I am sorry but i disagree about this kind of reflexion, i am 100% sure one of us is right and the other guy is just wrong. I just show my experience and quick justifications about this choice but like the thoughtseize discussion, i want to see counter-arguments (if you want and have time obv).
I could be very interested to see your justifications. Moreover, the "it works for me" is hard to observe and compare :/ so i disagree with " if it works for you then there's no reason to change it. " maybe if i change it i will do better score.
What I usually understand by "personal preference" is simply meta game adjustments. Like if the meta I am playing in does not have any KCI, your argument of having more shatters is not relevant for me. In that sense it is hard to say one is 100 % right about this, because you always have to take into account in which meta you are playing. Since we are a interactive deck one of the most important aspects of being successful with the deck is taking advantage of a specific metagame imo. And I think this is the case since modern is so wide open (the "you can't prepare for everything aspect") and the fact that there are quite some linear decks out there like Humans and Hollow One and Spirits. Against these kind of decks you have to find proper answers and as well on time. And therefore it is hard to have discussions about cards being played as a 3-of or 4-of. The difference is hard to evaluate. Like for me, in my meta there are quite a few Spirits decks and in general creature based decks. Often in those KCommand is too clunky for me, so I could not play the card as a 4 of. The same is true for LoTV in my case, for which reason I won't play more than 3 copies.
Yeah, comparing those can surely be of interest as well. Since BBE was covered in the creatures comparison, it would make sense to focus on the 2 and 3 drop spells we have access to. You could include all variaty of cards like Trophy, Decay, Terminate, Dreadbore, KCommand, LoTV, LtLH, Pulse...maybe even the one drops.
This seems like a good idea, since it could help evaluating the spell suite for one particular build. If you want to share your input on this, it would be great. I can use the information to create a similar table and compare the different opinions on the cards against the most popular matchup.
Its a bit different from my original version. I managed to incoorporate a treetop village in a 24 land build where no mana requirements are hurt really. I got 18 black sources as well as 18 red sources by including the mountain (therefore also the 4-4-1 split of fetchlands) which means Lilianas and Angers should not be a problem. To round this up, I have 16 green sources for the rest. I am running a pretty low curve with 13 one drops, but I really don't want to have too many clunky spells in a 24 landbase, and I think in the current meta a lower curve could be quite good due to the linear decks like Spirits, Humans, Hardened Scales and Burn. 3 KCommands is an experiment, I am looking to still have a decent grinding power in midrange mirrors and control (due to the lower curve I am lacking that, most importantly the 4th bbe) for which reason a third command could help. Not sure about that though. It also allows me to only run 1 Grudge in theory, which frees up a SB slot.
My sideboard is pretty straight forward, with only nissa being a new addition. Since rock is picking her up I want to give her a try in Jund also. It could very well be that other options like Chandras could be better of course. But I like the combination of grinding power and fast clock which she provides (well, fast clock as soon as she hits the bf, of course 5 mana are still 5 mana, not looking to bring her in against combo decks).
Tron should be beatable due to 2 Spheres and 3 trophies.
I am sceptical in the control matchup, but thats why I am intersted in Nissa as well here. Of course trophies are helping here also.
So the overall flexslots for me personally are the second push, the third KCommand, the nissa and the huntmaster.
Lavamancer main is a great choice imo, you also play 9 fetches in order to get the max out of him.
24 lands are enough. I am convinced that the deck doesn't need more lands, played some bigger tournaments in September with 24 lands and never felt the necessity of land #25.
I also believe 3 trophies is the ideal number to start with, the card is amazing but you don't want to cast it in the early game apart from the Tron matchup or in some hopeless situations.
So far I have been playing with 2/2 basics, no mountain. But a mountain has definitely some upsides, especially with your sb configuration.
I would absolutely play the 4th BBE over a 3rd K-command. BBE is Jund's best answer against UW and the meta is flooded with control at the moment. 3 K-commands seem unnecessary to me.
I only play 1 push but added 1 pulse beacause I still like the versatility of the card against tokens etc and it can often be the 4th trophy. Lavamancer and last hope make 2nd push not as important anymore imo.
