes down. It is also bigger than almost every threat in their deck, bar Endbringer but it still does not wrath the board. Testing needs to be done, but I am hopeful. Also just joined Magic Online, same username, I just started so I'm still getting used to the client but hopefully I'll be able to bring Emeria a couple 5 - 0 once I get the hang of it.
Hey all, I've managed to get in some testing with Azor, the Lawbringer and have come to a conclusion; he is too expensive and situational for modern. I felt like I needed to jump through hoops when I played him, and the threat of instant speed removal or even counter-magic is all too real. Granted Azor did win me a game against Jeskai control but I was already heavily favored to win. I'd rather have Elspeth, Sun's Champion or even Kami of False Hope. On that note, I did do some minor play-testing with Weathered Wayfarer and found it was still too match-up dependent for the main.
One thing I really want to try is a one of Runed Halo in the main, has anyone else done this to any success? I feel it would help shore up some of our bad match-ups, being; Titan-shift and Storm. A couple more things to note, I have played a few friendly leagues on modo and came to a lackluster 3 - 2 finish each time. The situations where I lost were weird though, I'm all about variance in magic but I lost to the exact same lines in each league. I lost in three when playing against Eldrazi Tron. So I've turned the corner, my opponent is empty handed, they need a top-deck of exactly Walking Ballista that turn before I climb out of reach via Lone Missionary and lock up the game. Well, they've drawn it, each time, it can be very frustrating. One more thing, I'll also be attending Grand-Prix Toronto soon, I'll make sure to share my results! As always any feedback or criticism is appreciated!
Yeah, I think that's reasonable, it's high time that I give Runed Halo a chance in the main. I recently asked a good friend from a previous lgs, over Facebook, to look at my seventy-five. This was to see what I could cut or shift around to make room for Runed Halo. I find that the outside perspective can be an very eye-opening once you get set in your ways. His response was surprising, he was against Phantasmal Image, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Ojutai's Command from the board, and he was on the fence about a Crucible of Worlds in the main. Image has been good to me, Ojutai's Command has saved my bacon against Titan Shift multiple times, and I have yet to lose a game where an active CoW has sat on the battlefield. So I think it's Elspeth that's on the chopping block in leu of a single Runed Halo, the question is, do I relegate her to the sideboard or cut her completely? I think the biggest draw about Elspeth for me, is that she provides helpful insurance against continuous graveyard hate like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void. She is also almost unbeatable for almost any mid-range strategy, namely, gb(x) and E-Tron but I'm not sure if we really need the help in those match-ups.
Im in favor of having one or two win cons outside of the basic setup like Elspeth, Gideon AoZ, even Dragonlord Ojutai which i have had some success with.
Lately I havent had much success with Emeria on modo and it is kind of disheartening considering I want to play it at GP Toronto. Game 1s vs combo decks are absolutely discouraging as we have no disruption and no clock whatsoever. After board it is slightly better but still maybe 40-45 pct underdog at best vs Storm, Ad Naus, UR breach etc
Have also had problems against opposing graveyard decks like Dredge and Hollow One who get off to fast starts, and remand-tempo decks like Jeskai Geist is also quite nightmarish. Merfolk Ive had a lot of trouble with also
Having said that im quite confident vs Eldrazi Tron, Burn (especially after board), affinity, bgx, shadow decks, and surprisingly I really like our chances post board vs rg shift.
My audible is hollow one but i definitely have so much more reps with Emeria. I know Id be 1000x happier if i was able to take emeria to day 2 but yeah havent had good results lately online. Runed halo MB seems like a good idea I will try it out
The tl;dr innovation of the list is integrating Jeskai copycat (Saheeli + Felidar Guardian) into the main at the expense of a 3rd Supreme Verdict, 2 Gideon of the Trails, and filling out some 4-ofs (namely Lone Missionary, Court Hussar and Sun Titan). My rationale was that Saheeli and Sun Titan can *also* combo together; and Saheeli and Felidar are both synergistic with other elements of the deck. The icing on the cake is that Saheeli can be recurred with Titan.
Moreover, in the sideboard, I actually slotted 4 Nahiri + Emrakul as a way to surprise my opponents expecting a very graveyard centric strategy. This proved to be an overwhelming amount of angles for a lot of my opponents to deal with. 8-Rack was particularly blown out by resolving a top-decked Nahiri after GQing his Mutavault; and it also won a sideboarded match against Jund by using Nahiri as bait. Another nice aspect of Nahiri is that her -2 can gun down RiPs. The downside is that she cannot hit Grafdigger's Cage and someone using Relic can play around her; but the point of her inclusion from the sideboard is to surprise players that deeply sided into combating the graveyard when I can also attack from the Nahiri front. To accommodate for Nahiri, I ween off of the Emeria grinding a bit post-sideboard usually by cutting a Titan and then dropping some numbers on other elements to free up 5 slots for it (like a Lone Missionary and a Flickerwisp).
Report
My match-ups were: 8-Rack (2-0), RUG Delver (2-0), Jund (2-1) and Death and Taxes (2-0).
Against 8-Rack, I kept a naturally high-cantripping hand with Walls and Seas. My goal was to dig into and Saheeli and resolve her. From there, it was just +1ing her and filtering until I could establish a combo. Mutavaults had a lot of trouble beating through Wall of Omens. My opener had 2 Spreading Seas and taking him off of Urborg really crippled his tempo. Important: did not have two 8-Rack effects; and Lone Missionary was an all star. I won by naturally dumping Felidar onto a Saheeli that sat there for awhile. No Sun Titan was played that game.
Sideboarded into the Nahiri package + 2 Surgicals. Opponent mulled to 6. Pretty much ran the gamut into Nahiri and +1ing her. When 8-Rack started hitting Nahiri, I switched into Saheeli. I eventually +1'd Saheeli and found a D-Sphere, which I proceeded to draw with the top-decked Wall of Omens and I sphere'd the 8 Rack. Emrakul'd him two turns later.
