I agree about all your first points. Bant Eldrazi can definitely adapt to almost any meta. That doesn't mean it will be the best deck in every meta.
About your analysis of the GP, I heavily disagree about your evaluation of Grixis DS. There were 6 Grixis DS decks in the top 32 (the same amount as Affinity), and it was simply a matter of variance that there weren't 3 Grixis DS decks in the top 8 instead of the 3 Affinity decks (looking at top 8 for a 3400-person GP doesn't tell much. Not even top 32 does, although it does better). Sure people are trying to adapt to a meta with a huge amount of Grixis DS, but that doesn't mean that Grixis DS isn't the top dog anymore. It definitely still is, and its results clearly back it up. It's the deck with the largest representation in the top 32 of the last many SCG Opens and GPs. Even if it was "the flavor of week", that week would already have been lasting for the last several months, and nothing is indicating that this will change in the near future. That said, it's not unbeatable, and it's not oppressive like we have seen tier 1 decks have been before.
Exactly. I myself run DS Jund and I enjoy it. But my heart in Modern lies with the first one I played when Modern came about, Tron of any flavor... Then Eldrazi.... While I may not completely agree with the way cards were banned a year ago, it has evolved the way Eldrazi of any flavor is played. But since the meta around here has shifted I have been winning more games. Out of 40 people who play here regularly (small number for the Bay Area and Tri Valley areas, I know) about 5 people play Grixis DS and I consider it my bye when I'm playing any kind of Eldrazi deck. But when I'm running Bant Eldrazi I run a single Thrag in my main board because a quarter of the field plays burn. Meta call, I know, but that's the point I'm getting at.
I know DS Grixis is good, but what makes it good? When people meta and run Hatebears it gets nowhere fast. I myself have a cheap Hatebears deck (doesn't run 4 canopies) that's hilarious when I sit down and my opponent has to pay extra mana for everything. And there's one lantern control player and about a dozen affinity players, hence my sideboard is designed to win against both decks.
I'm just... well, I hate it when people use tiers to explain away all kinds of decks and forget to look at the bigger picture. I've seen some crazy decks out of Japan recently and they're doing things I never thought about and I think some are particularly fun, like Jeskai Eldrazi for example. But.... the format is healthy and I enjoyed seeing everything at the GP. I represented Colorless Eldrazi in Legacy and got my ass handed to me by a D&T deck early on and I enjoyed it all. Modern, I couldn't decide........... So I played Bant Eldrazi but I never made it past game 6 before I dropped out because I had the unlucky streak to run into Titanshift, a GW Hatebears deck, and BW Smallpox.
yeah... Well I never seem to have any luck against burn. Course, I'm not talking Naya Burn, or even red burn, but blue moon and red moon... Or Skred Red... Whatever. Dealing with game 1 Moons suck. I know, changing the subject, but still annoying.
To players who are having problems with counters company, I think Suppression Field could be a good option for Side, because pitting needle/rip doesn't stop all combos, linvala is very slow, and we dont have so many removals like grixis shadow.
I know it affects us a lot too, but it's better than loose the match and our dudes are bigger.
I have been running 3 Thalia main deck for months and she is the MVP of my deck.
I still have to try Reflector Mage, but it seems to be a really good card right now.
Drowner of Hope is not good any more, so i think I´ll cut for only 2 in main deck.
Top 8'ed another IQ. Wins were against Mono W hatebears, E-tron, Storm, Mirror, and ID against Merfolk for top 8. Lost to Death's shadow in swiss and counters company in top 8.
The loss to death's shadow was due to a misplay and a really sketchy keep game 2 with TKS and Rhonas. Rhonas is bad against death's shadow. It's functional card disadvantage. I think it definitely comes out postboard (I am still mainboarding 1, it's just too good otherwise).
Counters company matchup was quite interesting. Won game 1 off stirrings into EE into a quick clock. Game 2, put a needle on druid, he abrupt decays, I stirrings and mistakenly take a TKS instead of needle. He has 2 chords in hand with druid/duskwatch on board and I lose. The reason I took TKS was because I had no other gas and wanted to clock him. It was probably wrong we need to clock them quickly since there is no way we are outgrinding them - Ewit/Company/Township gives them the better lategame.
Game 3 was an amazing game. I start off with needle on druid. He has a Linvala which I path. I have displacer/drowner on board and displacer in hand with lethal in 2 turns AND a second path. I think I am in a good position. However he topdecks the path before I am able to land the second displacer and have the double displacer protection lock. I play the second displacer. He then topdecks a ballista and shoots down my displacer! Ugh. So now I have a drowner against a finks, a bunch of random dorks, and township. I keep attacking into the finks but he can just EOT gavony, so attacking effectively reads gain 2 life for him, but also prevents his finks from getting too big. He eventually topdecks into a chord into Scavenging ooze which quickly grows into a 6/6 because of all of the dead creatures in both graveyards. I topdeck a path to kill it. He then topdecks into a company with another finks and the game is quickly over when his finks get larger than my drowner.
Displacer is the key card in the counters company matchup. Pithing needle was great - I think 2 is the right number right now. 1 is not enough because of decay/rec sage, and also you need to shut down multiple activated abilities. I think Linvala is worth considering against them. I don't think it can replace needle because it doesn't stop the turn 3 kill. However, it's a big flying threat, and a lot of hate cards are functional card disadvantage. You NEED to kill them quickly or they will eventually outgrind you.
Based on some testing, the definite cards that come in are:
- 2 Needle (which is moderate to good against Etron and Affinity too!)
- 1 Cage (I don't think you want 2)
To consider:
- I would consider negate, but not disdainful stroke or flashfreeze. Negate at least protects from path.
- Rhonas is great - turns dorks into real threats and is hard to answer.
- Batterskull is pretty reasonable, and probably better than Worship as an answer to township. Worship probably isn't good since they are going to outgrind you and will eventually chord into a reclamation sage. At least with Batterskull you are clocking them.
- Ewit is a consideration, but it's only game-ending if you have a displacer (which means you are already ahead).
- RIP is pretty questionable. It takes away some of their card advantage and also shuts down the Viscera seer combo, but apparently they board that out.
- Ratchet bomb isn't great. It's too slow to shut off the combo.
What to sideboard out is kind of a dilemma. All cards have some purpose (except reshaper which just sucks). I was siding out 4 smashers but I'm not sure if that's right since we want to clock them quickly. Dorks are needed for velocity and stirrings is necessary to find EE/needle. TKS is probably necessary for the disruption but it can just endlessly get chumped (and doesn't block well after they get a township). Drowner is really slow but the displacer/drowner combo should be our main gameplan. Smasher doesn't attack into clogged boardstates well but it does provide the clock we need. I think skyspawner might be the right cut. It does provide ramp and is evasive which is important. However, it can easily just get ballista'd or they can just gavony on a birds and block it. I will have to test the matchup more...
Against Counters Company I'm testing Walking Ballista and Suppression Field (yes, its weird).
Walking Ballista: can kill vizier, dorks and Viscera Seer, and its also ok against Elves.
Suppression Field: its a fast, stops all infinite combos and Disrupts all key cards: gavony, fetch lands, Scavenging Ooze, Viscera Seer, Walking Ballista, Duskwatch Recruiter, Devoted Druid, Qasali Pridemage, Rhonas, BUT unfortunately also disrupts: Engineered explosives, our fetches (only 4), Drowner (tap) and Displacer.
In these cases I'm doing:
-4 displacer (More expensive activated ability), or -4 skysprawner if you dont care about evasion.
+2 cages
+2 Suppression Field
This way the Sfield will buy extra time to put in play high impact cards (smasher, TKS, drowner), then the gameplan is put pressure and be careful with CoCo.
I have tested ballista in the past and it's just too slow without the power of tron lands. Yes, it can lock out a game if we can get to a board state where we can pump it 1 a turn. But in the decks where we want it (affinity, elves, company), we don't have the luxury of doing that. Often we want to be killing creatures with higher toughness (master, ezuri, druid) in the first few turns anyway.
I'm still working on how to use Rhonas effectively... my game win% with it in the opener is pretty high, which is promising. It has several use cases:
It's best on the offense. T2 Rhonas into T3 TKS is pretty much as strong as T2 TKS into T3 smasher.
It's basically power/toughness agonistic and can block or attack into anything once active.
It permanently keeps worship active if your opponent cannot exile it.
It is wrath-proof.
Its main weaknesses is that it requires synergy with the rest of your deck. When your opponent's gameplan is to disrupt you (e.g. grixis shadow) AND quickly kill you before you can find enough mana to use his pump twice, it becomes a dead card. Mainly, this is GBx/UBx, where TKS is bad anyway.
So, here's who's who of when Rhonas is good in my current view.
- Grixis shadow: out.
- E-tron: in.
- Affinity: in. though you take out TKS postboard, as long as you keep in some number of smashers or drowners, it is active for the long game. Affinity postboard games tend to be either really short or really grindy, and Rhonas is great in either case (for the early Rhonas into Smasher kill, or just forcing them to endlessly chump block even if they have a cranial.
- Burn: in. it doesn't block well early but it allows you to race them.
- Dredge: in.
- Titanshift: in.
- Abzan company: in.
- Abzan: out.
- Gifts storm: in.
- UWx control: in. It's wrathproof and UW control gives you enough time to find the 6 lands to allow you to pump twice with him (which lets you turn him on with dorks alone).
- Living end: in. As long as your graveyard or hand has any other creature, he's pretty much going to be live, since Living end games tend to be grindy if you can survive past the first living end.
- Jund: out.
- Merfolk: in.
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My mainboard, which I think is optimized atm:
- 3x drowner
- 1x rhonas
- 0x reshaper
- 4x skyspawner
- 6x dorks
- 3x EE
- 0x dismember/blessed alliance
My sb for the tourney, and suggested changes:
- 2x ratchet bomb --> keep
- 2x chalice --> keep
- 2x pithing needle --> keep
- 2x worship --> keep
- 2x RIP ---> keep
- 1x grafdigger's --> keep
- 1x negate --> keep
- 1x natural state --> remove. natural state is obviously great against affinity but it is super narrow for the meta, as it is only great against blood moon and ensnaring bridge which are not that relevant. ratchet bomb still has the ability to deal with problematic noncreature permanents anyway.
- 1x flashfreeze --> remove. I cut disdainful stroke because I don't want to be on the counterspell gameplan against Etron, and flashfreeze hits both burn and titanshift. However, I realized I don't want to be on the counterspell gameplan against company decks either, so hitting only burn and titanshift is a little too narrow for me.
- 1x rhonas (2nd copy) --> remove. though the card is insane, the second copy was really awkward and probably a mistake. I never saw it but it was always super weird trying to decide whether to bring in the second copy.
- add 1 dismember. i think our deck is not good in the meta right now because of its mana inefficiency. but I think we can use our life total as more of a resource to be mana efficient. it's great against shadow, and also can be brought in against E-tron and company. against affinity and merfolk the lifeloss is definitely an issue but still probably worth bringing in.
- add 1 eternal witness. getting outgrinded by a company deck sucked and this card is also great against shadow. i stopped bringing in RIP against shadow because chalice is the better hate card and I don't want 4 cards that don't affect the board. it's worth bringing in any time you are reliant on hate cards in addition to being a great grindy card.
- add back in 1 batterskull. it just provides so much inevitability and removing it was a mistake. decks sometimes just randomly get hosed by this card and it is individually potentially game-ending unlike a thragtusk. I bring it in against E-tron, affinity, dredge, company, abzan, control, living end.
Thanks for the tip (damping matrix). I suggested Suppression Field initially because when we are on the draw we need something in turn 2 to avoid the combo in turn 3. Another advantage is that also affects fetchs (they use 8-9) and mostly gavony.
I am absolutely sure skyspawners are just better than reshapers in our shell, regardless of what the pros say and almost regardless of meta. My winrate with skyspawner in the opener is 63% over 324 games vs 53% with reshaper over 72 games.
Reshaper is not necessary for any specific matchup. Sure, it's good against burn and decent against death's shadow, but so is skyspawner. It's a dead card against affinity, company decks, and any fast combo decks (since it's just too slow).
However, skyspawners are necessary in several matchups. They give us a chance game 1 vs affinity. They're also great against burn by representing 2 chump blocks or some ramp. They provide some reach and ramp against death's shadow. They provide velocity via ramp against any fast deck and facilitate turn 3 smashers and enable turn 3 chalices or EE's on 2 without a dork. They are our primary wincon against merfolk after a worship has resolved.
One misconception is that reshaper is a good topdeck. I really don't think it is. It's just a chump blocker most of the time that allows you 1 re-draw which ~50% of the time will just be a land. Compare this to a dork, which can also chump block but is WAY better in the opening hand and minimizes mulligans. I would say skyspawner is a better topdeck actually since it is 100% of the time 2 chump blocks and 100% of the time 1 chump block and 1 evasive threat.
One key is that skyspawners need a more stable mana base with access to blue. This means no frilly utility lands like GQ (which I still think is just categorically wrong in our deck), plus more than 4 dorks. Any shell utilizing skyspawners should probably be playing a perfectly clean mana base, arguably with 5-6 dorks.
I do wonder if Endbringer is worth considering as a sideboard 1-of... Drowner is obviously better in our shell and must at least be a 3-of, but there are some matchups where we just need to change our threat base a little (e.g. siding out TKS or smasher). It's an even better grindier card than Ewit and doesn't need displacer to generate card advantage, and can come down as quickly as drowner. It also pings indefinitely to provide a soft lock against small creature decks like Elves and Affinity.
One of the main reasons I prefer Reshaper is that Skyspawner sometimes feels like its a tad straining to the mana-base. The first land I fetch is usually Temple Garden to open up Path, Stirrings, Displacer and Hierarch; this becomes awkward if my next play is Skyspawner. Even though our mana-base is so unfair that many other times it doesn't matter, I think it's worth thinking about
Thoughts on valorous stance? Seems like a card that always at least trades 1 for 1 in fair matchups where the 4 toughness threshold is always met. It doubles as protection against terminate in addition to being a kill spell so it's pretty much always relevant as long as there is some board state with fatties.
it's worth considering against grixis ds and eldrazi tron mainly...
Im thinking of wheeling out Bant Eldrazi again after spending some months on UW control - are counterspells any good in Bant anymore? What sb cards are essential these days?
Grixis Death's Shadow: 1 chalice on 1
- Still working this one out as it's a bad topdeck and it also shuts off path. My current gameplan is to only bring in one on the play. It has singlehandedly won games and has also been quite bad so I will need to do more testing.
Affinity: 1 chalice on 0 (in opener) or 2 or 3 (if topdecked), only on the play
- A chalice on 0 on the play can be a real stumbling block for Affinity by turning off their really nutty fast draws. We can typically handle slower draws like t1 signal pest into t2 steel overseer, but we can't deal with cranial'ed ornithopters on turn 2-3 that well.
- If the chalice is topdecked later in the game, it still has some function by shutting off certain topdecks. The card I'm most afraid of is Ghirapur aether grid, so if I have stabilized enough (i.e. we're in a prison-y board state with worship), I will sometimes chalice on 3. Yeah it seems weird to get to 6 mana against affinity but that situation happens more often than you'd think with worship. Often 2 is right, for example if worship is not up and topdeck cranial is a win, or they have a vault skirge that you can't deal with and overseer, cranial, or arcbound on that vault skirge would give them too much life.
- I don't bring it in on the draw because chalice on 0 is the strongest effect.
Burn: 1+ Chalices on 2, sometimes 1
- I think of Chalice as my drowner in this matchup - it doesn't help the initial stabilization but helps lock out the game. Chalice on 2 is good because it hits a lot of their more powerful burn spells like boros charm, and also turns off destructive revelry so worship is permanent (and they can't destroy your chalice!).
- Chalice on 1 is sometimes right if you really just need a quick way to stabilize. Say you are on the draw and you have a really slow hand, but happens to have worship. All you really need to do in that case is chalice on 1 and hope it buys you time to land the worship. In this scenario, it might be more valuable to stabilize quickly than to stirrings.
Titanshift: 1+ Chalice on 0
- There are a lot of dead cards in this matchup so admittedly Chalice comes in only to replace worse cards like EE. At the very least it shuts off pact, which depending on their list, can be a significant wincon.
Living end: 1+ Chalices on 0
- Counters their payoff spell and is nearly as powerful as RIP against them considering it can be cast on turn 0 and costs no tempo.
- If I for some reason am running the full playset of Chalices, I might consider putting 1 chalice on 3 to prevent beast within. Otherwise, ingot chewer still kills chalice so I'd rather have a backup chalice on 0 than to try to set up a lock.
Gifts storm: 1+ Chalices on 2
- Pretty much shuts off their entire deck.
- They also don't typically bring in answers to chalice like shatterstorm. Many of the gifts storm players in my local meta have been running repeal instead of echoing truth now to deal with my chalices, which is bad for me but is still overall favorable for me because it means they're diluting their gameplan and also not using the bounce spells on RIP.
Jeskai/UW Control: 1+ Chalices on 0, 1, 2, or 4
- Often we are siding out path against them.
- Path is more important to them than stirrings is to us.
- 0 can help counter an ancestral visions for no mana.
- 1 can be backbreaking if their hand is something like visions, snap, and path.
- 2 suts off snap and helix and nothing for you.
- 4 stops cryptic shenanegans (but you'll realistically never get to this point).
Lantern control: 1+ Chalices on 1
- Chalice on 1 takes away a lot of their mill pieces.
Elves: 1+ Chalices on 1, only on the play
- Same principle as affinity where taking away their velocity is sometimes all you need.
- It's not great because there are dudes you need to path like Ezuri. However, often their hand is something like dork dork dork chord, in which case chalice buys you plenty of time.
- Sometimes they just have the cavern, in which case the chalice still slows them down but it isn't as great.
- This one still needs to be tested and I'm not sure about it.
Bogles: 1+ Chalice on 1
- Chalice on 1 is pretty much winning.
Ad Nauseaum: 1+ Chalice on 1 then 3
- Chalice on 1 stops a lot of their cantrips and importantly Angel's grace (yes, it works despite the split second).
- Hopefully you buy yourself enough time to Chalice on 3 which more or less locks out the game by preventing Unlife and their wincons (lightning storm and lab man).
---
The thing about chalice people forget is that we don't always put it on 1. They just say, "oh it shuts off stirrings and path" and dismiss it. Then they say "if you're playing chalice you have to play 4" but there's no real reason behind that because you're never truly really in the situation of trying to replace your stirrings or paths with chalices unless path is a dead card in the matchup.
There's such low opportunity cost to playing a single chalice or two and such high potential upside. It encourages a play pattern that is much more productive for us against combo decks than holding up counter magic which loses so much tempo.
Also never forget we are the best deck to take advantage of Chalice on 2 since we can cast it on turn 3 the most reliably and have no cards on 2.
How do you plan on having chalice on zero on the play against Affinity with just 2x Chalice? There is a reason why ppl say 4x Chalice or zero - although there are matchups where getting a late chalice is just fine - the majority of the time you want to slam it asap..
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Exactly. I myself run DS Jund and I enjoy it. But my heart in Modern lies with the first one I played when Modern came about, Tron of any flavor... Then Eldrazi.... While I may not completely agree with the way cards were banned a year ago, it has evolved the way Eldrazi of any flavor is played. But since the meta around here has shifted I have been winning more games. Out of 40 people who play here regularly (small number for the Bay Area and Tri Valley areas, I know) about 5 people play Grixis DS and I consider it my bye when I'm playing any kind of Eldrazi deck. But when I'm running Bant Eldrazi I run a single Thrag in my main board because a quarter of the field plays burn. Meta call, I know, but that's the point I'm getting at.
I know DS Grixis is good, but what makes it good? When people meta and run Hatebears it gets nowhere fast. I myself have a cheap Hatebears deck (doesn't run 4 canopies) that's hilarious when I sit down and my opponent has to pay extra mana for everything. And there's one lantern control player and about a dozen affinity players, hence my sideboard is designed to win against both decks.
I'm just... well, I hate it when people use tiers to explain away all kinds of decks and forget to look at the bigger picture. I've seen some crazy decks out of Japan recently and they're doing things I never thought about and I think some are particularly fun, like Jeskai Eldrazi for example. But.... the format is healthy and I enjoyed seeing everything at the GP. I represented Colorless Eldrazi in Legacy and got my ass handed to me by a D&T deck early on and I enjoyed it all. Modern, I couldn't decide........... So I played Bant Eldrazi but I never made it past game 6 before I dropped out because I had the unlucky streak to run into Titanshift, a GW Hatebears deck, and BW Smallpox.
I know it affects us a lot too, but it's better than loose the match and our dudes are bigger.
I still have to try Reflector Mage, but it seems to be a really good card right now.
Drowner of Hope is not good any more, so i think I´ll cut for only 2 in main deck.
The loss to death's shadow was due to a misplay and a really sketchy keep game 2 with TKS and Rhonas. Rhonas is bad against death's shadow. It's functional card disadvantage. I think it definitely comes out postboard (I am still mainboarding 1, it's just too good otherwise).
Counters company matchup was quite interesting. Won game 1 off stirrings into EE into a quick clock. Game 2, put a needle on druid, he abrupt decays, I stirrings and mistakenly take a TKS instead of needle. He has 2 chords in hand with druid/duskwatch on board and I lose. The reason I took TKS was because I had no other gas and wanted to clock him. It was probably wrong we need to clock them quickly since there is no way we are outgrinding them - Ewit/Company/Township gives them the better lategame.
Game 3 was an amazing game. I start off with needle on druid. He has a Linvala which I path. I have displacer/drowner on board and displacer in hand with lethal in 2 turns AND a second path. I think I am in a good position. However he topdecks the path before I am able to land the second displacer and have the double displacer protection lock. I play the second displacer. He then topdecks a ballista and shoots down my displacer! Ugh. So now I have a drowner against a finks, a bunch of random dorks, and township. I keep attacking into the finks but he can just EOT gavony, so attacking effectively reads gain 2 life for him, but also prevents his finks from getting too big. He eventually topdecks into a chord into Scavenging ooze which quickly grows into a 6/6 because of all of the dead creatures in both graveyards. I topdeck a path to kill it. He then topdecks into a company with another finks and the game is quickly over when his finks get larger than my drowner.
Displacer is the key card in the counters company matchup. Pithing needle was great - I think 2 is the right number right now. 1 is not enough because of decay/rec sage, and also you need to shut down multiple activated abilities. I think Linvala is worth considering against them. I don't think it can replace needle because it doesn't stop the turn 3 kill. However, it's a big flying threat, and a lot of hate cards are functional card disadvantage. You NEED to kill them quickly or they will eventually outgrind you.
Based on some testing, the definite cards that come in are:
- 2 Needle (which is moderate to good against Etron and Affinity too!)
- 1 Cage (I don't think you want 2)
To consider:
- I would consider negate, but not disdainful stroke or flashfreeze. Negate at least protects from path.
- Rhonas is great - turns dorks into real threats and is hard to answer.
- Batterskull is pretty reasonable, and probably better than Worship as an answer to township. Worship probably isn't good since they are going to outgrind you and will eventually chord into a reclamation sage. At least with Batterskull you are clocking them.
- Ewit is a consideration, but it's only game-ending if you have a displacer (which means you are already ahead).
- RIP is pretty questionable. It takes away some of their card advantage and also shuts down the Viscera seer combo, but apparently they board that out.
- Ratchet bomb isn't great. It's too slow to shut off the combo.
What to sideboard out is kind of a dilemma. All cards have some purpose (except reshaper which just sucks). I was siding out 4 smashers but I'm not sure if that's right since we want to clock them quickly. Dorks are needed for velocity and stirrings is necessary to find EE/needle. TKS is probably necessary for the disruption but it can just endlessly get chumped (and doesn't block well after they get a township). Drowner is really slow but the displacer/drowner combo should be our main gameplan. Smasher doesn't attack into clogged boardstates well but it does provide the clock we need. I think skyspawner might be the right cut. It does provide ramp and is evasive which is important. However, it can easily just get ballista'd or they can just gavony on a birds and block it. I will have to test the matchup more...
Walking Ballista: can kill vizier, dorks and Viscera Seer, and its also ok against Elves.
Suppression Field: its a fast, stops all infinite combos and Disrupts all key cards: gavony, fetch lands, Scavenging Ooze, Viscera Seer, Walking Ballista, Duskwatch Recruiter, Devoted Druid, Qasali Pridemage, Rhonas, BUT unfortunately also disrupts: Engineered explosives, our fetches (only 4), Drowner (tap) and Displacer.
In these cases I'm doing:
-4 displacer (More expensive activated ability), or -4 skysprawner if you dont care about evasion.
+2 cages
+2 Suppression Field
This way the Sfield will buy extra time to put in play high impact cards (smasher, TKS, drowner), then the gameplan is put pressure and be careful with CoCo.
or
-3 Drowner
-1 Matter reshaper
+2 cages
+2 Walking Ballista
Unfortunately in Xmage I don't find many counter's company players to do more testing. Anyway, it's a very difficult match.
I'm still working on how to use Rhonas effectively... my game win% with it in the opener is pretty high, which is promising. It has several use cases:
Its main weaknesses is that it requires synergy with the rest of your deck. When your opponent's gameplan is to disrupt you (e.g. grixis shadow) AND quickly kill you before you can find enough mana to use his pump twice, it becomes a dead card. Mainly, this is GBx/UBx, where TKS is bad anyway.
So, here's who's who of when Rhonas is good in my current view.
- Grixis shadow: out.
- E-tron: in.
- Affinity: in. though you take out TKS postboard, as long as you keep in some number of smashers or drowners, it is active for the long game. Affinity postboard games tend to be either really short or really grindy, and Rhonas is great in either case (for the early Rhonas into Smasher kill, or just forcing them to endlessly chump block even if they have a cranial.
- Burn: in. it doesn't block well early but it allows you to race them.
- Dredge: in.
- Titanshift: in.
- Abzan company: in.
- Abzan: out.
- Gifts storm: in.
- UWx control: in. It's wrathproof and UW control gives you enough time to find the 6 lands to allow you to pump twice with him (which lets you turn him on with dorks alone).
- Living end: in. As long as your graveyard or hand has any other creature, he's pretty much going to be live, since Living end games tend to be grindy if you can survive past the first living end.
- Jund: out.
- Merfolk: in.
__
My mainboard, which I think is optimized atm:
- 3x drowner
- 1x rhonas
- 0x reshaper
- 4x skyspawner
- 6x dorks
- 3x EE
- 0x dismember/blessed alliance
My sb for the tourney, and suggested changes:
- 2x ratchet bomb --> keep
- 2x chalice --> keep
- 2x pithing needle --> keep
- 2x worship --> keep
- 2x RIP ---> keep
- 1x grafdigger's --> keep
- 1x negate --> keep
- 1x natural state --> remove. natural state is obviously great against affinity but it is super narrow for the meta, as it is only great against blood moon and ensnaring bridge which are not that relevant. ratchet bomb still has the ability to deal with problematic noncreature permanents anyway.
- 1x flashfreeze --> remove. I cut disdainful stroke because I don't want to be on the counterspell gameplan against Etron, and flashfreeze hits both burn and titanshift. However, I realized I don't want to be on the counterspell gameplan against company decks either, so hitting only burn and titanshift is a little too narrow for me.
- 1x rhonas (2nd copy) --> remove. though the card is insane, the second copy was really awkward and probably a mistake. I never saw it but it was always super weird trying to decide whether to bring in the second copy.
- add 1 dismember. i think our deck is not good in the meta right now because of its mana inefficiency. but I think we can use our life total as more of a resource to be mana efficient. it's great against shadow, and also can be brought in against E-tron and company. against affinity and merfolk the lifeloss is definitely an issue but still probably worth bringing in.
- add 1 eternal witness. getting outgrinded by a company deck sucked and this card is also great against shadow. i stopped bringing in RIP against shadow because chalice is the better hate card and I don't want 4 cards that don't affect the board. it's worth bringing in any time you are reliant on hate cards in addition to being a great grindy card.
- add back in 1 batterskull. it just provides so much inevitability and removing it was a mistake. decks sometimes just randomly get hosed by this card and it is individually potentially game-ending unlike a thragtusk. I bring it in against E-tron, affinity, dredge, company, abzan, control, living end.
Damping Matrix seems like a much better option than Suppression Field (and can be found with Ancient Stirrings).
Linvala, Keeper of Silence isn't too bad either.
Also, is Drowner of Hope even worth it anymore over something like Endbringer ?
Reshaper is not necessary for any specific matchup. Sure, it's good against burn and decent against death's shadow, but so is skyspawner. It's a dead card against affinity, company decks, and any fast combo decks (since it's just too slow).
However, skyspawners are necessary in several matchups. They give us a chance game 1 vs affinity. They're also great against burn by representing 2 chump blocks or some ramp. They provide some reach and ramp against death's shadow. They provide velocity via ramp against any fast deck and facilitate turn 3 smashers and enable turn 3 chalices or EE's on 2 without a dork. They are our primary wincon against merfolk after a worship has resolved.
One misconception is that reshaper is a good topdeck. I really don't think it is. It's just a chump blocker most of the time that allows you 1 re-draw which ~50% of the time will just be a land. Compare this to a dork, which can also chump block but is WAY better in the opening hand and minimizes mulligans. I would say skyspawner is a better topdeck actually since it is 100% of the time 2 chump blocks and 100% of the time 1 chump block and 1 evasive threat.
One key is that skyspawners need a more stable mana base with access to blue. This means no frilly utility lands like GQ (which I still think is just categorically wrong in our deck), plus more than 4 dorks. Any shell utilizing skyspawners should probably be playing a perfectly clean mana base, arguably with 5-6 dorks.
I do wonder if Endbringer is worth considering as a sideboard 1-of... Drowner is obviously better in our shell and must at least be a 3-of, but there are some matchups where we just need to change our threat base a little (e.g. siding out TKS or smasher). It's an even better grindier card than Ewit and doesn't need displacer to generate card advantage, and can come down as quickly as drowner. It also pings indefinitely to provide a soft lock against small creature decks like Elves and Affinity.
UWGBant EldraziUWGDecided I don't like Todd Stevens decks.UBRGrixis ControlUBR
UUUAnd anything that plays 4x Cryptic CommandUUU
it's worth considering against grixis ds and eldrazi tron mainly...
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Drowner of Hope
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
Lands (23)
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Breeding Pool
3 Brushland
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Yavimaya Coast
Spells (11)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Path to Exile
4 Ancient Stirrings
What decks are problematic on MTGO atm?
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
- Still working this one out as it's a bad topdeck and it also shuts off path. My current gameplan is to only bring in one on the play. It has singlehandedly won games and has also been quite bad so I will need to do more testing.
Affinity: 1 chalice on 0 (in opener) or 2 or 3 (if topdecked), only on the play
- A chalice on 0 on the play can be a real stumbling block for Affinity by turning off their really nutty fast draws. We can typically handle slower draws like t1 signal pest into t2 steel overseer, but we can't deal with cranial'ed ornithopters on turn 2-3 that well.
- If the chalice is topdecked later in the game, it still has some function by shutting off certain topdecks. The card I'm most afraid of is Ghirapur aether grid, so if I have stabilized enough (i.e. we're in a prison-y board state with worship), I will sometimes chalice on 3. Yeah it seems weird to get to 6 mana against affinity but that situation happens more often than you'd think with worship. Often 2 is right, for example if worship is not up and topdeck cranial is a win, or they have a vault skirge that you can't deal with and overseer, cranial, or arcbound on that vault skirge would give them too much life.
- I don't bring it in on the draw because chalice on 0 is the strongest effect.
Burn: 1+ Chalices on 2, sometimes 1
- I think of Chalice as my drowner in this matchup - it doesn't help the initial stabilization but helps lock out the game. Chalice on 2 is good because it hits a lot of their more powerful burn spells like boros charm, and also turns off destructive revelry so worship is permanent (and they can't destroy your chalice!).
- Chalice on 1 is sometimes right if you really just need a quick way to stabilize. Say you are on the draw and you have a really slow hand, but happens to have worship. All you really need to do in that case is chalice on 1 and hope it buys you time to land the worship. In this scenario, it might be more valuable to stabilize quickly than to stirrings.
Titanshift: 1+ Chalice on 0
- There are a lot of dead cards in this matchup so admittedly Chalice comes in only to replace worse cards like EE. At the very least it shuts off pact, which depending on their list, can be a significant wincon.
Living end: 1+ Chalices on 0
- Counters their payoff spell and is nearly as powerful as RIP against them considering it can be cast on turn 0 and costs no tempo.
- If I for some reason am running the full playset of Chalices, I might consider putting 1 chalice on 3 to prevent beast within. Otherwise, ingot chewer still kills chalice so I'd rather have a backup chalice on 0 than to try to set up a lock.
Gifts storm: 1+ Chalices on 2
- Pretty much shuts off their entire deck.
- They also don't typically bring in answers to chalice like shatterstorm. Many of the gifts storm players in my local meta have been running repeal instead of echoing truth now to deal with my chalices, which is bad for me but is still overall favorable for me because it means they're diluting their gameplan and also not using the bounce spells on RIP.
Jeskai/UW Control: 1+ Chalices on 0, 1, 2, or 4
- Often we are siding out path against them.
- Path is more important to them than stirrings is to us.
- 0 can help counter an ancestral visions for no mana.
- 1 can be backbreaking if their hand is something like visions, snap, and path.
- 2 suts off snap and helix and nothing for you.
- 4 stops cryptic shenanegans (but you'll realistically never get to this point).
Lantern control: 1+ Chalices on 1
- Chalice on 1 takes away a lot of their mill pieces.
Elves: 1+ Chalices on 1, only on the play
- Same principle as affinity where taking away their velocity is sometimes all you need.
- It's not great because there are dudes you need to path like Ezuri. However, often their hand is something like dork dork dork chord, in which case chalice buys you plenty of time.
- Sometimes they just have the cavern, in which case the chalice still slows them down but it isn't as great.
- This one still needs to be tested and I'm not sure about it.
Bogles: 1+ Chalice on 1
- Chalice on 1 is pretty much winning.
Ad Nauseaum: 1+ Chalice on 1 then 3
- Chalice on 1 stops a lot of their cantrips and importantly Angel's grace (yes, it works despite the split second).
- Hopefully you buy yourself enough time to Chalice on 3 which more or less locks out the game by preventing Unlife and their wincons (lightning storm and lab man).
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The thing about chalice people forget is that we don't always put it on 1. They just say, "oh it shuts off stirrings and path" and dismiss it. Then they say "if you're playing chalice you have to play 4" but there's no real reason behind that because you're never truly really in the situation of trying to replace your stirrings or paths with chalices unless path is a dead card in the matchup.
There's such low opportunity cost to playing a single chalice or two and such high potential upside. It encourages a play pattern that is much more productive for us against combo decks than holding up counter magic which loses so much tempo.
Also never forget we are the best deck to take advantage of Chalice on 2 since we can cast it on turn 3 the most reliably and have no cards on 2.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver