Very well reasoned, thank you for replying. The only point I'm going to challenge is that Looting is more air-- I believe the card functions in the exact opposite capacity as an air-compressor by reducing the overall volume (number) of the cards in hand to increase the density (quality) of said cards.
How many games have you flooded out? Or drawn Bauble when you needed a card now? Perhaps you're playing against Lantern control G1 and draw all of your Fatal Pushes and a Dismember (happened to me yesterday). What about when you're stuck on 2 lands at 13 life with 2 unplayable Shadows in hand? It's turn 5 and you have discard spells in hand, but they're not holding any cards. Traverse but no delirium...the list goes on.
I am just dipping my toes in the Looting tech, but something I have noticed is that Looting ranges from being a bad card (when your hand is perfect) to the best card (when your hand is trash). As such, the context of when and how you use it has a lot of bearing on its value.
As I have explained in previous posts, having 12 free cantrips that don't provide selection (Bauble tricks aside) leads to a lot of unpredictability in how hands shape up. I believe that an effect like Looting does a lot to push back on the needle of variance.
Very well reasoned, thank you for replying. The only point I'm going to challenge is that Looting is more air-- I believe the card functions in the exact opposite capacity as an air-compressor by reducing the overall volume (number) of the cards in hand to increase the density (quality) of said cards.
Yeah, that's the argument for stuff like Opt and Serum Visions too. But it's still air in the sense that 1) you have to spend mana (i.e. time) casting it, and 2) it doesn't impact the board or your opponent's ability to enact their game plan. I think that is largely anathema to the construction of Traverse Shadow, which wins games by casting more spells that impact the board or the opponent's game plan in the first few turns of the game than almost anyone else. Taking time off to sculpt gives them time, and time is the last thing I want to be giving them. So I really value the cantrips/selection being free, or "free". That said, I'd definitely play brainstorm in this list if it were legal, but I doubt Looting is at a high enough power level to overcome these issues. Maybe if there was a bit more value to squeeze out of it when we are discarding, but I don't think Lingering Souls is it. Even when it comes to delirium, Looting is not a card type we have trouble putting in the GY, while Manamorphose is in many matchups, so while Looting does help in this respect, the difference isn't massive.
But by all means, experiment. Looting does seem worth trying. But gun to my head, if I had to make a choice right now for a GP or whatever, I wouldn't play it. I definitely don't want more cantrips than the deck already has, and I value the "free"-ness and fixing of Manamorphose pretty highly.
That's something like the SB I have sleeved up anyway. I'm not as sure about the details there. Maybe I want a grindy haymaker, or maybe I just want to try to get under those decks (control & mardu) or dodge them (jund). There's also an argument for making the Spellbombs into something stronger against KCI - e.g. Surgicals. But I do know that I want those bolts in the MD for humans. And no, they shouldn't be Tarfire - you gotta kill Mantis Rider.
Thanks, the Bolts are an interesting addition. Surprised about the singleton Denial though - I've been considering going up to three in the 60 because I'm never drawing the two I currently play when I want them. Going down to one... You're never gonna have it when you need it. Doesn't it make sense to just relegate blue to the sideboard entirely at that point or is the singleton a concession to having to run a blue shock anyway as you don't want it in the side and then at least it's not completely dead, theoretically?
I'm not the expert but I assume Bolt are there to help against decks like Humans. It's sometimes better than Fatal Push (if they topdeck Mantis Rider and you don't have a way to revolt). Humans and some other aggressive linear decks are the reason for only one Stubborn Denial. The card is great against specific decks but it's not the best time for it right now, there are plenty of decks among the top tier Stubborn Denial is bad or not very good at least against them.
Yeah, that's basically the reasoning. The list is geared toward beating humans in particular, which motivates shaving a stub and the bolts. I think it's easier to pick up percentage points against them than against e.g. Jeskai or Mardu.
Well I understand that Stubs are bad against Humans, that's no rocket science.. But like I said, why run any stubs at all if you're not gonna draw them when you need them anyway?
Well I understand that Stubs are bad against Humans, that's no rocket science.. But like I said, why run any stubs at all if you're not gonna draw them when you need them anyway?
I don't really buy your line of reasoning. There's no guarantee that we see Stub when we need it with more copies in the deck either. What it comes down to is how frequently do we want to see the card? 0% of game 1s? A small % of game 1s? Or a larger %? Keeping 1 Stub MD is a bit of a hedge to not lose too many percentage points in game 1s where it's good, while still sacrificing something to the Humans matchup - mostly to get Bolts in there.
By no means am I sure that 1 Stub navigates that trade-off correctly though, and there is something to be said for just being a 3 color deck. But the countermagic is soooo good when it's good, that I can't see myself not having access to it at all. And once you already have a blue land in the deck for SB cards, the cost of MDing one is much smaller.
What do you think about my suggestion of moving the blue package to the board and replacing the last mainboard Stub with the 3rd Battle Rage to preserve speed? Obviously it doesn't always work as well as Stub, but there is something to be said for being 3 colours g1. Not to mention we get to combo kill more consistently (and I know from your articles what a fan of Battle Rage you are-- I am, too!).
What do you think about my suggestion of moving the blue package to the board and replacing the last mainboard Stub with the 3rd Battle Rage to preserve speed? Obviously it doesn't always work as well as Stub, but there is something to be said for being 3 colours g1. Not to mention we get to combo kill more consistently (and I know from your articles what a fan of Battle Rage you are-- I am, too!).
It's certainly a reasonable idea. In the 12 cantrip shell 2 TBR always seemed like enough since you basically never want to draw more than one, and 2/48 is about 3/60. But shoving a bit more all in on the TBR plan at the expensive of the late game does have its merits. Other things to try there are Grim Flayer or another removal spell or other piece of interaction.
I have sleeved and I'm trying now a Mardu version. Removing Green: Tarmos and Traverses and adding Lingering Souls package to the Main alongside with Paths, Ranger of Eos and Gurmag Anglers (no Tasigur) to delve. Initially I miss my Tarmos and the Ranger is very expensive if you compare with Traverse, but Delver is easier to get and faster than Delirium and white give good options for SB... but not actually sure if continue with this or coming back to a jund version. I'm on an international trip now and I carry with me all cards for both versions (apart of my Legacy deck) in order to return to Spain connecting in Barcelona and I will have an stop-over for the GP but arriving late so only for Side Events. I must decide Jund or Mardu in the next 48 hrs. and I cannot test more because I'm in non-MTG countries... so, any recommendation? In both options I have eliminated the Blue color (Stubs and Delay) I'm considering 2x Dash Hopes)
I don't see any reason not to play Grixis Shadow if you want to play Anglers or Mardu Pyromancer if you want to cut Goyf and run Souls. Those decks are bound to do a lot better than whatever you're cooking up within this shell.
The strengths of Traverse Shadow are its speed and consistency. You lose both if you cut Goyfs and Traverses.
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Yes, I understand that. You wanted to play Angler, so I suggested GDS as a vastly superior build. You wanted to play Souls, so I suggested Mardu Pyro as a vastly superior build.
You don't have consistency in finding your threats because you cut Traverse and you have no way to protect them once they stick because you cut blue. Now instead you have Path, which ramps your opponent, Ranger, which is very slow, and Souls, also very slow and dead in quite a few matchups. I don't see the point in playing a Shadow build that is neither fast nor efficient and has no way to protect its threats on top of that. How do you plan to beat Tron? KCI? Lantern?
Dash Hopes is just an awful, awful card. There's a good reason it sees zero play in Modern.
Your argument that delve is faster than delirium also doesn't hold up - Traverse Shadow can turn on delirium on turn 1. Good luck powering out that Angler before turn 3 in this Mardu build.
I'd still like to get back to the discussion regarding Stubborn Denial as it's such an important yet very specific card in our deck.
Usually the cards that are one-ofs in decks are tutorable bombs or late game win-cons such as planeswalkers. Denial isn't quite that at all though, and as such I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to play just one copy.
As Spooly asked, in what percentage of game 1s do we want to see this card? It's arguably our clutch card in the tough, interactive matchups where we need to slam a threat asap and protect it (Control, Jund), so surely we need more than 1 copy in order to maximize our chances of seeing it in our opening 7.
The manabase complicates things as we'll almost always end up with a shockland that ends up acting as a basic land post-board. Should we play 1 Stub just so the main deck Watery Grave isn't effectively a swamp? Should we take the hit and not run any at all, seeing as the chances of having the Stub in hand when it matters are minimal?
Curious to hear your opinions on this as finding the right balance is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
I think the answer comes down to metagame shares. I'm not worried about having a Watery Grave in the MD that is basically just a swamp in G1s, at least until I see a compelling reason to have white in the 75 instead of blue. So it comes down to: against the metagame you expect, how often is Stub good? Or more pointedly, against the top tables of the metagame you expect, how often is Stub good?
That said, the list I'm thinking of sleeving up at a weekly on Monday still has 2 Stubs. I just changed the removal mix - cutting Decays for Bolts basically. I also shaved a removal spell and a Manamorphose for Lootings just to try them.
I'd still like to get back to the discussion regarding Stubborn Denial as it's such an important yet very specific card in our deck.
Usually the cards that are one-ofs in decks are tutorable bombs or late game win-cons such as planeswalkers. Denial isn't quite that at all though, and as such I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to play just one copy.
As Spooly asked, in what percentage of game 1s do we want to see this card? It's arguably our clutch card in the tough, interactive matchups where we need to slam a threat asap and protect it (Control, Jund), so surely we need more than 1 copy in order to maximize our chances of seeing it in our opening 7.
The manabase complicates things as we'll almost always end up with a shockland that ends up acting as a basic land post-board. Should we play 1 Stub just so the main deck Watery Grave isn't effectively a swamp? Should we take the hit and not run any at all, seeing as the chances of having the Stub in hand when it matters are minimal?
Curious to hear your opinions on this as finding the right balance is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
Regarding blue, I've played this morning a lcq of gp Barcelona with this list for a 3-1 result losing last round 1-2 by being unable to deal 1 more damage on a big flood game Running no blue on md and haven't missed it a lot tbh except against Burn maybe. Not sure what i have to do with deck for tomorrow anyways.
Matchups were:
Dredge 2-0
Humans 2-1 (Lost to a turn 3 mantis Rider into t4 phantasmal image Rider +Thalía lieutenant)
Burn 2-1
CoCo Selesnia Value 1-2
My big concerns are: should I run blue maindeck and/or lilianas of the veil :/
SB:
1 Dismember
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Golgari Charm
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Stubborn Denial
1 Watery Grave
Any thoughts?
I think Tarfire is pretty awful, especially against Humans they should just be Bolts. Two KCommands is a lot.. I would just play Jund if you're cutting blue and white.
@Spooly Awesome to hear you're planning on testing some different configurations! The more I play with the deck, the more I return to the original Manamorphose list with Stomping Ground; it isn't without issues, but I believe it's the most well-rounded in an open field. I'm personally not too interested in tuning the maindeck to beat Humans because my experience with Modern is that you can play against anything at any time.
If I could describe my perfect Shadow list, it would be your Manamorphose 60 + the 3rd Denial, 2 Faithless Looting, and 1-2 more Pushes/Bolts main. I realize we're talking about a 65-card maindeck, and so I've been trying to cycle through different configurations that play with some of these elements. The list is just so tight-- especially so with Manamorphose, so it comes down to making a lot of tough decisions about what to cut.
I'm also gonna try a 1 of Bedlam Reveler as the haymaker out of the board. Something I've always been interested in but never tried because I wanted the second U source bad enough to not have two R sources.
