Lastly, why no IoK/Thoughtseize? I found it helps to set up my Serum visions and decision paths of what to counter/kill
I agree that IoK and TS would probably be a good addition here. With 4 Goyf, this at least opens up the line of Turn 1 Discard into Turn 2 Goyf. It also gives you more sorceries to grow Goyf early so he's less likely to die to Bolt on turn 2, because I rarely consider Serum Visions a great turn 1 play anyway.
However, this assumes that's a playstyle you like, which it may not be and that's why you built the list the way you did.
I feel there is a lot more action going on in this topic, Could Delirium and Midrange possibly be fused into one topic? (Like abzan) since at the base, both decks use the same BGx midrange shell.
I’m not sure how officially merging threads works, but we could unnoficially start sharing thoughts here. Like you stated, the lists are actually quite similar and just exchange a few cards here and there.
New on here - I'm still working my list at the moment and it is more control based and heavier on Jace. It also uses thought scours with Tasigur (additional goyf). I will post it soon.
I do have a couple of questions for you Fgi_88
1) Have you played against Hollow One? Its prevalent in my meta along with other go wide decks like Affinity. How do you fare against very aggressive decks like these?
2) Did you add the 2 scavenging oozes (I have been on 3 snapcasters, 4 has never felt right to me) - If so, do you feel its an improvement?
I feel there is a lot more action going on in this topic, Could Delirium and Midrange possibly be fused into one topic? (Like abzan) since at the base, both decks use the same BGx midrange shell.
I’m not sure how officially merging threads works, but we could unnoficially start sharing thoughts here. Like you stated, the lists are actually quite similar and just exchange a few cards here and there.
I guess, since we were the last two to ever post in that thread.
Let's start with decklists. Currently i'm testing an nearly blueless delirium list without Search for Azcanta, without any enchantments for that matter.
So far i've been able to grind my way to victory in most matches onlinevand on the table, haven't played the deck at FNM level yet. Feedback is very welcome.
I feel there is a lot more action going on in this topic, Could Delirium and Midrange possibly be fused into one topic? (Like abzan) since at the base, both decks use the same BGx midrange shell.
I’m not sure how officially merging threads works, but we could unnoficially start sharing thoughts here. Like you stated, the lists are actually quite similar and just exchange a few cards here and there.
I guess, since we were the last two to ever post in that thread.
Let's start with decklists. Currently i'm testing an nearly blueless delirium list without Search for Azcanta, without any enchantments for that matter.
So far i've been able to grind my way to victory in most matches onlinevand on the table, haven't played the deck at FNM level yet. Feedback is very welcome.
SmauG,
A few questions:
Are the 3 Walking Ballistas mainly for Delirium? I can see you're not on Mishra's Bauble. I feel like 3 of them may not be necessary, yet at the same time if resolving the spell outside of delirium has been good for you I would be curious.
I happen to like Grim Flayer, and again I see you have 3 of him. 3-ofs are almost always a curious thing for me, so I would be curious to see the reason behind playing 3 as opposed to 2 or 4
Also I would consider going up a Creeping Tar Pit, I used to skimp on this man-land but found that it has been an absolute house in stalled board states and has won me more games then any other card in the list.
Are the 3 Walking Ballistas mainly for Delirium? I can see you're not on Mishra's Bauble. I feel like 3 of them may not be necessary, yet at the same time if resolving the spell outside of delirium has been good for you I would be curious.
Bauble vs. Ballista is a tricky one. It's a matter of fixing, information and cantrip vs. Early game removal, Must deal with Threat and game finisher all while being better in enabling delirium as soon as T2. Used both and eventually took Ballistas over Baubles.
Baubles never won me a game, Ballistas did. They are a way to tutor for the last points of damage.
I've always wondered why nobody else runs them.
I happen to like Grim Flayer, and again I see you have 3 of him. 3-ofs are almost always a curious thing for me, so I would be curious to see the reason behind playing 3 as opposed to 2 or 4
The deck allready feels packed, I would probably run 4 if I had room. It's a great card.
Also I would consider going up a Creeping Tar Pit, I used to skimp on this man-land but found that it has been an absolute house in stalled board states and has won me more games then any other card in the list.
This is a thing I like, though I have a few big mana decks in my playgroup and I really like the turn 2/3 Ghost Quarter main.
If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with it not replacing itself if you cast it for 0. With Bauble and Architects of Will, at least you're not down a card on your way to delirium. It makes me wonder if Ballista is best served as a singleton to Traverse for when you need those final points of damage like you stated.
I find it interesting that these 4C/Jund lists we've started to see pop up on leagues prefer Architects of Will over Bauble too. Traditionally we've seen something like a 3/1 split in BUG, favoring Baubles, as paying for the cycling mana makes a difference in the first few turns of the game in an aggressive meta.
If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with it not replacing itself if you cast it for 0. With Bauble and Architects of Will, at least you're not down a card on your way to delirium. It makes me wonder if Ballista is best served as a singleton to Traverse for when you need those final points of damage like you stated.
I can get behind that, but it leaves us with two slots for Bauble, which seems a little odd to me.
Still, Ballista adds two types for 0, but better yet, takes a Dark Confidant/Mana Dork/Young Pyrancer and not to forget, Thalia GoT sans tax, with it on T2 in the proces for instance.
Which is why I can get away with less removalspells.
Just read an article that explains why the Jund Traverse lists don't run Bauble, and I can't believe I didn't see it. Because they're running BBE, Bauble wouldn't be the greatest hit from cascade. Makes perfect sense because they already have enough bad hits in turn 1 discard.
I was going to post my list, but you've been having so much success lately I think I'm just going to give what you're doing a spin (maybe some slight differences but its obvious that your version combined with your play is working quite well.)
I will see if I like your version better then my thoughtscour setup.
Some time ago, I tried Liliana of the Veils with Jace and ran into problems because I wasn't drawing enough cards to offset her +1. I can see that the Dark Confidant scheme is allowing you to do this more reliably.
Running cast down really helps us out. I didn't enjoy playing removal that was limited by mana cost of the target because it really made me weak to delve threats and Eldrazi. I was playing maelstrom pulse before and had to convince myself it was good maindeck because it hits more than just creatures but took it out along with an abrupt decay to fit the cast downs in and will never look back. Spreading seas, on the other hand, is a questionable card to have maindeck and I don't recommend it for everyone, but I like that it can be good against tron, and death's shadow in game one and make other decks lose tempo.
I had a pretty nice record this week with it, but I'll admit the matches were a bit in my favor.
0-2 Dark Zoo
2-1 8 whack
2-1 mono blue brew
2-0 Grixis death's shadow
2-1 mono green aggro
Played the Delirium mirror yesterday. That was fun
Been doing very good lately with my list. Snapcaster Mage is back in the Main, cut Tireless Tracker again, Found it to be burning in hand to often, waiting for immediate value and often times had other things to do.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is great versus aggro decks, It helped me turn the corner in a sweet play against an attack of three pumped, first striking Vampires. I declared blocks with Kalitas and Grim Flayer sans Delirium. Used Cast Down to kill the lord, shrinking the team, pumping flayer, killing all three in the same combat phase and netting me 3 life and 3 Tokens.
Yeah, Kalitas is putting in a ton of work for me too, and I think this is one of the better metas we've had for him in a while with Humans being on top. It's a must-answer threat for them the turn he comes down or it's probably lights out.
I should add, I swapped the 4th Bauble for a singleton Walking Ballista and it has been playing well, so you converted me and I'm officially on the Ballista hype train now.
I gave Fgi_88's list a spin last night, and I can confirm that even though I was configured a little differently - it was quite strong. I have to admit, I've played very little with Dark Confidants and tend to forget triggers, let them stick around to long (and burn for it), or other silly things like forgetting to swing as if they are a static utility that I want to preserve that isn't a clock in and of itself.
I played 4 matches at FNM:
2-0 against a brew that was kind of pitiful (something of a poorly constructed graveyard/madness theme)
1-1 against Lantern (this is where I made a host of misplays that led to death by my own DC from incremental damage, that likely cost me the match)
0-2 against Affinity (kept hands that lacked enough immediate interaction for me to stabilize)
I played another side game with Affinity where I won the first game but we had to stop due to the next round starting.
2-1 against Boggles....I have to say this felt like an absolute beating for the Boggles player. He was on the play game 1 and drew creatures that I seemingly always had an answer for (clean removal for Kor Spiritdancerand LotV when he would drop any of his hexproof creatures. The 2nd game he won was a nut draw that had me dead in 2 combat phases. 3rd game I picked his hand apart, resolved LotV+Jace and that was a rather one sided deal.
My meta has a large assortment of aggro and artifact based control like Lantern and Tezzerator. Burn is also very prevalent.
I was lucky that I did not play against burn last night as I don't feel that I would have had enough experience with Dark Confidant to stabilize against its early turns. I am certain I will be dealing with this in the future. I currently use Collective Brutality and Gifted Aetherborn against burn from when I was running my more control based setup. I've found that Aetherborn has almost never been a bad draw, and is a frustrating clock to deal with vs anyone who's primary win condition is damage based. (for this reason I currently run 1 Scooze/1 Aetherborn split.)
All in all I enjoyed this variant of Sultai Midrange and will likely spend more time with it as a lack of experience felt like the only issue I was running into last night playing a shell that felt like it had options/relevant answers in every game I played.
Its win conditions can also seem rather demoralizing for a side boarding opponent when forced to leverage against walkers, graveyard recursion, or big creatures like tarmogoyf)I had at least one player tell me that they had no clue how to board against my deck in an efficient way.
I ended up relying far more heavily on Gifted Aetherborn then Scavenging Ooze - It tends to be better against all the aggro I am dealing with. I don't currently use a Tireless Tracker either. This is mainly because I don't have one. I realized after last FNM that I kind of got careless with reconfiguring my deck to match your list and did some substitutions in my land base as well as accidentally having 1 too many Inquisitions of Kozileks. My sideboard was also kind of thrown together as well.
The differences are not really ones I would think are better, I just need to complete the deck list to get a better feel for playing a proper configuration. I do feel 2 scooze is 1 too many in the meta I play in, as graveyard strategies have not been as relevant recently. (Hollow One hasn't been at my LGS in recent weeks.)
Also - In the interim I will be using a Vendilion Clique in place of the Tireless Tracker.
Nice to see it in action. It looks like you got some great use out of your cantripping and library fixing "blue magic" I Guess that's a pretty strong advantage over other GBx decks.
what made you guys play sultai over abzan/jund/..?
I originally built into Jund and Abzan back in the day, but something about the decks just didn't quite speak to me. The first BUG list I played was Caleb Durward's: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/modern-bug/
Stubs and Snapcaster were fun, but the deck was a little clunky with 3 Tasigurs.
Courser and Jace were favorite cards from standard, and combined with Goyf and LotV, there was a deck I could truly get behind.
I had been playing variations of it for most of my time in Modern until recently when I went all-in on the delirium plan, inspired by this Jadoth list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/569532
It was certainly an interesting list that could grind with the best of them and had a scary late game, but I missed LotV too much. Reddit and Salvation have modified the deck to be much lower to the ground and aggressive, somewhere between a Death's Shadow deck and BUG Midrange, and it's that middle ground that I really enjoy playing today.
Omissions include:
6+ Discard spells main, I don't really like dedicated discard in the main deck that much and only really on turn 1 or if I have a threat to follow it up with the same turn.... so I conceded to the idea I probably want some non-zero number main just cause I do recognize it is a huge reason to be in black, so I decided on 2 thoughtseize... and thoughtseize over Inquisition mainly cause thoughtseize hits EVERYTHING so its not effectively dead vs anything except burn.....
NON-ZERO number of Liliana of the Veil... In my testing she's okay.... but considering most games she was just non-targeted removal and past that I didn't want to really use her. As I don't like discarding cards and she's awkward with countermagic.... yeah you could use mode 4 and not use her at all but then that kinda defeats the purpose of having a planeswalker on board that should be gaining you incremental advantages each turn.
a non-zero number of Dark Confidant... playing JTMS and Cryptic alongside him seemed.... painful. Decided my card advantage engines would be Ancestral Vision and JTMS...
Extra thoughts:
Decided to try out AV mainly cause I loved casting that card in Grixis Control which feels like forever ago... aka 2 years... decided I could potentially make it work here by simply overloading on early removal hence the 3 collective brutality in the main... I heard somewhere, earlier in this thread I believe, "Collective is good as a 1-of in the main, but you probably want 3 in your 75." Personally, I love the utility of Brutality... ditching dead cards in match-ups when a card is worse... like in the control matchup discarding Pushes and Cast Downs to get some lifegain off it. In some testing of it against a friend on USA control I won the game with 4 life... thanks to 2 Brutality that got some extra lifegain value... and coincidentally BECAUSE of AV I'll often ditch cards just cause I know I will be refilling soon... also obviously turning AV into a discard spell, removal spell, or lifegain attached to whatever other modes you decided on means when AV is dead it's not necessarily dead because it's essentially a free pitch to Collective or Jace brainstorms.... Also decided on 3 because originally my idea was 3 main 1 side.... but didnt like having it in the board and felt like i was drawing it too much in the mid-game with 4.