Against RUG Delver: the first game was just an absolute Emeria grind. D-Sphere played an important role in exiling two Goyfs. Supreme Verdict did a lot of work at clearing up a Huntmaster of the Fells. Pretty much did a lot of stalling with Wall of Omens and Court Hussar. I then casted a Saheeli to bait a counterspell that I had been pegging him on the whole game. This cleared the way for a Sun Titan to bring back Saheeli, copying Titan. This generated an overwhelming amount of value (i.e. I recurred a lot of creatures and established some good old fashioned Flickerwisp shinanigans on the original Sun Titan cast that turn). He died on the following turn.
I boarded in the Nahiri package and the 3rd Verdict. This was a very smart move. Important call was that I fetched a Plains and an Island, pegging him on Blood Moon. Sure enough, he had Blood Moon and could not Flickerwisp. Thankfully, Nahiri's -2 killed Blood Moon. She then ate a Lightning Bolt. Figured then would be a good time to jam a Saheeli and +1 her. Cat was on top. Cat resolved on the next turn. The cat combo was established.
Against Jund: I lost the pre-boarded game to a grind-battle. It was availed on his end by a Bob that I couldn't really find an opening to kill. He had a lot of removal and piloted excellently. With both Lilianna's out, I was grinded down. I was digging for Emeria which would have helped a lot but sadly did not find one. Also would have liked additional land removal to get rid of a Raging Ravine.
Sideboarded Games: Brought in the Nahiri package, 3rd Verdict and the Crypt. Crypt helped out by shrinking Goyfs a couple of points of power. He managed to tag Emrakul with Surgical Extraction when I discarded it with Nahiri, which was kind of sad tbh. I definitely had him worried about potentially comboing because he was working on really stopping Saheelis and cats. Court Hussar eventually dug me into a Titan. The one Titan snowballed into a lot of value which he couldn't overcome. Game 3 was a lot more interesting because he had two Grafdigger's Cages and a Liliana which I was controlling by flickering Detention Sphere between these two options. Liliana's +1 ripping apart my hand was more annoying than Cage so I decided to play the game with the D-Sphere mainly on Liliana (of the Veil). Though I couldn't recur much, I figured that by controlling his threats and continuing to attack with my cats and hussars, I could grind him down. All of my Titans pretty much had removal saved for them so they bit the dust early. Eventually, we came to a stalemate where he had 2 Goyf untapped and I had 2 Hussars and a Cat. He was at 3 and I was at 4. Each goyf had 5 power. I knew the last card in his hand was a land that he flipped off a Bob much earlier in the game that he was holding back to bluff removal. My topdeck was a Cat, which I used to flicker the D-Sphere to flicker it from the Liliana to the Goyfs, removing his blockers. I swung for game before he could top deck something to kill me.
Against D&T: (Note this was the Eldrazi taxes version that has an emphasis on Eldrazi Displacer and splashes black for Tidehollow Sculler). Game 1 was all about Supreme Verdict. When I found that, I cast it to clear out a board which I was stalling with Wall of Omens x2 and a Flickerwisp that was ready to jump under a bus. I followed that up by casting Spreading Seas on his only White source at the time into Saheeli. I dug for cat combo, which I didn't find. He found a white source again eventually; but I drew into a Sun Titan. Saheeli on the board continued to +1 until set up Emeria through a GQ on my Island and a Field of Ruin activation. When I had the Saheeli in hand, I knew what I had to do: Emeria activated bringing back a Flickerwisp targetting his Plains. Then I drew and casted Sun Titan, which brought back a fetch. I cracked the fetch then cast Saheeli #2 from hand. He died to Infinite Sun Titans.
Chose to board in 3 Nahiris (no 4th Nahiri or Emrakul). Just wanted to tag some hate on his end. Unsurprisingly, Verdict is the all-star against D&T because it clears up the Hatebears. I tagged two Aether Vials this game with a Detention Sphere that he didn't know that I ran. This 'curved' (two turns later) into a Verdict and then Nahiri thereafter. Nahiri exiled RiP. I then cast Titan to recur a fetch and a dead Lone Missionary (from after RiP went away). Titan was pathed. I cast Court Hussar to find a second Titan, which stuck around. He died short thereafter.
Summary: Nahiri was an interesting angle that took a lot of people by surprise as both a source of removal, a way to fill the GY and a wincon on her own. It was an interesting port to a Jeskai Emeria list that provided a good stall-breaker. None of my matches went to time this week! The issue is that Nahiri, of course, takes up a lot of slots. The slots that I dropped for Nahiri often entailed a Lone Missionary, a Flickerwisp, a Wall, a Titan and a Saheeli. This resulted in a deck with a lot of 3-ofs. I think if you're gonna run a Nahiri setup post-board, 3 is sufficient given how many combo angles that you have already and the natural ability for the deck to dig for pieces anyway. This lets you keep a Saheeli, which fits naturally with the list. The sideboard still feels like it needs Disenchants despite Nahiri's ability to jankily Revoke Existence things but I was happy with the spice that she brought. I want to try a Runed Halo in the main. I'm a bit sad that I didn't fight a deck to test Disdainful Stroke on.
@CoffeorTea I find you're correct on all counts, and it's important to keep in mind your decks weaknesses. Which I believe can be summarized, from what you said, to tempo-control, linear-combo, and opposing graveyard based strategies. That said, I wouldn't call us an underdog against UR Breach or Ad Naus, especially after sideboard. Even opposing graveyard strategies like Dredge and Hollow One are beatable, thanks to our exile based removal. That said I think Jeskai Geist is a hard match-up, especially if you don't draw into Verdict or an Image and they have a turn three Geist. Merfolk has also become worse, but we are still favored, just pressed to resolve two Verdicts or removal for lords. Let me know how your experience's with Runed Halo go, I'd like to compare in preparation for the Grand Prix. I guess I may even see you there, maybe we'll play!
It's strange though, I've been playing largely on Magic Online, too. In the tournament practice area, still, I have had a lot of success recently, even when playing against Hollow One, Dredge, and Goryo's Vengeance back to back. I'm sure it's variance and quite possibly games aren't taken as seriously. I'm not sure.
@Broliver: great playing! I know there has been some copy-cat experimenting in the past, but I've never seen someone do it so successfully. My concern has often had to do with the difficulties of combining Emeria and tertiary colors, but you seemed to manage it just fine. I also liked the sideboard conversion strategy; it definitely caught a lot of people off guard. Thanks for providing the report, it was a great read and chock full of interesting ideas.
To @Groovyspud and @lord_darkview it was definitely for the surprise factor. However, Nahiri on her own is a pretty strong means of removing Enchantments and tapped artifacts. She can even gun down tapped creatures. So against Aggro there may not be a reason to bring in the whole package: maybe two in order to do some removal work. I definitely recommend boarding in the five card Emrakul package against Control and other grindy decks though.
With 11 plains in the deck and the 2/2 Field of Ruin and GQ split, supplemented by 2 fetches, turning on Emeria is not terribly difficult; but it is harder than the standard UW shell. You also have to watch out for Blood Moon or proactively search for basics. Against Blood Moon decks Nahiri is excellent because you will certainly have Red and if you fetched a Plains for White she's easy to cast. Then you have the option of -2ing to kill the Moon on her first activation
I will work on the sideboard tomorrow when I'm off of work and provide another report in the next week or so that will include the changes. Really happy with the list so far and how it played! (People thought it was spicy too)
Tournament Report
Played in a small stakes ($10 buy-in) tournament where winner gets free GP entry to Toronto next weekend. Been running decently well with the deck lately in paper tournaments so thought I'd run it back to see if I have the hot hand. Modo has been pretty disappointing with a string of 3-2s and 2-3s unfortunately - I do feel like I play better on paper when I'm 100% focused. On Modo sometimes I might have music on or watching YouTube on the other screen and the game doesn't have my full attention and I think that takes away from my gameplay.
I was the 17th player to show up which pushed it into the 5 round territory with a cut to top 8 (sorry boys). Onto the games:
1. 0-2 vs Bant Spirits
G1: Was expecting opponent to be on Merfolk so I was happy to see a hand with Supreme Verdict. I had mulled to 6 and also scryed another Verdict to the top. To see him play T1 flooded strand was quite sad but luckily he ended up being on a creature deck so I didn't get punished as hard. However even with 2 Verdicts I still managed to lose eventually to 2 x Drogskol Captain which rendered my spot removal useless. Selfless Spirit, Queller, Geists are all threats that are extremely hard to get off the board and made the matchup quite a nightmare from my standpoint. Perhaps I could've been a tad more patient with Verdicts. Wall of Omens was absolute garbage here. Boarded in Settle the Wreckage, Dispel for Cocos and their counterspells, Dragonlord Ojutai for another angle of attack incase of Rest in Peace. Boarded out Gideon (all their stuff is hexproof anyway and I have no way to protect him), and Wall of Omens
G2: Didn't get much going and got ran over quick - Selfless Spirit with Drogskol Captain on board with some other flyers means Verdict+Path won't cut it.
2. 2-0 vs Hollow One Vengevine
G1: Opponent got a decent start in Vengevine/Hollow One/Adept by T2. I set down several chump blockers in Wall of Omens, Lone Missionary and found my 4th land to Verdict and it went all down hill for him afterwards. Straight forward win for me as I land T6 Titan. His deck packed a lot of burn in the form of temper/alms of the vein from what I saw from Faithless looting. I felt like as long as I weather the early storm, it shouldn't be too hard of a matchup. However my modo experience vs. the regular BR Hollow One was quite nightmarish as Flamewakes/Bloodghast gave me a lot of problems. Boarded in 2 Tormod's Crypt, Settle the Wreckage (The best card against hollow one /dredge), Intrepid Hero and Runed Halo since their threats are big and not that diverse. Boarded out Crucible, some inspectors and a Sun Titan
G2: Opponent mulled to 5 and managed a T1 Hollow one with a T3 Gurmag. Played some interesting cards like Imminent Doom out of the SB but ultimately a Path, Runed Halo and Gideon of the Trials made the game very trivial.
3. 2-0 vs Jeskai Geist
G1: Grindy G1 with opponent landing an early Geist that I immediately verdict. Can't really afford to take a hit especially since they surprisingly have a lot of burn - since theres no need to burn my crappy creatures that don't really present a clock, they all go to face. I get to a pretty low life but manage to stabilize off Lone Missionary / Sun Titan / Gideon. Gideon can really lock up a win when you're ahead with the emblem - I almost never attack with it as a 4/4 unless I had a very good opportunity to finish opponent off. If I can take a turn off ticking up with him, I tend to try to emblem.
G2: He goes full on burn to face even though I have Gideon and Emblem on board. I sniff out that he wants to Cryptic bounce my Gideon for the win and I start digging really hard for Dispel/Negates. At one point I'm at -2 life with a Gideon on 6 loyalty. I was lucky enough to get both Negate and Dispel while he was hellbent since he used all his burn/snapcasters on burning me. I "stabilize" on -2 life and a Gideon for several turns and Sun Titan ends up burying him. Even though I was at -2 for a while I never felt that close to losing and this is where Gideon shines.
4. 1-1-1 vs UG Merfolk
G1: Drew a lot of removal and he eventually gassed out and was slow to refuel.
G2: I mulled to 5 and nearly stabilize off an amazing top decked Settle the Wreckage facing down like 10 creatures (Master of Waves+Elementals) but he has the Disdainful stroke and the dream is dead.
G3: Super grindy game and I was on my heel the entire time against a variety of threats. Opponent was smart to not overextend into verdict - Branchwalker and Adepts allowed him to refuel and the Mutavaults were quite annoying. After dealing with all his threats I was down to 2 life and seemingly turned the corner. Long story short, on turns he was at 5 and I had 2 Sun Titans + Gideon of the Trials facing down only 1 Branchwalker as a chump blocker. Unfortunately for me (fortunately for him) he drew echoing truth and bounced both Titans and I ran out of time to deal lethal.
Playing all these creature decks makes me want to try Kami of False Hope/maybe a Soul Sister to see how effective it would be in giving me an extra turn or two to really turn the corner. This deck has always had problems finishing the game fast once there is an opening and I'm still searching for a 3-5CMC threat that is a formidable clock. By running Court Hussar over Blade Splicers in that slot I don't do myself any favours in finishing the game faster, but I really value the digging capability of Hussar more.
Going to round 5 I am 2-1-1 and had to play to make top 8. Luckily for me I played a 'pile' with a lot of budget cards (UW Spirits + Invocation of Saint Traft) that was clearly lacking in power level. I was paired down but was quite surprised he picked up 2 wins with it. Anyways nothing to note here except the fact I won which qualified me for top 8 as the 5th seed.
Quarter Finals: 2-1 vs Bant Spirits (4th seed)
G1: So I face the guy who gave me the only loss of the day and I definitely wasn't feeling good about the matchup. He mulled to 6 and didn't get off to a fast start allowing me to put up my defenses. Even getting to set up for late game I had a lot of trouble dealing with Selfless Spirits / Queller / Drogskol Captain which taxed my verdicts and spot removal. After dropping a Crucible I was able to whittle his lands down but he still had a strong board presence. Verdict was no longer an out due to Selfless Spirits. I nearly punted by not leaving up Ghost Quarter to GQ my Island for the 7th plains in which it was surely GG. I ended up luckily surviving down to 1 due to some timely draws off my Wall of Omens/Spreading Seas which got me the path to survive. Emeria comes online and I returned a bunch of Flickerwisps and Lone Missionaries that I stabilize with and seal the win. Super close and long grindy game that took nearly 45 minutes. After such a long day my play was slipping a bit - this deck really doesn't have too much room for errors.
G2: Another super grindy match that starts with him T2 Rest in Peace, and after a couple trades with Settle the Wreckage/Paths, the game ends up with him having 3 Drogskol Captains and a Spell Queller vs. Dragonlord Ojutai that was doing a great job blocking until the 3rd captain got dropped. I stalled him a bit with 2 Runed Halos (probably the wrong card to leave in) but he eventually drops a Geist and I have no answer.
G3: Luckily the T8 is untimed cause we're at 1h 20 now. This game was super weird in that he played 2 basic lands and a Botanical Sanctum to start. He had no white source and I saw the opportunity to end this so I path his Selfless Spirit and proceeded to Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin him down to 2 lands. He desperately plays a late Noble Hierarch which I immediately use my D-Sphere on to punish his mana. My Lone Missionary did some serious work this game doing 12 damage. I drop a Flickerwisp to improve the clock. The mana screw continues for him afterwards and he shows me a hand full of white cards stranded.
Semi Finals: 2-0 vs Affinity (8th seed)
G1: So I kinda lament the fact I didnt bring Stony Silence in my SB (this was a pure meta call) but from experience I can most definitely win without it. I'm on the play but he gets off to a fast start dropping Opal, Thopter, Inkmoth, Springleaf Drum and Vault Skirge T1. I'm hoping he doesnt have cranial plating as his 2 mana threat and he doesn't. It's an Arcbound Ravager. T3 I Field of Ruin his Inkmoth to set up for the the T4 Verdict which basically was GG for him since he had nowhere to put the Ravager counters on. He draws a couple threats here and there but at that point its too late and I already have everything.
G2: He mulls to 5 and I had all the answers (D-Sphere for plating, Runed Halo for Etched Champion, Sorcerous Spyglass for his Ghirapur Aethergrid)
Didn't play the finals since I split with my friend on Lantern - from experience this deck is pretty favourable against Lantern so I would've been totally happy to play.
Some takeaways after the tournament:
- I'm liking the 3/2 split of GQ/FoR, might try a 2/3 split to see how far I can stretch it
- Crucible of Worlds reminded me how good it is today and that it provides this deck another weird angle of attack with Spreading Seas + Land Destruction. - I definitely want this card in my 75, however it might not make it in my main board come GP day in lieu of a 3/4 CMC threat like Resto Angel / Gideon AoZ / Flickerwisp no.4
- The 1 of Runed Halo I'm not really sold on; I even made this Excel table of all the tier 1-3 matchups it's actually good against and its really not that many when I look at it. The notable ones are Grixis Shadow, Storm and Scapeshift and I definitely expect these to be on the downswing after the PT this weekend where they did not have that great of a showing, and Humans might be coming in droves and that's a bad matchup for Shadow/Storm. Will reconsider this for the weekend
- Stony silence: I wonder if it's really a mistake to drop Stony Silence at this point - from experience I seem to deal with Affinity decently anyways without it, and even Lantern as well. Doesn't hurt to have an 'I-win' button I suppose
- The 4/5 CMC threat of choice - Ojutai/Gideon AoZ has been meh, I think Elspeth will make a come back and I'll try Gideon Jura since he works better with the Gideon of the Trials emblem
- The SB cards that are unlikely to change are the 3 Leylines, 1/2 Runed Halos, 2 Dispel, 2 Negate, 1 Sourcerous Spyglass, and 1 Settle the Wreckage
- I need to learn to be more aggressive with my removal and stop saving for bigger threats when I can just end the game sometimes with 3-5 power on board
- Last but not least I'm a true believer in that the 3 Thraben Inspector is the glue that brings this deck together - I have surprisingly increased my win rate with this deck since incorporating Inspector Gadget
Hoping to have a decent showing with the deck in next week's GP - hopefully will have another report for everyone next week!
Thanks for the report! You hit some of our tough match-ups but still managed to top win, congrats! What is your opinion on Settle the Wreckage vs Wrath of God? I've run both in the past, Settle has been very hit or miss for me, either exceptionally good or worse than regular sweeper. I believe you may be on to something with the Inspector plan though. I remember when I first switched back to UW from mono white, I incorporated Inspector too. I went 5 - 0 the first two nights and once I dropped inspector in leu of Image, Elspeth, and the third Lone Missionary I started to lose my streak. That said, I am uncomfortable playing against burn without the playset of Missionary's between my 75.
I think our burn matchup preboard isnt great but is improved significantly postboard with 3 x Leyline, 2 Dispel, 2 Negate.
I like Settle over *** or 4th Verdict for a couple of reasons
1. Plays around Selfless Spirit (*** cannot do that)
2. Exile clause for Dredge, Hollow One which have recursive threats
3. Vs Humans they likely name Verdict with Meddling Mage
4. If you wanted *** for an unlikely Thrun, Settle can deal with him too
Lone Missionary is probably one of my least favorite cards in the main but a necessary evil in the 75. He is one of the most important cards in the Geist matchup to prevent yourself getting burned out and can trade with a Geist as a 2 power creature.
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With the price hovering around 20 dollars now that Iconic Masters has been out for a bit, I was thinking of picking up a few copies.. or does that move it too far in the direction of regular UW control?
To hit UUU reliably by turn-4 means running about 22 U-sources. This is not easy alongside Emeria, the Sky Ruin (due to the requirement for lots of Plains), and is made harder still with Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin taking up other land slots.
As far as pushing us too close to the UW archetype: I'm not convinced the border is so rigid. I think the bigger difference is that they use Celestial Colonnade while we use Emeria, the Sky Ruin. If we could reliably cast Cryptic Command, I'd certainly consider playing it.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
I have adopted this deck as my second modern deck. The last tournament I went to I got my ass kicked by Infect.
What are the best sideboard cards for this machup and how do generally play against it?
"Only the dead have seen the end of the war."
Modern 0Affinity
Modern Silverblack RRed Deck Wins
Tiny Leaders EDH RWUShu Yun
Commander RWGUril, the Sad Panda
Commander RDarretti, the Scrap Lord
Azor, the Lawbringer
2WWUU
Legendary Creature - Sphinx
Flying
When Azor, the Lawbringer enters the battlefield, each opponent can't cast instant or sorcery spells during that player's next turn.
Whenever Azor attacks, you may pay XWUU. If you do, you gain X life and draw X cards.
6/6
There aren't a lot of modern decks that are going to want this, even considering its absurdly powerful affect, but if it has a shot anywhere I figured it's here, so it's at least worth discussing.
Pros for Azor:
Can't be removed by sorceries on his first turn in play
Flies, which makes it more difficult to chump
Not graveyard reliant
Gains life
Draws Cards
Pros for Sun Titan:
Vigilance, which allows him to block
Not as mana dependent
Generates value on ETB
They're both really tough to remove; they both dodge bolt, push, and dismember, only falling to things like path, go for the throat (does anyone play this anymore?) or terminate. Azor has double blue in the cost, which might be relevant sometimes but probably won't be when I'm dropping my six mana beater. And alot of it offsets itself; life gain is pretty similar to being able to block; there are some situations where you're going to want one or the other.
I've already replaced my fourth sun titan with Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I love her to death, and she seems great, but so far I've lost every game I've drawn her in. I'm considering replacing that slot with Azor.
Anyone else have thoughts?
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
One advantage I haven't seen mentioned, is that you can cast Azor without having to worry about your opponent casting Grapeshot, Ad Nauseum, Living End, Scapeshift, or Through the Breach the next turn while you are tapped out, unlike Elspeth, SC or Sun Titan. Of course, those provide you immediate value like you said, but that advantage should still not be underestimated.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, though.
There are definitely situations where the EOT instant removal is going to be a critical play around factor, and in those situations I definitely want the Titan over Azor. But, at this point, basically the only important removal spell that hits either of these is if they have path. Statistically, fewer that one in 20 decks plays terminate, and after that the next instant that kills either of them is Go For The Throat, and when's the last time you saw anyone play GFTT? I guess vapor snag is also relevant, but that's still uncommon . . . Anyway, my basic point should read "when you're worried about EOT removal, be worried about EOT PtE, because almost nothing else in modern is going to get there".
No, that's definitely important. there are certainly matchups where I want Azor over Sun Titan, and many of them include the ones you mentioned for those reasons. Guess we've got to get some actual testing in!
One thing I really want to try is a one of Runed Halo in the main, has anyone else done this to any success? I feel it would help shore up some of our bad match-ups, being; Titan-shift and Storm. A couple more things to note, I have played a few friendly leagues on modo and came to a lackluster 3 - 2 finish each time. The situations where I lost were weird though, I'm all about variance in magic but I lost to the exact same lines in each league. I lost in three when playing against Eldrazi Tron. So I've turned the corner, my opponent is empty handed, they need a top-deck of exactly Walking Ballista that turn before I climb out of reach via Lone Missionary and lock up the game. Well, they've drawn it, each time, it can be very frustrating. One more thing, I'll also be attending Grand-Prix Toronto soon, I'll make sure to share my results! As always any feedback or criticism is appreciated!
Lately I havent had much success with Emeria on modo and it is kind of disheartening considering I want to play it at GP Toronto. Game 1s vs combo decks are absolutely discouraging as we have no disruption and no clock whatsoever. After board it is slightly better but still maybe 40-45 pct underdog at best vs Storm, Ad Naus, UR breach etc
Have also had problems against opposing graveyard decks like Dredge and Hollow One who get off to fast starts, and remand-tempo decks like Jeskai Geist is also quite nightmarish. Merfolk Ive had a lot of trouble with also
Having said that im quite confident vs Eldrazi Tron, Burn (especially after board), affinity, bgx, shadow decks, and surprisingly I really like our chances post board vs rg shift.
My audible is hollow one but i definitely have so much more reps with Emeria. I know Id be 1000x happier if i was able to take emeria to day 2 but yeah havent had good results lately online. Runed halo MB seems like a good idea I will try it out
The tl;dr innovation of the list is integrating Jeskai copycat (Saheeli + Felidar Guardian) into the main at the expense of a 3rd Supreme Verdict, 2 Gideon of the Trails, and filling out some 4-ofs (namely Lone Missionary, Court Hussar and Sun Titan). My rationale was that Saheeli and Sun Titan can *also* combo together; and Saheeli and Felidar are both synergistic with other elements of the deck. The icing on the cake is that Saheeli can be recurred with Titan.
Moreover, in the sideboard, I actually slotted 4 Nahiri + Emrakul as a way to surprise my opponents expecting a very graveyard centric strategy. This proved to be an overwhelming amount of angles for a lot of my opponents to deal with. 8-Rack was particularly blown out by resolving a top-decked Nahiri after GQing his Mutavault; and it also won a sideboarded match against Jund by using Nahiri as bait. Another nice aspect of Nahiri is that her -2 can gun down RiPs. The downside is that she cannot hit Grafdigger's Cage and someone using Relic can play around her; but the point of her inclusion from the sideboard is to surprise players that deeply sided into combating the graveyard when I can also attack from the Nahiri front. To accommodate for Nahiri, I ween off of the Emeria grinding a bit post-sideboard usually by cutting a Titan and then dropping some numbers on other elements to free up 5 slots for it (like a Lone Missionary and a Flickerwisp).
Report
My match-ups were: 8-Rack (2-0), RUG Delver (2-0), Jund (2-1) and Death and Taxes (2-0).
Against 8-Rack, I kept a naturally high-cantripping hand with Walls and Seas. My goal was to dig into and Saheeli and resolve her. From there, it was just +1ing her and filtering until I could establish a combo. Mutavaults had a lot of trouble beating through Wall of Omens. My opener had 2 Spreading Seas and taking him off of Urborg really crippled his tempo. Important: did not have two 8-Rack effects; and Lone Missionary was an all star. I won by naturally dumping Felidar onto a Saheeli that sat there for awhile. No Sun Titan was played that game.
Sideboarded into the Nahiri package + 2 Surgicals. Opponent mulled to 6. Pretty much ran the gamut into Nahiri and +1ing her. When 8-Rack started hitting Nahiri, I switched into Saheeli. I eventually +1'd Saheeli and found a D-Sphere, which I proceeded to draw with the top-decked Wall of Omens and I sphere'd the 8 Rack. Emrakul'd him two turns later.
Against RUG Delver: the first game was just an absolute Emeria grind. D-Sphere played an important role in exiling two Goyfs. Supreme Verdict did a lot of work at clearing up a Huntmaster of the Fells. Pretty much did a lot of stalling with Wall of Omens and Court Hussar. I then casted a Saheeli to bait a counterspell that I had been pegging him on the whole game. This cleared the way for a Sun Titan to bring back Saheeli, copying Titan. This generated an overwhelming amount of value (i.e. I recurred a lot of creatures and established some good old fashioned Flickerwisp shinanigans on the original Sun Titan cast that turn). He died on the following turn.
I boarded in the Nahiri package and the 3rd Verdict. This was a very smart move. Important call was that I fetched a Plains and an Island, pegging him on Blood Moon. Sure enough, he had Blood Moon and could not Flickerwisp. Thankfully, Nahiri's -2 killed Blood Moon. She then ate a Lightning Bolt. Figured then would be a good time to jam a Saheeli and +1 her. Cat was on top. Cat resolved on the next turn. The cat combo was established.
Against Jund: I lost the pre-boarded game to a grind-battle. It was availed on his end by a Bob that I couldn't really find an opening to kill. He had a lot of removal and piloted excellently. With both Lilianna's out, I was grinded down. I was digging for Emeria which would have helped a lot but sadly did not find one. Also would have liked additional land removal to get rid of a Raging Ravine.
Sideboarded Games: Brought in the Nahiri package, 3rd Verdict and the Crypt. Crypt helped out by shrinking Goyfs a couple of points of power. He managed to tag Emrakul with Surgical Extraction when I discarded it with Nahiri, which was kind of sad tbh. I definitely had him worried about potentially comboing because he was working on really stopping Saheelis and cats. Court Hussar eventually dug me into a Titan. The one Titan snowballed into a lot of value which he couldn't overcome. Game 3 was a lot more interesting because he had two Grafdigger's Cages and a Liliana which I was controlling by flickering Detention Sphere between these two options. Liliana's +1 ripping apart my hand was more annoying than Cage so I decided to play the game with the D-Sphere mainly on Liliana (of the Veil). Though I couldn't recur much, I figured that by controlling his threats and continuing to attack with my cats and hussars, I could grind him down. All of my Titans pretty much had removal saved for them so they bit the dust early. Eventually, we came to a stalemate where he had 2 Goyf untapped and I had 2 Hussars and a Cat. He was at 3 and I was at 4. Each goyf had 5 power. I knew the last card in his hand was a land that he flipped off a Bob much earlier in the game that he was holding back to bluff removal. My topdeck was a Cat, which I used to flicker the D-Sphere to flicker it from the Liliana to the Goyfs, removing his blockers. I swung for game before he could top deck something to kill me.
Against D&T: (Note this was the Eldrazi taxes version that has an emphasis on Eldrazi Displacer and splashes black for Tidehollow Sculler). Game 1 was all about Supreme Verdict. When I found that, I cast it to clear out a board which I was stalling with Wall of Omens x2 and a Flickerwisp that was ready to jump under a bus. I followed that up by casting Spreading Seas on his only White source at the time into Saheeli. I dug for cat combo, which I didn't find. He found a white source again eventually; but I drew into a Sun Titan. Saheeli on the board continued to +1 until set up Emeria through a GQ on my Island and a Field of Ruin activation. When I had the Saheeli in hand, I knew what I had to do: Emeria activated bringing back a Flickerwisp targetting his Plains. Then I drew and casted Sun Titan, which brought back a fetch. I cracked the fetch then cast Saheeli #2 from hand. He died to Infinite Sun Titans.
Chose to board in 3 Nahiris (no 4th Nahiri or Emrakul). Just wanted to tag some hate on his end. Unsurprisingly, Verdict is the all-star against D&T because it clears up the Hatebears. I tagged two Aether Vials this game with a Detention Sphere that he didn't know that I ran. This 'curved' (two turns later) into a Verdict and then Nahiri thereafter. Nahiri exiled RiP. I then cast Titan to recur a fetch and a dead Lone Missionary (from after RiP went away). Titan was pathed. I cast Court Hussar to find a second Titan, which stuck around. He died short thereafter.
Summary: Nahiri was an interesting angle that took a lot of people by surprise as both a source of removal, a way to fill the GY and a wincon on her own. It was an interesting port to a Jeskai Emeria list that provided a good stall-breaker. None of my matches went to time this week! The issue is that Nahiri, of course, takes up a lot of slots. The slots that I dropped for Nahiri often entailed a Lone Missionary, a Flickerwisp, a Wall, a Titan and a Saheeli. This resulted in a deck with a lot of 3-ofs. I think if you're gonna run a Nahiri setup post-board, 3 is sufficient given how many combo angles that you have already and the natural ability for the deck to dig for pieces anyway. This lets you keep a Saheeli, which fits naturally with the list. The sideboard still feels like it needs Disenchants despite Nahiri's ability to jankily Revoke Existence things but I was happy with the spice that she brought. I want to try a Runed Halo in the main. I'm a bit sad that I didn't fight a deck to test Disdainful Stroke on.
It's strange though, I've been playing largely on Magic Online, too. In the tournament practice area, still, I have had a lot of success recently, even when playing against Hollow One, Dredge, and Goryo's Vengeance back to back. I'm sure it's variance and quite possibly games aren't taken as seriously. I'm not sure.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
With 11 plains in the deck and the 2/2 Field of Ruin and GQ split, supplemented by 2 fetches, turning on Emeria is not terribly difficult; but it is harder than the standard UW shell. You also have to watch out for Blood Moon or proactively search for basics. Against Blood Moon decks Nahiri is excellent because you will certainly have Red and if you fetched a Plains for White she's easy to cast. Then you have the option of -2ing to kill the Moon on her first activation
I will work on the sideboard tomorrow when I'm off of work and provide another report in the next week or so that will include the changes. Really happy with the list so far and how it played! (People thought it was spicy too)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Irrigated Farmland
1 Prairie Stream
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Field of Ruin
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
6 Plains
1 Island
Creatures
3 Thraben Inspector
2 Lone Missionary
3 Court Hussar
3 Flickerwisp
4 Wall of Omens
3 Sun Titan
4 Path of Exile
Sorceries
3 Supreme Verdict
Enchantments
1 Runed Halo
3 Detention Sphere
4 Spreading Seas
Artifacts
1 Crucible of Worlds
Planeswalkers
2 Gideon of the Trials
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dragonlord Ojutai
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Dispel
2 Negate
1 Intrepid Hero
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Runed Halo
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
Tournament Report
Played in a small stakes ($10 buy-in) tournament where winner gets free GP entry to Toronto next weekend. Been running decently well with the deck lately in paper tournaments so thought I'd run it back to see if I have the hot hand. Modo has been pretty disappointing with a string of 3-2s and 2-3s unfortunately - I do feel like I play better on paper when I'm 100% focused. On Modo sometimes I might have music on or watching YouTube on the other screen and the game doesn't have my full attention and I think that takes away from my gameplay.
I was the 17th player to show up which pushed it into the 5 round territory with a cut to top 8 (sorry boys). Onto the games:
1. 0-2 vs Bant Spirits
G1: Was expecting opponent to be on Merfolk so I was happy to see a hand with Supreme Verdict. I had mulled to 6 and also scryed another Verdict to the top. To see him play T1 flooded strand was quite sad but luckily he ended up being on a creature deck so I didn't get punished as hard. However even with 2 Verdicts I still managed to lose eventually to 2 x Drogskol Captain which rendered my spot removal useless. Selfless Spirit, Queller, Geists are all threats that are extremely hard to get off the board and made the matchup quite a nightmare from my standpoint. Perhaps I could've been a tad more patient with Verdicts. Wall of Omens was absolute garbage here. Boarded in Settle the Wreckage, Dispel for Cocos and their counterspells, Dragonlord Ojutai for another angle of attack incase of Rest in Peace. Boarded out Gideon (all their stuff is hexproof anyway and I have no way to protect him), and Wall of Omens
G2: Didn't get much going and got ran over quick - Selfless Spirit with Drogskol Captain on board with some other flyers means Verdict+Path won't cut it.
2. 2-0 vs Hollow One Vengevine
G1: Opponent got a decent start in Vengevine/Hollow One/Adept by T2. I set down several chump blockers in Wall of Omens, Lone Missionary and found my 4th land to Verdict and it went all down hill for him afterwards. Straight forward win for me as I land T6 Titan. His deck packed a lot of burn in the form of temper/alms of the vein from what I saw from Faithless looting. I felt like as long as I weather the early storm, it shouldn't be too hard of a matchup. However my modo experience vs. the regular BR Hollow One was quite nightmarish as Flamewakes/Bloodghast gave me a lot of problems. Boarded in 2 Tormod's Crypt, Settle the Wreckage (The best card against hollow one /dredge), Intrepid Hero and Runed Halo since their threats are big and not that diverse. Boarded out Crucible, some inspectors and a Sun Titan
G2: Opponent mulled to 5 and managed a T1 Hollow one with a T3 Gurmag. Played some interesting cards like Imminent Doom out of the SB but ultimately a Path, Runed Halo and Gideon of the Trials made the game very trivial.
3. 2-0 vs Jeskai Geist
G1: Grindy G1 with opponent landing an early Geist that I immediately verdict. Can't really afford to take a hit especially since they surprisingly have a lot of burn - since theres no need to burn my crappy creatures that don't really present a clock, they all go to face. I get to a pretty low life but manage to stabilize off Lone Missionary / Sun Titan / Gideon. Gideon can really lock up a win when you're ahead with the emblem - I almost never attack with it as a 4/4 unless I had a very good opportunity to finish opponent off. If I can take a turn off ticking up with him, I tend to try to emblem.
G2: He goes full on burn to face even though I have Gideon and Emblem on board. I sniff out that he wants to Cryptic bounce my Gideon for the win and I start digging really hard for Dispel/Negates. At one point I'm at -2 life with a Gideon on 6 loyalty. I was lucky enough to get both Negate and Dispel while he was hellbent since he used all his burn/snapcasters on burning me. I "stabilize" on -2 life and a Gideon for several turns and Sun Titan ends up burying him. Even though I was at -2 for a while I never felt that close to losing and this is where Gideon shines.
4. 1-1-1 vs UG Merfolk
G1: Drew a lot of removal and he eventually gassed out and was slow to refuel.
G2: I mulled to 5 and nearly stabilize off an amazing top decked Settle the Wreckage facing down like 10 creatures (Master of Waves+Elementals) but he has the Disdainful stroke and the dream is dead.
G3: Super grindy game and I was on my heel the entire time against a variety of threats. Opponent was smart to not overextend into verdict - Branchwalker and Adepts allowed him to refuel and the Mutavaults were quite annoying. After dealing with all his threats I was down to 2 life and seemingly turned the corner. Long story short, on turns he was at 5 and I had 2 Sun Titans + Gideon of the Trials facing down only 1 Branchwalker as a chump blocker. Unfortunately for me (fortunately for him) he drew echoing truth and bounced both Titans and I ran out of time to deal lethal.
Playing all these creature decks makes me want to try Kami of False Hope/maybe a Soul Sister to see how effective it would be in giving me an extra turn or two to really turn the corner. This deck has always had problems finishing the game fast once there is an opening and I'm still searching for a 3-5CMC threat that is a formidable clock. By running Court Hussar over Blade Splicers in that slot I don't do myself any favours in finishing the game faster, but I really value the digging capability of Hussar more.
Going to round 5 I am 2-1-1 and had to play to make top 8. Luckily for me I played a 'pile' with a lot of budget cards (UW Spirits + Invocation of Saint Traft) that was clearly lacking in power level. I was paired down but was quite surprised he picked up 2 wins with it. Anyways nothing to note here except the fact I won which qualified me for top 8 as the 5th seed.
Quarter Finals: 2-1 vs Bant Spirits (4th seed)
G1: So I face the guy who gave me the only loss of the day and I definitely wasn't feeling good about the matchup. He mulled to 6 and didn't get off to a fast start allowing me to put up my defenses. Even getting to set up for late game I had a lot of trouble dealing with Selfless Spirits / Queller / Drogskol Captain which taxed my verdicts and spot removal. After dropping a Crucible I was able to whittle his lands down but he still had a strong board presence. Verdict was no longer an out due to Selfless Spirits. I nearly punted by not leaving up Ghost Quarter to GQ my Island for the 7th plains in which it was surely GG. I ended up luckily surviving down to 1 due to some timely draws off my Wall of Omens/Spreading Seas which got me the path to survive. Emeria comes online and I returned a bunch of Flickerwisps and Lone Missionaries that I stabilize with and seal the win. Super close and long grindy game that took nearly 45 minutes. After such a long day my play was slipping a bit - this deck really doesn't have too much room for errors.
G2: Another super grindy match that starts with him T2 Rest in Peace, and after a couple trades with Settle the Wreckage/Paths, the game ends up with him having 3 Drogskol Captains and a Spell Queller vs. Dragonlord Ojutai that was doing a great job blocking until the 3rd captain got dropped. I stalled him a bit with 2 Runed Halos (probably the wrong card to leave in) but he eventually drops a Geist and I have no answer.
G3: Luckily the T8 is untimed cause we're at 1h 20 now. This game was super weird in that he played 2 basic lands and a Botanical Sanctum to start. He had no white source and I saw the opportunity to end this so I path his Selfless Spirit and proceeded to Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin him down to 2 lands. He desperately plays a late Noble Hierarch which I immediately use my D-Sphere on to punish his mana. My Lone Missionary did some serious work this game doing 12 damage. I drop a Flickerwisp to improve the clock. The mana screw continues for him afterwards and he shows me a hand full of white cards stranded.
Semi Finals: 2-0 vs Affinity (8th seed)
G1: So I kinda lament the fact I didnt bring Stony Silence in my SB (this was a pure meta call) but from experience I can most definitely win without it. I'm on the play but he gets off to a fast start dropping Opal, Thopter, Inkmoth, Springleaf Drum and Vault Skirge T1. I'm hoping he doesnt have cranial plating as his 2 mana threat and he doesn't. It's an Arcbound Ravager. T3 I Field of Ruin his Inkmoth to set up for the the T4 Verdict which basically was GG for him since he had nowhere to put the Ravager counters on. He draws a couple threats here and there but at that point its too late and I already have everything.
G2: He mulls to 5 and I had all the answers (D-Sphere for plating, Runed Halo for Etched Champion, Sorcerous Spyglass for his Ghirapur Aethergrid)
Didn't play the finals since I split with my friend on Lantern - from experience this deck is pretty favourable against Lantern so I would've been totally happy to play.
Some takeaways after the tournament:
- I'm liking the 3/2 split of GQ/FoR, might try a 2/3 split to see how far I can stretch it
- Crucible of Worlds reminded me how good it is today and that it provides this deck another weird angle of attack with Spreading Seas + Land Destruction. - I definitely want this card in my 75, however it might not make it in my main board come GP day in lieu of a 3/4 CMC threat like Resto Angel / Gideon AoZ / Flickerwisp no.4
- The 1 of Runed Halo I'm not really sold on; I even made this Excel table of all the tier 1-3 matchups it's actually good against and its really not that many when I look at it. The notable ones are Grixis Shadow, Storm and Scapeshift and I definitely expect these to be on the downswing after the PT this weekend where they did not have that great of a showing, and Humans might be coming in droves and that's a bad matchup for Shadow/Storm. Will reconsider this for the weekend
- Stony silence: I wonder if it's really a mistake to drop Stony Silence at this point - from experience I seem to deal with Affinity decently anyways without it, and even Lantern as well. Doesn't hurt to have an 'I-win' button I suppose
- The 4/5 CMC threat of choice - Ojutai/Gideon AoZ has been meh, I think Elspeth will make a come back and I'll try Gideon Jura since he works better with the Gideon of the Trials emblem
- The SB cards that are unlikely to change are the 3 Leylines, 1/2 Runed Halos, 2 Dispel, 2 Negate, 1 Sourcerous Spyglass, and 1 Settle the Wreckage
- I need to learn to be more aggressive with my removal and stop saving for bigger threats when I can just end the game sometimes with 3-5 power on board
- Last but not least I'm a true believer in that the 3 Thraben Inspector is the glue that brings this deck together - I have surprisingly increased my win rate with this deck since incorporating Inspector Gadget
Hoping to have a decent showing with the deck in next week's GP - hopefully will have another report for everyone next week!
I like Settle over *** or 4th Verdict for a couple of reasons
1. Plays around Selfless Spirit (*** cannot do that)
2. Exile clause for Dredge, Hollow One which have recursive threats
3. Vs Humans they likely name Verdict with Meddling Mage
4. If you wanted *** for an unlikely Thrun, Settle can deal with him too
Lone Missionary is probably one of my least favorite cards in the main but a necessary evil in the 75. He is one of the most important cards in the Geist matchup to prevent yourself getting burned out and can trade with a Geist as a 2 power creature.