I'm also gonna try a 1 of Bedlam Reveler as the haymaker out of the board. Something I've always been interested in but never tried because I wanted the second U source bad enough to not have two R sources.
This seems like very interesting tech. I've play tested my list a ton over the last few days. More red-heavy seems to be the way to go. I've completely demoted blue to the sideboard and I've dropped white entirely. My local meta has very few fair mid-range decks so it doesn't make sense to waste those slots. For a PTQ or something I might board differently.
That being said, the double red requirement is a bit steep. If we commit to running only 3 colors game one, does it make sense to run 3 main board red sources? Something like 2 B-Crypt, 2 O-Tomb, 1 Stomping Ground?
There is of course a bit of a non-bo with Bedlam Reveler as our goal is to have many card types binned and he wants just inst/Sorc. I may try this and offer feedback next week. Right now my only utility traverse creature is Ghor-clan Rampager.
You guys have me sold on Bolt > Tarfire even though I haven't actually faced humans yet in order to try it.
How many games have you flooded out? Or drawn Bauble when you needed a card now? Perhaps you're playing against Lantern control G1 and draw all of your Fatal Pushes and a Dismember (happened to me yesterday). What about when you're stuck on 2 lands at 13 life with 2 unplayable Shadows in hand? It's turn 5 and you have discard spells in hand, but they're not holding any cards. Traverse but no delirium...the list goes on.
I am just dipping my toes in the Looting tech, but something I have noticed is that Looting ranges from being a bad card (when your hand is perfect) to the best card (when your hand is trash). As such, the context of when and how you use it has a lot of bearing on its value.
As I have explained in previous posts, having 12 free cantrips that don't provide selection (Bauble tricks aside) leads to a lot of unpredictability in how hands shape up. I believe that an effect like Looting does a lot to push back on the needle of variance.
Yeah, that's the argument for stuff like Opt and Serum Visions too. But it's still air in the sense that 1) you have to spend mana (i.e. time) casting it, and 2) it doesn't impact the board or your opponent's ability to enact their game plan. I think that is largely anathema to the construction of Traverse Shadow, which wins games by casting more spells that impact the board or the opponent's game plan in the first few turns of the game than almost anyone else. Taking time off to sculpt gives them time, and time is the last thing I want to be giving them. So I really value the cantrips/selection being free, or "free". That said, I'd definitely play brainstorm in this list if it were legal, but I doubt Looting is at a high enough power level to overcome these issues. Maybe if there was a bit more value to squeeze out of it when we are discarding, but I don't think Lingering Souls is it. Even when it comes to delirium, Looting is not a card type we have trouble putting in the GY, while Manamorphose is in many matchups, so while Looting does help in this respect, the difference isn't massive.
But by all means, experiment. Looting does seem worth trying. But gun to my head, if I had to make a choice right now for a GP or whatever, I wouldn't play it. I definitely don't want more cantrips than the deck already has, and I value the "free"-ness and fixing of Manamorphose pretty highly.
Thanks, the Bolts are an interesting addition. Surprised about the singleton Denial though - I've been considering going up to three in the 60 because I'm never drawing the two I currently play when I want them. Going down to one... You're never gonna have it when you need it. Doesn't it make sense to just relegate blue to the sideboard entirely at that point or is the singleton a concession to having to run a blue shock anyway as you don't want it in the side and then at least it's not completely dead, theoretically?
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Yeah, that's basically the reasoning. The list is geared toward beating humans in particular, which motivates shaving a stub and the bolts. I think it's easier to pick up percentage points against them than against e.g. Jeskai or Mardu.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I don't really buy your line of reasoning. There's no guarantee that we see Stub when we need it with more copies in the deck either. What it comes down to is how frequently do we want to see the card? 0% of game 1s? A small % of game 1s? Or a larger %? Keeping 1 Stub MD is a bit of a hedge to not lose too many percentage points in game 1s where it's good, while still sacrificing something to the Humans matchup - mostly to get Bolts in there.
By no means am I sure that 1 Stub navigates that trade-off correctly though, and there is something to be said for just being a 3 color deck. But the countermagic is soooo good when it's good, that I can't see myself not having access to it at all. And once you already have a blue land in the deck for SB cards, the cost of MDing one is much smaller.
It's certainly a reasonable idea. In the 12 cantrip shell 2 TBR always seemed like enough since you basically never want to draw more than one, and 2/48 is about 3/60. But shoving a bit more all in on the TBR plan at the expensive of the late game does have its merits. Other things to try there are Grim Flayer or another removal spell or other piece of interaction.
The strengths of Traverse Shadow are its speed and consistency. You lose both if you cut Goyfs and Traverses.
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Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/993203#paper
including also Dash Hopes as counters
You don't have consistency in finding your threats because you cut Traverse and you have no way to protect them once they stick because you cut blue. Now instead you have Path, which ramps your opponent, Ranger, which is very slow, and Souls, also very slow and dead in quite a few matchups. I don't see the point in playing a Shadow build that is neither fast nor efficient and has no way to protect its threats on top of that. How do you plan to beat Tron? KCI? Lantern?
Dash Hopes is just an awful, awful card. There's a good reason it sees zero play in Modern.
Your argument that delve is faster than delirium also doesn't hold up - Traverse Shadow can turn on delirium on turn 1. Good luck powering out that Angler before turn 3 in this Mardu build.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Usually the cards that are one-ofs in decks are tutorable bombs or late game win-cons such as planeswalkers. Denial isn't quite that at all though, and as such I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to play just one copy.
As Spooly asked, in what percentage of game 1s do we want to see this card? It's arguably our clutch card in the tough, interactive matchups where we need to slam a threat asap and protect it (Control, Jund), so surely we need more than 1 copy in order to maximize our chances of seeing it in our opening 7.
The manabase complicates things as we'll almost always end up with a shockland that ends up acting as a basic land post-board. Should we play 1 Stub just so the main deck Watery Grave isn't effectively a swamp? Should we take the hit and not run any at all, seeing as the chances of having the Stub in hand when it matters are minimal?
Curious to hear your opinions on this as finding the right balance is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
That said, the list I'm thinking of sleeving up at a weekly on Monday still has 2 Stubs. I just changed the removal mix - cutting Decays for Bolts basically. I also shaved a removal spell and a Manamorphose for Lootings just to try them.
I think Tarfire is pretty awful, especially against Humans they should just be Bolts. Two KCommands is a lot.. I would just play Jund if you're cutting blue and white.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
If I could describe my perfect Shadow list, it would be your Manamorphose 60 + the 3rd Denial, 2 Faithless Looting, and 1-2 more Pushes/Bolts main. I realize we're talking about a 65-card maindeck, and so I've been trying to cycle through different configurations that play with some of these elements. The list is just so tight-- especially so with Manamorphose, so it comes down to making a lot of tough decisions about what to cut.
This seems like very interesting tech. I've play tested my list a ton over the last few days. More red-heavy seems to be the way to go. I've completely demoted blue to the sideboard and I've dropped white entirely. My local meta has very few fair mid-range decks so it doesn't make sense to waste those slots. For a PTQ or something I might board differently.
That being said, the double red requirement is a bit steep. If we commit to running only 3 colors game one, does it make sense to run 3 main board red sources? Something like 2 B-Crypt, 2 O-Tomb, 1 Stomping Ground?
There is of course a bit of a non-bo with Bedlam Reveler as our goal is to have many card types binned and he wants just inst/Sorc. I may try this and offer feedback next week. Right now my only utility traverse creature is Ghor-clan Rampager.
You guys have me sold on Bolt > Tarfire even though I haven't actually faced humans yet in order to try it.
Draft My Cube!
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki