Why are people so high on Sorin? I've never tried him, but on paper he doesn't look all that exciting. Against Burn, yes you can gain a ton of life and likely win. But BW offers you a million other ways to beat Burn. Against midrange/control, his plus ability doesn't affect the board, so you are left with using his minus to build a board or protect him. Why not just run Elspeth instead?
I agree that he is terrible if you have an empty board, but his plus works so well with the backup plan (lingering souls) that it is generally worth it. The +1/+0 doesn't look impressive on the card, but when you plus with some spirits on the board it can be huge. Even if you are on the back foot, giving your smasher lifelink on blocks is pretty good.
Most of the other cards in the deck are pretty good value-wise, he is maybe the one win-more card. Not sure which Elspeth would be good in this deck, Sun's Champion is kind of a nonbo (the minus kills our own creatures). 4 mana Elspeth maybe, but the 1/1 on an empty board is even worse than a 2/2 from Sorin.
Why are people so high on Sorin? I've never tried him, but on paper he doesn't look all that exciting. Against Burn, yes you can gain a ton of life and likely win. But BW offers you a million other ways to beat Burn. Against midrange/control, his plus ability doesn't affect the board, so you are left with using his minus to build a board or protect him. Why not just run Elspeth instead?
I agree that he is terrible if you have an empty board, but his plus works so well with the backup plan (lingering souls) that it is generally worth it. The +1/+0 doesn't look impressive on the card, but when you plus with some spirits on the board it can be huge. Even if you are on the back foot, giving your smasher lifelink on blocks is pretty good.
Most of the other cards in the deck are pretty good value-wise, he is maybe the one win-more card. Not sure which Elspeth would be good in this deck, Sun's Champion is kind of a nonbo (the minus kills our own creatures). 4 mana Elspeth maybe, but the 1/1 on an empty board is even worse than a 2/2 from Sorin.
I meant Knight-Errant. On an empty board, I would MUCH rather have Elspeth, even if your opponent has a creature to attack with. She builds loyalty as you create chump-blockers whereas Sorin can create a single chump-blocker then die next turn. If you're too far behind, then neither of them is going to be good. In a race situation, the lifelink is nice, but +3/+3 and flying also works pretty well, especially when you DON'T have a bunch of Lingering Souls tokens lying around.
As you said, it just seems win-more to me. When I trying out BW Eldrazi (instead of Eldrazi Tron or Stompy), I'm going to test Elspeth in that slot before committing to buying Sorin.
I find sorin to be one of the cards that I never expectat to draw, but when I do it puts a smile on my face. If you have souls (and you should most of the time) online, he makes your opponent spend removal on tokens. He gains a LOT of Life, which is always good... And eventually you can throw a 6/5 Life linker trampler smasher at opponent faces (the +1+0 also gets Kalithas back to smasher level after 1 pump) he is not perfect, but is one card i don't dare to touch. Now, if you are not playing him, I strongly suggest Liliana the last Hope! Even though her -2 can be a nombo with relic, there is always a topdeck mode that you keep wishing to draw a smasher. In this scenario she helps you dig deeper each other turn, which can be game breaking
Sorin is a little bit of a legacy card from earlier builds before the release of Brutality and Blessed Alliance. Now that we have more lifegain options, it might be cuttable--but don't dismiss its remarkable power when combined with either Smasher or Spirit tokens. It literally doubles our clock with the tokens, and curves perfectly into a hasty trampler that gives huge life swings. T3 Souls --> T4 Sorin --> T5 Smasher is real good. But it is true that Sorin is not so good in a vacuum (though on the other hand, I have also had the Vampire be extremely relevant against Infect on occasion).
The low 1 CMC hand disruption count is a mixed bag. I am not entirely happy with only 3 T1 disruption spells, though on the other hand T1 Relic is usually very good. T1 Relic either establishes the grave-hate right out of the gate, or allows a T2 crack-and-draw if it's not relevant, on a turn where (let's face it) we are sometimes not making other impactful plays anyways. And the recent addition of Push means we have a third good T1 play in many matches. I do very much enjoy how well the low Thoughtseize/IoK count improves our late-game topdeck plan, though. There's no way I would ever go above 5 such spells total in a deck that also plays 4 Seers, personally, even if I had the room--better to get more proactive with threats, I reckon.