Nissa, Steward of Elements Is effectively a mana-sink in this deck... that could also be played on turn 3 and threaten to smooth draws and eventually end the game. I like her.
2 Field of Ruin I like more than 1 land destruction effect in my deck's manabase... I think earlier i was on either 1 or 0 and i can tell you right now, the risk of being mana-screwed is worth the ability to deal with Tron-lands, man-lands from Midrange and control, cavern from those decks, and also random good value lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Gavony Township I feel like a lot of people are on the train of being a 3-color deck we cant afford more than 1 land that cant be tapped for colored mana. I disagree... I've fooled with the idea of going up to 3 just to really sink my teeth in against tron game 1 to give me the highest chance to slow them down and also to really help against midrange and control... So far. I don't think i will fall that deep into it.
Man-land split.... sometimes hexproof is better than unblockable so I like 1 Lumbering Falls
Any specific questions about my sideboard I will be happy to answer... dont want to make this already really long post longer.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
However, this assumes that's a playstyle you like, which it may not be and that's why you built the list the way you did.
I do have a couple of questions for you Fgi_88
1) Have you played against Hollow One? Its prevalent in my meta along with other go wide decks like Affinity. How do you fare against very aggressive decks like these?
2) Did you add the 2 scavenging oozes (I have been on 3 snapcasters, 4 has never felt right to me) - If so, do you feel its an improvement?
I guess, since we were the last two to ever post in that thread.
Let's start with decklists. Currently i'm testing an nearly blueless delirium list without Search for Azcanta, without any enchantments for that matter.
4 Verdant Catacombd
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Island
Planeswalkers
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana the last Hope
Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Flayer
3 Walking Ballista
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Shriekmaw
1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Fatal Push
2 Cast Down
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Collective Brutality
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thrun, the last Troll
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Damnation
So far i've been able to grind my way to victory in most matches onlinevand on the table, haven't played the deck at FNM level yet. Feedback is very welcome.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
SmauG,
A few questions:
Are the 3 Walking Ballistas mainly for Delirium? I can see you're not on Mishra's Bauble. I feel like 3 of them may not be necessary, yet at the same time if resolving the spell outside of delirium has been good for you I would be curious.
I happen to like Grim Flayer, and again I see you have 3 of him. 3-ofs are almost always a curious thing for me, so I would be curious to see the reason behind playing 3 as opposed to 2 or 4
Also I would consider going up a Creeping Tar Pit, I used to skimp on this man-land but found that it has been an absolute house in stalled board states and has won me more games then any other card in the list.
How much mileage are you getting out of Kalitas?
Bauble vs. Ballista is a tricky one. It's a matter of fixing, information and cantrip vs. Early game removal, Must deal with Threat and game finisher all while being better in enabling delirium as soon as T2. Used both and eventually took Ballistas over Baubles.
Baubles never won me a game, Ballistas did. They are a way to tutor for the last points of damage.
I've always wondered why nobody else runs them.
The deck allready feels packed, I would probably run 4 if I had room. It's a great card.
This is a thing I like, though I have a few big mana decks in my playgroup and I really like the turn 2/3 Ghost Quarter main.
He is quite a new addition, so not much yet.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
I find it interesting that these 4C/Jund lists we've started to see pop up on leagues prefer Architects of Will over Bauble too. Traditionally we've seen something like a 3/1 split in BUG, favoring Baubles, as paying for the cycling mana makes a difference in the first few turns of the game in an aggressive meta.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1090346
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1084938
I can get behind that, but it leaves us with two slots for Bauble, which seems a little odd to me.
Still, Ballista adds two types for 0, but better yet, takes a Dark Confidant/Mana Dork/Young Pyrancer and not to forget, Thalia GoT sans tax, with it on T2 in the proces for instance.
Which is why I can get away with less removalspells.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
I was going to post my list, but you've been having so much success lately I think I'm just going to give what you're doing a spin (maybe some slight differences but its obvious that your version combined with your play is working quite well.)
I will see if I like your version better then my thoughtscour setup.
Some time ago, I tried Liliana of the Veils with Jace and ran into problems because I wasn't drawing enough cards to offset her +1. I can see that the Dark Confidant scheme is allowing you to do this more reliably.
3 misty rainforest
3 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
1 watery grave
2 overgrown tomb
2 breeding pool
2 creeping tar pit
2 swamp
2 island
1 forest
Creatures (12)
4 tarmogoyf
2 grim flayer
2 scavenging ooze
1 snapcaster mage
1 Jace, Vyrn's prodigy
1 Tasigur, the folden fang
1 tombstalker
2 Jace, the mind sculptor
2 Liliana of the veil
Spells (23)
3 thoughtseize
3 inquisition of kozilek
3 fatal push
3 cast down
1 abrupt decay
2 logic knot
2 stubborn denial
1 mana leak
2 search for azcanta
2 spreading seas
1 thought scour
2 fulminator mage
2 damping sphere
1 disdainful stroke
1 negate
2 collective brutality
2 kitchen finks
1 maelstrom pulse
1 Dragon's Claw
1 thragtusk
1 Liliana, the last hope
1 damnation
Running cast down really helps us out. I didn't enjoy playing removal that was limited by mana cost of the target because it really made me weak to delve threats and Eldrazi. I was playing maelstrom pulse before and had to convince myself it was good maindeck because it hits more than just creatures but took it out along with an abrupt decay to fit the cast downs in and will never look back. Spreading seas, on the other hand, is a questionable card to have maindeck and I don't recommend it for everyone, but I like that it can be good against tron, and death's shadow in game one and make other decks lose tempo.
I had a pretty nice record this week with it, but I'll admit the matches were a bit in my favor.
0-2 Dark Zoo
2-1 8 whack
2-1 mono blue brew
2-0 Grixis death's shadow
2-1 mono green aggro
Been doing very good lately with my list. Snapcaster Mage is back in the Main, cut Tireless Tracker again, Found it to be burning in hand to often, waiting for immediate value and often times had other things to do.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is great versus aggro decks, It helped me turn the corner in a sweet play against an attack of three pumped, first striking Vampires. I declared blocks with Kalitas and Grim Flayer sans Delirium. Used Cast Down to kill the lord, shrinking the team, pumping flayer, killing all three in the same combat phase and netting me 3 life and 3 Tokens.
I do not miss Search for Azcanta and Cast Down is great! Good times.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
Now that standard is returning to Ravnica, I have my hopes set on that one Simic card that would fit our deck.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
I played 4 matches at FNM:
2-0 against a brew that was kind of pitiful (something of a poorly constructed graveyard/madness theme)
1-1 against Lantern (this is where I made a host of misplays that led to death by my own DC from incremental damage, that likely cost me the match)
0-2 against Affinity (kept hands that lacked enough immediate interaction for me to stabilize)
I played another side game with Affinity where I won the first game but we had to stop due to the next round starting.
2-1 against Boggles....I have to say this felt like an absolute beating for the Boggles player. He was on the play game 1 and drew creatures that I seemingly always had an answer for (clean removal for Kor Spiritdancerand LotV when he would drop any of his hexproof creatures. The 2nd game he won was a nut draw that had me dead in 2 combat phases. 3rd game I picked his hand apart, resolved LotV+Jace and that was a rather one sided deal.
My meta has a large assortment of aggro and artifact based control like Lantern and Tezzerator. Burn is also very prevalent.
I was lucky that I did not play against burn last night as I don't feel that I would have had enough experience with Dark Confidant to stabilize against its early turns. I am certain I will be dealing with this in the future. I currently use Collective Brutality and Gifted Aetherborn against burn from when I was running my more control based setup. I've found that Aetherborn has almost never been a bad draw, and is a frustrating clock to deal with vs anyone who's primary win condition is damage based. (for this reason I currently run 1 Scooze/1 Aetherborn split.)
All in all I enjoyed this variant of Sultai Midrange and will likely spend more time with it as a lack of experience felt like the only issue I was running into last night playing a shell that felt like it had options/relevant answers in every game I played.
Its win conditions can also seem rather demoralizing for a side boarding opponent when forced to leverage against walkers, graveyard recursion, or big creatures like tarmogoyf)I had at least one player tell me that they had no clue how to board against my deck in an efficient way.
The differences are not really ones I would think are better, I just need to complete the deck list to get a better feel for playing a proper configuration. I do feel 2 scooze is 1 too many in the meta I play in, as graveyard strategies have not been as relevant recently. (Hollow One hasn't been at my LGS in recent weeks.)
Also - In the interim I will be using a Vendilion Clique in place of the Tireless Tracker.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
Stubs and Snapcaster were fun, but the deck was a little clunky with 3 Tasigurs.
I evolved the deck for a little bit, but it wasn't until I came across Justin Pasquino's deck tech that I truly fell in love with BUG:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/sultai_control_with_justin_pas.html
Courser and Jace were favorite cards from standard, and combined with Goyf and LotV, there was a deck I could truly get behind.
I had been playing variations of it for most of my time in Modern until recently when I went all-in on the delirium plan, inspired by this Jadoth list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/569532
It was certainly an interesting list that could grind with the best of them and had a scary late game, but I missed LotV too much. Reddit and Salvation have modified the deck to be much lower to the ground and aggressive, somewhere between a Death's Shadow deck and BUG Midrange, and it's that middle ground that I really enjoy playing today.
I have come to the following list and will be testing it tonight at a Thursday Night Modern event at my LGS....
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vendilion Clique
Thirteen Instants
4 Fatal Push
3 Mana Leak
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Cast Down
2 Cryptic Command
Thirteen Sorceries
4 Serum Visions
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Three Planeswalkers
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Field of Ruin
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Sunken Ruin
1 Forest
1 Thoughtseize
1 Damping Sphere
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 To The Slaughter
1 Kiora, Master of Depths
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Vraska, Relic Seeker
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Damnation
Omissions include:
6+ Discard spells main, I don't really like dedicated discard in the main deck that much and only really on turn 1 or if I have a threat to follow it up with the same turn.... so I conceded to the idea I probably want some non-zero number main just cause I do recognize it is a huge reason to be in black, so I decided on 2 thoughtseize... and thoughtseize over Inquisition mainly cause thoughtseize hits EVERYTHING so its not effectively dead vs anything except burn.....
NON-ZERO number of Liliana of the Veil... In my testing she's okay.... but considering most games she was just non-targeted removal and past that I didn't want to really use her. As I don't like discarding cards and she's awkward with countermagic.... yeah you could use mode 4 and not use her at all but then that kinda defeats the purpose of having a planeswalker on board that should be gaining you incremental advantages each turn.
a non-zero number of Dark Confidant... playing JTMS and Cryptic alongside him seemed.... painful. Decided my card advantage engines would be Ancestral Vision and JTMS...
Extra thoughts:
Decided to try out AV mainly cause I loved casting that card in Grixis Control which feels like forever ago... aka 2 years... decided I could potentially make it work here by simply overloading on early removal hence the 3 collective brutality in the main... I heard somewhere, earlier in this thread I believe, "Collective is good as a 1-of in the main, but you probably want 3 in your 75." Personally, I love the utility of Brutality... ditching dead cards in match-ups when a card is worse... like in the control matchup discarding Pushes and Cast Downs to get some lifegain off it. In some testing of it against a friend on USA control I won the game with 4 life... thanks to 2 Brutality that got some extra lifegain value... and coincidentally BECAUSE of AV I'll often ditch cards just cause I know I will be refilling soon... also obviously turning AV into a discard spell, removal spell, or lifegain attached to whatever other modes you decided on means when AV is dead it's not necessarily dead because it's essentially a free pitch to Collective or Jace brainstorms.... Also decided on 3 because originally my idea was 3 main 1 side.... but didnt like having it in the board and felt like i was drawing it too much in the mid-game with 4.
Nissa, Steward of Elements Is effectively a mana-sink in this deck... that could also be played on turn 3 and threaten to smooth draws and eventually end the game. I like her.
2 Field of Ruin I like more than 1 land destruction effect in my deck's manabase... I think earlier i was on either 1 or 0 and i can tell you right now, the risk of being mana-screwed is worth the ability to deal with Tron-lands, man-lands from Midrange and control, cavern from those decks, and also random good value lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Gavony Township I feel like a lot of people are on the train of being a 3-color deck we cant afford more than 1 land that cant be tapped for colored mana. I disagree... I've fooled with the idea of going up to 3 just to really sink my teeth in against tron game 1 to give me the highest chance to slow them down and also to really help against midrange and control... So far. I don't think i will fall that deep into it.
Man-land split.... sometimes hexproof is better than unblockable so I like 1 Lumbering Falls
Any specific questions about my sideboard I will be happy to answer... dont want to make this already really long post longer.