Got Linvala on the sideboard, might try squeeze her in mainboard, she blocks a bunch of annoying crap like Twin, stops Tasigur's draw, stops Spellskite. She's pretty good against Affinity as well but for some reason I haven't seen much Affinity lately. It's strange as well because Affinity has a really good match up against Merfolk and I see a lot of Merfolk. Merfolk and Abzan are the two decks I'm running into the most with the Delve version of Grixis Control (Angler, Tasigur) and your usual UR Twin decks.
As it will come up again, I'm still loving Souls. If you play turn 2 souls and drop a Liege turn 3 you're putting out a lot of flying bleed with the option to flash them back to create more pressure or as a response to boardwipe. If you do it the other way you can cast Souls at 5 to put 4 2/2 flyers on the board. Lord isn't easy to deal with for a lot of decks either as he's out of Bolt / Abrupt Decay range. Plus he counters Liliana's +1 which is everywhere.
I'm looking to finish the sideboard. I'm thinking Meddling Mages are probably a good place to start against some decks because Bloom Titan and Scapeshift are still around. Swapping out the Souls for Timely Reinforcements gives this deck a really good match up against Burn.
Thanks pokken, I agree, the goyfs have proven themselves to be juuuust ok enough that at 2 I like them. I've been focusing on testing the spell suite, so once I feel that's solid I'll go back to testing and adjusting the creatures. In a goyf-less version right now I would say a 4th voice and another interactive spell, being a 1-of valorous stance, remand, simic charm, scooze or pridemage could take those slots
Game 1, he tried to cryptic my retreat and my voice of resurgence (counter and bounce)
but in response i bolted my voice to make his Cryptic fizzle.
I am about 99% sure that if you counter/bounce, it still resolves if any legal targets are left. Counter/draw (or bounce/draw) is the mode where you can remand stuff out from under it/remove the target and it fizzles cos there are no legal targets.
It was the first time I tried the deck and i went 3-1 (for the 4th place).
I'll need to fine tune my play cause when i have combo in hand, I always want
to combo but it's not always the wisest thing to do. Another thing i've seen is
that the deck is not that easy to play. Sometimes there's a lot of hard decisions
to take but it can be really rewarding.
1st round (agaisn't a kid with a Junk ghostway deck):
Game 1 he gained quite some life with thragtusk and kitchen finks. He killed some of
my guys but he made a lot of mistakes that did hurt him a lot. Game 2, he didn't do much and
i comboed on turn 5 or 6
(1-0)
2nd round (agaisn't affinity):
Game 1, i was almost able to combo for the win, but he topdecked a cranial plating on his vault
skirge and gained 9 life (which brings him to 25 and me to 5). With that low life total i wasn't able
to combo for the kill. Game 2, i drew a S**** ton of land, even scryed 2 to the bottom of my library with
retreat. He killed my with not much resistance.
(1-1)
3rd round (agaisn't a BUG control):
Game 1 I did combo on turn 5 after he tapped out, nothing much to say. Game 2, he made a big misplay by casting
disfigure on my knight on turn 5, but i had a fetch up to bring it up to 3/3. I did combo the turn after.
(2-1)
4th round (agaisnt a grixis control/delver):
I won 2-0 but those games where the funniest game of the night. The games were long and grindy (the 2nd game
ended with like 7 minutes left to the round. Game 1, he tried to cryptic my retreat and my voice of resurgence (counter and bounce)
but in response i bolted my voice to make his Cryptic fizzle. 2 turns later he tried a Brutal explosion to bounce my knight (to stop my
attack) and kill my voice but in response I bolted it to make it fizzle. When it fizzled, he tried to remove my grave with rakdos charm to be safe from lethal
(he was at 10 and i had 2x 4/4 knights and a voice). Rakdos did resolved, he took 7 and i had a bolt in had.
(3-1)
Overall, I wasn't sure about bolt in the deck, after tonight i saw it did a lot of works in many games by destroying creatures. I didn't see geist exept for my
first game of the night (i'm running 2 copies) so I can't say much about him. I was also trying 1 grim lavamancer and i only played it once but it did a lot of work too, but i don't think i would
leave it there. I don't know what else could be put in it's place tough. I'm also not sure about the kessig wolf run, i never used it in any of the games and everytime
I had it, it was pointless since my opponents rarely had more than 1 or 2 creatures that i was able to tap with retreat. The deck was sure fun and people were kind of excited to
see it in action (no one ever played that deck at my LGS) and it did put up good results. Happily i was able to dodge the 2 tron deck or else i would have got anihilated. I don't know
what to think about the deck after tonight, i was playing Abzan company for 3 weeks (and was undefeated). The deck is funny, can kill fast with the combo if you got it but i always
felt abzan company was a better deck. I will surely test it a bit more, but unless i get a good feeling playing the deck, i don't think i will main this deck over abzan.
What is your list? I'm interested to see how you fit the bolt mana in.
You guys are right about the cryptic and brutal explosion, it shouldn't had fizzled. Anyway, i didn't won anything with my 4th place
and my opponent got a free booster as a participation price with his 6th place
I am going to try out Unified Will tonight instead of negate in my board to see how it works. I am playing the Zoo variant, so I should have enough creatures to make this happen.
I played a very small modern FNM last night and went 2-1 (1 bye). Not really worth an entire tournament report, but played 4color chord and ad nausem.
4c Chord - 1-2 L
Game 1 we get to parity and then Kiki-jiki Restoration angel combo went off.
Game 2 I am slightly ahead on board state with 2 pride mages, some nacatls and a retreat. I fire off CoCo EoT and get a knight and geist. He paths the knight, but I already have a wolf-run in play and he has 6 life and no fliers. GG.
Game 3 Comes down to the wire, he has a huge board with tons of chump blockers and a voice out. He is at 10 life, I am at 16, I have 2 KotR, 2x Pridemages, Nacatl and Voice. I have 3 mana up, and he has a spellskite in play. I have Retreat in hand. I decide to path his voice, he chords in a kiki and clones the voice for a turn. This leaves up 2 white blockers and I have 2 mana no available. Combo won't work because of spellskite and if I swing with everything I can only do 9 damage. I try to go for the combo to see if he will make a mistake and he doesn't. I end up losing by his combo next turn. However, he told me I had it won if I had fetched Sejiri Steppe. The steppe only gives protection to a creature YOU control so I would have been able to swing for the win. Good lesson learned.
Ad nausem - 2-0
Game 1 - beats get there after pride mage blows up Phyrexian Unlife.
Game 2 - Hate bears do their magic. Turn 2 Meddling Mage on ad nausem. Followed by thalia, followed by stony silence. Beat down with goyfs and nacatls.
I am playing again today. I'll let you guys know how that goes as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
Match 1 - Cruel Control 2-0 Game 1 - Turn 2 geist, rode it victory back up with exalted. Not much to say here Game 2 - Nacatl beats with smiter got me there. Actually pretty fuzzy on went on here, but we both got into top deck mode and my top decks were better.
Match 2 - UWR Control 1-2 Game 1 - Turn 1 hierarch which met a bolt. Turn 2 nacatl, path. Turn 3 smiter, get 8pts of damage in, followed by snap path. I respond with CoCo and get Geist and KotR and he scoops. Game 2 - I have to mulligan to 5, and he just controls the game and I just never get anything going. Game 3 - I mulligan to 6 and keep a 1 lander with Noble on top. Noble gets bolted and I just land screw and he gets ahead. The Jace flashing back verdict didn't help anything. Just couldn't get past his counters and removal.
Match 3 - Kiki Chord 1-2 Game 1 - I dislike playing this deck as it has enough high creatures and walls, that beats don't really work against him. He eventually gets the angel-kiki combo for the win. Game 2 - I get a geist working with 2 exalted behind it. He eventually removes one pridemage and when I swing with geist he flashes in an angel and kills my geist. He swings with his angel and at this point we are both 4. He has a wall of roots and 2 birds in play. I have a knight, 3/3 nacatl, meddling mage (on chord) and a voice. I swing with all, he blocks everything with a bird on the nacatl, I tutor up wolf run for the win. Game 3 - He stalls me and gets the combo, not much to say here.
Match 4 - Budget Zoo - 2-0
Nothing to say here, he never did a point of damage to me.
Thoughts
Not really impressed with voice. He didn't seem to cause any misplays and he didn't help with tempo. I put them in place of aven mindcensors (they didn't arrive in the mail yet). Meddling mage has mess up so many decks, that I want to uptime the count to 2 I think. Spellskite hasn't really shown off that much. There was Tron running around before which is why I threw in crumble, but I think I am going to take it out. Negate vs Unified is really not decided in my mind. I will continue to try unified will for now.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
Meddling Mage is one of my favourite cards. I find it's better alongside Thoughtseize type spells though as you can discard a card from their hand and Meddling Mage another card that is in their hand to hand hate against decks that are not explicitly combo orientated.
That actually gives me an idea that someone mentioned running Serum Vision type spells over dorks earlier. Maybe something like Gitaxian Probe with Meddling Mages.
How have you guys been playing with Meddling Mage? i keep looking at it and thinking, modern is way to diverse to really stop a deck. like, what is it stonewalling? linear combo decks? i can see it being nice in ad nauseum. and thats it? don't decks just remove it and carry on with business as usual? Its not like you can even see the opponents hand either, so your basically playing a bear and hoping they have what you've named in hand.
From initial plays you can usually tell what someone is playing. Also useful game 2/3. It also draws removal away from knight.
This. It stalls out combo decks like ad nausem, living end, twin, chord decks and dealing with problem cards like Karn. While combo decks deal with MM, your beat down or combo plan is going on.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
It stonewalls pretty much anything. You usually know a card that's going to be in their deck and playing one mage shuts down a threatening 4 of, it forces them to remove it. It's annoying even if they're not playing combo. I use the card a lot in other decks. As I said, I like it for playing their hand and being really annoying with t1 thoughtseize, t2 meddling mage in my other deck but in something like this it would still work. It doesn't just break up combos, it breaks up stuff like Supreme Verdict or Pyroclasm.
But does it stop anything outside linear combo? ad nasuem, living end... ok i can accept those, great gotcha card. But Tron? ok i can't play Karn? heres pyroclasm or Ugin or oblivion stone, ohh now i can play Karn, cool. Junk/jund? do you name removal? they play a very diverse set of removal, shut down abrupt decay, and terminate or path or bolt are all going to destroy your bear. name a threat and said removal will unlock it again. And it doesn't shut off a 4-of, it might shut off a card that they have 4-of in the deck but don't confuse that with shutting out 4 cards in their hand. They have to be holding it and not have a way remove the mage. And it is not the same great screw card like Blood Moon is or ensnaring bridge, its a bear with a potential upside. I just don't get why you wouldn't want to dedicate a SB slot to something thats guaranteed to be stronger. especially since theres no way to protect the mage to keep them locked out. its going to be an annoyance, not an answer
But does it stop anything outside linear combo? ad nasuem, living end... ok i can accept those, great gotcha card. But Tron? ok i can't play Karn? heres pyroclasm or Ugin or oblivion stone, ohh now i can play Karn, cool. Junk/jund? do you name removal? they play a very diverse set of removal, shut down abrupt decay, and terminate or path or bolt are all going to destroy your bear. name a threat and said removal will unlock it again. And it doesn't shut off a 4-of, it might shut off a card that they have 4-of in the deck but don't confuse that with shutting out 4 cards in their hand. They have to be holding it and not have a way remove the mage. And it is not the same great screw card like Blood Moon is or ensnaring bridge, its a bear with a potential upside. I just don't get why you wouldn't want to dedicate a SB slot to something thats guaranteed to be stronger. especially since theres no way to protect the mage to keep them locked out. its going to be an annoyance, not an answer
It's a two drop. It's not your entire deck. GR Tron is pretty much the only deck that mainboards Pyroclasm. You can name Pyroclasm to stop them wiping out your mana creatures long enough to use them. You can stop them dropping a turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine on your face. You can even just name Expedition Map if you get the play to stop them fixing their Tron lands. Like use your imagination a bit dude.
I never said it shuts out 4 cards in their hand, I said 4 of in their deck, that's per mage unless they remove it. Any time you've got a 2 drop that is attracting removal spells is a good thing because you don't want them removing the Knight of the Reliquary. It gives them a potential roadblock the same as any good disruption that they need to invest a card into removing. If they don't have creatures down it also deals a bit of damage.
This deck turn 3 kills sometimes and beats down in 5 or 6 turns easily. That annoyance can be all you need to block a potential sweeper or stop their combo going off first. It's not a potential upside, it is an upside, if you're not seeing any you're not playing it right.
Modern League 1: (4-1), 9-3, 75%
Infect (2-1)
UW Control (2-0)
Jund (1-2)
W D&T (2-0)
Bogle (2-0)
Modern League 2: (3-2), 8-5, 62%
W D&T (2-0)
BG Elves (1-2)
Scapeshift (2-1)
Kiki-Jiki (2-0)
Lantern (1-2)
Modern League 3: (0-3), 1-6, 14%
Naya Burn (0-2)
Merfolk (1-2)
Merfolk (0-2)
Drop
I feel like we need to shore up the tribal, burn and jund match-ups. And I also feel like 3 main board Collected Company is to much, might move one to the side for grindy match-ups. I keep getting 2-3 in the fist 10 cards but I lose because I cant put out pressure with 3 4 drops in my hand.
Here is how I feel about the sideboard: (my rating out of 5)
2 Dromoka's Command - (3.5), Flexible, love being able to stop sweepers, kill enchantments, or use it as removal.
2 Kor Firewalker - (2), Such a narrow card but we need it here.
1 Meddling Mage (1), I feel like going beat down in combo matches is better than playing a bear. This card is better in higher numbers and paired with spellskite.
2 Negate (2), Might be to narrow in helping out bad match ups... only tron.
2 Pyroclasm (4), Really helps our bad match-ups, but if you don't have in in the first 9-10 cards it often feels to little to late.
2 Stony Silence (3.5), Really strong in some our bad match-ups but I feel we still need some more artifact hate somewhere.
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (5), Love this card vs control, tron, lantern.
2 Aven Mindcensor (2), I feel like this card is slightly to narrow and costs one mana to much for what is does. Coming down on turn 3 is to late for the most important library searches and you only go first once at most with this card.
What do you guys think we could put in the 75 to improve the Jund, Tribal, Burn, and Tron matches?
But does it stop anything outside linear combo? ad nasuem, living end... ok i can accept those, great gotcha card. But Tron? ok i can't play Karn? heres pyroclasm or Ugin or oblivion stone, ohh now i can play Karn, cool. Junk/jund? do you name removal? they play a very diverse set of removal, shut down abrupt decay, and terminate or path or bolt are all going to destroy your bear. name a threat and said removal will unlock it again. And it doesn't shut off a 4-of, it might shut off a card that they have 4-of in the deck but don't confuse that with shutting out 4 cards in their hand. They have to be holding it and not have a way remove the mage. And it is not the same great screw card like Blood Moon is or ensnaring bridge, its a bear with a potential upside. I just don't get why you wouldn't want to dedicate a SB slot to something thats guaranteed to be stronger. especially since theres no way to protect the mage to keep them locked out. its going to be an annoyance, not an answer
It's a two drop. It's not your entire deck. GR Tron is pretty much the only deck that mainboards Pyroclasm. You can name Pyroclasm to stop them wiping out your mana creatures long enough to use them. You can stop them dropping a turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine on your face. You can even just name Expedition Map if you get the play to stop them fixing their Tron lands. Like use your imagination a bit dude.
I never said it shuts out 4 cards in their hand, I said 4 of in their deck, that's per mage unless they remove it. Any time you've got a 2 drop that is attracting removal spells is a good thing because you don't want them removing the Knight of the Reliquary. It gives them a potential roadblock the same as any good disruption that they need to invest a card into removing. If they don't have creatures down it also deals a bit of damage.
This deck turn 3 kills sometimes and beats down in 5 or 6 turns easily. That annoyance can be all you need to block a potential sweeper or stop their combo going off first. It's not a potential upside, it is an upside, if you're not seeing any you're not playing it right.
Obviously im not, but you go turn 2 meddling mage and name pyroclasm, theres no gaurentee they even have that pyroclasm in their hand in which case yove spent turn 2 in modern playing a bear. Thats not the kind of tempo the format respects. Theres no way to pair mages ability up with knowledge of the other persons hand in this deck so your going to be guessing literally 100% of the time and hoping you brick something. Also of youre dedicating more than 1-2 meddling mages to those 15 SB slots youre cutting into valuable room for better things. If it truely is a crucial peice of their puzzle, they will get out from under the mage. You might be slowing them down while they find an answer for it but your slowing yourself down as well to even play the mage. And i dont think the number of times you slow them down more is going to be greater than the number of times you just played a 2/2 naming a card not in their hand. If you can provide a list of the matches you would bring Meddling Mage in for and what you would name, maybe i can get a better picture of why its a good card for the SB
What do you guys think we could put in the 75 to improve the Jund, Tribal, Burn, and Tron matches?