I'm also convinced 24 lands is where we want to be, but having 25 isn't necessarily a bad thing either. It really depends on
what a player wants to include in their 75. I think if someone has an affinity for BBE's and different 4+ cmc cards in their sideboard they should push up to 25. On the other hand, if they're just packing the elfs and staying relatively low on cmc (somewhere between 6-8 3cmc spells), they should be fine on 24.
I also believe 3 Trophy's is the right number. I started at 4, and while it being a great catch-all, it's still just a removal spell. I felt that my opponent was getting ahead of me easier than normal, so the 4th trophy quickly turned into a 3rd KCommand; putting me somewhere near @FlyingDelver 's numbers.
On that topic, noting the balance of KCommand and Trophy is pretty important. Having 3 of each basically solves any problem in modern with terrifying efficiency without overloading on either spell. I would urge people to give it a shot in their lists before totally knocking the ideas has worked very well so far.
@Hype_rion These are some fair points, but in my experience a 24 landbase combined with 4 BBE has always been a bit too clunky for me. Thats why I am choosing a third KCommand for now. But I will reevaluate after a couple of sessions.
The second Push might not be necessary given Lavamancer and LtLH, but I really want to have a good aggro matchup. Like beating Spirits, Humans and Hardened Scales is not something you can expect. The matchups are closer than people think. And the problem still holds true that when you stumble in the first few turns, you are likely dead when your opponent doesn't stumble. And Since Jund stumbles more than those linear aggro decks do, it means I want some extra help to firm the matchups. Therefore I skimp on Pulse right now.
Lavamancer isn't too bad in other matchups too. It can help against Tron to get the final points of dmg in without needing to attack through a wurmcoil or thragtusk. It might alos help against control to finish of PWs or just go to the face. But of course lavamancer is not the best in those matchups.
Talking about Nissa, I can only give you my experience from legacy. She is amazing against control (and especially Jace/Teferi) mostly because people don't expect her. I wouldn't worry about her cmc as getting to 5 lands is never a problem against Ux decks, no matter whether playing 24 or 25 lands.
2nd Push might be a strong meta choice against Spirits/Humans but I am convinced that Pulse is the better card against Scales if you worry about that matchup. I think having 11 cmc 1 spells is enough (mostly because in my meta I have to board out push extremely often), but again, I can see the circumstances in which you might want a 2nd push in the mainboard.
Yeah, Lavamancer on turn 1 is something Spirits and Humans often can't beat in game 1, therefore (and for his many other applications) I like having 1 in the mainboard. I think Humans has become a 45/55 matchup, therefore I decided to give myself an advantage in g1. We currently witness a downfall of Humans, not because the deck has become weaker, but people decide to try out other things (no humans list went 5-0 last week), so I have to see whether he stays in the mainboard but for now I am very happy with the card.
Played a bit more with Frenzy, I'm up to about 50 total games with the card, and I continue to adjust my list to maximize it.
On the one hand, cards you want in your deck due to frenzy aren't that different than what you want to cascade into... you just want everything to always be castable. On the other hand, I'm finding myself a bit threat light because I had to remove creature lands. The threat count is fine when I cast a frenzy, but games without a frenzy are harder to manage. Here's the current list:
I'm 25-22 in games, 10-9 in rounds, which isn't too surprising since I'm not a very good player.
Hey man, give yourself a break. Live, learn, and Jund em out it's all well and good here. Glad someone is testing frenzy. We need people to sleeve up new cards and evaluate them. Might be time to jump ship on that card tho.
Hey man, give yourself a break. Live, learn, and Jund em out it's all well and good here. Glad someone is testing frenzy. We need people to sleeve up new cards and evaluate them. Might be time to jump ship on that card tho.
Well, I recognize that I'll never 5-0 with the deck. It's probably capable of it, but I make a lot of misplays, some because I'm just bad, and some because I'm really bad on MTGO. Anyways, I guess the unstated point I was trying to get at is that if something has me winning over 50% of games, there's a lot of free wins being collected. In the 29/54 games I've won I've resolved Frenzy in around 20 of those (not sure on exact numbers). I've won every game Frenzy has resolved except for one.
Plaguecrafter is great. It's a discard spell against combo that you can recur with Kolaghan's and Liliana. It's strong against Tron threats. It answers Teferi and Jace. It's also not completely horrible against cards like Rest in Peace since it gives you a way to cash in those 0/1 Goyfs for a stronger body. It's also a good way to get a creature into your graveyard for Grim Flayer.
