Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
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@ts31 i was thinking of somehow jamming sejiri and academy ruins in your landbase.. and then go with pokken's thoughts about jamming hbw instead of tarmo.
Would it be too much to try and jam hexproof + worship tech in here to go with our tempo plan?
Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
@ts31 i was thinking of somehow jamming sejiri and academy ruins in your landbase.. and then go with pokken's thoughts about jamming hbw instead of tarmo.
Would it be too much to try and jam hexproof + worship tech in here to go with our tempo plan?
I imagine you could do the first, although with the second, what does that accomplish? Not bagging on it, i just dont know what the goal of it is.
Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
I will just say that clique with 3 exalted creatures out is gross. Hierarchs also helped with the 3xU requirement for cryptic. I am testing with a couple dorks, but the control shell feels nice.
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Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
I will just say that clique with 3 exalted creatures out is gross. Hierarchs also helped with the 3xU requirement for cryptic. I am testing with a couple dorks, but the control shell feels nice.
The more testing the better =) i appreciate all the feedback! What did u cut for the heirarchs?
Match 1 - Jeskai Control VS Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I keep a 7 card hand with 4 lands, a nacatl, a pridemage, and a path. my creatures are dealt with the turn I play them and I exclusively draw lands and paths for 8 plus turns before I scoop after he sphinx's revs for the 3rd time to 30 life. Oh well.
Game 2 - I side in unified will, spellskite, and thalia. I go first, curve out nacatl into voice into knight of the reliquary into collected company and run him over, apparently he just never had the counters he needed.
Game 3 - we both mulligan to 5, I keep three land, 2 knight and draw a dork. I enough gas to get through the counters and land a geist. He misses his 4th land drop for cryptic command and has to remand a coco on his end step, which I then replay on my main face dropping a knight and a voice. he doesn't draw his supreme verdict and though I have to fit through a lot of removal the geist gets me there.
Match 2 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - My worst matchup begins with him mulling to 5 and shrugging. I scoops after 3 turns of no land drops
Game 2 - I keep an iffy hand with an engineered explosives, He drops 2 suppression fields and I can't even crack my fetches. I scoop.
Game 3 - He has a slow start, I take some hits from a weak boogle while playing a hierarch turn 1 and a tarmogoyf turn 2, before getting a knight out big enough to block it, I'm holding up an Engineered explosives in my hand. turn 4 he drops another boogle and I though he has a boogle protected with totem armor I go for it and EE figuring it won't get any better and start swinging in. He doesn't draw anything relevant luckily and I win.
Match 3 - Gruul Stompy vs Knightfall Zoo 2-0
Game 1 - I path and bolt his experiment 1 and his strangleroot geist, go over his head with huge flying knights powered by Elspeth. Not much to say, I had the answers.
Game 2 - I combo him out on turn 3
Match 4 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I combo off on turn 4 facing a massive 15/15 boogle and he draws a 4th Ethereal Armor and runs me over. Sigh, I ******* hate this deck.
Game 2 - He stumbles and doesn't get a 2nd land drop till turn 3, goes all in on a boogle turn 5, I fracturing gust and kill his boogle in combat then win with beats.
Game 3 - I turn 1 heirarch, turn 2 spellskite plus birds of paradise, he nature's claims my spellskite, I eternal witness it back and play it on the same turn turn 3, he natures claims it again, I draw my other one and finally lock him out and beat him down.
Summary - Death to boogles. I got lucky round 2 and 4. I'm considering sideboarding worship to give me time to draw my answers, or more fracturing gusts. The more combo-oriented lists definitely have an advantage in the match up as it seems the combo is the only way you win game one certainly. Also I love the one of Elspeth. Very strong. Glad I went down to 2 Retreat to Coralhelm, I never need multiples out. Also Sejiri Steppe is gone and I don't miss it. It's probably completely necessary in the shells that are comboing to win almost every game as the combo is fragile. That's one of the reasons I don't like those control/combo interpretations of the deck, as it relies on something that is inherently a worse two card combo than splinter twin. If you're casting serum visions, remands, and commands you're probably better off just being on twin.
I couldn't quite get happy with the control shell, but I cheaped out and didn't play as many counterspells as I shoulda (tried 4 remands, 2 snares, 2 cryptics) I think. Also added Academy ruins.
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
That deck reminds me a lot of the legacy version (which did very well in the legacy open). I might have to give it a shot.
@ts31: you mind explaining your sideboard a bit?
So I just saw this, I was replying with my phone earlier. My sideboard is that way cuz I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured being able to kill RIP and blood moon were paramount. After that, I just threw stuff together, don't take the SB too seriously. The Setessan tactics, however, is kind of my board wipe, as my creatures are almost always bigger than theirs.
I couldn't quite get happy with the control shell, but I cheaped out and didn't play as many counterspells as I shoulda (tried 4 remands, 2 snares, 2 cryptics) I think. Also added Academy ruins.
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
Hm.... I didn't have a problem with tron in the one game I played against it. Playing a turn 2 goyf, and attacking them down with artifact, land, and instant, possibly even sorcery if I serum visioned, generally put enough pressure on them, that my counters held them off. I could have just been lucky though admittedly. This was especially true when they tried to stabilize with wurmcoil engine as I would just let it resolve and path it. Then again, it was one game, so I can't really say...
I tore it apart already, but it was very similar to yours in feel. Main difference was goyfs and no maindeck pridemages. In the games I played against Tron I don't think any of these things would have mattered. They went like this:
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
I tore it apart already, but it was very similar to yours in feel. Main difference was goyfs and no maindeck pridemages. In the games I played against Tron I don't think any of these things would have mattered. They went like this:
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
I think the problem is that you need a 2-mana beater that can slide under a turn 3 natural tron. Once I had a goyf and untapped with my counters (especially post-board) I had both a clock and disruption. Being able to snapcaster counter helps too to add to the clock. I would normally only go for the knight if I saw that the opponent wouldn't be able to tron, or if I had some disruption. As I said though, 1 game doesn't exactly give me a lot of info (but we did post board after the first one).
This is what I have been testing. So far it plays really well. Played 1 game against scapeshift and won. When 2-0 against Abzan company and I played 3 games against my friend's Jund deck and went 2-1, 0-2, 2-1.
Turn 2 knight is a major threat and the exalted triggers are really nice, which is why I added back the hierarchs. The deck has a pretty even mana base, which makes triple U a bit of a pain. I dropped one cryptic and one snapcaster. I also dropped both witnesses. Snap is awesome, but I felt the hierarchs were more important with 22 lands. Witness is a nice card, but again I felt hierarch was more important to my game plan.
Further tuning, I will have to work on the SB. Spell pierce will become dispel and verdicts will change to engineered explosives. I didn't get to play hallowed moonlight, but I really wanted to, looks like crazy nifty tech. As far as the mainboard, I think I want to remove 1 pridemage for another Clique. Clique won games if it stuck for more than a turn or two. It was just gross with exalted triggers. I will continue to test it more.
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This is what I have been testing. So far it plays really well. Played 1 game against scapeshift and won. When 2-0 against Abzan company and I played 3 games against my friend's Jund deck and went 2-1, 0-2, 2-1.
Turn 2 knight is a major threat and the exalted triggers are really nice, which is why I added back the hierarchs. The deck has a pretty even mana base, which makes triple U a bit of a pain. I dropped one cryptic and one snapcaster. I also dropped both witnesses. Snap is awesome, but I felt the hierarchs were more important with 22 lands. Witness is a nice card, but again I felt hierarch was more important to my game plan.