As I mentioned on reddit, I don't think Liliana of the Veil works in a build that is trying to land 4 and 5 CMC threats, because it makes it hard to keep both the spells and land count high enough to curve out--BGx doesn't have this problem as much, due to their much cheaper threats. Though of course throwing Souls to Lili is always good. But I have been throwing it to Brutality instead, which card is also very, very good. Liliana the Last Hope might be worth a shot--haven't tried it myself. Personally, I don't see Elspeth doing anything important for this particular deck in the 4 CMC slot.
[edit] Found a thoughtful article about why Burn may be on its way out--Sorin might indeed be worse than an alternative nowadays. Not sure what I'd run in that slot, but Endless One might be right, or a single Herder. I'm even inclined to maybe give Blood Baron of Vizkopa a shot again, since that card dies to exactly nothing except sweepers and double-Bolt. Or of course, maybe a Lili would be best.
Sorin Lord of Innistrad might be worth a shot, same cost and you get an emblem right away.
To be honest I would rather spend the last slot on a card to shore up my worst matchups (tron, ensnaring bridge decks) but I don't know what that card is
If you're looking for a one-of maindeck generic hoser I'd consider 1x Ratchet Bomb, I side that card in all the time. It is good against Moon and Bridge, and also all kinds of other stuff like Merfolk/Elves, Death's Shadow Jund (not that we need help there), Gesit of St. Traft, etc. Wouldn't help against Tron or Valakut though.
If you're looking for a one-of maindeck generic hoser I'd consider 1x Ratchet Bomb, I side that card in all the time. It is good against Moon and Bridge, and also all kinds of other stuff like Merfolk/Elves, Death's Shadow Jund (not that we need help there), Gesit of St. Traft, etc. Wouldn't help against Tron or Valakut though.
right now, if i would remove sorin, a 1/1 MD/SB split of fulminator would be the way to go. Recurrable fulminator with Lili can do a good job on keeping greedy mana bases in check. Although then I would up my Black land count a little or even try urborg.
My Mets contains a lot of coco decks. I play a SB of 1 ratchet bomb, 2 damnation and 1 flaying tendrils. This does a great job of clearing the creatures and also has hand against bant eldrazi, elves.
Scapeshift and trim are solid matchups. Adjust your land base to include 3-4 ghost quarters in 75 alongside with 2 surgical extractions.
The utility lands are very flexible. If I see more counterspell decks I go up to 3 cavern of souls in the 75.
I just love the flexibility of this deck. I feel confident that I can have a shot to win any tourney depending on how I SB for the meta.
I have pretty much all the cards in modern to play any deck and this is my favorite midrange deck to play.
r1 naya burn
g1 bunch of discard with removal and I got there with beats and vault lifegain. g2 was very close but thank god for shambling vent. That card alone won me the game.
1-0
r2 mono U tron
These games were very long and interesting despite the fact I lost them both. Never saw a cavern which i desperately needed. Didn't see any SB cards except a stony which didn't do much. Too many counter and repeal effects. I feel the match is winnable though, it just didn't pan out. I just had no clock. I also only drew 1 temple so far in 4 games and it was late into the game. We will obviously lose a game of fair magic vs tron.
1-1
r3 grixis death shadow
both these games were complete and total stomps. It felt great. Lingering souls is a house and outside a possible battle rage he had no chance of winning (turns out he wasn't even playing them for some reason). The lifeloss they give themselves only helps us.
2-1
r4 jund death shadow
there was a LOT of death shadow at fnm surprisingly. First week it's been like that and BOY was I glad I chose this deck to play. Turns out jund version was just as easy as grixis although jund overall feels much stronger than grixis. Neither of these 2 games were all that hard. Here i only drew 1 temple again in 8 games of magic throughout the night. even with only playing dumb fair magic, these games weren't close.
3-1
thoughts: I rarely drew strangler and never had a target. Also rarely drew temple. That just felt weird, obviously these things happen especially with essentially no filtering, searching or card drawing. Overall, the deck played and felt really great despite no explosives hands. I was debating playing this or a slightly different version with blight herder and mind stone. I couldn't find the herders in time. Never regretted not having them. I'll try that version out sometime though.
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Modern: BG eldrazi midrange BWG Abzan value evolution BUG BUG Midrange
Nice results, but that list seems very inconsistent. You only have 13 black sources, yet you have to meet the casting cost of 1BB on curve fairly often.
It's more consistent than it looks but you aren't entirely wrong. I plan on tweaking mana slightly. I can probably get away with exchanging a ghost quarter for an urborg, tomb of yawgmoth. I certainly will once I pick up a WB filter land. Problem is in most matchups I wish cavern was filterland/caves or something. But in those rare blue matches I'm certainly glad to know they are in there. Maybe it's still worth removing them for couple more guaranteed fixing.
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In tweaking mana, i think it is better overall to play 2 godless and 3 Marsh flats instead the 4 flats... You will draw at least one of the fetchable lands, and often get ghost quarter'ed/path'ed, and you will have no lands to search for. I think 5-6 basic lands are needed for us (playing wastes MD while I can't afford caverns... Saved my life lots of times against moon)
How did both lilianas played for you? I really don't like the +1 of LOTV as our cards are all too important to dip...
When running a high amount of Fatal Pushes, playing 4 fetches seems like a no-brainer to me. Yes, it is true that we do have Mind Stones and Relics, but having the extra % points for how often we can activate feels too good. Therefore, 4 Flats and 2 Shrines seems like the way to go imo.
I was on four Flats and three Caves of Koilos, until two consecutive nights where I had games with no source of C, leading to inevitable defeat.
I like Fatal Push a whole bunch and I don't feel like the extra Flats is really needed--I also use Ghost Quarter to trigger it on occasion. I am on a 3/3 split between Path and Push, with a fourth Path in the side. I have also gone to four Relics and only one Mind Stone. Lately my FNM record has been pretty bad, like 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, etc. There was even a 1-3 in there one night.
I was placing 14th at a 75 Player Event yesterday.
Ended up with a 5-2 Record, fighting against Merfolk 3 times (1-2), Bant Spirits (won), Gb Tron 2 times (2-0) and beating finally Bant Eldrazi in a hell of a game and a board swept up with huge Eldrazi's.
I agree that he is terrible if you have an empty board, but his plus works so well with the backup plan (lingering souls) that it is generally worth it. The +1/+0 doesn't look impressive on the card, but when you plus with some spirits on the board it can be huge. Even if you are on the back foot, giving your smasher lifelink on blocks is pretty good.
Most of the other cards in the deck are pretty good value-wise, he is maybe the one win-more card. Not sure which Elspeth would be good in this deck, Sun's Champion is kind of a nonbo (the minus kills our own creatures). 4 mana Elspeth maybe, but the 1/1 on an empty board is even worse than a 2/2 from Sorin.
I meant Knight-Errant. On an empty board, I would MUCH rather have Elspeth, even if your opponent has a creature to attack with. She builds loyalty as you create chump-blockers whereas Sorin can create a single chump-blocker then die next turn. If you're too far behind, then neither of them is going to be good. In a race situation, the lifelink is nice, but +3/+3 and flying also works pretty well, especially when you DON'T have a bunch of Lingering Souls tokens lying around.
As you said, it just seems win-more to me. When I trying out BW Eldrazi (instead of Eldrazi Tron or Stompy), I'm going to test Elspeth in that slot before committing to buying Sorin.
The low 1 CMC hand disruption count is a mixed bag. I am not entirely happy with only 3 T1 disruption spells, though on the other hand T1 Relic is usually very good. T1 Relic either establishes the grave-hate right out of the gate, or allows a T2 crack-and-draw if it's not relevant, on a turn where (let's face it) we are sometimes not making other impactful plays anyways. And the recent addition of Push means we have a third good T1 play in many matches. I do very much enjoy how well the low Thoughtseize/IoK count improves our late-game topdeck plan, though. There's no way I would ever go above 5 such spells total in a deck that also plays 4 Seers, personally, even if I had the room--better to get more proactive with threats, I reckon.
As I mentioned on reddit, I don't think Liliana of the Veil works in a build that is trying to land 4 and 5 CMC threats, because it makes it hard to keep both the spells and land count high enough to curve out--BGx doesn't have this problem as much, due to their much cheaper threats. Though of course throwing Souls to Lili is always good. But I have been throwing it to Brutality instead, which card is also very, very good. Liliana the Last Hope might be worth a shot--haven't tried it myself. Personally, I don't see Elspeth doing anything important for this particular deck in the 4 CMC slot.
[edit] Found a thoughtful article about why Burn may be on its way out--Sorin might indeed be worse than an alternative nowadays. Not sure what I'd run in that slot, but Endless One might be right, or a single Herder. I'm even inclined to maybe give Blood Baron of Vizkopa a shot again, since that card dies to exactly nothing except sweepers and double-Bolt. Or of course, maybe a Lili would be best.
To be honest I would rather spend the last slot on a card to shore up my worst matchups (tron, ensnaring bridge decks) but I don't know what that card is
We have every tool to beat this deck.
Green @ it's best
The format is wide-open right now and everybody tries crazy Brews and new Decks.
Especially Collected Company was an issue at the last events.
But also Tron and Scapeshift are big Names right now.
I hope that Death's Shadow Jund will keep these Decks in Check.
It's the most promising candidate for doing so.
Edit:
Has somebody tested Bearer of Silence?
Sadly it can't block.
Green @ it's best
Scapeshift and trim are solid matchups. Adjust your land base to include 3-4 ghost quarters in 75 alongside with 2 surgical extractions.
The utility lands are very flexible. If I see more counterspell decks I go up to 3 cavern of souls in the 75.
I just love the flexibility of this deck. I feel confident that I can have a shot to win any tourney depending on how I SB for the meta.
I have pretty much all the cards in modern to play any deck and this is my favorite midrange deck to play.
3 wasteland strangler
4 matter reshaper
4 thought-knot seer
4 reality smasher
spells
2 liliana of the veil
1 liliana, the last hope
4 lingering souls
4 path to exile
3 fatal push
4 relic of progenitus
3 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
2 cavern of souls
2 ghost quarter
3 caves of koilos
4 eldrazi temple
1 vault of the archangel
4 marsh flats
1 godless shrine
2 swamp
1 plains
3 shambling vent
2 fragmentize
2 stony silence
1 grafdigger's cage
1 celestial purge
1 anguished unmaking
1 timely reinforcements
2 damnation
1 gideon, ally of zendikar
3 lost legacy
1 pithing needle
r1 naya burn
g1 bunch of discard with removal and I got there with beats and vault lifegain. g2 was very close but thank god for shambling vent. That card alone won me the game.
1-0
r2 mono U tron
These games were very long and interesting despite the fact I lost them both. Never saw a cavern which i desperately needed. Didn't see any SB cards except a stony which didn't do much. Too many counter and repeal effects. I feel the match is winnable though, it just didn't pan out. I just had no clock. I also only drew 1 temple so far in 4 games and it was late into the game. We will obviously lose a game of fair magic vs tron.
1-1
r3 grixis death shadow
both these games were complete and total stomps. It felt great. Lingering souls is a house and outside a possible battle rage he had no chance of winning (turns out he wasn't even playing them for some reason). The lifeloss they give themselves only helps us.
2-1
r4 jund death shadow
there was a LOT of death shadow at fnm surprisingly. First week it's been like that and BOY was I glad I chose this deck to play. Turns out jund version was just as easy as grixis although jund overall feels much stronger than grixis. Neither of these 2 games were all that hard. Here i only drew 1 temple again in 8 games of magic throughout the night. even with only playing dumb fair magic, these games weren't close.
3-1
thoughts: I rarely drew strangler and never had a target. Also rarely drew temple. That just felt weird, obviously these things happen especially with essentially no filtering, searching or card drawing. Overall, the deck played and felt really great despite no explosives hands. I was debating playing this or a slightly different version with blight herder and mind stone. I couldn't find the herders in time. Never regretted not having them. I'll try that version out sometime though.
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
How did both lilianas played for you? I really don't like the +1 of LOTV as our cards are all too important to dip...
I like Fatal Push a whole bunch and I don't feel like the extra Flats is really needed--I also use Ghost Quarter to trigger it on occasion. I am on a 3/3 split between Path and Push, with a fourth Path in the side. I have also gone to four Relics and only one Mind Stone. Lately my FNM record has been pretty bad, like 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, etc. There was even a 1-3 in there one night.
Ended up with a 5-2 Record, fighting against Merfolk 3 times (1-2), Bant Spirits (won), Gb Tron 2 times (2-0) and beating finally Bant Eldrazi in a hell of a game and a board swept up with huge Eldrazi's.
Green @ it's best