3 mana Nissa and Engineered Explosives have both been really bad. My next iteration of the deck will be removing them. Aside from those two cards, everything in the SB overperforms. I will likely be bringing in some Grim Lavamancers.
Sure, obviously. If you resolve that mean the board is ok, your hp is ok etc... you need to have that to resolve a "nothing" cmc-4 spell before untap with it.
I have cast it in several situations where I was losing but the opponents clock was still 2 turns away. Then I turn around and win. In a deck like Jund where you have a lot of removal, most aggro decks cannot kill you on turn 4, turn 4's really only happen in Modern when you don't interact at all with your opponent. That gives you plenty of time to cast it and untap. It's really no different than what you need to resolve a BBE. Sure, BBE is more aggressive but it only hits for 3, if you're at board parity it's tapping out for only minor board presence.
Outpost Siege is not close at all. Outpost Siege is only 1 card per turn, this is more like 4 to 5 cards per turn.
It can be. I've been playing it on Arena, and it's bonkers there, especially combined with Runaway Steam-Kin. Obviously we don't want RSK in this deck, but I am definitely interested in the results of people playing Frenzy.
@Aazadan : both are value engine, same mana cost, same type card, they do nothing if they are played turn 4. outpost siege gives you 2 card for sure t5 and experimental doesn't give you 4/5 cards turn 5. Later any other experimental or 2 lands stop you, if you have only 1 land on the top and no other experimental, you can play 1 land + 2-1cmc spells + 1 3cmc spell +1 2cmc spell : 7 mana , this is a nice turn 5 and 6.
I think you are very too biased on that card, i can understand how/when it's good but it's not better than any other 4-drop anytime.
That's why I'm playing 11-12 fetchlands, Grim Flayer, Liliana, the Last Hope, and in the sideboard Nihil Spellbomb that allows for a lot of top deck manipulation so that 2 lands don't stop you, 20/75 cards in the deck are capable of manipulating your library. The interaction between Flayer/Frenzy in particular is quite strong. Since most of my deck is 1-2 mana, it's pretty typical for your turn 5 to be 2 2 drops, a 1 drop, and a land. That's 4 cards, 3 cards in advantage, which I'll point out is already above baseline for the format (a draw 3 is usually 5 mana... excepting Visions which is quite slow). So in just that, you're already a mana ahead in value on a single turn. Then you get to do it again the following turn.
This whole argument is hilarious. If you think Experimental Frenzy and Outpost Siege are the same card, then you're either talking out of your ass because you have no experience with Frenzy or you just don't understand. When you build around Frenzy, it straight up just blows out anything Outpost Siege ever did because what Outpost Siege does is locked in. It's pretty obvious that if you're only playing from the top of your library, you may end up not getting cards that you can cast for whatever reason or just aren't good in a particular situation. That is why you do have to build around it in the same way we try to choose our cards for a BloodBraid Elf build. This is why Aazadan plays Grim Flayer in the deck. I've seen others play surveil cards in Sultai builds. It still isn't my preferred way to play Jund, but it has some potential for sure.
I mean the only naysayer so far seems to be yriel. How about you just try something before you crap on it for once?
@chaos021 : thanks for your aggressivity again, i have always the feeling to be aggressive sometimes but each time you show how to be worst.
Do you have try to keep thoughtseize against burn before say i'm wrong ?
Yes, I have. That's why I'm adamant that it's just wrong.
I don't think so but i listen people which test what i say or not. I tested Tempest's list, FlyingDelver's list, Duke's list too.
I don't see when i crap on it, may i have the right to say i think it's bad ? Can i try to justify a little ? Can i have the right to be wrong ?
How can you have any perspective when you clearly haven't tried it?
I have more problem with the justifications of Aazadan than the card itself.
You make just as many more blanket statements than Aazadan does concerning solely the card's relative power to another card, and then go on to talk about why the way Aazadan explains it is poor. You're doing the same thing! More importantly, those are very much connected the way you wrote it.
But 3 people disagree with me so it's totally useless to continue to discuss here i guess except if i say the card is good.
Your "idea" of discussion is kinda poor. You want to someone to justify every aspect of what they're testing and deliver it to you how you want to receive it. It's like someone came to you with a flying car. Now you want them to present a detailed presentation on the pros and cons like they're at a science convention. The best part is that you usually present your own sentiment as an argument when that's clearly what you will not accept from anyone else. At some point, it's up to you to justify your own concepts of a thing.
"I will give a short try to your list"
Always after you want to crap on something. That's my problem. I seriously don't mind a critical discussion, but if all you're coming armed with is a boatload of "no's," I'll pass.
I should at least note that Aazadan does a good job of at least giving some numbers. It's not a long-term statistical representation, but it's more than just his or her own experience. It's actual numbers that at least point to something! Aazadan is usually pretty good about doing such things.
As i said it before, you are too biased. You really talk as if the card have 0 drawbacks and it never a problem to cast it turn 4.
I said it before here, i think the card/choice is bad but that's not the point, imo you're just too confident. It's obvious the card is not perfect but if you talk only on the good side it's bad way to show the power of the card because nobody will believe you.
I will give a short try to your list but 0 manlands and only 10 creatures will be an other huge problem for me.
There's drawbacks, and I've mentioned a couple of them. Most of the drawbacks can be mitigated with the right build though. What I've dismissed are your interpretations of drawbacks like hitting two lands in a row, because quite frankly they just aren't factors.
Actual drawbacks I've run into are largely based on the fact that the card is a build around.
This pushes you to a lower threat count because it encourages not playing creature lands. This is because you're incentivized to play as many cards off the top each turn as possible and CIPT lands and activations to make a land into a creature both cost mana, resulting in fewer cards.
Additionally, the card pushes you to GY based strategies because Grim Flayer is the best creature in the deck, but is underpowered when you don't have Delirium. Goyf is also quite strong, as is Scavenging Ooze and Grim Lavamancer. All of these cards share essentially the same weakness, so you increase your vulnerability to specific common sideboard hate.
Another problem I'm finding has to do with getting colored mana right. You ideally want a lot of colored mana, because you don't want to get gated each turn by not having the right color available (figuring out the red mana bottleneck inparticular has been tricky). This makes basics pretty bad, but the format is in such a place where you want 4-5 basics in the deck. Stomping Ground+Swamp is the best combination as it casts anything in the deck except for the Lilianas. But, to really maximize this and have your lands be black+not black, you end up cutting black sources by too much and making the mana for Liliana unreliable.
These are all issues that I think are related to deck design, and with the proper card choices they can be mitigated or eliminated. The trick is in figuring out what those card choices are.
I'm not sure how good it actually is but I agree that it has some potential.
I'm not sure yet either honestly.
What I can say is that I'm getting a lot of free wins, and that I'm winning an above average amount relative to my normal win rate. That makes me think that the card at least has some potential. I do think there's a few deck tweaks that can be made still. I'm iterating on my list after each league and making changes.
I am pretty sure if you really want to evaluate if TS is bad against burn or not in terms of actual results rather than logically explaining it (which I find personally sufficient for this particular case, since there is enough evidence in the logic behind it, but thats me), then you would need to perform a series of several hundreds or thousand games. This has also to include the skilllevels of both players and the particular builds they are on. And the problem with that is always, there is no simulation you can run to quickly get such results. No simulation can account for skilllevels and different builds and their impacts on the matchup.
Like a simple example would be, if you leave in TS against Burn and you won 10 matches and lost 4 matches, it might surely be that TS is worth it after all. However, it might also be that you are running 3 Bobs only, only 2 TS, maybe 3 CB in the side or even a Finks or 2, which just are more impactful in the matchup and overshadowed the influence of TS. It may also be that you are more skilled against the burn opponents. It might also just be dependant on variance. So the key question is how to interpret the results and how represantive are they for the general truth?
So, to take all that into account, it would really take a high efford and much time to proof it according to known statistics. Which also has to include standard deviation and the accuracy overall of the played games to be represantive for the overall real unknown truth. These factors are pretty much impossible to gain in magic. For this reason, the best thing people can do is either giving logic explainations for it which is backed up by some experience, agree to disagree or state the things on personal preferences, since nobody can proof anything. And in this particular case, I find the best thing to do is to go with logic. Not focusing on specific situations, not focusing on possible scenarios. The fact is simply that you loose life when you resolve TS (the shortest of versions). Against Burn, which is aiming at your lifetotal, it makes sense that this is bad. But I am not trying to convince anybody, this is the logic I keep for myself in the matchup and which has brought me great success for it. And therefore I am sticking to the plan.
What I usually understand by "personal preference" is simply meta game adjustments. Like if the meta I am playing in does not have any KCI, your argument of having more shatters is not relevant for me. In that sense it is hard to say one is 100 % right about this, because you always have to take into account in which meta you are playing. Since we are a interactive deck one of the most important aspects of being successful with the deck is taking advantage of a specific metagame imo. And I think this is the case since modern is so wide open (the "you can't prepare for everything aspect") and the fact that there are quite some linear decks out there like Humans and Hollow One and Spirits. Against these kind of decks you have to find proper answers and as well on time. And therefore it is hard to have discussions about cards being played as a 3-of or 4-of. The difference is hard to evaluate. Like for me, in my meta there are quite a few Spirits decks and in general creature based decks. Often in those KCommand is too clunky for me, so I could not play the card as a 4 of. The same is true for LoTV in my case, for which reason I won't play more than 3 copies.
This seems like a good idea, since it could help evaluating the spell suite for one particular build. If you want to share your input on this, it would be great. I can use the information to create a similar table and compare the different opinions on the cards against the most popular matchup.
On another note, I have my post GRN list ready for testing. Right now I am at:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
1 Treetop Village
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Grim Lavamancer
3 Bloodbraid Elf
Noncreature Spells [22]
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
3 Assassin's Trophy
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Damping Sphere
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Collective Brutality
1 Duress
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Damnation
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Its a bit different from my original version. I managed to incoorporate a treetop village in a 24 land build where no mana requirements are hurt really. I got 18 black sources as well as 18 red sources by including the mountain (therefore also the 4-4-1 split of fetchlands) which means Lilianas and Angers should not be a problem. To round this up, I have 16 green sources for the rest. I am running a pretty low curve with 13 one drops, but I really don't want to have too many clunky spells in a 24 landbase, and I think in the current meta a lower curve could be quite good due to the linear decks like Spirits, Humans, Hardened Scales and Burn. 3 KCommands is an experiment, I am looking to still have a decent grinding power in midrange mirrors and control (due to the lower curve I am lacking that, most importantly the 4th bbe) for which reason a third command could help. Not sure about that though. It also allows me to only run 1 Grudge in theory, which frees up a SB slot.
My sideboard is pretty straight forward, with only nissa being a new addition. Since rock is picking her up I want to give her a try in Jund also. It could very well be that other options like Chandras could be better of course. But I like the combination of grinding power and fast clock which she provides (well, fast clock as soon as she hits the bf, of course 5 mana are still 5 mana, not looking to bring her in against combo decks).
Tron should be beatable due to 2 Spheres and 3 trophies.
I am sceptical in the control matchup, but thats why I am intersted in Nissa as well here. Of course trophies are helping here also.
So the overall flexslots for me personally are the second push, the third KCommand, the nissa and the huntmaster.
24 lands are enough. I am convinced that the deck doesn't need more lands, played some bigger tournaments in September with 24 lands and never felt the necessity of land #25.
I also believe 3 trophies is the ideal number to start with, the card is amazing but you don't want to cast it in the early game apart from the Tron matchup or in some hopeless situations.
So far I have been playing with 2/2 basics, no mountain. But a mountain has definitely some upsides, especially with your sb configuration.
I would absolutely play the 4th BBE over a 3rd K-command. BBE is Jund's best answer against UW and the meta is flooded with control at the moment. 3 K-commands seem unnecessary to me.
I only play 1 push but added 1 pulse beacause I still like the versatility of the card against tokens etc and it can often be the 4th trophy. Lavamancer and last hope make 2nd push not as important anymore imo.
what a player wants to include in their 75. I think if someone has an affinity for BBE's and different 4+ cmc cards in their sideboard they should push up to 25. On the other hand, if they're just packing the elfs and staying relatively low on cmc (somewhere between 6-8 3cmc spells), they should be fine on 24.
I also believe 3 Trophy's is the right number. I started at 4, and while it being a great catch-all, it's still just a removal spell. I felt that my opponent was getting ahead of me easier than normal, so the 4th trophy quickly turned into a 3rd KCommand; putting me somewhere near @FlyingDelver 's numbers.
On that topic, noting the balance of KCommand and Trophy is pretty important. Having 3 of each basically solves any problem in modern with terrifying efficiency without overloading on either spell. I would urge people to give it a shot in their lists before totally knocking the ideas
The second Push might not be necessary given Lavamancer and LtLH, but I really want to have a good aggro matchup. Like beating Spirits, Humans and Hardened Scales is not something you can expect. The matchups are closer than people think. And the problem still holds true that when you stumble in the first few turns, you are likely dead when your opponent doesn't stumble. And Since Jund stumbles more than those linear aggro decks do, it means I want some extra help to firm the matchups. Therefore I skimp on Pulse right now.
Lavamancer isn't too bad in other matchups too. It can help against Tron to get the final points of dmg in without needing to attack through a wurmcoil or thragtusk. It might alos help against control to finish of PWs or just go to the face. But of course lavamancer is not the best in those matchups.
2nd Push might be a strong meta choice against Spirits/Humans but I am convinced that Pulse is the better card against Scales if you worry about that matchup. I think having 11 cmc 1 spells is enough (mostly because in my meta I have to board out push extremely often), but again, I can see the circumstances in which you might want a 2nd push in the mainboard.
Yeah, Lavamancer on turn 1 is something Spirits and Humans often can't beat in game 1, therefore (and for his many other applications) I like having 1 in the mainboard. I think Humans has become a 45/55 matchup, therefore I decided to give myself an advantage in g1. We currently witness a downfall of Humans, not because the deck has become weaker, but people decide to try out other things (no humans list went 5-0 last week), so I have to see whether he stays in the mainboard but for now I am very happy with the card.
On the one hand, cards you want in your deck due to frenzy aren't that different than what you want to cascade into... you just want everything to always be castable. On the other hand, I'm finding myself a bit threat light because I had to remove creature lands. The threat count is fine when I cast a frenzy, but games without a frenzy are harder to manage. Here's the current list:
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blooming Marsh
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Blood Crypt
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Twilight Mire
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Grim Flayer
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells
1 Duress
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Fatal Push
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Collective Brutality
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Kolaghan's Command
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Experimental Frenzy
I'm 29-25 in games, 12-10 in rounds, which isn't too surprising since I'm not a very good player.
Hey man, give yourself a break. Live, learn, and Jund em out
Well, I recognize that I'll never 5-0 with the deck. It's probably capable of it, but I make a lot of misplays, some because I'm just bad, and some because I'm really bad on MTGO. Anyways, I guess the unstated point I was trying to get at is that if something has me winning over 50% of games, there's a lot of free wins being collected. In the 29/54 games I've won I've resolved Frenzy in around 20 of those (not sure on exact numbers). I've won every game Frenzy has resolved except for one.
This was my sideboard in the last league I played
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Alpine Moon
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Golgari Charm
3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
Plaguecrafter is great. It's a discard spell against combo that you can recur with Kolaghan's and Liliana. It's strong against Tron threats. It answers Teferi and Jace. It's also not completely horrible against cards like Rest in Peace since it gives you a way to cash in those 0/1 Goyfs for a stronger body. It's also a good way to get a creature into your graveyard for Grim Flayer.
3 mana Nissa and Engineered Explosives have both been really bad. My next iteration of the deck will be removing them. Aside from those two cards, everything in the SB overperforms. I will likely be bringing in some Grim Lavamancers.
I have cast it in several situations where I was losing but the opponents clock was still 2 turns away. Then I turn around and win. In a deck like Jund where you have a lot of removal, most aggro decks cannot kill you on turn 4, turn 4's really only happen in Modern when you don't interact at all with your opponent. That gives you plenty of time to cast it and untap. It's really no different than what you need to resolve a BBE. Sure, BBE is more aggressive but it only hits for 3, if you're at board parity it's tapping out for only minor board presence.
It can be. I've been playing it on Arena, and it's bonkers there, especially combined with Runaway Steam-Kin. Obviously we don't want RSK in this deck, but I am definitely interested in the results of people playing Frenzy.
That's why I'm playing 11-12 fetchlands, Grim Flayer, Liliana, the Last Hope, and in the sideboard Nihil Spellbomb that allows for a lot of top deck manipulation so that 2 lands don't stop you, 20/75 cards in the deck are capable of manipulating your library. The interaction between Flayer/Frenzy in particular is quite strong. Since most of my deck is 1-2 mana, it's pretty typical for your turn 5 to be 2 2 drops, a 1 drop, and a land. That's 4 cards, 3 cards in advantage, which I'll point out is already above baseline for the format (a draw 3 is usually 5 mana... excepting Visions which is quite slow). So in just that, you're already a mana ahead in value on a single turn. Then you get to do it again the following turn.
I mean the only naysayer so far seems to be yriel. How about you just try something before you crap on it for once?
Yes, I have. That's why I'm adamant that it's just wrong.
How can you have any perspective when you clearly haven't tried it?
You make
just as manymore blanket statements than Aazadan does concerning solely the card's relative power to another card, and then go on to talk about why the way Aazadan explains it is poor. You're doing the same thing! More importantly, those are very much connected the way you wrote it.Your "idea" of discussion is kinda poor. You want to someone to justify every aspect of what they're testing and deliver it to you how you want to receive it. It's like someone came to you with a flying car. Now you want them to present a detailed presentation on the pros and cons like they're at a science convention. The best part is that you usually present your own sentiment as an argument when that's clearly what you will not accept from anyone else. At some point, it's up to you to justify your own concepts of a thing.
Always after you want to crap on something. That's my problem. I seriously don't mind a critical discussion, but if all you're coming armed with is a boatload of "no's," I'll pass.
There's drawbacks, and I've mentioned a couple of them. Most of the drawbacks can be mitigated with the right build though. What I've dismissed are your interpretations of drawbacks like hitting two lands in a row, because quite frankly they just aren't factors.
Actual drawbacks I've run into are largely based on the fact that the card is a build around.
This pushes you to a lower threat count because it encourages not playing creature lands. This is because you're incentivized to play as many cards off the top each turn as possible and CIPT lands and activations to make a land into a creature both cost mana, resulting in fewer cards.
Additionally, the card pushes you to GY based strategies because Grim Flayer is the best creature in the deck, but is underpowered when you don't have Delirium. Goyf is also quite strong, as is Scavenging Ooze and Grim Lavamancer. All of these cards share essentially the same weakness, so you increase your vulnerability to specific common sideboard hate.
Another problem I'm finding has to do with getting colored mana right. You ideally want a lot of colored mana, because you don't want to get gated each turn by not having the right color available (figuring out the red mana bottleneck inparticular has been tricky). This makes basics pretty bad, but the format is in such a place where you want 4-5 basics in the deck. Stomping Ground+Swamp is the best combination as it casts anything in the deck except for the Lilianas. But, to really maximize this and have your lands be black+not black, you end up cutting black sources by too much and making the mana for Liliana unreliable.
These are all issues that I think are related to deck design, and with the proper card choices they can be mitigated or eliminated. The trick is in figuring out what those card choices are.
I'm not sure yet either honestly.
What I can say is that I'm getting a lot of free wins, and that I'm winning an above average amount relative to my normal win rate. That makes me think that the card at least has some potential. I do think there's a few deck tweaks that can be made still. I'm iterating on my list after each league and making changes.
Like a simple example would be, if you leave in TS against Burn and you won 10 matches and lost 4 matches, it might surely be that TS is worth it after all. However, it might also be that you are running 3 Bobs only, only 2 TS, maybe 3 CB in the side or even a Finks or 2, which just are more impactful in the matchup and overshadowed the influence of TS. It may also be that you are more skilled against the burn opponents. It might also just be dependant on variance. So the key question is how to interpret the results and how represantive are they for the general truth?
So, to take all that into account, it would really take a high efford and much time to proof it according to known statistics. Which also has to include standard deviation and the accuracy overall of the played games to be represantive for the overall real unknown truth. These factors are pretty much impossible to gain in magic. For this reason, the best thing people can do is either giving logic explainations for it which is backed up by some experience, agree to disagree or state the things on personal preferences, since nobody can proof anything. And in this particular case, I find the best thing to do is to go with logic. Not focusing on specific situations, not focusing on possible scenarios. The fact is simply that you loose life when you resolve TS (the shortest of versions). Against Burn, which is aiming at your lifetotal, it makes sense that this is bad. But I am not trying to convince anybody, this is the logic I keep for myself in the matchup and which has brought me great success for it. And therefore I am sticking to the plan.