Well, after all everyone needs to decide for him/herself how important sculping hands is and how big of a downside Looting is compared to the upsides.
Definitely, and it’s not my opinion that looting builds are strictly wrong. I just think people are overselling the usefulness of the card in a deck that’s not really set up to support it. One take away I got from playtesting that jund reveler deck about a month ago is that looting can work with reveler alone, but unsurprisingly you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle playing looting without lingering souls. If you want to keep up with a deck like jeskai with 4 lootings in your deck, you have to start pitching lands to looting because you can’t afford to go down on spells. In the end, you end up super land light and feels really bad still being on 4 lands on turn 10. Because souls is just as useful in the bin, you can afford to keep your lands and continue developing. It’s a subtle, but big difference that I think you’ll feel in the long run.
But regardless, I hope it works out for you. I think there’s merit there, even if I don’t quite agree on everything.
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I just think people are overselling the usefulness of the card in a deck that’s not really set up to support it.
Well, I can say the opposite as well, its also not right to only focus on the bad sides of the card or to underestimate it, there are 2 sides to the coin, and I think for this particular card its pretty close, we have no clear advantage to make it a straight up mistake to not run the card and we also have no clear disadvantage that makes it a mistake to run it. So yeah, it comes down to playstyles and opinions.
EDIT: to provide a counterpoint here though Delver, if you’re playing against tron, what exactly are you hoping to find with a faithless looting in game 1? We have 0 maindeck LD. Your chances in game 1 are truly abysmal even with a perfect hand, and in games 2 and 3 the bad cards should be out of your deck.
Just saw this, so: Bolt for extra reach, if you play looting turn 1 then a goyf, pulse to deal with PWs, discard if you have many clunky and not impactful enough cards in hand. I think there are enough cards to find.
EDIT: to provide a counterpoint here though Delver, if you’re playing against tron, what exactly are you hoping to find with a faithless looting in game 1? We have 0 maindeck LD. Your chances in game 1 are truly abysmal even with a perfect hand, and in games 2 and 3 the bad cards should be out of your deck.
Just saw this, so: Bolt for extra reach, if you play looting turn 1 then a goyf, pulse to deal with PWs, discard if you have many clunky and not impactful enough cards in hand. I think there are enough cards to find.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you expect any of those cards to help you win game 1 against tron, I think you’re gonna have a bad time. Looting for the turn two goyf is kinda legit, but is contingent on you either knowing what you’re fighting or being on the draw in which case you’re likely already dead. My only point is that the only way to win the tron matchup game 1 is for your opponent to stumble A LOT, so I don’t think it’s a particularly good example.
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@yriel: Honestly I have to say the way you discuss about thinks makes it impossible to work together like you want to, so lets leave it like that. At least for me.
@Tempest: Bearer of bad news? Honestly that sounds to me like you would talk to some newcomer to the deck, could you leave such things out please? Reid Duke believes that Jund can win nearly half of its matches against Tron if you play tight. I think that this is not that far off from the actual truth. I really believe don't evaluate Tron right, I think matchups like Living End or Valakut are far worse than Tron.
Yeah sure it requires the Tron player to stumble, but Looting makes it so that you can more consistantly turn those opportunities into a win when the opponent stumbles. I think for my part it really feels frustrating when my tron opponent stumbles and after all I still loose because I didn't have the right cards to punish my opponent for that. I think Looting could do some work. Often times I got a great game against Tron where I curved turn 1 discard into turn 2 goyf, only to get my opponent down to one last swing with goyf before they drop wurmcoil, karn or Ugin. I would always have loved Looting here to find that extra reach. So in that sense, I disagree with you that this is a bad example.
I get that Delver, but I think it’s a bad example because it doesn’t really show off the strengths of looting. The scenario you’ve described depends on your opponent having a bad tron draw (which is uncommon), you not having goyf already, having a looting in hand, and having that looting find goyf in your top 2 cards. The other cards (bolt, thoughtseize, pulse) are just really not good enough, so I feel like we’re talking about a difference of an 80/20 vs 78/22 matchup game 1.
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I get that Delver, but I think it’s a bad example because it doesn’t really show off the strengths of looting. The scenario you’ve described depends on your opponent having a bad tron draw (which is uncommon), you not having goyf already, having a looting in hand, and having that looting find goyf in your top 2 cards. The other cards (bolt, thoughtseize, pulse) are just really not good enough, so I feel like we’re talking about a difference of an 80/20 vs 78/22 matchup game 1.
So, lately great new SB for the Tron match have been printed, so we have pretty good options to that. However, I want to leave those cards out right now. Why? Well, I just said Reid Duke says Jund can win nearly half their games against Tron. He did say that before all those strong Tron hate cards like Damping Sphere or Alpine Moon were printed. So at that time Jund pretty much only had Fulminator Mage against Tron.
Now, back to your matchup assessment, do you really think Fulminator changes the matchup from 80/20 to 60/40 or so (if it firstly is as bad as you say it is and secondly we trust reid)? I personally don't think so. The best line we have against Tron will always be turn 1 TS into turn 2 Goyf. Fulminator as a card does actually only one thing: It allows our goyf to attack about one turn more before the opponent reasambles tron again. As you said, its a very consistant deck at assembling tron. So Fulminator realistically gives you only one extra turn. And in my mind Looting can exactly do the same thing if you are able to cut the clock off a turn by looting into more reach like Bolt.
To conclude, yeah sure, you are certainly right that the matchup is a bad one and probably you won't win every game if you play Looting now. Of course not and I am totally with you here. But its worth noting that you can squeeze some valuable percentage points against the matchup through this.
The 80/20 was in reference to the matchup game 1. I think there’s enough good hate post board that tron is close to 50/50 nowadays if you choose to put the cards in the board.
Also fulminator slowing down tron for a turn =/= having a lightning bolt. Attacking twice with all of your creatures is almost always more damage (sometimes even twice as much damage) than 1 attack plus a bolt.
The 80/20 was in reference to the matchup game 1. I think there’s enough good hate post board that tron is close to 50/50 nowadays if you choose to put the cards in the board.
You don't read my posts and don't seem to try to understand what I mean, so okay, lets leave it.
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
The 80/20 was in reference to the matchup game 1. I think there’s enough good hate post board that tron is close to 50/50 nowadays if you choose to put the cards in the board.
You don't read my posts and don't seem to try to understand what I mean, so okay, lets leave it.
I misread one line man, give me a break. I skimmed your post because it’s a little exhausting having to explain an opinion that is not novel or controversial, namely that a traditional jund deck does not have the cards to beat tron in the maindeck. You are entirely dependent on your opponent to stumble, and the ~20% of the time that happens is the entirety of our 20% win rate game 1, no exceptions. I don’t recall the last time I won a game against tron where they had turn 3 or 4 tron into at least 2 payoffs, which represents the other 80% of the time. Being able to consistently advance your own gameplan would help, yes, but you’re talking about a pretty small subset of the already-small 20% of games that you could possibly win in the first place.
Having reread your post, the answer to your question is absolutely unequivocally yes. Does fulminator alone swing the matchup that much? Maybe not on the draw, but a combination of fulminator and 1-2cmc spells to bust up t3 tron on the draw, absolutely. Without cards to bust up their tron you’re basically just letting Jesus take the wheel.
I had the same experience with Looting, its almost always just great, whereas the potential to be bad is always there of course. Overall I am willing to risk that to be able to have a consistant strategy. And yeah, PKN is straight up bonkers. She makes up for so much, its incredible. She is undoubtedly reds lingering souls.
Indeed Reveler is not optimal in this build. And I think your revelers played out exactly as you can expect it: Since you have rather low amounts of Instants and sorceries compared to Mardu, you have to accept the fact that your reveler cost 3 or 4 mana on average. Thats just a fact in this deck. And reveler basically is there in order to make up with CA disadvantage in a big way: Drawing 3 is not somthing neglectible.
As for your spicey jund list, I am not a huge fan of running 2 Terminate, 2 Push AND 2 Pulse. I would totally drop one terminate for either the 7th discard spell or the fourth Lili PW. Having 2 Terminate and 2 Push really is a liability against the control decks, which is already comparably tougher due to the missing of BBE.
Concerning your question of cascading into the second Bob: It depends on the current boardstate and the matchup. Its a bit risky to cast him, so the safest would be to not cast him. However, you can get rewarded if you bury the opponent in CA then.
Regarding the “two bobs” question, my philosophy is generally to avoid taking the risk on two bobs if it seems like I’m far enough ahead to the point of being able to win without it. If you’re already a favorite to win it seems kinda silly to press the advantage and open yourself up to losing to bad bob variance. If I’m behind though, or the game is neck and neck and I still have a healthy life total, I’d say take the risk. Sometimes you have to take risks to steal games.
Situations like these are why I advocate for not running bob anymore, or at least only in very small numbers, but I digress.
I don’t think reveler costing 3-4 mana is that big a deal. You’re talking about a 4-for-1 here after all.
I actually bought a speculative playset of Pia and Kiran nalaar, shortly before discovering it was gonna be the rare in an intro deck and would therefore never be worth anything. Rip. But anyways, maybe it’s time to bust them out?
Personally epica, I’d do the 7th discard spell. Turn 1 discard is such a powerful opener and playing 7 discard is reasonably free when you have faithless looting, plus it will help cheapen your bedlam revelers where LotV might not. Just from personal experience, 7 discard spells has felt really great if you can mitigate their weakness as a late-game topdeck.
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u think we can adapt a traverse build instead of looting? seems really good to me.
Jund Death's Shadow is what put Traverse the Ulvenwald on the map in the beginning. Not much has changed with those lists, but I'm not a fan of those lists specifically (4/5-color lists).
Found it! GP Vancouver a year ago. There were Jund Death's Shadow lists before this but this was the weekend where Traverse helped streamline the deck and put 3 pilots in top 8 to become the scourge of Modern. I remember those times fondly since they kicked big mana decks square in the chops.
u think we can adapt a traverse build instead of looting? seems really good to me.
Jund Death's Shadow is what put Traverse the Ulvenwald on the map in the beginning. Not much has changed with those lists, but I'm not a fan of those lists specifically (4/5-color lists).
Found it! GP Vancouver a year ago. There were Jund Death's Shadow lists before this but this was the weekend where Traverse helped streamline the deck and put 3 pilots in top 8 to become the scourge of Modern. I remember those times fondly since they kicked big mana decks square in the chops.
I mean a list just like this but not with death shadow so we are not poor against going wide strategies.
I mean yes we could. There were builds that also included Seal of Fire and other shenanigans like Executioner's Capsule. My issue with those decks is, if you're going that wide on the color wheel, why wouldn't you play a Death's Shadow variant instead?
I mean yes we could. There were builds that also included Seal of Fire and other shenanigans like Executioner's Capsule. My issue with those decks is, if you're going that wide on the color wheel, why wouldn't you play a Death's Shadow variant instead?
Definitely, and it’s not my opinion that looting builds are strictly wrong. I just think people are overselling the usefulness of the card in a deck that’s not really set up to support it. One take away I got from playtesting that jund reveler deck about a month ago is that looting can work with reveler alone, but unsurprisingly you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle playing looting without lingering souls. If you want to keep up with a deck like jeskai with 4 lootings in your deck, you have to start pitching lands to looting because you can’t afford to go down on spells. In the end, you end up super land light and feels really bad still being on 4 lands on turn 10. Because souls is just as useful in the bin, you can afford to keep your lands and continue developing. It’s a subtle, but big difference that I think you’ll feel in the long run.
But regardless, I hope it works out for you. I think there’s merit there, even if I don’t quite agree on everything.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Well, I can say the opposite as well, its also not right to only focus on the bad sides of the card or to underestimate it, there are 2 sides to the coin, and I think for this particular card its pretty close, we have no clear advantage to make it a straight up mistake to not run the card and we also have no clear disadvantage that makes it a mistake to run it. So yeah, it comes down to playstyles and opinions.
Just saw this, so: Bolt for extra reach, if you play looting turn 1 then a goyf, pulse to deal with PWs, discard if you have many clunky and not impactful enough cards in hand. I think there are enough cards to find.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you expect any of those cards to help you win game 1 against tron, I think you’re gonna have a bad time. Looting for the turn two goyf is kinda legit, but is contingent on you either knowing what you’re fighting or being on the draw in which case you’re likely already dead. My only point is that the only way to win the tron matchup game 1 is for your opponent to stumble A LOT, so I don’t think it’s a particularly good example.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
@Tempest: Bearer of bad news? Honestly that sounds to me like you would talk to some newcomer to the deck, could you leave such things out please? Reid Duke believes that Jund can win nearly half of its matches against Tron if you play tight. I think that this is not that far off from the actual truth. I really believe don't evaluate Tron right, I think matchups like Living End or Valakut are far worse than Tron.
Yeah sure it requires the Tron player to stumble, but Looting makes it so that you can more consistantly turn those opportunities into a win when the opponent stumbles. I think for my part it really feels frustrating when my tron opponent stumbles and after all I still loose because I didn't have the right cards to punish my opponent for that. I think Looting could do some work. Often times I got a great game against Tron where I curved turn 1 discard into turn 2 goyf, only to get my opponent down to one last swing with goyf before they drop wurmcoil, karn or Ugin. I would always have loved Looting here to find that extra reach. So in that sense, I disagree with you that this is a bad example.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
So, lately great new SB for the Tron match have been printed, so we have pretty good options to that. However, I want to leave those cards out right now. Why? Well, I just said Reid Duke says Jund can win nearly half their games against Tron. He did say that before all those strong Tron hate cards like Damping Sphere or Alpine Moon were printed. So at that time Jund pretty much only had Fulminator Mage against Tron.
Now, back to your matchup assessment, do you really think Fulminator changes the matchup from 80/20 to 60/40 or so (if it firstly is as bad as you say it is and secondly we trust reid)? I personally don't think so. The best line we have against Tron will always be turn 1 TS into turn 2 Goyf. Fulminator as a card does actually only one thing: It allows our goyf to attack about one turn more before the opponent reasambles tron again. As you said, its a very consistant deck at assembling tron. So Fulminator realistically gives you only one extra turn. And in my mind Looting can exactly do the same thing if you are able to cut the clock off a turn by looting into more reach like Bolt.
To conclude, yeah sure, you are certainly right that the matchup is a bad one and probably you won't win every game if you play Looting now. Of course not and I am totally with you here. But its worth noting that you can squeeze some valuable percentage points against the matchup through this.
Also fulminator slowing down tron for a turn =/= having a lightning bolt. Attacking twice with all of your creatures is almost always more damage (sometimes even twice as much damage) than 1 attack plus a bolt.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
You don't read my posts and don't seem to try to understand what I mean, so okay, lets leave it.
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
I misread one line man, give me a break. I skimmed your post because it’s a little exhausting having to explain an opinion that is not novel or controversial, namely that a traditional jund deck does not have the cards to beat tron in the maindeck. You are entirely dependent on your opponent to stumble, and the ~20% of the time that happens is the entirety of our 20% win rate game 1, no exceptions. I don’t recall the last time I won a game against tron where they had turn 3 or 4 tron into at least 2 payoffs, which represents the other 80% of the time. Being able to consistently advance your own gameplan would help, yes, but you’re talking about a pretty small subset of the already-small 20% of games that you could possibly win in the first place.
Having reread your post, the answer to your question is absolutely unequivocally yes. Does fulminator alone swing the matchup that much? Maybe not on the draw, but a combination of fulminator and 1-2cmc spells to bust up t3 tron on the draw, absolutely. Without cards to bust up their tron you’re basically just letting Jesus take the wheel.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Indeed Reveler is not optimal in this build. And I think your revelers played out exactly as you can expect it: Since you have rather low amounts of Instants and sorceries compared to Mardu, you have to accept the fact that your reveler cost 3 or 4 mana on average. Thats just a fact in this deck. And reveler basically is there in order to make up with CA disadvantage in a big way: Drawing 3 is not somthing neglectible.
As for your spicey jund list, I am not a huge fan of running 2 Terminate, 2 Push AND 2 Pulse. I would totally drop one terminate for either the 7th discard spell or the fourth Lili PW. Having 2 Terminate and 2 Push really is a liability against the control decks, which is already comparably tougher due to the missing of BBE.
Concerning your question of cascading into the second Bob: It depends on the current boardstate and the matchup. Its a bit risky to cast him, so the safest would be to not cast him. However, you can get rewarded if you bury the opponent in CA then.
Regarding the “two bobs” question, my philosophy is generally to avoid taking the risk on two bobs if it seems like I’m far enough ahead to the point of being able to win without it. If you’re already a favorite to win it seems kinda silly to press the advantage and open yourself up to losing to bad bob variance. If I’m behind though, or the game is neck and neck and I still have a healthy life total, I’d say take the risk. Sometimes you have to take risks to steal games.
Situations like these are why I advocate for not running bob anymore, or at least only in very small numbers, but I digress.
I don’t think reveler costing 3-4 mana is that big a deal. You’re talking about a 4-for-1 here after all.
I actually bought a speculative playset of Pia and Kiran nalaar, shortly before discovering it was gonna be the rare in an intro deck and would therefore never be worth anything. Rip. But anyways, maybe it’s time to bust them out?
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Jund Death's Shadow is what put Traverse the Ulvenwald on the map in the beginning. Not much has changed with those lists, but I'm not a fan of those lists specifically (4/5-color lists).
Found it! GP Vancouver a year ago. There were Jund Death's Shadow lists before this but this was the weekend where Traverse helped streamline the deck and put 3 pilots in top 8 to become the scourge of Modern. I remember those times fondly since they kicked big mana decks square in the chops.
I mean a list just like this but not with death shadow so we are not poor against going wide strategies.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1090346#paper
we can replace arcitects of will for a Mishra's bauble
I played with Executioner's Capsule for a good while in a Rock deck with Glissa, the Traitor. It was big fun on occasion. Good stuff for FNM frolicking.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn