Sounds correct to me. List is similar to what I used to run and had a lot of success at my LGS. Haven't ever brought it to a large tournament so I can't speak to it's ability there.
What do you guys think about running both Smallpox and Boom // Bust? I doubt most decks can handle losing two lands without falling significantly behind. Running 27 or so lands and Life from the Loam can make our deck very resilient to two-sided land destruction and a low curve helps even more. Turn one Faithless Looting or Magmatic Insight can help shape a hand to go turn 2 and 3 land destruction and cards like Tasigur or Bitterblossom make a great followup that should steal the game.
@cursed mumm
Your list looks really excellent. I wish there was enough room to jam a set of Pyromancer considering how many spells you play. All of that spot removal excites me in the best way, but where the heck are your Abrupt Decays?
@Julien
Smallpox and Boom could make for a very strong game against most decks (except for maybe burn), I'd like to see a sample list with those included in the core. It would make sense to increase Ghost Quarter count if the goal is to totally ravage the opp's manabase. My concern is that games would go super long between 1. spending several turns blowing up lands, and 2. having a less dense selection of win cards. Keep in mind that Pox/Bust make it harder for us to cast Seismic Assault. Unless the plan is to go all-in Vortex...?
@theflow
Porphyry Nodes, I've been looking at this card since it came out and I've yet to craft anything juicy enough to bring to a tournament. I want to love the card, but I don't know how to break it. If your plan is to go super creature light, it could certainly carry you into the mid/late game. I would love to see it rip Burn a new one.
I'm new at the forum and I've been following this thread on last 2 weeks, trying to organize a creature-less R/G list
I know black offers a lot of great options for a creature-less list but I want to take an easier and budget way considering the lands
I believe the 2 new cards ( magmatic insight and molten vortex ) mentioned on last days from Origins should help me with this
I still thinking about magmatic insight - I don't think that discard a land is so good for this deck most part of the times
(once as it resolves seismic assault or molten vortex would not be triggered by it )
Thinking about Tormenting Voice/Wild guess - we still at sorcery speed with all of them and in some of my testings at early game I missed my discarded lands, so....
I would like some constructive opinions about my list
I know my SB is not consistent for all meta-game but I'm kind of traumatized by my last matches against delver/twin
Also, I'm brazilian so, sorry about any mistakes on my english
I'm new at the forum and I've been following this thread on last 2 weeks, trying to organize a creature-less R/G list
I know black offers a lot of great options for a creature-less list but I want to take an easier and budget way considering the lands
I believe the 2 new cards ( magmatic insight and molten vortex ) mentioned on last days from Origins should help me with this
I still thinking about magmatic insight - I don't think that discard a land is so good for this deck most part of the times
(once as it resolves seismic assault or molten vortex would not be triggered by it )
Thinking about Tormenting Voice/Wild guess - we still at sorcery speed with all of them and in some of my testings at early game I missed my discarded lands, so....
I would like some constructive opinions about my list
I know my SB is not consistent for all meta-game but I'm kind of traumatized by my last matches against delver/twin
Also, I'm brazilian so, sorry about any mistakes on my english
Magmatic insight is pretty much straight value with life from the loam. You draw 2 and then turn 2 you are basically drawing 3 with your life from the loam, returning the land you discarded. Then you are off to the races with your hand full of pretty land to pitch to your vortex or assault. I do have to ask why you are running noxious revival. With the 3 assault and 3 vortex plus 3 looting and 4 insight to dig for them I don't foresee you needing revival to go back and dig them out of your graveyard. I think in such a color hungry deck you probably want to drop a ghost quarter and run more color producing land. If you have access to fire-lit thicket, you definitely want that. At least 2.
Dropping Black for Blue and using Mandrils in the Angler spot might work
Bloodghast over Phoenix or using those slots for Magmatic Insight might be better
Some of the choices were based on what I own (I don't own Tarmogoyf or Abrupt Decay at the moment)
Again, horribly untuned, but it might be a place to start from for a Smallpox / Boom-Bust type of build. The games I played were very disruptive.
I think you could cut a ghost quarter and also I am curious, why aren't you you running abrupt decay or any seismic assault. I understand the mana cost can be tough, but you should be running graven cairns anyway to supplement the fact you are running smallpox which needs BB and also need multiple red for activating molten vortex. I think some number of each is necessary. I'm not sure all your heavy hitters with smallpox is great. Perhaps phoenix really does make the difference to not sacrifice them. Plus you could potentially discard phoenix and then return in next turn after casting a beater. For your list I'm not sure you want to go all in on the mana denial plan. If so you probably want a 1 mana discard spell. Inquisition of Kozilek if you have access or if not then I would just go with duress to protect your nonland permanents as well as your yard.
This is the current list that I am considering. I've been favoring the idea of terminate more and more as I see tasigur, Angler and the more recent goyros vengeance strategies.
I went back to creature less with angers because of coco decks and other mass weenie styles including the possibility of a goblin resurgence thanks to piledriver being modern legal coming this week. EE also helps here. Been considering running a single realms uncharted to find my manlands and utility lands easier. Perhaps it also allows for an easier way to find buried ruin so I can EE lock someone.
The sideboard is geared towards a poor tron match up and grindy games against jund where they won't be able to answer a recurring wurmcoil and Chandra for additional dig and card advantage. She also helps against weenie strategies.
I am also considering another raging ravine to include another win con aside the 5 assault cards. Goyf has been in consideration as well. Only time will tell.
Raven's Crime dropped by 1 copy since the possibility of crime locking your opponent doesn't feel as good with all the delve and quick aggro strategies.
You're correct, in fact I was not seeing the whole picture of magmatic insight + life from the loam
If you consider the card only by itself it's not so good IMO, but the interaction with loam is really something for this deck
The noxious revival got into my list before the spoilers of Origins and I really didn't thought about it after magmatic insight and molten vortex join the list. I used it to bring back pyroclasm some times against affinity and B/W tokens with nice results so it end up staying in the list...
I also used it on my opponents some times in order to delay their hands, and avoiding some top draws...
Drew this list up to try out the new cards.
I've been more impressed with Magmatic Insight than I have by Molten Vortex, which only really serves as an upgrade to Flame Jabin that it deals two damage as it being a permanent makes it both more susceptible to removal and less susceptible to scooze and company.
Flame Jab might just be marginally better if you are running Dragon's Claw as your primary hate for burn as each activation will gain you 1 life.
I think you could cut a ghost quarter and also I am curious, why aren't you you running abrupt decay or any seismic assault. I understand the mana cost can be tough, but you should be running graven cairns anyway to supplement the fact you are running smallpox which needs BB and also need multiple red for activating molten vortex. I think some number of each is necessary. I'm not sure all your heavy hitters with smallpox is great. Perhaps phoenix really does make the difference to not sacrifice them. Plus you could potentially discard phoenix and then return in next turn after casting a beater. For your list I'm not sure you want to go all in on the mana denial plan. If so you probably want a 1 mana discard spell. Inquisition of Kozilek if you have access or if not then I would just go with duress to protect your nonland permanents as well as your yard.
I agree on potentially cutting a Ghost Quarter; I could really see adding a land to give my huge beaters trample in its place or more colored sources are never bad. There were moments in testing I really kind of wanted a Tectonic Edge too.
I was running Smother over Abrupt Decay purely because its what I own; Abrupt Decay is a good call.
Some mix of Seismic's with Molten Vortex probably will end up being correct, but I wanted to see a lot of Vortex' for testing so I ran them alone at this stage.
With regard to Smallpox and Angler's etc, of course I'm not setting up and resolving Angler and then casting Smallpox. With Smallpox in an opening hand, it is a quick and disruptive way to get a number of cards into the yard to then fuel an Angler after. I do think the Delve beaters are worth exploring in this shell though. It is possible Hooting Mandrils is better though, and maybe then going away from Black entirely. If we get away from Black, we could either go Blue for some counters and the good blue self-mill effects or a more aggro Zoo or pure RG build.
Lots of interesting options; thanks very much for your thoughts, they are much appreciated.
Going blue and running Mandrils and delver with thought scour is probably the way to go with what you want to accomplish. I'm assuming this from the discussion so far.
I'm trying to organize some useful information about sideboard options
So far I only gathered items for my list (R/G creatureless) but I believe it also may contain descent options for others too
I'll list the cards and the respective match ups where it would be more effective, maybe it could help others to decide for main board options according to their local metagame
Pithing needle: twin (to work properly we need to name the creatures (Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite ) and not the enchantment ) , affinity (Cranial Plating) , Tron (stops Karn Liberated), Jund/Abzan (stops liliana of the veil however I believe she is far from be so dangerous to a creatureless deck with loam as she is for other decks ) , Grishoalbrand (Griselbrand) and Tokens (stops Sorin and Elspeth)
witchbane orb :I still need to test it but it's the only good option I found against scapeshift and burn for a deck without white (no access to leyline of sanctity after opening hand), honestly I don't think a worth option use leyline and try to muligan until get it in a opening hand. It also may help against tron (stops +4 of Karn) , abzan and wb tokens (inquisition of kozilek , thoughtseize or duress ) - just like liliana the discard spells don't have a impact so relevant in my list but they may slow down the game
If someone has better options than the list above considering the current meta please share your thoughts
Also there's a giant chance that I missed some details regarding effects or abilities for cards above - if you found something just point it out
I am not sure why you have display of dominance in that list. It seems like a terrible sideboard card.
Also unravel the aether is really best vs a keranos/Gods/Darksteel citadel as a creature, those you literally have no other answers to outside of W or U.
I am not sure why you think gutteral response is that great, unless you NEED to resolve something, but even then it can be responded to.
Witchbane orb is an option I supposed, but it is very slow vs most burn/aggro strategies. Aggro usually is handled with our removal, burn is better to be beaten by either dragon's claw or kitchen finks/huntmaster of the fells.
Guttural Response worked very well on my tests (maybe just because no one was expecting it... I don't know...)
maybe it would worth if we had only the assaults as before - but now with vortex it may be replaced
Are you going creatureless then, other than the Manlands, and do you have a sample list by chance? I can see merit to dropping dudes since we can always recur man lands but to do the same with creatures we need some janky Haunted Fengraf.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
Yes. I posted my list on the previous page as well as my reasoning as to why I made the selections that I have. I am considering dropping flame jabs for more discard for the early game, or perhaps liliana since vortex kind of takes the spot of flame jab.
I think the Jab / Early discard would be more of a meta call. If you have a lot of Affinity / Infect then I would prefer the Jabs for extra insurance of wiping them out, while in a more open meta the early game interaction with discard / Liliana would be preferred. I think I would lean more towards Liliana.
I do like your list though, for the side what about a Rakdos Charm or two? Storm made a decent showing in the Modern festival, and with Goryo not banned it may increase in popularity. Given that it lets you nuke an opponents graveyard, a 1/100000 chance of killing Twin, and extra artifact hate, I wouldn't feel bad about using it since it is so versatile.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
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Your list looks really excellent. I wish there was enough room to jam a set of Pyromancer considering how many spells you play. All of that spot removal excites me in the best way, but where the heck are your Abrupt Decays?
@Julien
Smallpox and Boom could make for a very strong game against most decks (except for maybe burn), I'd like to see a sample list with those included in the core. It would make sense to increase Ghost Quarter count if the goal is to totally ravage the opp's manabase. My concern is that games would go super long between 1. spending several turns blowing up lands, and 2. having a less dense selection of win cards. Keep in mind that Pox/Bust make it harder for us to cast Seismic Assault. Unless the plan is to go all-in Vortex...?
@theflow
Porphyry Nodes, I've been looking at this card since it came out and I've yet to craft anything juicy enough to bring to a tournament. I want to love the card, but I don't know how to break it. If your plan is to go super creature light, it could certainly carry you into the mid/late game. I would love to see it rip Burn a new one.
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Dragonskull Summit
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Rootbound Crag
3 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Woodland Cemetery
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Life from the Loam
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Molten Vortex
3 Smallpox
3 Smother
3 Boom // Bust
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Flamewake Phoenix
4 Gurmag Angler
First impressions were:
Again, horribly untuned, but it might be a place to start from for a Smallpox / Boom-Bust type of build. The games I played were very disruptive.
I'm new at the forum and I've been following this thread on last 2 weeks, trying to organize a creature-less R/G list
I know black offers a lot of great options for a creature-less list but I want to take an easier and budget way considering the lands
I believe the 2 new cards ( magmatic insight and molten vortex ) mentioned on last days from Origins should help me with this
The list I built so far is the following:
3 seismic assault
4 life from the loam
3 faithless looting
3 Commune with the Gods
3 molten vortex
4 lightning bolt
3 Noxious Revival
4 magmatic insight
2 flame jab
2 Mulch
4 pyroclasm
lands
4 wooded foothills
1 raging ravine
8 mountain
3 ghost quarter
5 forest
4 Rootbound Crag
side
4 Ancient Grudge
4 combust
1 pithing needle
2 unravel the Aether
4 Guttural Response
I still thinking about magmatic insight - I don't think that discard a land is so good for this deck most part of the times
(once as it resolves seismic assault or molten vortex would not be triggered by it )
Thinking about Tormenting Voice/Wild guess - we still at sorcery speed with all of them and in some of my testings at early game I missed my discarded lands, so....
I would like some constructive opinions about my list
I know my SB is not consistent for all meta-game but I'm kind of traumatized by my last matches against delver/twin
Also, I'm brazilian so, sorry about any mistakes on my english
Magmatic insight is pretty much straight value with life from the loam. You draw 2 and then turn 2 you are basically drawing 3 with your life from the loam, returning the land you discarded. Then you are off to the races with your hand full of pretty land to pitch to your vortex or assault. I do have to ask why you are running noxious revival. With the 3 assault and 3 vortex plus 3 looting and 4 insight to dig for them I don't foresee you needing revival to go back and dig them out of your graveyard. I think in such a color hungry deck you probably want to drop a ghost quarter and run more color producing land. If you have access to fire-lit thicket, you definitely want that. At least 2.
I think you could cut a ghost quarter and also I am curious, why aren't you you running abrupt decay or any seismic assault. I understand the mana cost can be tough, but you should be running graven cairns anyway to supplement the fact you are running smallpox which needs BB and also need multiple red for activating molten vortex. I think some number of each is necessary. I'm not sure all your heavy hitters with smallpox is great. Perhaps phoenix really does make the difference to not sacrifice them. Plus you could potentially discard phoenix and then return in next turn after casting a beater. For your list I'm not sure you want to go all in on the mana denial plan. If so you probably want a 1 mana discard spell. Inquisition of Kozilek if you have access or if not then I would just go with duress to protect your nonland permanents as well as your yard.
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Graven Cairns
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Raging Ravine
2 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Faithless Looting
2 Flame Jab
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Life from the Loam
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magmatic Insight
2 Molten Vortex
2 Raven's Crime
3 Seismic Assault
2 Terminate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Buried Ruin
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Golgari Charm
3 Molten Rain
2 Wurmcoil Engine
This is the current list that I am considering. I've been favoring the idea of terminate more and more as I see tasigur, Angler and the more recent goyros vengeance strategies.
I went back to creature less with angers because of coco decks and other mass weenie styles including the possibility of a goblin resurgence thanks to piledriver being modern legal coming this week. EE also helps here. Been considering running a single realms uncharted to find my manlands and utility lands easier. Perhaps it also allows for an easier way to find buried ruin so I can EE lock someone.
The sideboard is geared towards a poor tron match up and grindy games against jund where they won't be able to answer a recurring wurmcoil and Chandra for additional dig and card advantage. She also helps against weenie strategies.
I am also considering another raging ravine to include another win con aside the 5 assault cards. Goyf has been in consideration as well. Only time will tell.
Raven's Crime dropped by 1 copy since the possibility of crime locking your opponent doesn't feel as good with all the delve and quick aggro strategies.
You're correct, in fact I was not seeing the whole picture of magmatic insight + life from the loam
If you consider the card only by itself it's not so good IMO, but the interaction with loam is really something for this deck
The noxious revival got into my list before the spoilers of Origins and I really didn't thought about it after magmatic insight and molten vortex join the list. I used it to bring back pyroclasm some times against affinity and B/W tokens with nice results so it end up staying in the list...
I also used it on my opponents some times in order to delay their hands, and avoiding some top draws...
I'll run more tests to decide if it really stays
I'm also thinking about Display Of Dominance and Surgical Extraction for SB but I'm not sure what to cut out
Thanks for the comments!
I've been more impressed with Magmatic Insight than I have by Molten Vortex, which only really serves as an upgrade to Flame Jabin that it deals two damage as it being a permanent makes it both more susceptible to removal and less susceptible to scooze and company.
Flame Jab might just be marginally better if you are running Dragon's Claw as your primary hate for burn as each activation will gain you 1 life.
2 Molten Vortex
2 Flame Jab
4 Magmatic Insight
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
8 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Rootbound Crag
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Rending Volley
3 Dragon's Claw
2 Flame Jab
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Volcanic Fallout
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I agree on potentially cutting a Ghost Quarter; I could really see adding a land to give my huge beaters trample in its place or more colored sources are never bad. There were moments in testing I really kind of wanted a Tectonic Edge too.
I was running Smother over Abrupt Decay purely because its what I own; Abrupt Decay is a good call.
Some mix of Seismic's with Molten Vortex probably will end up being correct, but I wanted to see a lot of Vortex' for testing so I ran them alone at this stage.
With regard to Smallpox and Angler's etc, of course I'm not setting up and resolving Angler and then casting Smallpox. With Smallpox in an opening hand, it is a quick and disruptive way to get a number of cards into the yard to then fuel an Angler after. I do think the Delve beaters are worth exploring in this shell though. It is possible Hooting Mandrils is better though, and maybe then going away from Black entirely. If we get away from Black, we could either go Blue for some counters and the good blue self-mill effects or a more aggro Zoo or pure RG build.
Lots of interesting options; thanks very much for your thoughts, they are much appreciated.
So far I only gathered items for my list (R/G creatureless) but I believe it also may contain descent options for others too
I'll list the cards and the respective match ups where it would be more effective, maybe it could help others to decide for main board options according to their local metagame
Ancient Grudge: IMO a must have item in all SB - great against affinity, tron and may be good vs merfolk (AEther Vial) and amulet bloom (Amulet of Vigor)
Rending Volley: good vs Twin and Merfolk (a good replace for combust)
Pithing needle: twin (to work properly we need to name the creatures (Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite ) and not the enchantment ) , affinity (Cranial Plating) , Tron (stops Karn Liberated), Jund/Abzan (stops liliana of the veil however I believe she is far from be so dangerous to a creatureless deck with loam as she is for other decks ) , Grishoalbrand (Griselbrand) and Tokens (stops Sorin and Elspeth)
Unravel the AEther: good vs affinity , tron (wormcoil engine , merfolk (Aether Vial) , bogles and tokens ( Intangible Virtue and Bitterblossom) , a maybe option against twin and amulet bloom
Guttural Response: unexpected for everyone using blue (at least in my tests) , great against twin , grixis and merfolk
Display Of Dominance: A recent option not tested enough but an it's option vs twin , grixis , jund , livingend and abzan
Dragon's Claw: One of the few options against burn and maybe jund
tormod's crypt: not sure if there's a better choice but it's an option vs jund , abzan (goyf) grixis (snapcaster mage , Gurmag Angler and Tasigur, the golden fang) griselbrand and dredvine
witchbane orb :I still need to test it but it's the only good option I found against scapeshift and burn for a deck without white (no access to leyline of sanctity after opening hand), honestly I don't think a worth option use leyline and try to muligan until get it in a opening hand. It also may help against tron (stops +4 of Karn) , abzan and wb tokens (inquisition of kozilek , thoughtseize or duress ) - just like liliana the discard spells don't have a impact so relevant in my list but they may slow down the game
Surgical Extraction : it hurts a lot of decks - twin, grixis, jund, tron
If someone has better options than the list above considering the current meta please share your thoughts
Also there's a giant chance that I missed some details regarding effects or abilities for cards above - if you found something just point it out
Thanks!
Also unravel the aether is really best vs a keranos/Gods/Darksteel citadel as a creature, those you literally have no other answers to outside of W or U.
I am not sure why you think gutteral response is that great, unless you NEED to resolve something, but even then it can be responded to.
Witchbane orb is an option I supposed, but it is very slow vs most burn/aggro strategies. Aggro usually is handled with our removal, burn is better to be beaten by either dragon's claw or kitchen finks/huntmaster of the fells.
Surgical extraction is ok if you have a lot of grishoalbrand in your meta.
Guttural Response worked very well on my tests (maybe just because no one was expecting it... I don't know...)
maybe it would worth if we had only the assaults as before - but now with vortex it may be replaced
I do like your list though, for the side what about a Rakdos Charm or two? Storm made a decent showing in the Modern festival, and with Goryo not banned it may increase in popularity. Given that it lets you nuke an opponents graveyard, a 1/100000 chance of killing Twin, and extra artifact hate, I wouldn't feel bad about using it since it is so versatile.