First of all thanks for the report and SB analysis. A really good card that helps both the burn and jund matchups is Fitchen Finks. Both the life gain and double body is valuable in those matches. Another card ive found very usfull, and was put in specifically for the burn, junk, jund, grixis and twin decks is hindering light. It blanks burn spells and discard spells, and stops 1-for-1 removal in its tracks. And those jund matches are trying to outvalue you so getting to draw after blanking one of their cards is huge tempo. Its basically a 2 mana cryptic command for targeted spells.
You mention you found negate underwhelming. Maybe try unified will. I think this is a rare deck that can pull it off and would help the tron matches. Against tron you should have more creatures and unlike negate it counters everything, and unlike mana leak is never dead late game. Dont really have any suggestions for Merfolk righht now though outside of wraths which obviously hurt us just as much.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1x Breeding Pool
2x Flooded Strand
4x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Overgrown Tomb
3x Plains
2x Polluted Delta
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Voice of Resurgence
4x Wilt-Leaf Liege
4x Path to Exile
Sorcery (4)
4x Lingering Souls
Enchantment (4)
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
Planeswalker (2)
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Got Linvala on the sideboard, might try squeeze her in mainboard, she blocks a bunch of annoying crap like Twin, stops Tasigur's draw, stops Spellskite. She's pretty good against Affinity as well but for some reason I haven't seen much Affinity lately. It's strange as well because Affinity has a really good match up against Merfolk and I see a lot of Merfolk. Merfolk and Abzan are the two decks I'm running into the most with the Delve version of Grixis Control (Angler, Tasigur) and your usual UR Twin decks.
As it will come up again, I'm still loving Souls. If you play turn 2 souls and drop a Liege turn 3 you're putting out a lot of flying bleed with the option to flash them back to create more pressure or as a response to boardwipe. If you do it the other way you can cast Souls at 5 to put 4 2/2 flyers on the board. Lord isn't easy to deal with for a lot of decks either as he's out of Bolt / Abrupt Decay range. Plus he counters Liliana's +1 which is everywhere.
I'm looking to finish the sideboard. I'm thinking Meddling Mages are probably a good place to start against some decks because Bloom Titan and Scapeshift are still around. Swapping out the Souls for Timely Reinforcements gives this deck a really good match up against Burn.
Try some hangarback walkers
I am about 99% sure that if you counter/bounce, it still resolves if any legal targets are left. Counter/draw (or bounce/draw) is the mode where you can remand stuff out from under it/remove the target and it fizzles cos there are no legal targets.
(NM, I see complex pants got here first
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
TappedOut
Would love to have more input to improve!
What is your list? I'm interested to see how you fit the bolt mana in.
and my opponent got a free booster as a participation price with his 6th place
4x knight of the reliquary
2x geist of saint traft
2x kitchen finks
1x grim lavamancer
1x birds of paradise
4x wild nacatl
3x voice of resurgence
2x qasali pridemage
1x scavenging ooze
1x eternal witness
3x lightning bolt
4x path to exile
3x retreat to coralhelm
4x windswept heath
4x wooded foothill
2x arid mesa
1x kessig wolf-run
1x sejeri steppe
2x stomping ground
1x sacred foundry
1x plains
1x breeding pool
1x hallowed fountain
1x temple garden
3x forest
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
Legacy :
-Storm
I played a very small modern FNM last night and went 2-1 (1 bye). Not really worth an entire tournament report, but played 4color chord and ad nausem.
4c Chord - 1-2 L
Game 1 we get to parity and then Kiki-jiki Restoration angel combo went off.
Game 2 I am slightly ahead on board state with 2 pride mages, some nacatls and a retreat. I fire off CoCo EoT and get a knight and geist. He paths the knight, but I already have a wolf-run in play and he has 6 life and no fliers. GG.
Game 3 Comes down to the wire, he has a huge board with tons of chump blockers and a voice out. He is at 10 life, I am at 16, I have 2 KotR, 2x Pridemages, Nacatl and Voice. I have 3 mana up, and he has a spellskite in play. I have Retreat in hand. I decide to path his voice, he chords in a kiki and clones the voice for a turn. This leaves up 2 white blockers and I have 2 mana no available. Combo won't work because of spellskite and if I swing with everything I can only do 9 damage. I try to go for the combo to see if he will make a mistake and he doesn't. I end up losing by his combo next turn. However, he told me I had it won if I had fetched Sejiri Steppe. The steppe only gives protection to a creature YOU control so I would have been able to swing for the win. Good lesson learned.
Ad nausem - 2-0
Game 1 - beats get there after pride mage blows up Phyrexian Unlife.
Game 2 - Hate bears do their magic. Turn 2 Meddling Mage on ad nausem. Followed by thalia, followed by stony silence. Beat down with goyfs and nacatls.
I am playing again today. I'll let you guys know how that goes as well.
Heres the whole playlist of my daily:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj5oWNcwh-W458lc4h0QA2LDBPMkp-YMT
Lol, again, I wanna stress I was just done a 12 hour shift... I really did suck it up. But the deck level carried me through.
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of the Reliquary
Spells (13)
3 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
3 Collected Company
1 Arid Mesa
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Meddling Mage
1 Spellskite
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Pyroclasm
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Crumble to Dust
Match 1 - Cruel Control 2-0
Game 1 - Turn 2 geist, rode it victory back up with exalted. Not much to say here
Game 2 - Nacatl beats with smiter got me there. Actually pretty fuzzy on went on here, but we both got into top deck mode and my top decks were better.
Match 2 - UWR Control 1-2
Game 1 - Turn 1 hierarch which met a bolt. Turn 2 nacatl, path. Turn 3 smiter, get 8pts of damage in, followed by snap path. I respond with CoCo and get Geist and KotR and he scoops.
Game 2 - I have to mulligan to 5, and he just controls the game and I just never get anything going.
Game 3 - I mulligan to 6 and keep a 1 lander with Noble on top. Noble gets bolted and I just land screw and he gets ahead. The Jace flashing back verdict didn't help anything. Just couldn't get past his counters and removal.
Match 3 - Kiki Chord 1-2
Game 1 - I dislike playing this deck as it has enough high creatures and walls, that beats don't really work against him. He eventually gets the angel-kiki combo for the win.
Game 2 - I get a geist working with 2 exalted behind it. He eventually removes one pridemage and when I swing with geist he flashes in an angel and kills my geist. He swings with his angel and at this point we are both 4. He has a wall of roots and 2 birds in play. I have a knight, 3/3 nacatl, meddling mage (on chord) and a voice. I swing with all, he blocks everything with a bird on the nacatl, I tutor up wolf run for the win.
Game 3 - He stalls me and gets the combo, not much to say here.
Match 4 - Budget Zoo - 2-0
Nothing to say here, he never did a point of damage to me.
Thoughts
Not really impressed with voice. He didn't seem to cause any misplays and he didn't help with tempo. I put them in place of aven mindcensors (they didn't arrive in the mail yet). Meddling mage has mess up so many decks, that I want to uptime the count to 2 I think. Spellskite hasn't really shown off that much. There was Tron running around before which is why I threw in crumble, but I think I am going to take it out. Negate vs Unified is really not decided in my mind. I will continue to try unified will for now.
That actually gives me an idea that someone mentioned running Serum Vision type spells over dorks earlier. Maybe something like Gitaxian Probe with Meddling Mages.
This. It stalls out combo decks like ad nausem, living end, twin, chord decks and dealing with problem cards like Karn. While combo decks deal with MM, your beat down or combo plan is going on.
Do you mind posting your list? I am curious what your board is.
It's a two drop. It's not your entire deck. GR Tron is pretty much the only deck that mainboards Pyroclasm. You can name Pyroclasm to stop them wiping out your mana creatures long enough to use them. You can stop them dropping a turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine on your face. You can even just name Expedition Map if you get the play to stop them fixing their Tron lands. Like use your imagination a bit dude.
I never said it shuts out 4 cards in their hand, I said 4 of in their deck, that's per mage unless they remove it. Any time you've got a 2 drop that is attracting removal spells is a good thing because you don't want them removing the Knight of the Reliquary. It gives them a potential roadblock the same as any good disruption that they need to invest a card into removing. If they don't have creatures down it also deals a bit of damage.
This deck turn 3 kills sometimes and beats down in 5 or 6 turns easily. That annoyance can be all you need to block a potential sweeper or stop their combo going off first. It's not a potential upside, it is an upside, if you're not seeing any you're not playing it right.
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Voice of Resurgence
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Loxodon Smiter
Spells 13
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
3 Collected Company
4 Arid Mesa
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Meddling Mage
2 Negate
2 Pyroclasm
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Aven Mindcensor
Here are the results:
Total: (7-6), 53%, 18-14, 56%
(Round), Win %, Match, Win %
Modern League 1: (4-1), 9-3, 75%
Infect (2-1)
UW Control (2-0)
Jund (1-2)
W D&T (2-0)
Bogle (2-0)
Modern League 2: (3-2), 8-5, 62%
W D&T (2-0)
BG Elves (1-2)
Scapeshift (2-1)
Kiki-Jiki (2-0)
Lantern (1-2)
Modern League 3: (0-3), 1-6, 14%
Naya Burn (0-2)
Merfolk (1-2)
Merfolk (0-2)
Drop
I feel like we need to shore up the tribal, burn and jund match-ups. And I also feel like 3 main board Collected Company is to much, might move one to the side for grindy match-ups. I keep getting 2-3 in the fist 10 cards but I lose because I cant put out pressure with 3 4 drops in my hand.
Here is how I feel about the sideboard: (my rating out of 5)
2 Dromoka's Command - (3.5), Flexible, love being able to stop sweepers, kill enchantments, or use it as removal.
2 Kor Firewalker - (2), Such a narrow card but we need it here.
1 Meddling Mage (1), I feel like going beat down in combo matches is better than playing a bear. This card is better in higher numbers and paired with spellskite.
2 Negate (2), Might be to narrow in helping out bad match ups... only tron.
2 Pyroclasm (4), Really helps our bad match-ups, but if you don't have in in the first 9-10 cards it often feels to little to late.
2 Stony Silence (3.5), Really strong in some our bad match-ups but I feel we still need some more artifact hate somewhere.
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (5), Love this card vs control, tron, lantern.
2 Aven Mindcensor (2), I feel like this card is slightly to narrow and costs one mana to much for what is does. Coming down on turn 3 is to late for the most important library searches and you only go first once at most with this card.
What do you guys think we could put in the 75 to improve the Jund, Tribal, Burn, and Tron matches?
MB:
+1 Ghost Quarter
-1 fetch
SB:
+1 Stone Rain
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Kataki, War's Wage
+1 Kor Firewalker
+1/2 Engineered Explosives
-1 Meddling Mage
-0/1 Stony Silence
-2 Negate
-2 Aven Mindcensor
Obviously im not, but you go turn 2 meddling mage and name pyroclasm, theres no gaurentee they even have that pyroclasm in their hand in which case yove spent turn 2 in modern playing a bear. Thats not the kind of tempo the format respects. Theres no way to pair mages ability up with knowledge of the other persons hand in this deck so your going to be guessing literally 100% of the time and hoping you brick something. Also of youre dedicating more than 1-2 meddling mages to those 15 SB slots youre cutting into valuable room for better things. If it truely is a crucial peice of their puzzle, they will get out from under the mage. You might be slowing them down while they find an answer for it but your slowing yourself down as well to even play the mage. And i dont think the number of times you slow them down more is going to be greater than the number of times you just played a 2/2 naming a card not in their hand. If you can provide a list of the matches you would bring Meddling Mage in for and what you would name, maybe i can get a better picture of why its a good card for the SB
First of all thanks for the report and SB analysis. A really good card that helps both the burn and jund matchups is Fitchen Finks. Both the life gain and double body is valuable in those matches. Another card ive found very usfull, and was put in specifically for the burn, junk, jund, grixis and twin decks is hindering light. It blanks burn spells and discard spells, and stops 1-for-1 removal in its tracks. And those jund matches are trying to outvalue you so getting to draw after blanking one of their cards is huge tempo. Its basically a 2 mana cryptic command for targeted spells.
You mention you found negate underwhelming. Maybe try unified will. I think this is a rare deck that can pull it off and would help the tron matches. Against tron you should have more creatures and unlike negate it counters everything, and unlike mana leak is never dead late game. Dont really have any suggestions for Merfolk righht now though outside of wraths which obviously hurt us just as much.