Shock + Thoughtseize and go to 15? Looting to drop the 2 lingering souls (and find land or less painful discard spell).
I would just TS. I would avoid Looting on turn 1 if you don't know the opponent. In grindy matchups your front halves of Souls might be very useful, so I would just play TS.
I agree with delver. Fetch, shock thoughtseize. Loot on 2 to look for your second land.
How would you board against Ponza? I brought in 2 wear/tear but what else is useful?
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
How would you board against Ponza? I brought in 2 wear/tear but what else is useful?
I would bring in any extra CBrutality you have along with the Wear/Tears. You want to pluck away their mana dorks, land destro, and ramp so they cannot drop their haymakers (Tracker, inferno titan, etc.). Speaking from experience piloting ponza, it is pretty easily disrupted.
I'd also possibly bring in Hazoret as they have no way to deal with it.
Also, be careful with nontargeted discard as many lists run obstinate baloth
@CrimsonPheonix7: thank you for the response. Can I ask what you side out against mardu as a Ponza pilot? I know my opponent sided in Trinisphere. Games 2 and 3 I didn’t see much land destruction and I know he sided in baloth.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Blackcleave Cliffs is better than Dragonskull Summit. Summit costs you half a point of life every game.
Cliffs give you a higher chance of optimal land drops turn 1 and turn 2.
On the play: 7/6/5 cards 4,4% / 2,1% / 3,4% higher chance of B on T1 + BR on T2
On the draw: 7/6/5 cards 7,1% / 3,2% / 3,5% higher chance of B on T1 + BRon T2
Since I am really torn about investing in Blackcleave Cliffs at the moment I tried to do some "math" to figure out how important those fastlands really are. In the beginning I was just planning on fiddling around with a hypergeometric calculater during a five minute coffee break. Then it somehow got out of hand. I am not 100% sure how good the numbers are I crunched. But maybe they can be of some value to others. I am more than willing to share my exact proceedings (as far as I remember them ). But it's probably not helping this posting much. Feel free to ask or write pms. Input is highly appreciated. After all I’m quite new to the deck and just assuming the hell out of everything.
The Mana Base
The budget manabase is the one I am using atm. The „stock“ version is the last 5:0 manabase from mtggoldfish. I am using one subotpimal fetch land (Wooded Foothills instead of Arid Mesa or Marsh Flats) and four Dragonskull Summit instead of four Blackcleave Cliffs. It might not be the best budget approach but just switching the fast land and check land is a common budget options and it might be the best/easiest baseline for a comparison.
On Average the Budget Mana Base deals 2 dmg to you T1 and 1,4 dmg to you T2. That’s 3,4 dmg until T2. On average the Stock Mana Base deals 1,4 dmg to you T1 and 1,5 dmg T2. That’s 2,9 dmg until T2. It a bit more on T2 than the budget mana base because you have one less red source. Those numbers are a bit off when you fetch for a swamp T1. The real dmg could therefore be a few percent lower. I did not take into account that people might fetch differently depending on playing fastlands or not. But both my experience with the deck and my math skills prevent any evaluation here. I’d guess it makes no difference.
There seems to only a difference of half a life point in the first two turns. I was expecting a difference of 1-2 life points. Maybe my numbers are off. But there might really just be almost no difference and it comes down to having a higher chance of lands entering tapped.
The Untapped Lands
The Budget Mana Base:
16 B black sources. 12 of them untapped on T1 (2 swamps, 2 shock lands, 8 fetch lands).
18 R red sources. 14 of them untapped on T1 and all of them untapped on T2 (2 mountains, 4 shock lands, 8 fetch lands + 4 Dragonskull Summit).
If you have an untapped B black source T1 and you fetch correctly there is only one possibility to not be able to have an untapped R red source T2 (keeping a hand with one swamp and drawing another swamp. Theoretically it is possible to fetch for a swamp and drawing another swamp. But that’s either a very bad decision on T1 [since you kept a hand with a single swamp] or you have enough to do with black mana only anyway).
The Stock Mana Base:
16 B black sources. All of them untapped on T1 (2 swamps, 4 fast lands, 2 shock lands, 8 fetch lands).
17 R red sources. All of them untapped on T1 and all of them untapped on T2 (1 mountain, 4 fast lands, 4 shock lands, 8 fetch lands).
If you have an untapped B black source T1 and you fetch correctly there is only one possibility to not be able to have an untapped R red source T2 (keeping a hand with one swamp and drawing another swamp. Theoretically it is possible to fetch for a swamp and drawing another swamp. But that’s either a very bad decision on T1 [since you kept a hand with one fetch land and then fetched for a swamp] or you have enough to do with black mana only anyway).
Now comes the interesting part. How are your chances of getting untapped B black mana T1 and BR black + red mana untapped T2 with either mana base? And how do those number change when taking a mulligan? I did this by using a hypergeometrical calculator and excel. Using some kind of simulation would probably have been faster and much more flexible. But that’s something I have to learn another day. For now the very basics have to be enough. I’m not Frank Karsten after all.
Those are the results:
In "yellowish" you can see the numbers for the budget mana base. The stock mana base numbers are "greenish". The chances of having untapped B on T1 and untapped BR on T2 are for example 70,4% if you are on the draw, took a mulligan to six and use the budget mana base. I cheated a bit to include the scry but it should be a good enough approximation (I assumed you would not draw one but two cards on your first draw step. Since both versions look two deep into your library it should be accurate enough if you're just looking for lands).
It's not a mistake that the chances do not change if you're on the draw and mulligan to six when using Dragonskull Summit. When you're on the draw it does not matter if you scry to your Dragonskull Summit and have any other land in hand or if you have it as your only land in hand and scry to a different land. In both cases Summit is going to enter untapped. This way drawing six and scying once is the same as drawing seven when it comes to land drops. On the play this does not work. You can make a case that keeping a six card hand with a single tap land would be a bad idea. But taking those corner cases into account would be a pain. And since at this point a simulation would be better anyway it probably makes no sense.
If someone is interested in more fancy numbers:
Chances for untapped B or R mana on T1:
Normal starting hand:
6 card hand:
5 card hand:
Results aka "WTF did I do?"
At this point I should probably try and discuss my findings a bit. Problem is I don't feel like I can. Dragonskull Summit seems to do more than half a point of dmg to the player over the course of a game. I'm sure people would pay hard cash for half a lifepoint in every game in bigger tournaments. But is it a lot? I have no idea. In the greater context it might be.
More significant seems to be the matter of tapped lands. And this time there really is quite a difference. An absolute higher chance for the optimal land drops without taking a mulligan T1 and T2 of 3-5% (or 4,4%- 7,1% relatively) is something that can make a difference. If you're playing 20 games at a GP and trying to reach day two it probably comes up at least once. Maybe it wins you the match.
I expected a much bigger difference and ultimately started this to convince myself and throw some money at those Cliffs. It didn't quite work out as planned :gaping:. I might just hold onto those check lands for a little while longer.
ATTACHMENTS
4_Summary hands
5_T1 B or R
1_7 card hand
2_6 card hand
3_5 card hand
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Modern UR Blue Moon UBR Grixis Shadow GWU Amulet Titan BRW Mardu Pyromancer
@T3erbium: Very intense work you did there. Here are some comments on my part on this:
First of all, your assumption only says you take into account a need for turn 1 black mana and no turn 1 red mana. I think this is a very important detail that you cannot dismiss. Despite the fact that we do not want to cast Looting ideally on turn 1, we absolutely need to be able to do so though. Why? Simply said it reduces the amount of hands you have to mulligan. In a grindy deck where CA matters this is very important. And to add, we also just want to be able to cast Bolt on turn 1.
My question is concerning about the dmg / manabase number you provided. How do you exactly calculate that? How did you include plays like holding up fetchlands for a Push/Bolt and if there is no target fetching an tapped shocklands etc? I think this is not that simple to determine without serious simplifications that probably carry over a wrong picture.
When it comes down to replacing Blackcleave Cliffs with Dragonskull Summit for Budget reasons, it is clear that this comes with a cost of consistancy. Since we determined now we absolutely want turn 1 red and turn 1 black on a consistant basis, Cliffs is the clear better choice.
You can easily determine the loss of consistancy by looking at Frank Karsten's mana source article: It is assumed, that "consistant" means with ~90 % probability. And for each colour, you need 14 untapped sources to have ~ 90 % probability of having the said colour on turn 1. If you now look at your budget manabase, it only contains 12 untapped black sources on turn 1. Just by recalculating that number in the hypergeometric calculator you drop your chance of having turn 1 black source down to 80.9 %. This is almost a 10 % loss in consistancy, which is quite huge over the course of a series of games.
And I am not so sure the turn 2 matters all that much here. I think if you compare Blackcleave with Dragonskull, the most important aspect of them is turn 1. On turn 2, assuming you have played another land on turn 1, both lands do the same thing 99.5 % of the time. The other 0.5 % is the chance of having exactly 2 Dragonskulls drawn in your first 8 cards and no other land (which matter once every 178 games on average). So overall I am not sure what the benefit is of linking turn 1 black with turn 2 red in the numbers. The important part is here again, that Dragonskull is overall worse than Cliffs on turn 2. But the effect is way more significant on turn 1, which is the main deciding factor. So I would look at the sheer number of turn 1 probabilites here. Because if you played a tapped Dragonskull on turn 1, you also have a red source turn 2 automatically, but the probability of adding turn 2 red source into the turn 1 black source numbers really distort the probabilities of turn 1 black source in my opinion. In your combinatorial calculation your difference in the manabases is only 3-5 %, wheras I showed that on turn 1 specifically, the difference is almost 10 %. That is way more important than the combinatorial number.
Lastly, overall I think mulligans don't really have a meaningful impact when it comes down to mana sources, it is also not included in the Frank Karsten article. What mulliganing has more of an affect on is on the actual landdrops you make, not linked to coloured mana sources though. Because the consistancy within your manabase you use is also there when you draw fewer cards. You obviously don't have 90 % probability anymore, but this is true for both manabase, so comparing manabases in terms of mana sources should not really have a significant difference in taking a look at mulliganing:
The difference in percentage points when you go down on cards is on a different absolute level, but on a similar relative level. So I don't see a correlation here between the different manabases.
@CrimsonPheonix7: thank you for the response. Can I ask what you side out against mardu as a Ponza pilot? I know my opponent sided in Trinisphere. Games 2 and 3 I didn’t see much land destruction and I know he sided in baloth.
From the Ponza perspective playing against Mardu, I would board out my Blood Moons since that piece of the Prison strategy is less useful against us (3-4x depending on the list, most run 4). You can expect them to keep in 7-8 dedicated land destro spells and that's the main thing they're going to try to slow you down with. What they'll board in is Trinisphere (1-2x in most b/c it hoses low curve decks), and some form of GY hate (Relic is what I used), and possibly Baloth if they run it. They might also board in Thrun, the Last Troll since its resilient to removal.
There may be some other swaps they make, but its hard to say b/c there is A LOT of variance in the Ponza lists outside the core cards (core = 10x ramp/dorks, 7-8 land hate, 3-4 Moons, the rest is meta dependent). It's not a bad match-up for Pyro, IMO, we just have to kill their dorks and use discard to keep them from locking us out. Hope this helps!
Ponza loses a lot to itself as it as plenty of bad top decks and nothing to set up them so take that to your advantage.
This. 1 million times, this.
For the Ponza player, BBE cascading into Birds or Arbor Elf is the most deflating experience and happens a lot more often than you would think. For those of us on the other end of the table, those usually represent a chump blocker and not much more.
One plug for K Command though is that they usually will get hellbent quickly. That can make a K Command discard on their draw step very impactful, as most of their game plan is sorcery speed (Rains, Inferno Titan, BBE, etc.)
Just how effectively do Damping Sphere and Stony Silence help us against Tron? It seems to be half my meta but I want to keep the deck because everything else is weak against it.
You could try adding a 4th molten rain or Fulminator Mage. Depending on which you play. Maybe a 3rd blood moon in the main.
Thanks for all the replies regarding Ponza. Hopefully, I’ll be able to test against it a bit more in the future.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Definitely need a clock. I was expecting to play against tron last weekend so I started main decking a goblin rabblemaster. Been pretty good so far. Helped me beat skred dragons a couple of weeks ago.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
With all the graveyard hate right now (Leyline of the void), how do you feel about relying a bit less on the graveyard ?
Curious what you guys think about this version, 3 rabblemaster main (good vs KCI/TRON) , no moon but 3 alpine moon in the side ! This version seems better vs KCI and TRON , two top deck in this meta.
Its a reasonable approach to hedge against GY hate a little bit. I personally would love to see a Hazoret in there somewhere though. Also a question to ask is whether Kiln Fiend wouldn't be better of a clock against KCI/Tron. There was a version which ran Fiend maindeck also I think. It would also help for the GY hate issue. But I am not sure whether its the right move or not.
With all the graveyard hate right now (Leyline of the void), how do you feel about relying a bit less on the graveyard ?
Curious what you guys think about this version, 3 rabblemaster main (good vs KCI/TRON) , no moon but 3 alpine moon in the side ! This version seems better vs KCI and TRON , two top deck in this meta.
Honestly I feel leyline of the void is the least damning graveyard hate card to bring in against us, for the sheer fact that it doesn't empty what's already in our yard like Nihil Spellbomb or Rest in Peace do. Sure it can come down turn 0 and we have to play around it which sucks, but I'm not sure we're the kind of deck that many others can afford to aggressively mulligan to 5 or 4 or 3 just to get it because we have so much discard to force them into hoping they curve out from top of the deck. Spellbomb and RIP coming down at the wrong time can be an absolute blowout.
For tron, the pairing of turn 2 stony silence turn 3 blood moon should really keep them off pace long enough to put a clock on them if we're on the play, because it limits their outs to "draw basic forest to nature's claim moon". Is it a great play to hope on? Of course not, but alpine moon just hands them the green mana they need to kill it and that feels even worse.
As an aside, I've seen a number of people grumbling a bit about possibly wanting faithless looting banned in modern because of all the decks that are (ab)using it. Can this deck survive if that's what gets the axe, and if so how could we replace it. (I will note that the consensus, at least among Sally posters, is ancient stirrings is a better/more likely ban)
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Our deck cannot survive the looting ban, as it gives our deck selection and velocity we need and there is no real alternative in mardu colors. This is an unlikely ban though, and I think looting is going to stay with us
Hey guys, sorry for the long post but I wanted to talk through an idea…
Two commonly stated weaknesses of Mardu are its low threat count and the increasing liability of graveyard reliance. Goblin Rabblemaster out of the side (or possibly the main) is a solid way to address both. However, while Goblin Rabblemaster helps you turn the corner and race combo decks, it’s also a 3 CMC creature that dies to Bolt and can’t really fill a defensive role of helping you stabilize.
One approach is to run 4c Pyro with Goyf / Flayers and possibly Traverse, but increasing our graveyard reliance doesn’t seem like a smart strategy right now. Another classic approach is to add Death’s Shadow to Mardu. This usually starts an optimization chain where you add Street Wraith and Temur Battle Rage (TBR) to enable Shadow, and next thing you know it’s so much easier to cast Gurmag Angler than Reveler that you might as well cut Reveler. You wind up with a list like the one described in this (excellent) write-up here.
I think nirvana6109's list is a very sensible and well-focused approach, but I don't love how susceptible Angler is to both GY hate and bounce effects. Plus, I'm a Reveler addict and Pyro is one of our most flexible non-graveyard-reliant threats... so I'd like to hew a bit closer to base Mardu Pyromancer if possible. Instead of Mardu Shadow, what about Mardu Pyromancer with Shadow: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1273042#paper *Note this list is purely hypothetical and the SB, especially, is completely untuned.
Here we could replace Street Wraith as an enabler with something like 2x Night’s Whisper and 1x Noxious Revival, which both have synergies with Mardu’s gind plan and as life-losing instants/sorceries enable Shadow, Pyro, and Reveler. From there we adopt a heavier fetch-shock manabase over Cliffs (although unlike most Shadow lists we keep 4x basics). Lastly, we run Dismember over Push.
The goal would be to aim for a relatively defensive stock Mardu Pyro playstyle but with the added benefit of stabilizing behind and turning the corner with large Shadows. It’s not uncommon for our life totals to dip relatively low before stabilizing, why not turn that into more upside? Plus we get to play the full set of Thoughtseize. Occasionally it would even be possible to line up aggressive starts with fetch-shocks, Thoughtseize, Revival, and Dismember etc. in G1 against decks that we need to race.
If you have a Shadow in your opener but not enough life-loss we are better equipped than most lists to Loot the Shadow away and grab it back later with Kommand or Noxious Revival. Conversely, if you don't have a Shadow in your opener, the deck still has 4 basics so that you can fetch up a less painful start and play more like traditional Mardu. Ideally this would add another dimension to Mardu's role flexibility, but it might just be less consistent, I'm not sure.
To recap, potential upsides:
+Having both Shadow and Pyro as mainboard threats that don’t fold to graveyard hate, even against the rare G1 Leyline.
+Having both Shadow and Reveler as threats large enough to survive Anger of the Gods
+Potential for more aggressive G1s against combo decks / Tron
+Stabilize against aggressive decks with large Shadows
+Potential to fetch conservatively and play fairly close to stock Mardu
+More consistent access to white mana
Potential downsides:
-Fetch-shock manabase and Night’s Whisper are poor against aggressive decks
-Not going all-in on enabling Shadow dilutes payoff and increases variance
-Is Shadow useful enough without TBR? Might need 1+ copies somewhere in the 75
-Fetch-shock plan and need to cram in more sorceries + instants to offset addition of Shadow likely precludes Blood Moon from the main -- but wouldn’t necessarily have to due to the 4x basics
-Increases the deck’s vulnerability to spot removal
-Shadow lowers the value of Collective Brutality’s drain mode, making it less attractive for the main
Anyone tried something like this? Does it look worth exploring or perhaps too unfocused?
If i would be asked to rework the deck I would add more burn, and not more creature threats. Like adding Lighning Helix and maybe some searing blaze etc... I don't like the idea with ds, but that's a personal opinion
Out of curiosity, has anyone given any thought to/tested Timely Reinforcements as a sideboard card?
My initial kneejerk reaction is that it might be a bit too niche (really seems most helpful for us with Burn MU) and too expensive, but thought I'd throw it out there. Was talking to my friend who pilots UWx about it and he was jazzed about it.
Unrelated, I also tested 1x Hazoret in the MB in a recent LGS tournament since I've seen it pop up in some lists recently. My personal experience is that, while she's an awesome threat to board in, she's a bit too clunky to be MB material and we'd need to shave down on the 3 drops to make it more impactful (which I don't think we want to do). I may test some number of Rabblemasters MB this next go around, as others here have suggested, since that is a card that consistently overperforms for me when boarded in.
I would just TS. I would avoid Looting on turn 1 if you don't know the opponent. In grindy matchups your front halves of Souls might be very useful, so I would just play TS.
How would you board against Ponza? I brought in 2 wear/tear but what else is useful?
I would bring in any extra CBrutality you have along with the Wear/Tears. You want to pluck away their mana dorks, land destro, and ramp so they cannot drop their haymakers (Tracker, inferno titan, etc.). Speaking from experience piloting ponza, it is pretty easily disrupted.
I'd also possibly bring in Hazoret as they have no way to deal with it.
Also, be careful with nontargeted discard as many lists run obstinate baloth
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
Since I am really torn about investing in Blackcleave Cliffs at the moment I tried to do some "math" to figure out how important those fastlands really are. In the beginning I was just planning on fiddling around with a hypergeometric calculater during a five minute coffee break. Then it somehow got out of hand. I am not 100% sure how good the numbers are I crunched. But maybe they can be of some value to others. I am more than willing to share my exact proceedings (as far as I remember them ). But it's probably not helping this posting much. Feel free to ask or write pms. Input is highly appreciated. After all I’m quite new to the deck and just assuming the hell out of everything.
I think there are two points to think about when it comes to using Dragonskull Summit as a cheap Blackcleave Cliffs substitute:
Assumptions
The Mana Base
The budget manabase is the one I am using atm. The „stock“ version is the last 5:0 manabase from mtggoldfish. I am using one subotpimal fetch land (Wooded Foothills instead of Arid Mesa or Marsh Flats) and four Dragonskull Summit instead of four Blackcleave Cliffs. It might not be the best budget approach but just switching the fast land and check land is a common budget options and it might be the best/easiest baseline for a comparison.
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Marsh Flats
2 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
1 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
1 Arid Mesa
1 Plains
On Average the Budget Mana Base deals 2 dmg to you T1 and 1,4 dmg to you T2. That’s 3,4 dmg until T2. On average the Stock Mana Base deals 1,4 dmg to you T1 and 1,5 dmg T2. That’s 2,9 dmg until T2. It a bit more on T2 than the budget mana base because you have one less red source. Those numbers are a bit off when you fetch for a swamp T1. The real dmg could therefore be a few percent lower. I did not take into account that people might fetch differently depending on playing fastlands or not. But both my experience with the deck and my math skills prevent any evaluation here. I’d guess it makes no difference.
There seems to only a difference of half a life point in the first two turns. I was expecting a difference of 1-2 life points. Maybe my numbers are off. But there might really just be almost no difference and it comes down to having a higher chance of lands entering tapped.
The Untapped Lands
The Budget Mana Base:
The Stock Mana Base:
Now comes the interesting part. How are your chances of getting untapped B black mana T1 and BR black + red mana untapped T2 with either mana base? And how do those number change when taking a mulligan? I did this by using a hypergeometrical calculator and excel. Using some kind of simulation would probably have been faster and much more flexible. But that’s something I have to learn another day. For now the very basics have to be enough. I’m not Frank Karsten after all.
Those are the results:
In "yellowish" you can see the numbers for the budget mana base. The stock mana base numbers are "greenish". The chances of having untapped B on T1 and untapped BR on T2 are for example 70,4% if you are on the draw, took a mulligan to six and use the budget mana base. I cheated a bit to include the scry but it should be a good enough approximation (I assumed you would not draw one but two cards on your first draw step. Since both versions look two deep into your library it should be accurate enough if you're just looking for lands).
It's not a mistake that the chances do not change if you're on the draw and mulligan to six when using Dragonskull Summit. When you're on the draw it does not matter if you scry to your Dragonskull Summit and have any other land in hand or if you have it as your only land in hand and scry to a different land. In both cases Summit is going to enter untapped. This way drawing six and scying once is the same as drawing seven when it comes to land drops. On the play this does not work. You can make a case that keeping a six card hand with a single tap land would be a bad idea. But taking those corner cases into account would be a pain. And since at this point a simulation would be better anyway it probably makes no sense.
If someone is interested in more fancy numbers:
Chances for untapped B or R mana on T1:
Normal starting hand:
6 card hand:
5 card hand:
Results aka "WTF did I do?"
At this point I should probably try and discuss my findings a bit. Problem is I don't feel like I can. Dragonskull Summit seems to do more than half a point of dmg to the player over the course of a game. I'm sure people would pay hard cash for half a lifepoint in every game in bigger tournaments. But is it a lot? I have no idea. In the greater context it might be.
More significant seems to be the matter of tapped lands. And this time there really is quite a difference. An absolute higher chance for the optimal land drops without taking a mulligan T1 and T2 of 3-5% (or 4,4%- 7,1% relatively) is something that can make a difference. If you're playing 20 games at a GP and trying to reach day two it probably comes up at least once. Maybe it wins you the match.
I expected a much bigger difference and ultimately started this to convince myself and throw some money at those Cliffs. It didn't quite work out as planned :gaping:. I might just hold onto those check lands for a little while longer.
UR Blue Moon
UBR Grixis Shadow
GWU Amulet Titan
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
First of all, your assumption only says you take into account a need for turn 1 black mana and no turn 1 red mana. I think this is a very important detail that you cannot dismiss. Despite the fact that we do not want to cast Looting ideally on turn 1, we absolutely need to be able to do so though. Why? Simply said it reduces the amount of hands you have to mulligan. In a grindy deck where CA matters this is very important. And to add, we also just want to be able to cast Bolt on turn 1.
My question is concerning about the dmg / manabase number you provided. How do you exactly calculate that? How did you include plays like holding up fetchlands for a Push/Bolt and if there is no target fetching an tapped shocklands etc? I think this is not that simple to determine without serious simplifications that probably carry over a wrong picture.
When it comes down to replacing Blackcleave Cliffs with Dragonskull Summit for Budget reasons, it is clear that this comes with a cost of consistancy. Since we determined now we absolutely want turn 1 red and turn 1 black on a consistant basis, Cliffs is the clear better choice.
You can easily determine the loss of consistancy by looking at Frank Karsten's mana source article: It is assumed, that "consistant" means with ~90 % probability. And for each colour, you need 14 untapped sources to have ~ 90 % probability of having the said colour on turn 1. If you now look at your budget manabase, it only contains 12 untapped black sources on turn 1. Just by recalculating that number in the hypergeometric calculator you drop your chance of having turn 1 black source down to 80.9 %. This is almost a 10 % loss in consistancy, which is quite huge over the course of a series of games.
And I am not so sure the turn 2 matters all that much here. I think if you compare Blackcleave with Dragonskull, the most important aspect of them is turn 1. On turn 2, assuming you have played another land on turn 1, both lands do the same thing 99.5 % of the time. The other 0.5 % is the chance of having exactly 2 Dragonskulls drawn in your first 8 cards and no other land (which matter once every 178 games on average). So overall I am not sure what the benefit is of linking turn 1 black with turn 2 red in the numbers. The important part is here again, that Dragonskull is overall worse than Cliffs on turn 2. But the effect is way more significant on turn 1, which is the main deciding factor. So I would look at the sheer number of turn 1 probabilites here. Because if you played a tapped Dragonskull on turn 1, you also have a red source turn 2 automatically, but the probability of adding turn 2 red source into the turn 1 black source numbers really distort the probabilities of turn 1 black source in my opinion. In your combinatorial calculation your difference in the manabases is only 3-5 %, wheras I showed that on turn 1 specifically, the difference is almost 10 %. That is way more important than the combinatorial number.
Lastly, overall I think mulligans don't really have a meaningful impact when it comes down to mana sources, it is also not included in the Frank Karsten article. What mulliganing has more of an affect on is on the actual landdrops you make, not linked to coloured mana sources though. Because the consistancy within your manabase you use is also there when you draw fewer cards. You obviously don't have 90 % probability anymore, but this is true for both manabase, so comparing manabases in terms of mana sources should not really have a significant difference in taking a look at mulliganing:
14 sources:
7 cards: 86.1 %
6 cards: 81.2 %
5 cards: 75 %
4 cards: 66.5 %
12 sources:
7 cards: 80.9 %
6 cards: 74.5 %
5 cards: 68.6 %
4 cards: 60.1 %
The difference in percentage points when you go down on cards is on a different absolute level, but on a similar relative level. So I don't see a correlation here between the different manabases.
From the Ponza perspective playing against Mardu, I would board out my Blood Moons since that piece of the Prison strategy is less useful against us (3-4x depending on the list, most run 4). You can expect them to keep in 7-8 dedicated land destro spells and that's the main thing they're going to try to slow you down with. What they'll board in is Trinisphere (1-2x in most b/c it hoses low curve decks), and some form of GY hate (Relic is what I used), and possibly Baloth if they run it. They might also board in Thrun, the Last Troll since its resilient to removal.
There may be some other swaps they make, but its hard to say b/c there is A LOT of variance in the Ponza lists outside the core cards (core = 10x ramp/dorks, 7-8 land hate, 3-4 Moons, the rest is meta dependent). It's not a bad match-up for Pyro, IMO, we just have to kill their dorks and use discard to keep them from locking us out. Hope this helps!
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
This. 1 million times, this.
For the Ponza player, BBE cascading into Birds or Arbor Elf is the most deflating experience and happens a lot more often than you would think. For those of us on the other end of the table, those usually represent a chump blocker and not much more.
One plug for K Command though is that they usually will get hellbent quickly. That can make a K Command discard on their draw step very impactful, as most of their game plan is sorcery speed (Rains, Inferno Titan, BBE, etc.)
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
Thanks for all the replies regarding Ponza. Hopefully, I’ll be able to test against it a bit more in the future.
Curious what you guys think about this version, 3 rabblemaster main (good vs KCI/TRON) , no moon but 3 alpine moon in the side ! This version seems better vs KCI and TRON , two top deck in this meta.
Honestly I feel leyline of the void is the least damning graveyard hate card to bring in against us, for the sheer fact that it doesn't empty what's already in our yard like Nihil Spellbomb or Rest in Peace do. Sure it can come down turn 0 and we have to play around it which sucks, but I'm not sure we're the kind of deck that many others can afford to aggressively mulligan to 5 or 4 or 3 just to get it because we have so much discard to force them into hoping they curve out from top of the deck. Spellbomb and RIP coming down at the wrong time can be an absolute blowout.
For tron, the pairing of turn 2 stony silence turn 3 blood moon should really keep them off pace long enough to put a clock on them if we're on the play, because it limits their outs to "draw basic forest to nature's claim moon". Is it a great play to hope on? Of course not, but alpine moon just hands them the green mana they need to kill it and that feels even worse.
As an aside, I've seen a number of people grumbling a bit about possibly wanting faithless looting banned in modern because of all the decks that are (ab)using it. Can this deck survive if that's what gets the axe, and if so how could we replace it. (I will note that the consensus, at least among Sally posters, is ancient stirrings is a better/more likely ban)
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Two commonly stated weaknesses of Mardu are its low threat count and the increasing liability of graveyard reliance. Goblin Rabblemaster out of the side (or possibly the main) is a solid way to address both. However, while Goblin Rabblemaster helps you turn the corner and race combo decks, it’s also a 3 CMC creature that dies to Bolt and can’t really fill a defensive role of helping you stabilize.
One approach is to run 4c Pyro with Goyf / Flayers and possibly Traverse, but increasing our graveyard reliance doesn’t seem like a smart strategy right now. Another classic approach is to add Death’s Shadow to Mardu. This usually starts an optimization chain where you add Street Wraith and Temur Battle Rage (TBR) to enable Shadow, and next thing you know it’s so much easier to cast Gurmag Angler than Reveler that you might as well cut Reveler. You wind up with a list like the one described in this (excellent) write-up here.
I think nirvana6109's list is a very sensible and well-focused approach, but I don't love how susceptible Angler is to both GY hate and bounce effects. Plus, I'm a Reveler addict and Pyro is one of our most flexible non-graveyard-reliant threats... so I'd like to hew a bit closer to base Mardu Pyromancer if possible. Instead of Mardu Shadow, what about Mardu Pyromancer with Shadow: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1273042#paper
*Note this list is purely hypothetical and the SB, especially, is completely untuned.
Here we could replace Street Wraith as an enabler with something like 2x Night’s Whisper and 1x Noxious Revival, which both have synergies with Mardu’s gind plan and as life-losing instants/sorceries enable Shadow, Pyro, and Reveler. From there we adopt a heavier fetch-shock manabase over Cliffs (although unlike most Shadow lists we keep 4x basics). Lastly, we run Dismember over Push.
The goal would be to aim for a relatively defensive stock Mardu Pyro playstyle but with the added benefit of stabilizing behind and turning the corner with large Shadows. It’s not uncommon for our life totals to dip relatively low before stabilizing, why not turn that into more upside? Plus we get to play the full set of Thoughtseize. Occasionally it would even be possible to line up aggressive starts with fetch-shocks, Thoughtseize, Revival, and Dismember etc. in G1 against decks that we need to race.
If you have a Shadow in your opener but not enough life-loss we are better equipped than most lists to Loot the Shadow away and grab it back later with Kommand or Noxious Revival. Conversely, if you don't have a Shadow in your opener, the deck still has 4 basics so that you can fetch up a less painful start and play more like traditional Mardu. Ideally this would add another dimension to Mardu's role flexibility, but it might just be less consistent, I'm not sure.
To recap, potential upsides:
+Having both Shadow and Pyro as mainboard threats that don’t fold to graveyard hate, even against the rare G1 Leyline.
+Having both Shadow and Reveler as threats large enough to survive Anger of the Gods
+Potential for more aggressive G1s against combo decks / Tron
+Stabilize against aggressive decks with large Shadows
+Potential to fetch conservatively and play fairly close to stock Mardu
+More consistent access to white mana
Potential downsides:
-Fetch-shock manabase and Night’s Whisper are poor against aggressive decks
-Not going all-in on enabling Shadow dilutes payoff and increases variance
-Is Shadow useful enough without TBR? Might need 1+ copies somewhere in the 75
-Fetch-shock plan and need to cram in more sorceries + instants to offset addition of Shadow likely precludes Blood Moon from the main -- but wouldn’t necessarily have to due to the 4x basics
-Increases the deck’s vulnerability to spot removal
-Shadow lowers the value of Collective Brutality’s drain mode, making it less attractive for the main
Anyone tried something like this? Does it look worth exploring or perhaps too unfocused?
My initial kneejerk reaction is that it might be a bit too niche (really seems most helpful for us with Burn MU) and too expensive, but thought I'd throw it out there. Was talking to my friend who pilots UWx about it and he was jazzed about it.
Unrelated, I also tested 1x Hazoret in the MB in a recent LGS tournament since I've seen it pop up in some lists recently. My personal experience is that, while she's an awesome threat to board in, she's a bit too clunky to be MB material and we'd need to shave down on the 3 drops to make it more impactful (which I don't think we want to do). I may test some number of Rabblemasters MB this next go around, as others here have suggested, since that is a card that consistently overperforms for me when boarded in.
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW