Leak on paper seems bad. You just don't have the spare mana early in the game to hold it up. This is a very proactive deck, I don't think you can afford to not cast your spells for the chance that you'll get to Leak something important. If this was Counterspell it would be different, as that's not dead in the late game.
Holding up 2 mana is not difficult in this deck. Half+ of the spells are instants including all of the removal, and the ones that aren't cost 1 mana. If you hold up leak early and they do nothing, you generally have a way to use your mana. You usually don't need leak up on turn 2 anyway, so you can take that turn to finish casting sorceries and/or get a threat into play. And when you do want leak up on turn 2, threat + hold up two mana on turn 3 is not difficult to achieve.
I haven't gotten to play much so this is all theory here (not that we need anymore of that...)
On Bolt: I just can't bring myself to cut it completely. I am down to 1 with a single TBR in the main and 1 in the side. I look at bolt as a worse but more versatile TBR in this deck. It can be a bad removal spell when we need it and I really appreciate the ability to Bolt-snap-Bolt on an empty board to pull out games we otherwise had no chance of winning, even with a TBR.
On discard: I'm going to try 4 TS and 1 IoK. Our best turn 1 play is probably playing a discard spell, but one of the main things I like about this deck over DSJ is that we don't need to jam the 8 discard spells to still have meaningfulinteraction as they are such bad top decks. In addition, we have a few other passable turn 1 plays in Visions and thought scour, as well as the ability to dig for the discard with said spells in addition to snapcaster being able to cast them back. These factors lead me to believe that either 5 or 6 is the optimum number of targeted discard.
On Fulminator: I've loved Fulminator in other similar decks but those did not have the closing power of this deck. Depending on the specific big mana deck, some combination of TBR, stubborn denial, countersquall, ceremonious rejection, and terminate are probably good enough to get us there most of the time while having uses against other decks as well.
On the shocklands: The 12 fetches, island, and swamp seem non-negotiable but other than that I've seen every combination of 2-2-1 on the shocklands and I'd like to try to move more toward a consensus on optimizing that now that we have more of a "stock" list. Turn 1 we most likely want a U/B land so at least 1 grave, but later in the game when we could've milled a 1-of shock, which is the most painful to not be able to fetch? Considering we mostly will have U/B on turn 1 and we can play with 1 blue mana but most likely want 2 black sources my gut is telling me that milling a singleton blood crypt is more painful than milling a singleton steam vents would be. I'm thinking the common 2-of vents set up may be a holdover from the more blue focused delver lists?
I think I still like bolt as a 1-of in this deck. Just after some preliminary testing I definitely felt like I was missing it. TBR also felt like it was dead a lot of the time, so I'm not sure about the main deck one. I'm taking it to my LGS this weekend and trying it out though. Has anyone else considered a 4/1 TS/IoK split?
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"Play to have fun, it's a game."
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
I literally mentioned this 3 posts above yours and why, as well as the single bolt consideration. I see my posts are read
Anyway, that and the discussion on the manabase are the two most important main deck discussions to be had.
I was mostly asking if others had tested with that split, given that your first line said it was mostly theory. Poor word choice on my part. But I did appreciate your points.
I actually like bolt here for a couple reasons. One, it's rarely dead. It can always lava spike, grow your shadows, and is a fine removal spell some of the time. One other draw is that it's a non black interactive spell. People often mention how hard it is to play 3 black spells in one turn, and bolt can help with that in some cases (For example, DS + Tas + Push vs. DS + Tas + Bolt). I've also missed having as much removal as before, so I like having the 3 pushes and 1 bolt, along with 2 terminate. 4 push was too much, more than 2 or 3 terminate feels very clunky, and I want more than 5 kill spells in the main. That, plus the few times it does close out games, makes me think it merits 1 copy in the main. The only issue is that it cuts into slots that feel necessary, which I why I was asking about the discard split. Because I'd never considered trimming those before.
Also, about the manabase, why is Steam Vents better than crypt? Given that 2-1-1 for WG, BC, SV is accepted, wouldn't we rather have another black land over a blue land?
Edit: And if people are playing more terminate, blood crypt seems especially better.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
About the Bolt issue. I think having 1 Bolt in your MB is obligatory in most metagames. I always like my tempo/control decks to have at least 5 1-mana answers to creatues, and the fact that Bolt is super versatile(+Snapcaster) just makes it even better. 4 Push/1 Bolt or 3 Push/2Bolt is where i want to be in this deck depending on what i expect to see(More PW and Combo favors the second split for example).
On the IOK issue. I'm on the train of playing 6 discard spells. Seriously, don't you like going on T1 and looking at your op hand, taking one card and playing with almost perfect info of your opponents gameplan? It feels almost unfair to be honest, just like Gitaxian Probe putted your deck in training wheels at no cost, this feels the same. I think 6 MB discards is where this deck wants to be, plus at least 2 Denials.
With all this talk of cutting bolts maybe having a 3rd watery grave is the right choice. Both U and B are needed for the best T1 plays. Red is really just a splash in this deck. With 12 fetches + 2 shocks that gives 14 red sources which is more than enough to get R by T2 or T3 if Frank Karstens land base analysis is anything to go by. Having 12 fetches + 3 graves + 1 shock gives 16 U or B sources.
EDIT: I forgot about basics. There are 17 sources for either black or blue. For blue this is two shy of the recommended 19 for 2 colour sources by T3 (for snap + 1 mana U play)
I'm also playing Steam Vents, but it's because I don't own tarns and I'm using strand instead, which can't fetch Blood Crypt. But given your point on the UU for flashback, is there anyone who's good at statistics that could find the percentage of drawing 1 U land + cantrip, and not UU with snapcaster denial? That might help answer the question more definitively from a non-budget standpoint.
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"Play to have fun, it's a game."
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
About the Bolt issue. I think having 1 Bolt in your MB is obligatory in most metagames. I always like my tempo/control decks to have at least 5 1-mana answers to creatues, and the fact that Bolt is super versatile(+Snapcaster) just makes it even better. 4 Push/1 Bolt or 3 Push/2Bolt is where i want to be in this deck depending on what i expect to see(More PW and Combo favors the second split for example).
On the IOK issue. I'm on the train of playing 6 discard spells. Seriously, don't you like going on T1 and looking at your op hand, taking one card and playing with almost perfect info of your opponents gameplan? It feels almost unfair to be honest, just like Gitaxian Probe putted your deck in training wheels at no cost, this feels the same. I think 6 MB discards is where this deck wants to be, plus at least 2 Denials.
Of course I love that feeling turn 1, but the issue is that's not always how it plays out. The way I picture like to picture this deck is that it trades half it's life total for a time walk (We get goyfs for 1 mana and negate for 1 mana), so I like to take advantage of the tempo piece of this deck. Discard doesn't play very well into that. Thoughtseize is great because it forwards the life loss plan and is much more selective, but IoK hasn't actually felt great. Just fine. And that's not accounting for when you draw it late and it's dead. It may be wrong, but I'm going to test it out and see if it works.
With all this talk of cutting bolts maybe having a 3rd watery grave is the right choice. Both U and B are needed for the best T1 plays. Red is really just a splash in this deck. With 12 fetches + 2 shocks that gives 14 red sources which is more than enough to get R by T2 or T3 if Frank Karstens land base analysis is anything to go by. Having 12 fetches + 3 graves + 1 shock gives 16 U or B sources.
EDIT: I forgot about basics. There are 17 sources for either black or blue. For blue this is two shy of the recommended 19 for 2 colour sources by T3 (for snap + 1 mana U play)
The issue with 3 grave is that you can sometimes Thought Scour away one of the other shocks and make mana so much worse. And this deck plays so many fetches that getting 1 watery grave is pretty much always going to happen, and you don't need more than 2 pretty much ever. So while U and B are the most important, more than 2 watery grave is unnecessary. And anger post board needs more red sources too.
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"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
With regards to lands, except for extremely rare circumstances, I almost always fetch Watery Grave, Watery Grave, Blood Crypt in that order (if 3 fetches in opening two draws, Grave/Crypt if only 2). Steam Vents is generally a low priority and I may switch out the second Steam Vents for a Blood Crypt. Red is almost non-existent in the deck (5 cards main deck, 1 Terminate, 2 Bolt, 2 K Command), and I almost always want to be casting multiple black spells in a turn. I don't dislike Steam Vents entirely, but it is often the least important land to fetch. I rarely ever need or want two red sources in play until I have 4+ lands anyway. This sentiment is so strong, I have considered switching entirely to Esper (gain Path, Lingering Souls, Geist, and awesome SB cards), but I really, really don't want to give up K Command.
I definitely think 2 Blood Crypt is the way to go. We're all within a couple cards of each other in our main decks, for the most part. Looking at mine, I have 20 cards with black symbols, not including Street Wraith, and just 14 with blue symbols. With 2 Blood Crypts, that gives me 5 lands that tap for black, 4 blue, and 3 red. That's in line with the proportion of colored spells in our deck.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I ran through two leagues with 2 Temur Battle Rage in my SB, 3-2ing both. I brought them in vs: 1 mono W humans, 3 affinity, 1 elves. I'm still pretty lukewarm on it. TBR did allow me to crush my elves opponent in both post-SB games, but I also had active LtLH and their board mostly under control both games, so I was probably a favorite anyway. Vs Humans I almost won a game 3 that I had no business winning because I had Shadow + TBR, but he had the path and my followup creatures were not Shadows. Vs Affinity I never got to cast, but I did draw it a couple times. It was nice to have outs to win the game in spots/matchups that would otherwise be very tough, but I kept drawing it without drawing a fatty, or if I had a fatty it was a Tasigur or an Angler, so TBR wouldn't be relevant until I already got a couple hits in. It still seems fairly mediocre. On the other hand, vs Dredge and Elves, it's probably the best plan we have. Maybe it's better than having graveyard hate in the SB? Though Surgical does a lot of work in matchups where TBR would be awful. I still lean towards no on it, but I'm a little more open to it now.
I thought about too and my only conclusion was that people use them a lot as a grind tool in DS mirrors and BG and UX matchups, moreso than Tron and Valakut in which they just seem too slow or low impact. You see no one plays Souls or Truths, they go for Lili and Fulmi. Thats my reasoning.
Fulmi in this deck seems a waste of a turn. Who cares about a manland , ramp, or Tron. Do enough self harm and have a couple DS online by turn 3, we can outrace them. Particularly with a TBR on whatever gets through. I'd rather do T3 delve than Fulmi. And T4, Fulmi won't help much, unless you have Surgical in hand too.
I could see fulminator mage being a pain in the mirror. We don't run that many mana sources and no more than 2 copies of any one land. LtLH along with kommand and fulminator mage could put a ton of pressure on our manabase if we don't close the game out early enough.
Similarly, UW control can ghost quarter/path/and spreading seas us out of the game.
I love fulminator mage, especially in a deck utilizing kommand and LtLH, but I'm still not convinced it is the right thing for big mana matches. Even if not, it may be worth a copy or 2.
Perhaps Fulminator shouldn't be viewed purely as anti-big mana tech, but as a decent late-game, grindy threat that simultaneously gives us a few percentage points in big mana matchups.
Yes, our plan is dropping a fatty and protecting it, but this doesn't always work out in midrange matches. At that point Fulminator can hold the fort for a bit, deal with annoying manlands or chip away at 2 a turn.
I don't like fulminator vs control or midrange decks at all. It's expensive, and doesn't have much of an impact on the board. The matchup is about grinding. There are much more high impact cards we could play.
I feel similarly about TBR in these matchups. It does literally nothing until you're about to win. You need to interact or impact the board or generate card advantage with every spell.
I wouldn't read too much into a few lists 5-0ing with fulminators. It's real easy for a suboptimal list of a good deck to 5-0. It's only 5 matches. I did it a couple weeks back with a bad manabase and a bad sb.
Holding up 2 mana is not difficult in this deck. Half+ of the spells are instants including all of the removal, and the ones that aren't cost 1 mana. If you hold up leak early and they do nothing, you generally have a way to use your mana. You usually don't need leak up on turn 2 anyway, so you can take that turn to finish casting sorceries and/or get a threat into play. And when you do want leak up on turn 2, threat + hold up two mana on turn 3 is not difficult to achieve.
On Bolt: I just can't bring myself to cut it completely. I am down to 1 with a single TBR in the main and 1 in the side. I look at bolt as a worse but more versatile TBR in this deck. It can be a bad removal spell when we need it and I really appreciate the ability to Bolt-snap-Bolt on an empty board to pull out games we otherwise had no chance of winning, even with a TBR.
On discard: I'm going to try 4 TS and 1 IoK. Our best turn 1 play is probably playing a discard spell, but one of the main things I like about this deck over DSJ is that we don't need to jam the 8 discard spells to still have meaningful interaction as they are such bad top decks. In addition, we have a few other passable turn 1 plays in Visions and thought scour, as well as the ability to dig for the discard with said spells in addition to snapcaster being able to cast them back. These factors lead me to believe that either 5 or 6 is the optimum number of targeted discard.
On Fulminator: I've loved Fulminator in other similar decks but those did not have the closing power of this deck. Depending on the specific big mana deck, some combination of TBR, stubborn denial, countersquall, ceremonious rejection, and terminate are probably good enough to get us there most of the time while having uses against other decks as well.
On the shocklands: The 12 fetches, island, and swamp seem non-negotiable but other than that I've seen every combination of 2-2-1 on the shocklands and I'd like to try to move more toward a consensus on optimizing that now that we have more of a "stock" list. Turn 1 we most likely want a U/B land so at least 1 grave, but later in the game when we could've milled a 1-of shock, which is the most painful to not be able to fetch? Considering we mostly will have U/B on turn 1 and we can play with 1 blue mana but most likely want 2 black sources my gut is telling me that milling a singleton blood crypt is more painful than milling a singleton steam vents would be. I'm thinking the common 2-of vents set up may be a holdover from the more blue focused delver lists?
UBR Grixis Death's shadow
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
I literally mentioned this 3 posts above yours and why, as well as the single bolt consideration. I see my posts are read
Anyway, that and the discussion on the manabase are the two most important main deck discussions to be had.
I was mostly asking if others had tested with that split, given that your first line said it was mostly theory. Poor word choice on my part. But I did appreciate your points.
I actually like bolt here for a couple reasons. One, it's rarely dead. It can always lava spike, grow your shadows, and is a fine removal spell some of the time. One other draw is that it's a non black interactive spell. People often mention how hard it is to play 3 black spells in one turn, and bolt can help with that in some cases (For example, DS + Tas + Push vs. DS + Tas + Bolt). I've also missed having as much removal as before, so I like having the 3 pushes and 1 bolt, along with 2 terminate. 4 push was too much, more than 2 or 3 terminate feels very clunky, and I want more than 5 kill spells in the main. That, plus the few times it does close out games, makes me think it merits 1 copy in the main. The only issue is that it cuts into slots that feel necessary, which I why I was asking about the discard split. Because I'd never considered trimming those before.
Also, about the manabase, why is Steam Vents better than crypt? Given that 2-1-1 for WG, BC, SV is accepted, wouldn't we rather have another black land over a blue land?
Edit: And if people are playing more terminate, blood crypt seems especially better.
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
On the IOK issue. I'm on the train of playing 6 discard spells. Seriously, don't you like going on T1 and looking at your op hand, taking one card and playing with almost perfect info of your opponents gameplan? It feels almost unfair to be honest, just like Gitaxian Probe putted your deck in training wheels at no cost, this feels the same. I think 6 MB discards is where this deck wants to be, plus at least 2 Denials.
EDIT: I forgot about basics. There are 17 sources for either black or blue. For blue this is two shy of the recommended 19 for 2 colour sources by T3 (for snap + 1 mana U play)
UBR Grixis Death's shadow
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
Of course I love that feeling turn 1, but the issue is that's not always how it plays out. The way I picture like to picture this deck is that it trades half it's life total for a time walk (We get goyfs for 1 mana and negate for 1 mana), so I like to take advantage of the tempo piece of this deck. Discard doesn't play very well into that. Thoughtseize is great because it forwards the life loss plan and is much more selective, but IoK hasn't actually felt great. Just fine. And that's not accounting for when you draw it late and it's dead. It may be wrong, but I'm going to test it out and see if it works.
The issue with 3 grave is that you can sometimes Thought Scour away one of the other shocks and make mana so much worse. And this deck plays so many fetches that getting 1 watery grave is pretty much always going to happen, and you don't need more than 2 pretty much ever. So while U and B are the most important, more than 2 watery grave is unnecessary. And anger post board needs more red sources too.
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Modern
URB Grixis Delver
GWB Abzan Company
RWB Mardu Burn
WB Martyr Proc
Similarly, UW control can ghost quarter/path/and spreading seas us out of the game.
I love fulminator mage, especially in a deck utilizing kommand and LtLH, but I'm still not convinced it is the right thing for big mana matches. Even if not, it may be worth a copy or 2.
Yes, our plan is dropping a fatty and protecting it, but this doesn't always work out in midrange matches. At that point Fulminator can hold the fort for a bit, deal with annoying manlands or chip away at 2 a turn.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I feel similarly about TBR in these matchups. It does literally nothing until you're about to win. You need to interact or impact the board or generate card advantage with every spell.
I wouldn't read too much into a few lists 5-0ing with fulminators. It's real easy for a suboptimal list of a good deck to 5-0. It's only 5 matches. I did it a couple weeks back with a bad manabase and a bad sb.