Further tuning, I will have to work on the SB. Spell pierce will become dispel and verdicts will change to engineered explosives. I didn't get to play hallowed moonlight, but I really wanted to, looks like crazy nifty tech. As far as the mainboard, I think I want to remove 1 pridemage for another Clique. Clique won games if it stuck for more than a turn or two. It was just gross with exalted triggers. I will continue to test it more.
That Hallowed moonlight was in case the one guy with grishoalbrand/through the breach was there, It technically also counters any token generator and cantrips, heh.
I think I can get behind this, but u think u can get away with 3 heirarchs? Cutting the witnesses and a snappie are reasonable, but I like having 2 cryptics. As for cliques, ur prolly right, however, I only own 1, so......
Yeah, that's true. Now that I think about it, I like the hierarchs, it gives us a legitimate reason to play this over RUG twin. We have a better beat down plan and a slightly better control plan, as our paths can kill things bolts can't. Our combo is weaker, but it can be a turn faster which can matter a lot. I like you, lol.
I would not play a deck with 4 hierarchs and no other one drops but serum visions. If you want dorks to accelerate out turn 3 stuff, much like playing Aether Vial it comes with curve design restrictions. Curving around four dorks is inevitably going to end up in an awkward inconsistent deck where you get a hand clogged with the wrong number of 2 or 3 or 1 drops. Playing dorks and serum visions is just...madly awkward. It's tough to get the right number of blue and green sources to ensure having turn 1 G and turn 1 U.
My conclusions after tons of playtesting is: 6-8 dorks and a higher top end (ideally chord, but Elspeth and Sigarda were both pretty good) or 0 dorks and control shell. Or, if you must play only 4 hierarchs, play Nacatls not serum visions - they go together like PB&J
It's possible I am wrong but I seriously doubt it at this point.
The philosophical problem with dorks is that, in modern there are a very limited number of 1-drops you can play that're good - usually that glue is serum visions+thought scour+manlands, or inquisition+Thoughtseize+manlands.
Playing dorks means you can't really play manlands as the rest of your glue since manlands realllly conflict with dorks (they ETB tapped, preventing you from keeping hands like wildwood, wildwood, hierarch).
Also, from a manabase perspective it is ideal for all of your turn 1 plays to use the same mana. So nacatls with hierarchs and birds, but not serum visions or thoughtseize or whatever. You'll see this theme repeated in most top decks over and over again.
Jund plays discard and bolt. Twin plays visions and bolt. Grixis twin plays bolt, visions and discard.
Just because you have dorks does not exclude you from playing visions. Visions does not need to be a turn 1 play either. Also Hierarchs don't have to be a turn 1 play to be good. Sure they accelerate you but they also push your goyfs over the top. Hell in my testing against jund, I did 8 damage one game from hierarch beat down.
If you look at the legacy version of this deck it is very much a control shell with dorks. I think the same shell can work here too, except they have better tutor spells. As far as consistency goes, 3x Breeding Pools and 9 fetches that can find them means no issue playing either visions or your dork.
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I've definitely come around to the hierarch build after trying it out a bit, the thing i like about it, is that they actually adds something to each of our game plans. In terms of tempo, we get bigger attacks, in terms of control, we get to cast cryptic a turn earlier, and in terms of combo we get to go off a turn earlier. What's not to like? I disagree with the idea that we cant run it with serum visions. Having options is always helpful.
I don't think having serum visions and dorks is awkward at all, if you build your curve well. You can always play turn one dork into turn two visions + 2 drop, or holding remand mana. And like complex pants said visions doesn't need to be played turn one. You can always hold until playing it maximizes your mana. Visions is always a good play when you don't have a better play available. All our one mana play are great turn one and still good later on.
That being said i've decided to try visions instead of commune with the gods. Binning creatures for ooze or lands for knight was sweet but the one mana cantrip leads to better mana maximizing combinations than with commune, and i don't even play goyfs so visions it will be.
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Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
Would it be too much to try and jam hexproof + worship tech in here to go with our tempo plan?
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
I imagine you could do the first, although with the second, what does that accomplish? Not bagging on it, i just dont know what the goal of it is.
I will just say that clique with 3 exalted creatures out is gross. Hierarchs also helped with the 3xU requirement for cryptic. I am testing with a couple dorks, but the control shell feels nice.
The more testing the better =) i appreciate all the feedback! What did u cut for the heirarchs?
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tarmogoyf
Noncreature Spells
3 Collected Company
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Arid Mesa
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Spellskite
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
Match 1 - Jeskai Control VS Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I keep a 7 card hand with 4 lands, a nacatl, a pridemage, and a path. my creatures are dealt with the turn I play them and I exclusively draw lands and paths for 8 plus turns before I scoop after he sphinx's revs for the 3rd time to 30 life. Oh well.
Game 2 - I side in unified will, spellskite, and thalia. I go first, curve out nacatl into voice into knight of the reliquary into collected company and run him over, apparently he just never had the counters he needed.
Game 3 - we both mulligan to 5, I keep three land, 2 knight and draw a dork. I enough gas to get through the counters and land a geist. He misses his 4th land drop for cryptic command and has to remand a coco on his end step, which I then replay on my main face dropping a knight and a voice. he doesn't draw his supreme verdict and though I have to fit through a lot of removal the geist gets me there.
Match 2 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - My worst matchup begins with him mulling to 5 and shrugging. I scoops after 3 turns of no land drops
Game 2 - I keep an iffy hand with an engineered explosives, He drops 2 suppression fields and I can't even crack my fetches. I scoop.
Game 3 - He has a slow start, I take some hits from a weak boogle while playing a hierarch turn 1 and a tarmogoyf turn 2, before getting a knight out big enough to block it, I'm holding up an Engineered explosives in my hand. turn 4 he drops another boogle and I though he has a boogle protected with totem armor I go for it and EE figuring it won't get any better and start swinging in. He doesn't draw anything relevant luckily and I win.
Match 3 - Gruul Stompy vs Knightfall Zoo 2-0
Game 1 - I path and bolt his experiment 1 and his strangleroot geist, go over his head with huge flying knights powered by Elspeth. Not much to say, I had the answers.
Game 2 - I combo him out on turn 3
Match 4 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I combo off on turn 4 facing a massive 15/15 boogle and he draws a 4th Ethereal Armor and runs me over. Sigh, I ******* hate this deck.
Game 2 - He stumbles and doesn't get a 2nd land drop till turn 3, goes all in on a boogle turn 5, I fracturing gust and kill his boogle in combat then win with beats.
Game 3 - I turn 1 heirarch, turn 2 spellskite plus birds of paradise, he nature's claims my spellskite, I eternal witness it back and play it on the same turn turn 3, he natures claims it again, I draw my other one and finally lock him out and beat him down.
Summary - Death to boogles. I got lucky round 2 and 4. I'm considering sideboarding worship to give me time to draw my answers, or more fracturing gusts. The more combo-oriented lists definitely have an advantage in the match up as it seems the combo is the only way you win game one certainly. Also I love the one of Elspeth. Very strong. Glad I went down to 2 Retreat to Coralhelm, I never need multiples out. Also Sejiri Steppe is gone and I don't miss it. It's probably completely necessary in the shells that are comboing to win almost every game as the combo is fragile. That's one of the reasons I don't like those control/combo interpretations of the deck, as it relies on something that is inherently a worse two card combo than splinter twin. If you're casting serum visions, remands, and commands you're probably better off just being on twin.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
So I just saw this, I was replying with my phone earlier. My sideboard is that way cuz I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured being able to kill RIP and blood moon were paramount. After that, I just threw stuff together, don't take the SB too seriously. The Setessan tactics, however, is kind of my board wipe, as my creatures are almost always bigger than theirs.
Hm.... I didn't have a problem with tron in the one game I played against it. Playing a turn 2 goyf, and attacking them down with artifact, land, and instant, possibly even sorcery if I serum visioned, generally put enough pressure on them, that my counters held them off. I could have just been lucky though admittedly. This was especially true when they tried to stabilize with wurmcoil engine as I would just let it resolve and path it. Then again, it was one game, so I can't really say...
Do you mind putting your decklist up?
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think the problem is that you need a 2-mana beater that can slide under a turn 3 natural tron. Once I had a goyf and untapped with my counters (especially post-board) I had both a clock and disruption. Being able to snapcaster counter helps too to add to the clock. I would normally only go for the knight if I saw that the opponent wouldn't be able to tron, or if I had some disruption. As I said though, 1 game doesn't exactly give me a lot of info (but we did post board after the first one).
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Knight of the Reliquary
Spells (20)
1 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
3 Remand
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Cryptic Command
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Plains
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
3 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Spell Pierce
1 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Mana Leak
1 Meddling Mage
1 Negate
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Stony Silence
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Krosan Grip
1 Fracturing Gust
This is what I have been testing. So far it plays really well. Played 1 game against scapeshift and won. When 2-0 against Abzan company and I played 3 games against my friend's Jund deck and went 2-1, 0-2, 2-1.
Turn 2 knight is a major threat and the exalted triggers are really nice, which is why I added back the hierarchs. The deck has a pretty even mana base, which makes triple U a bit of a pain. I dropped one cryptic and one snapcaster. I also dropped both witnesses. Snap is awesome, but I felt the hierarchs were more important with 22 lands. Witness is a nice card, but again I felt hierarch was more important to my game plan.
Further tuning, I will have to work on the SB. Spell pierce will become dispel and verdicts will change to engineered explosives. I didn't get to play hallowed moonlight, but I really wanted to, looks like crazy nifty tech. As far as the mainboard, I think I want to remove 1 pridemage for another Clique. Clique won games if it stuck for more than a turn or two. It was just gross with exalted triggers. I will continue to test it more.
That Hallowed moonlight was in case the one guy with grishoalbrand/through the breach was there, It technically also counters any token generator and cantrips, heh.
I think I can get behind this, but u think u can get away with 3 heirarchs? Cutting the witnesses and a snappie are reasonable, but I like having 2 cryptics. As for cliques, ur prolly right, however, I only own 1, so......
My conclusions after tons of playtesting is: 6-8 dorks and a higher top end (ideally chord, but Elspeth and Sigarda were both pretty good) or 0 dorks and control shell. Or, if you must play only 4 hierarchs, play Nacatls not serum visions - they go together like PB&J
It's possible I am wrong but I seriously doubt it at this point.
The philosophical problem with dorks is that, in modern there are a very limited number of 1-drops you can play that're good - usually that glue is serum visions+thought scour+manlands, or inquisition+Thoughtseize+manlands.
Playing dorks means you can't really play manlands as the rest of your glue since manlands realllly conflict with dorks (they ETB tapped, preventing you from keeping hands like wildwood, wildwood, hierarch).
Also, from a manabase perspective it is ideal for all of your turn 1 plays to use the same mana. So nacatls with hierarchs and birds, but not serum visions or thoughtseize or whatever. You'll see this theme repeated in most top decks over and over again.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Just because you have dorks does not exclude you from playing visions. Visions does not need to be a turn 1 play either. Also Hierarchs don't have to be a turn 1 play to be good. Sure they accelerate you but they also push your goyfs over the top. Hell in my testing against jund, I did 8 damage one game from hierarch beat down.
If you look at the legacy version of this deck it is very much a control shell with dorks. I think the same shell can work here too, except they have better tutor spells. As far as consistency goes, 3x Breeding Pools and 9 fetches that can find them means no issue playing either visions or your dork.
That being said i've decided to try visions instead of commune with the gods. Binning creatures for ooze or lands for knight was sweet but the one mana cantrip leads to better mana maximizing combinations than with commune, and i don't even play goyfs so visions it will be.