what do you think about spreading seas maindeck?
i want to try the 4th geist, but i'm scared. i don't want to draw one of them when i already have one...
Maindeck Spreading Seas looks awesome against eldrazi, tron etc., but not so good against most aggro. How do you do against aggro with that list?
Hey guys, finished the tournament last night around midnight so I was too tired to post the report. Unfortunately due to the turnout and time constraints it was only 3 rounds.
The list is almost the exact same as the guy who won the GPT. I wanted to test out his list and see how it did, except I adjusted the counterspell suite very slightly and changed some sideboard cards for the meta I expected.
Round 1: UWR Control
Game 1: The game started out how most of these games go where we just play land and pass, but I was on the draw. I went for the T3 Geist, knowing that I don't win if I don't get aggressive. He didn't have a counterspell, but it was immediately swept up by a Supreme Verdict the following turn. This gave me an opening to resolve Elspeth, Knight-Errant. From here, the game got extremely grindy. He played removal, attacked Elspeth down with Colonnades, and I never saw another Geist. Eventually I just got him down to around 7 life by attacking with Celestial Colonnade during key turns and even misplayed and didn't leave up countermagic for his Sphinx's Revelation. After about 20 minutes of grinding, he used up basically all of his card advantage by going for an Ajani Vengeant, which I used Remand on. He went for the Cryptic Command on Remand with Counter+Draw. I quickly Remand my own Remand to fizzle the Cryptic Command, then Remand the Ajani Vengeant again. This left me with one lethal soldier token on the ground and I drew into the second burn spell I needed to close out the game while he was tapped out.
IN: 2 Molten Rain, 1 Dispel, 1 Negate, 1 Keranos, God of Storms OUT: Do not recall exactly, but it was some number of Remand, Path to Exile, and Electrolyze
Game 2: I got aggressive and went for a T4 Molten Rain on his white sources. He ended up countering it and playing a Keranos, God of Storms the next turn. Silly me forgot to side in my Celestial Purge. Regardless, the next turn I Molten Rain with Snapcaster Mage to take him off double white and he was constricted on mana for a few turns. This allowed me to resolve a Geist of Saint Traft with countermagic up and outrace the Keranos, God of Storms pretty quick. The game was over 2 or so turns after Geist resolved.
1-0
Round 2: Infect
Game 1: I kept a 2 land hand with triple Lightning Bolt, Geist of Saint Traft, and Vendilion Clique on the draw. The first few turns were me bolting every creature he played and playing a T3 Geist of Saint Traft. The game was over really after that, with Vendilion Clique sealing the deal on his last draw step.
IN: 1 Anger of the Gods, 1 Dispel, 1 Negate, 1 Supreme Verdict, 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Izzet Staticaster OUT: 4 Remand, 1 Spell Snare, 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Game 2: This one was really intense, and I probably should have mulligan'd my starting hand which was 5 lands, a Staticaster, and a Geist of Saint Traft. I kept, overestimating the power of Izzet Staticaster in this matchup. The game was super grindy, I drew into a Path to Exile to stop some of his early aggression but Pendelhaven with some pump spells put on a lot of pressure. I actually sac'd the Izzet Staticaster for blocking and blew up some Noble Hierarch. This begins the chain of me playing lands and playing Geist of Saint Trafts 2 or 3 turns in a row as chump blockers until my Celestial Colonnade was ready to be chump blocking. I forced about 6 extra turns that I shouldn't have had, with Ghost Quarter also playing a critical role blowing up an Inkmoth Nexus. After about 8 or so turns after the Izzet Staticaster play, I was at 7 infect and i finally topdecked an Engineered Explosives, which blew up his two remaining creatures. From there, I drew into several Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt and burned my opponent out as he drew pump spells without any creatures in play. He was clearly frustrated from the game, but this just goes to show that you should ALWAYS play it out, even if the odds are extremely narrow. I played to my outs and got there.
2-0
Round 3: Mono-Black 8-Rack
Game 1: Game 1 was pretty intense with both of us mulliganing to 6 but I actually decided to be on the draw because I've played the matchup a lot. He was stuck on 2 lands for a while and only had 1 discard spell, with the rest being racks. I was able to drop a Geist of Saint Traft and got one swing in for 6 before he got Liliana of the Veil mana up. I Electrolyze'd the Liliana of the Veil on his end step and played another Geist of Saint Traft, which he followed up with another Liliana of the Veil. At this point, I was way ahead on cards (like 5 my hand to 2 his) so I was able to burn out the Liliana of the Veil with a Snapcaster Mage into Lightning Helix and got him down to 10 life, which with a Restoration Angel on end step made it a 2 turn clock for the win.
IN: 1 Celestial Purge, 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Negate, 1 Keranos, God of Storms, 1 Wear / Tear OUT: 4 Path to Exile, 1 Spell Snare
Game 2: This time he decided to be on the draw and I had an aggressive hand, but no red mana. Turn 1 he took a Snapcaster Mage. Turn 2 I flashed in a Snapcaster Mage as an ambush viper and went for beats. I was able to get another Snapcaste Mage paired with a Lightning Bolt that I had discarded previously and got extremely aggressive. On the turn he drew his sideboarded Drown in Sorrow, I Vendilion Clique'd it away, increasing the clock and revealing his poor hand (double Thoughtseize). From there I kept on beating and kept lands in hand to make him feel like he had to Thoughtseize to see what was going on. The game ended quickly and I think the hand I got that game paired well against his hand and his decision to be on the draw.
3-0
Thoughts about the overall list:
1) I never saw Thundermaw Hellkite in any of the matches that I played in the tournament, however after the tournament I played a quick round against Kiki-Chord and it won me the game there. Definitely need to do more testing but it feels good in this meta.
2) The counterspell suite is actually something I'm really happy with. Spell Pierce can be a crappy late game draw but so can Spell Snare. I think playing without Mana Leak and playing the tempo-aggro game with cheap counterspells that don't become too obsolete late-game is the way to go. I can also see an argument for running 1 Cryptic Command somewhere in the list over one of our 4 or 5 drops because having a maindeck answer to a lot of pesky permanents can be really useful. Wouldn't play more than 1, though, and I personally am not going to play one but I could see an argument for it.
3) We run a lot of burn spells. People mistake Jeskai for being only control, but they don't realize that we can close the game out really quickly, where your opponent may be at a safe 12 life one turn and then a flurry of burn spells drops them low enough for Celestial Colonnade and/or Geist of Saint Traft beats. I think no less than 10 burn spells is the way to go right now, with at least 4 Lightning Helix and of course 4 Lightning Bolt.
Overall it was a fun experience, and there were several other 3-0 players that I wanted to face had we done 4 rounds but we were stressed on time. Round 4 would have been intense against a Kiki-Chord or Affinity deck and I wouldn't have minded getting that experience in.
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Maindeck Spreading Seas looks awesome against eldrazi, tron etc., but not so good against most aggro. How do you do against aggro with that list?
The biggest issue I see with Spreading Seas is that it doesn't actually shut down Tron, so your opponents other Tron lands still tap for multiple mana.
Apparently I was wrong. I still think it's worse than Molten Rain though
Maindeck Spreading Seas looks awesome against eldrazi, tron etc., but not so good against most aggro. How do you do against aggro with that list?
The biggest issue I see with Spreading Seas is that it doesn't actually shut down Tron, so your opponents other Tron lands still tap for multiple mana.
Not true, Tron lands on Oracle now have the Tron land "names" as part of their types. Turning them into basic islands makes them lose all other types, thereby nullifying their ability to tap for multiple mana or allow other Tron lands to tap for multiple mana.
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Match 1 against Tron. Busted GQ too early and he ramped and killed me. Game 2 turn 4 Karn followed by turn 5 Ugin. Scoop.
Match 2 against BW Eldrazi. Rips my hand apart with Thoughtsieze and TKS. Steamrolls me with tokens and Reality Smasher both games.
Match 3 BW Tokens. All right, a match I can win. Nooope. It was quite amazing how I flooded on lands game 1, and game 2 he had 2 anthems and an army of tokens.
I literally didn't see any cards I needed when I needed them outside of a Path to Exile from an Anticipate game 1 against Tron to kill a Wurmcoil. It was quite amazing and frustrating. In 6 games I swung with a Geist twice. Only 2 times. I didn't even draw enough burn and snaps to go to a backup plan. It was literally the worst 6 games of drawing cards I've ever seen. I have no idea how you're supposed to play this deck without Serum Visions to smooth out the draws. For those curious, this is what I played. I made a last minute change to Molten Rain over Crumble because I thought the turn faster and ability to snap it back and do damage might be relevant. Didn't even see one the whole day.
In total I'm 10-15 in games with this deck and don't know where to go from here.
Match 1 against Tron. Busted GQ too early and he ramped and killed me. Game 2 turn 4 Karn followed by turn 5 Ugin. Scoop.
Match 2 against BW Eldrazi. Rips my hand apart with Thoughtsieze and TKS. Steamrolls me with tokens and Reality Smasher both games.
Match 3 BW Tokens. All right, a match I can win. Nooope. It was quite amazing how I flooded on lands game 1, and game 2 he had 2 anthems and an army of tokens.
I've been thinking about this for both the UWR Control and midrange shell. I believe the answer lies in either making them unable to cast their cards or to force them to sacrifice their creatures. Plainswalkers are tougher to deal with in some cases.
How do you guys feel about Disdainful Stroke out of the board against Eldrazi and Tron mostly?I've been messing around with the deck and it seems like it could come in handy. Countering something Eldrazi gets to play early with Eye out could help keep your head above water for a while. It also works against Scapeshift, Commands, Tasigur, among others. Not sure what would come out for it but it's a thought.
How do you guys feel about Disdainful Stroke out of the board against Eldrazi and Tron mostly?I've been messing around with the deck and it seems like it could come in handy. Countering something Eldrazi gets to play early with Eye out could help keep your head above water for a while. It also works against Scapeshift, Commands, Tasigur, among others. Not sure what would come out for it but it's a thought.
I've heavily considered playing Stroke, but I feel like it lacks application in a lot ofthe other matchups given how low to the ground a lot of the other decks in the format are.
How is everyone testing against the new Eldrazi decks? We are definitely the control deck in the match up, so ive added another Mana Leak, because it seems like they cant answer it early on. Bolts and Helix's are great against the Mimics and Manlands. Path works against the rest just fine, except Smasher, but it is what it is. What else have people had success with?
Painter's Servant Seems like jumping in price ! Mana tithe as they tap out a lot Worship here also crazy prices, can work well with geist ? Ghost quarter x2 or x3 vs x1 in many builds right now
Forgive my ignorance, but how does Painter's Servant stop them?
Forgive my ignorance, but how does Painter's Servant stop them?
Servant gives their cards a color, and thus not colorless, therefore can't be cast using eye of ugin's reduction nor temple's extra mana, as they have the "colorless eldrazi" requirement.
the deck kind of plays like a twin deck except without as much flash creatures and of course the instawin... Geist of Saint Traft is a great card when you're ahead on board but it struggles when the board is at parity like facing a goyf or two... Angelic Destiny changes that in a hurry as a 6/6 flying first strike hexproof with 10 attacking power can swing a lot of unfavorable boards... Angelic works with the other creatures also as it's great with recursion with Kitchen Finks if they don't have immediate non-path removal....
you get a quicker clock and i think all the jeskai variants can struggle with ending games before turn 10....
i'm not a great player but i've had ok results with it so far (10-5 MTGO leagues) which may or may not be indicative of the deck's strength but to me it feels ok... if you can accept a worse version of twin.... i had high hopes for this until the eldrazi menace... it does ok against them but you'll probably need to sideboard into a lot more controlling version with more sweepers and hope to draw them...
it does great against all the other T1 decks except for GBx particularly abzan which is really really bad because of Liliana and IoK/TS... hence the Leyline's in the board...
all the other matchups are pretty decent ... affinity and burn are very favorable and tron also fairly good which was surprising to me but the only really bad cards are pyroclasm/ostone and ulamog... combo decks are okish to not great since tapping out is very dangerous but Meddling Mage is a great hoser against most of them.... other white based control is also not favorable but you can add adjust the counters md and sb to improve it as much as you want...
anyway this deck has been a lot of fun since i loved my twin deck and it's about as close as i could get to it... thought i'd share for others who might find this interesting....
the deck kind of plays like a twin deck except without as much flash creatures and of course the instawin... Geist of Saint Traft is a great card when you're ahead on board but it struggles when the board is at parity like facing a goyf or two... Angelic Destiny changes that in a hurry as a 6/6 flying first strike hexproof with 10 attacking power can swing a lot of unfavorable boards... Angelic works with the other creatures also as it's great with recursion with Kitchen Finks if they don't have immediate non-path removal....
you get a quicker clock and i think all the jeskai variants can struggle with ending games before turn 10....
i'm not a great player but i've had ok results with it so far (10-5 MTGO leagues) which may or may not be indicative of the deck's strength but to me it feels ok... if you can accept a worse version of twin.... i had high hopes for this until the eldrazi menace... it does ok against them but you'll probably need to sideboard into a lot more controlling version with more sweepers and hope to draw them...
it does great against all the other T1 decks except for GBx particularly abzan which is really really bad because of Liliana and IoK/TS... hence the Leyline's in the board...
all the other matchups are pretty decent ... affinity and burn are very favorable and tron also fairly good which was surprising to me but the only really bad cards are pyroclasm/ostone and ulamog... combo decks are okish to not great since tapping out is very dangerous but Meddling Mage is a great hoser against most of them.... other white based control is also not favorable but you can add adjust the counters md and sb to improve it as much as you want...
anyway this deck has been a lot of fun since i loved my twin deck and it's about as close as i could get to it... thought i'd share for others who might find this interesting....
I think if you're gonna use Angelic Destiny, that more Elspeth, Knight-Errant is just better. Doesn't need for you to keep casting it over and over. Does the same thing. Can hold the board when behind. Overall better.
I have been playing Jeskai GST for sometime now and with the Eldrazi Menace bashing everyone, I have started to side Verdicts and ***'s. Other than this I want to revist the age old question of which is better? Mana Leak or Remand? I just want 4 counters and I feel Remand is soo bad againts Robots and Infect which is subsequently good vs Eldrazi.
I have been playing Jeskai GST for sometime now and with the Eldrazi Menace bashing everyone, I have started to side Verdicts and ***'s. Other than this I want to revist the age old question of which is better? Mana Leak or Remand? I just want 4 counters and I feel Remand is soo bad againts Robots and Infect which is subsequently good vs Eldrazi.
If you're worried about Eldrazi, then you should use Mana Leak. They cant really deal with one. Also, I have used Verdict and Detention Sphere to a very nice degree of success.
I've recently moved into this build from UW control since I've missed being able to end the game. I would typically play more of a UWr control build, but decided to give Geist a chance. I love the synergy with Elspeth and think it might have a place. Feedback would be appreciated as this is my first draft, and while I like the card choices and numbers I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
I feel like Thundermaw could be main, and I feel like I might miss Staticaster and Wear/Tear in the side. Otherwise I like the aggressive pressure this deck tries to apply.
I think if you're gonna use Angelic Destiny, that more Elspeth, Knight-Errant is just better. Doesn't need for you to keep casting it over and over. Does the same thing. Can hold the board when behind. Overall better.
well i started off using Elspeth and she's great when you're even or ahead but she's not good when you're behind...
most creature heavy decks.. abzan coco for example.. have an easy time outlasting your removal... so there's going to be plenty of situations where you're facing down two threats or some random flyer and Elspeth isn't going to do much in those situations... Angelic on any of your creatures will though and it can swing those games...
I do run Elspeth as a single since drawing multiple Angelics without a threat is awkward so she's great when you need to drop something on the board... but i do think angelic is better...
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Maindeck Spreading Seas looks awesome against eldrazi, tron etc., but not so good against most aggro. How do you do against aggro with that list?
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
1 Arid Mesa
3 Celestial Colonnade
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
Creatures (14):
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Vendilion Clique
Planeswalkers (1):
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Celestial Purge
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Molten Rain
1 Negate
2 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Wear / Tear
The list is almost the exact same as the guy who won the GPT. I wanted to test out his list and see how it did, except I adjusted the counterspell suite very slightly and changed some sideboard cards for the meta I expected.
Round 1: UWR Control
Game 1: The game started out how most of these games go where we just play land and pass, but I was on the draw. I went for the T3 Geist, knowing that I don't win if I don't get aggressive. He didn't have a counterspell, but it was immediately swept up by a Supreme Verdict the following turn. This gave me an opening to resolve Elspeth, Knight-Errant. From here, the game got extremely grindy. He played removal, attacked Elspeth down with Colonnades, and I never saw another Geist. Eventually I just got him down to around 7 life by attacking with Celestial Colonnade during key turns and even misplayed and didn't leave up countermagic for his Sphinx's Revelation. After about 20 minutes of grinding, he used up basically all of his card advantage by going for an Ajani Vengeant, which I used Remand on. He went for the Cryptic Command on Remand with Counter+Draw. I quickly Remand my own Remand to fizzle the Cryptic Command, then Remand the Ajani Vengeant again. This left me with one lethal soldier token on the ground and I drew into the second burn spell I needed to close out the game while he was tapped out.
IN: 2 Molten Rain, 1 Dispel, 1 Negate, 1 Keranos, God of Storms OUT: Do not recall exactly, but it was some number of Remand, Path to Exile, and Electrolyze
Game 2: I got aggressive and went for a T4 Molten Rain on his white sources. He ended up countering it and playing a Keranos, God of Storms the next turn. Silly me forgot to side in my Celestial Purge. Regardless, the next turn I Molten Rain with Snapcaster Mage to take him off double white and he was constricted on mana for a few turns. This allowed me to resolve a Geist of Saint Traft with countermagic up and outrace the Keranos, God of Storms pretty quick. The game was over 2 or so turns after Geist resolved.
1-0
Round 2: Infect
Game 1: I kept a 2 land hand with triple Lightning Bolt, Geist of Saint Traft, and Vendilion Clique on the draw. The first few turns were me bolting every creature he played and playing a T3 Geist of Saint Traft. The game was over really after that, with Vendilion Clique sealing the deal on his last draw step.
IN: 1 Anger of the Gods, 1 Dispel, 1 Negate, 1 Supreme Verdict, 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Izzet Staticaster OUT: 4 Remand, 1 Spell Snare, 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Game 2: This one was really intense, and I probably should have mulligan'd my starting hand which was 5 lands, a Staticaster, and a Geist of Saint Traft. I kept, overestimating the power of Izzet Staticaster in this matchup. The game was super grindy, I drew into a Path to Exile to stop some of his early aggression but Pendelhaven with some pump spells put on a lot of pressure. I actually sac'd the Izzet Staticaster for blocking and blew up some Noble Hierarch. This begins the chain of me playing lands and playing Geist of Saint Trafts 2 or 3 turns in a row as chump blockers until my Celestial Colonnade was ready to be chump blocking. I forced about 6 extra turns that I shouldn't have had, with Ghost Quarter also playing a critical role blowing up an Inkmoth Nexus. After about 8 or so turns after the Izzet Staticaster play, I was at 7 infect and i finally topdecked an Engineered Explosives, which blew up his two remaining creatures. From there, I drew into several Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt and burned my opponent out as he drew pump spells without any creatures in play. He was clearly frustrated from the game, but this just goes to show that you should ALWAYS play it out, even if the odds are extremely narrow. I played to my outs and got there.
2-0
Round 3: Mono-Black 8-Rack
Game 1: Game 1 was pretty intense with both of us mulliganing to 6 but I actually decided to be on the draw because I've played the matchup a lot. He was stuck on 2 lands for a while and only had 1 discard spell, with the rest being racks. I was able to drop a Geist of Saint Traft and got one swing in for 6 before he got Liliana of the Veil mana up. I Electrolyze'd the Liliana of the Veil on his end step and played another Geist of Saint Traft, which he followed up with another Liliana of the Veil. At this point, I was way ahead on cards (like 5 my hand to 2 his) so I was able to burn out the Liliana of the Veil with a Snapcaster Mage into Lightning Helix and got him down to 10 life, which with a Restoration Angel on end step made it a 2 turn clock for the win.
IN: 1 Celestial Purge, 1 Engineered Explosives, 1 Negate, 1 Keranos, God of Storms, 1 Wear / Tear OUT: 4 Path to Exile, 1 Spell Snare
Game 2: This time he decided to be on the draw and I had an aggressive hand, but no red mana. Turn 1 he took a Snapcaster Mage. Turn 2 I flashed in a Snapcaster Mage as an ambush viper and went for beats. I was able to get another Snapcaste Mage paired with a Lightning Bolt that I had discarded previously and got extremely aggressive. On the turn he drew his sideboarded Drown in Sorrow, I Vendilion Clique'd it away, increasing the clock and revealing his poor hand (double Thoughtseize). From there I kept on beating and kept lands in hand to make him feel like he had to Thoughtseize to see what was going on. The game ended quickly and I think the hand I got that game paired well against his hand and his decision to be on the draw.
3-0
Thoughts about the overall list:
1) I never saw Thundermaw Hellkite in any of the matches that I played in the tournament, however after the tournament I played a quick round against Kiki-Chord and it won me the game there. Definitely need to do more testing but it feels good in this meta.
2) The counterspell suite is actually something I'm really happy with. Spell Pierce can be a crappy late game draw but so can Spell Snare. I think playing without Mana Leak and playing the tempo-aggro game with cheap counterspells that don't become too obsolete late-game is the way to go. I can also see an argument for running 1 Cryptic Command somewhere in the list over one of our 4 or 5 drops because having a maindeck answer to a lot of pesky permanents can be really useful. Wouldn't play more than 1, though, and I personally am not going to play one but I could see an argument for it.
3) We run a lot of burn spells. People mistake Jeskai for being only control, but they don't realize that we can close the game out really quickly, where your opponent may be at a safe 12 life one turn and then a flurry of burn spells drops them low enough for Celestial Colonnade and/or Geist of Saint Traft beats. I think no less than 10 burn spells is the way to go right now, with at least 4 Lightning Helix and of course 4 Lightning Bolt.
Overall it was a fun experience, and there were several other 3-0 players that I wanted to face had we done 4 rounds but we were stressed on time. Round 4 would have been intense against a Kiki-Chord or Affinity deck and I wouldn't have minded getting that experience in.
The biggest issue I see with Spreading Seas is that it doesn't actually shut down Tron, so your opponents other Tron lands still tap for multiple mana.Apparently I was wrong. I still think it's worse than Molten Rain though
UW Control
UWR Geist
UWR Control
Not true, Tron lands on Oracle now have the Tron land "names" as part of their types. Turning them into basic islands makes them lose all other types, thereby nullifying their ability to tap for multiple mana or allow other Tron lands to tap for multiple mana.
Match 1 against Tron. Busted GQ too early and he ramped and killed me. Game 2 turn 4 Karn followed by turn 5 Ugin. Scoop.
Match 2 against BW Eldrazi. Rips my hand apart with Thoughtsieze and TKS. Steamrolls me with tokens and Reality Smasher both games.
Match 3 BW Tokens. All right, a match I can win. Nooope. It was quite amazing how I flooded on lands game 1, and game 2 he had 2 anthems and an army of tokens.
I literally didn't see any cards I needed when I needed them outside of a Path to Exile from an Anticipate game 1 against Tron to kill a Wurmcoil. It was quite amazing and frustrating. In 6 games I swung with a Geist twice. Only 2 times. I didn't even draw enough burn and snaps to go to a backup plan. It was literally the worst 6 games of drawing cards I've ever seen. I have no idea how you're supposed to play this deck without Serum Visions to smooth out the draws. For those curious, this is what I played. I made a last minute change to Molten Rain over Crumble because I thought the turn faster and ability to snap it back and do damage might be relevant. Didn't even see one the whole day.
In total I'm 10-15 in games with this deck and don't know where to go from here.
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Anticipate
2 Electrolyze
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Remand
3 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spell Snare
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Detention Sphere
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Dispel
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Izzet Staticaster
3 Molten Rain
2 Stony Silence
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Wear // Tear
I've been thinking about this for both the UWR Control and midrange shell. I believe the answer lies in either making them unable to cast their cards or to force them to sacrifice their creatures. Plainswalkers are tougher to deal with in some cases.
Runed Halo, Meddling mage, celestial flare, detention sphere, maybe mangara of corondor
In the midrange shell I'm thinking solar tide for creature removal might be ok.
Some of these options sound slower but might be worth testing out.
On your question about serum visions, i personally run 2, but there is an argument for both less or more really depends.
GWBoglesGW///URDelverUR WVial-knightsW
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-wur-24444#_=_
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Its possible that Blade Splicer can be good again, given that KCommand is being played less and less now.
I've heavily considered playing Stroke, but I feel like it lacks application in a lot ofthe other matchups given how low to the ground a lot of the other decks in the format are.
UW Control
UWR Geist
UWR Control
Btw here is a list that won the same regionals I was at. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=98560
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
Forgive my ignorance, but how does Painter's Servant stop them?
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
Servant gives their cards a color, and thus not colorless, therefore can't be cast using eye of ugin's reduction nor temple's extra mana, as they have the "colorless eldrazi" requirement.
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
spells
4 Serum Visions
4 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Electrolyze
4 Path to Exile
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Celestial Purge
1 Wear // Tear
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Stony Silence
Finally got time to go to my FNM for the first time in two months, planning on playing this. Any suggestions?
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Angelic Destiny
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Electrolyze
2 Cryptic Command
2 Spell Snare
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Mystic Gate
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Stony Silence
2 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Dispel
2 Negate
3 Meddling Mage
2 Wrath of God
1 Pyroclasm
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Wear // Tear
the deck kind of plays like a twin deck except without as much flash creatures and of course the instawin... Geist of Saint Traft is a great card when you're ahead on board but it struggles when the board is at parity like facing a goyf or two... Angelic Destiny changes that in a hurry as a 6/6 flying first strike hexproof with 10 attacking power can swing a lot of unfavorable boards... Angelic works with the other creatures also as it's great with recursion with Kitchen Finks if they don't have immediate non-path removal....
you get a quicker clock and i think all the jeskai variants can struggle with ending games before turn 10....
i'm not a great player but i've had ok results with it so far (10-5 MTGO leagues) which may or may not be indicative of the deck's strength but to me it feels ok... if you can accept a worse version of twin.... i had high hopes for this until the eldrazi menace... it does ok against them but you'll probably need to sideboard into a lot more controlling version with more sweepers and hope to draw them...
it does great against all the other T1 decks except for GBx particularly abzan which is really really bad because of Liliana and IoK/TS... hence the Leyline's in the board...
all the other matchups are pretty decent ... affinity and burn are very favorable and tron also fairly good which was surprising to me but the only really bad cards are pyroclasm/ostone and ulamog... combo decks are okish to not great since tapping out is very dangerous but Meddling Mage is a great hoser against most of them.... other white based control is also not favorable but you can add adjust the counters md and sb to improve it as much as you want...
anyway this deck has been a lot of fun since i loved my twin deck and it's about as close as i could get to it... thought i'd share for others who might find this interesting....
I think if you're gonna use Angelic Destiny, that more Elspeth, Knight-Errant is just better. Doesn't need for you to keep casting it over and over. Does the same thing. Can hold the board when behind. Overall better.
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
If you're worried about Eldrazi, then you should use Mana Leak. They cant really deal with one. Also, I have used Verdict and Detention Sphere to a very nice degree of success.
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
4x Serum Visions
1x Spell Snare
3x Remand
4x Lightning Helix
3x Electrolyze
1x Detention Sphere
3x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Restoration Angel
2x Elspeth, Knight Errant
1x Ajani Vengeant
1x Celestial Colonnade
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Flooded Strand
2x Arid Mesa
1x Mountain
3x Island
1x Plains
1x Eiganjo Castle
2x Steam Vents
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Mystic Gate
1x Clifftop Retreat
1x Sulfur Falls
1x Glacial Fortress
Sideboard
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Vendillion Clique
1x Ajani Vengeant
1x Gideon Jura
1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1x Thundermaw Hellkite
1x Counterflux
1x Negate
1x Disdainful Stroke
3x Molten Rain
1x Shatterstorm
2x Engineered Explosives
I feel like Thundermaw could be main, and I feel like I might miss Staticaster and Wear/Tear in the side. Otherwise I like the aggressive pressure this deck tries to apply.
well i started off using Elspeth and she's great when you're even or ahead but she's not good when you're behind...
most creature heavy decks.. abzan coco for example.. have an easy time outlasting your removal... so there's going to be plenty of situations where you're facing down two threats or some random flyer and Elspeth isn't going to do much in those situations... Angelic on any of your creatures will though and it can swing those games...
I do run Elspeth as a single since drawing multiple Angelics without a threat is awkward so she's great when you need to drop something on the board... but i do think angelic is better...